I keep seeing people on social media saying you should build your online store first and then find customers. That feels completely backwards to me. Why spend weeks on product photos and checkout flows when you don't even know if anyone wants your stuff? Shouldn't you build an audience first, then launch? I'm genuinely curious because every 'guru' seems to say the opposite.
Ecommerce
Building an online store before having an audience feels backwards
Disagree. Building the store is the easy part. The hard part is traffic. But if you wait for an audience you'll wait forever. Better to have a mediocre store and start sending people to it.
I built my store first. Took two months. By the time I launched I had zero traffic and zero sales for three weeks. Felt pretty backwards to me too.
You can do both at oncee. Throw up a simple landing page with an email signup, start posting content, and build the actual store while people are subscribing. That way you're not waiting, but you're also not building blind.
landing page is basically a store anyway. just make the store and call it a landing page.
The 'build audience first' advice always comes from people whose audience is other people trying to build audiences. It's a pyramid of people selling shovels. Actual customers don't care when you launched.
That shovel thing is too real. I bought three courses before I realized the only people making money were the course sellers.
It depends what you sell. If it's something people search for on Google, store first makes sense because you're capturing existing demand. If it's a brand-driven product, audience first. OP didn't say what they sell, which kind of matters.
Handmade ceramic planters. Niche, but visual. I have about 400 followers on Instagram and zero email list.
Then you need the audience. Ceramics is a visual impulse buy. Nobody is googling 'handmmade planter with a face on it' unless they already saw it somewhere.
400 followers is rough but not nothing. Post process videos. People love watching clay get thrown. You'll grow faster than you thikn, and you can have a store link in bio from day one. That's not backwards, that's just parallel.
Also 400 followers can be plenty if 20 of them actually buy. Small audience, high trust beats big audience, low trust every time.
Honestly the 'backwards' feeling is just perfectionism in disguise. You're scared to launch something nobody buys. Everyone is. Launch the ugly store.
yeah but also don't spend two months on it like I did. throw up a shopify trial, take mid photos, link it. iterate later.