I created an e-commerce site for a Japanese grocery pickup service in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. I proposed to use Shopify because the owner had used it for another business and was familiar with its operation.

Because the main target, the Japanese community in Kelowna is not huge, the client wanted to keep the design and functions simple and minimal. I customized a free template of Shopify, so that I could shorten the delivery time and open the website as soon as possible. I fixed the CSS in the Liquid file where I found bugs specific to the theme during development. At the time of development, travel to Japan was severely restricted due to the prolonged pandemic, so I choose photos and colours that would capture the growing feelings of Japanese people in Kelowna towards Japanese food and their homeland. I also created the logo with Illustrator, and I also used Photoshop a lot for product photos and OGP image.

Installed apps:

Translation: Since the main target users are Japanese who can read Japanese, the website is first written in Japanese but I installed an automatic translation app to support local English speakers.

Report: I installed a reporting app for the owner to compile orders and to place orders to their vendors.

Chatbot: After interviewing the users directly, I found that they wanted to request products and services easily, so I installed a chatbot app to send their requests to a Google spreadsheet to share with the owner.

Shopify has automated many of the tasks that we used to do manually when we started our business, and our owners and customers have told us that it has become very convenient and easy to order.