GUIDING BRICKS & MORTAR ONLINE
Are you ready to use E-COMMERCE on Shopify to grow your bricks & mortar business beyond the neighbourhood
— and (as a fun side effect) introduce an experience that’s also better for LOCALS?
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Amy here — I started out professionally as an urban planner focused on neighbourhood issues. TLDR — the bureaucracy broke me. Limited imagination. Weird rules. Old rules. Longgggggg timelines. And there’s a lot of friction that works against neighbourhood retail — from limited supply of smaller units that likely need a lot of renovating, long leases, shitty landlords, high rent, not enough density to adequately supply a large local audience for many, transit that’s either slow or non-existent, making it hard to get to other neighbourhoods, poor public spaces that don’t encourage lingering, bad weather for huge portions of the year, high interest rates, etc. FRICTION.
For a neighbourhood to be good, it needs good retail, but what I’ve come to realize is that local retail needs the internet to thrive.
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Reading a single issue of Monocle you can read about how physical retail is losing customers to online shopping, as much as how locals want to do more than shop online with you, they want you to open your doors. Both are true. What this tells me that you need physical retail & e-commerce — and you want them to create a cohesive experience.
Buying behaviour is all over the place. Online & offline each do certain things better than the other. The goal should be to embrace that & lead a full experience of your brand for your customers. Make it easy & exciting to engage with your business.
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A lot of local shops treat their space almost exclusively as somewhere to display inventory. I mean, you want to sell stuff, so it makes sense. Especially if it’s is the only place to buy. (There’s problem number one.) But retail is changing. You have to give people a reason to visit, to make a special trip. People go to physical shops to experience something new, not just for the act of buying. Shops need to be flexible enough to offer unique experiences. While people do want to come to shops, you have to make it an experience. One way to do this is to use online to do some of things your shop is currently doing.
ARE YOU HERE?
not
about
e-commerce
( yet )
HOVER OVER THE NUMBERS
You’re
super
CONFIDENT
Make it stand out.
We CONNECT the dots.
POV
You don’t just need someone to make you a new site. You also need someone to guide you to know what to do with it.
THIS IS THE SEASON THAT E-COMMERCE GETS SIMPLIFIED
There’s this real tension we see in local businesses between knowing e-commerce could do good things for you, but being nervous that it’s going to be a lot of work (that you don’t have time for) or uncertain if it’s going to do what you want it to do. And while you probably don’t have a team dedicated to digital like bigger brands or tons of resourses, it doesn’t mean you should forego selling online.
What we’ve learned working almost exclusively with local businesses for nearly four years is that you just need things to be simple. You need a system that works for you.
We approach e-comm with a lot of thought to how you’re going to run it when we’re done.
What we’re really good at is connecting alllllllll the dots. We think about things you aren’t so that you don’t have to, we offer expertise that you now don’t need develop or find or double check, delivering a web shop that’s not complex — yes grounded in really really good thinking but ultimately simple to actually use.
We hate to see businesses that are doing such interesting things, producing & curating incredible products, building covetable relationships with all sorts of folks not reaching more people. Being a “best kept secret” isn’t something any of us should be striving for.
FACT
The majority of redesigns by big brands are essentially efforts in simplification. Fancy features or complex interfaces don't convert well, even if they look cool.
5 WEEKS
TOGETHER
HOW WE DO IT
OUR FRAMEWORK
WHY YOU NEED A VISION
Use e-commerce to grow however you like — across the city, the state or province or country, or border, selling internationally. So what're you thinking?
SOME OF OUR WORK
What’s your vision?
What clients are saying
Everything you need & nothing you don't.
Everything you need & nothing you don't.
OUR SIGNATURE OFFER
WHAT’S IN THE BAG?
THE PLOT
E-COMMERCE
THE PLOT
Everything you need to introduce e-comm into your business & nothing you don’t.
$15,500 cad
PLUS APPLICABLE TAXES
LAUNCH THIS SPRING
→
E-COMMERCE & EMAIL MARKETING
THE SET
Or upgrade & get your email marketing ready at the same time.
$16,500 cad
PLUS APPLICABLE TAXES
→
E-COMMERCE
THE PLOT
Everything you need to introduce e-comm into your business & nothing you don’t.
