missphone.es
The store’s home page, on a computer and on a phone. Shown here with the client’s written permission.
Inherited store · phone accessories and repairs · Benetússer
Missphone
An online store with more than three hundred products that I didn’t build. I inherited it working, and my job is a different one: to keep it working, to make it safe to touch and to make the store fully belong to whoever pays for it. Still ongoing.
What I found
A live store, with sales, built by others and with years of things piled on top. None of this is unusual: it happens to almost any store that has been open for a while.
- Logins scattered around and an admin user who wasn’t from the business.
- A large catalog with duplicate products, products without a photo or without a category.
- Add-ons (plugins) installed one after another: each one makes the store slower, and some were no longer used.
- The server clock set wrong, so the backups looked as if they were from another time.
- Old campaign pages that no longer led anywhere.
How this is told
I’m not going to speak badly of whoever built it before. I don’t know what budget they had or what they were asked for, and a store that’s still selling after years is nobody’s failure.
What I do say is what was there on the day I came in, because that’s what explains the work. It’s the same treatment you’d get if one day you decide to switch: I say what’s there, not whose fault it is.
What has been done
In order, and with one rule first: a verified backup before touching anything. In a store with orders and customer data, nothing is improvised.
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Regaining control: the admin email moved to a company mailbox and the logins put in order, in the owner’s name
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Backups actually verified, not just scheduled
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Payments checked: card and Bizum work, and a paid order can be told apart from an unpaid one
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Shipping costs and free shipping checked with test orders
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Catalog: duplicates out, uncategorized products placed and a list of the ones still missing a photo
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Updates to the store and its add-ons, always with a backup first
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The server clock fixed, so backups and orders match local time
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A clean-up of loose design tweaks that had been piling up in the pages
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The campaign pages sorted out, and leading to products that actually exist
What’s underway
- A move to its own hosting, with the email sorted out the same day
- A lighter home page, and their own photos instead of catalog ones
- Text and legal pages brought up to date
- Teaching whoever uploads the products to do it without depending on me
This is an open case and it’s told that way. When it’s closed, I’ll update it here.
If someone else runs your website
This is the job I’m asked for most and the one least talked about: taking something that already exists, understanding it, putting it in your name and leaving it in good shape. You don’t have to throw the store away to fix it.
And what you won’t see here
- How much it sells. Their sales are theirs and aren’t published, not even with permission.
- Screenshots of the admin panel with orders or customer data in them.
- A touched-up “before and after”: the before of this store is saved with its date, and the after is compared at the same width and with the same framing, or not at all.
Does someone else run your website or your store?
I’ll look at it and tell you whether it can be fixed or is better rebuilt, with no obligation. Or by email at contact@estudioreigar.com
I reply myself: Monday to Thursday, 10:00 to 19:00, and Friday, 10:00 to 14:00 (Spanish time).