Costs · Margins · The business of ecommerce
The financial side of launching a store: budgets, sequences, first-year math.
A handmade object loses most of its argument in a row of square thumbnails. Impression is built around sections the scroll drives — four of its eleven exclusive sections move with the page — and it carries 141 hand-tuned easing curves, more than any other theme we publish.
Most theme demos are built for one category. Real catalogues drift. Of the six themes we publish, Allure is the only one with no preset sitting in the back half of its Shopify Theme Store category — its weakest is in the top third.
Forget the spreadsheet templates with 40 tabs. Unit economics is one question: after one order pays its own bills, what is left? Here is the math on a single $60 order, every line explained.
Seven steps from nothing to first order, priced at each stage from official rate sheets. The build itself now costs $14 to $400; everything expensive comes after launch.
Registrars advertise year one and earn on year two. A comparison of what a .com actually costs across four popular registrars over five years.