$16,500 cad
PLUS APPLICABLE TAXES
LAUNCH THIS SPRING
→
WHAT’S POSSIBLE
Here’s what can be
next for you
Our Services
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SUPREME AMOUNTS OF CLARITY
Now when people land on your site they understand what you’re selling, your POV is clear, they know why they want to buy from you (and do) & follow along, curious about what’s next. And it’s not all on you 24/7 to do this explaining. You can go deeper with people because you’re not explaining surface-level stuff constantly. And you can lead them through your world instead of expecting them to figure it out.
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ROOM TO FOCUS ON WHAT ONLY YOU CAN DO
No more spinning your wheels “figuring things out”. DIY is hugely draining. There can be a time for this in your business. It’s a way to get off the ground & test viability. But when it comes to growing purposefully with e-comm, DIY doesn’t really work. It takes all your time & energy but you don’t get very far. But when you bring in someone who can set up a system for you, you can not only stay in your zone of genius as Gay Hendricks likes to say, but you have capacity for it. Get back to what only you can do!
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MORE THAN ONE WAY TO BUY FROM YOU
Bricks & mortar is no longer on the hook for every single sale. When you think about it, how limiting is a single location & fixed hours + the unpredictable capacity of humans? Now you can make money after hours, on days you’re not feeling “on,” on vacations, etc. You provide a better, more consistent experience for everyone. You offer options, keeping in mind people like to browse or assess or buy in their sweatpants at home. You have more control over where your sales are coming from because you’re getting better at selling online.
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E-COMM THAT'S NOT A FULL TIME JOB
You're not sitting around thinking about what you should do, figuring out who’s going to work on it, or experiencing Shiny Object Syndrome. Or do nothing, tired from trying to decide. Instead, you have your seasonal plan. You know what you’re going to do through the season & how to update or add things as needed. You feel in control of Shopify. It also doesn’t feel like a scramble. It’s approachable & doable. e-comm is working for you, not the other way around.
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YOU HAVE A CONNECTED EXPERIENCE
e-comm isn't a cast-off part of your business anymore or a utility that’s just there to perform transactions. There’s consistency between bricks & mortar and online. This doesn’t mean they’re identical experiences, but they feel the same and of the same calibre. People can easily engage with either, like they’re having an ongoing conversation with you. Introducing e-comm has not only helped you expand beyond the neighbourhood but it’s also made the local experience better.
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LAST ITEM HIDDEN * DO NOT DELETE
You’re not for locals only anymore.
A big fan of local business.
A big fan of local business.
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I founded Plot 3 ½ years ago, instantly working with what were smaller businesses at the time, but dream clients on the rise, like Grape Witches & Burdock. They're now super impactful in Toronto & beyond with growing teams. And they're just two examples.
But I immediately fell in love with working closely with the founders behind local businesses, hearing about their ambitions, listening for the story, digging into their problems, coming up with practical solutions, empowering them to expand through e-commerce & take charge of this part of their business.
HEY I’M AMY
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The people I love to work with are passionate, innovative, fun, kind, they have strong points of view, they're purposeful, and they're good to & for their communities. When they have more $$$ they can scale their impact & it's a success that reverberates.
I've spent years working with almost exclusively with local businesses, shaping the sweet spot of offers & I have a lot of conviction about it lol. I've really tried to get to the soul of what you need & leave out what you don't. While I do the occasional custom site for brands with larger teams and bigger budgets, I am confident you need not look farther than The Plot, remembering we can layer on together over time).
Plot brings together all the bits of my diverse background — an advanced literature degree, working as an urban planner, as a strategist in creative agencies, including one wholly dedicated to e-comm, years in restaurants (bad customer service is a MAJOR bugbear of mine), conceptualising & designing an app that had a minute in the sun, running & curating a popular speaker series, and designing & coding websites.
It's funny how things eventually coalesce. I'm excited to grow alongside you!
DO YOU NEED A BIGGER BAG?
THINKING ABOUT MORE?
SKIP THE
FRAZZLE
Skipping the frazzle means working ahead of when you need stuff. Duh! We all know this but often don’t do it lol. Don’t get caught feeling behind or stressed or frantically DIY-ing, pulling your hair out trying to figure out Shopify, or trying to find someone (anyone !!) to make you something nice last minute before your next important season.
That’s frazzle. And it doesn’t feel good.
This season you could not just get ahead, you could be approaching it differently. The Plot gives you a system to be successful in every season. We don’t just make you a new site, we give you a seasonal system for running it that’s aligned with your marketing. It’s all connected.