The challenge
SunWind Solar, on Salt Spring Island, makes solar science kits for kids and classrooms, and their site has been running since 1995. It’s a WooCommerce shop that someone else built, and I look after it by the hour.
When Michael asked me in, the store was split in two. Canadian customers bought through WooCommerce, but the US and international link still went to an old store that no longer worked. There were no numbers on abandoned carts, and he wanted set prices in both Canadian and US dollars.
What I fixed
I started with an audit: the plugins and their licences, the currency settings, payments, shipping, the stats and the redirects. Then I made it one store for everyone:
- Prices on the shop page in US or Canadian dollars, depending on where the shopper is
- Orders from outside North America, shipped by Canada Post
- Checkout picks the shopper’s country for them, with Canada and the US first, and says clearly where Canada Post won’t ship
- Tax charged on shipping
- Abandoned carts tracked
- A cart in the menu that counts what’s in it
- A line on every kit saying what’s in the box
- Old product and store links sent to the right pages, and a broken pop-up removed
- A newsletter sign-up that asks for consent properly, at checkout and at the foot of every page
- A privacy policy
Before and after each change I went through the shop as a customer, on a computer and a phone, and tested checkout for 22 countries.
The result
One shop that sells to anyone, in Canadian or US dollars. Since then I’ve added a materials list, with the Teacher’s Manual linked, to two of the classroom kits, tested the new-order emails from the store to an outside inbox, and set the site’s clock to BC’s year-round time.
“This fellow knows what he’s doing and lets you know too. His service is quick, strong, and reliable. Without hesitation, give Owen a call while he’s still accepting clients. The Best.”
SunWind Solar
