

Ask HN: Please review my site about learning how to open and grow a store - openastorenow

Hey HN,<p>Thanks for anyone taking the time to view this post. I recently launched a &quot;niche&quot; site that will focus solely on helping people learn how to open and grow a store; either online or offline. The site is: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;openastorenow.com<p>Since the site only went up about a week ago, content is quite limited, but a lot of work is going in to provide tons of information, guides, resources, case-studies, motivational information, and much more.<p>I&#x27;d love to hear from the community:
1) Any feedback about the concept.
2) Any feedback about the site itself, design, layout, material, etc.
3) What topics would you like us to cover or questions to answer?
4) What resources&#x2F;applications would you like us to review?
5) Do you have any stories or case-studies you want us to publish? (We&#x27;ll make a post here in a few days asking for store-owners to share their stories).<p>A little background on the site: I&#x27;ve had some experience in the past running small online stores and have always had a passion about eCommerce. I&#x27;m also currently working closely with someone in the middle of launching a fashion store online, which will also soon be opening a retail space. During the process, we&#x27;ve both learned a lot and would love to share. This site was created because we found it nearly impossible to find the information we needed (especially in one single place or website). Since people are opening stores left and right, we thought we could help a lot of people by creating a great resource like this.<p>Disclosure: The site monetized through affiliate partnerships with (most of) the products and services discussed on the site.<p>Thanks for your time!<p>Link: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;openastorenow.com
======
duiker101
I don't know too much about opening stores so I can't comment on the content
but I really don't like the layout. Too much stuff and too little that is
actually useful. The sidebar takes half page, leaving very little page to the
actual content that is what interests the user. This is definitely a nono for
me.

~~~
openastorenow
Thanks for the feedback. I do agree with everything you said (if you see my
comment below about the same thing). The entire theme/design needs a lot of
refactoring and it will be done once we get the content really rolling in.

------
jonyt
It's an interesting concept but right now I think it's too cluttered, there
are too many things on the screen. Also, I think marketing guides would be
appreciated. I think the Shopify/hosting part of getting a store up is the
easy part. But maybe that's just the techie in me. Anyway, good luck!

~~~
openastorenow
Absolutely agree about marketing. We just got started about a week ago so the
content will really start to flow in now. There's actually quite a large post
about email marketing getting wrapped up right now. We plan to do in-depth
guides about marketing, legal, insurance, technology, and everything in
between. If there's anything specific you'd like to see covered, just let us
know and we'll do the research.

I do agree about the design. I'm not crazy about it and do think the home page
especially is a little over-the-top. I wanted to change it drastically but
wanted to just get online asap. We'll certainly take your feedback into
consideration when we start to refactor the UI.

Thanks!

------
openastorenow
Clickable link: [http://openastorenow.com](http://openastorenow.com)

