Migration to a New Storefront
Hi! You might have noticed that the shop looks pretty different now; I've just moved things over from my old host and payment processor (Square) to Shopify! If you've been following along on social media, you might have seen me talk about the reasons for this (namely, Square is ending support for Paypal as a checkout method for customers this month). I know a lot of people can only use Paypal to purchase things online and don't have credit cards, so keeping this function was extremely important to me.
Since migrating my whole store over was quite a process, and there's a lot of new things for me to figure out with Shopify, I appreciate your patience and understanding if there are any things we stumble on along the way! Everything should be operational now, but please feel free to send an email to hello@chiro.fish if you're encountering any difficulties with shopping or if you notice any weird bugs or anything.
I may have had to uproot my entire business (digitally, that is) and leave behind my comfortable little patch of online dirt behind in order to set out for better things, but the good news is at least we have a bunch of nice new features to help make the move feel more impactful beyond just "we get to keep Paypal, I guess"!
- Finally, an email newsletter!! Although I actually still appreciate people following my social media for updates the most, because that's where I post more teasers, design talk, etc. and it's also a large part of how I actually reach new people, I know there's a lot of people who've been really wanting a convenient email newsletter for store updates. Well, distress no longer for now we have the means to provide one; the email newsletter will mainly be more formal updates about when there's new stuff coming/available, important progress updates, etc.
- Restock notifications that you can request, also delivered to your email! No more checking anxiously and waiting, wondering if you'll miss a restock.
- Search bar! I feel like I do not need to explain this one!
- Different shipping speeds/services that you can request, which are automatically calculated based on your delivery address! I'm still working out the kinks with this one, so please be patient. Shipping integration is one of the most complicated things to set up and have it work properly, and figuring out a whole new system is kind of an ordeal.
- Probably the most exciting one: international customers besides just Canada and Australia can now place orders from my main store (!!!!!!) Wow!! As many people might remember, I had separated out my international orders to Etsy for a good chunk of years in light of the whole VAT and import taxes situation (which is frankly still a pain in the butt). However after doing a lot of digging around, I'm trying something new now. I can't guarantee that it will stay this way permanently; I might end up having to go back to my old system of making people living in Europe and such order via Etsy or take other action, depending on if this new thing I'm trying works out. For the time being though, let's savor the convenience.
Ok I think that's all for now; again please drop an email to hello@chiro.fish if you've got any questions or need any help with the new store; either myself or my email assistant Lumpy will get back to you soon!