Learning an eCommerce Platform on the Fly: KIDCoders' Journey

KIDCoders followed our free 5-week eCommerce crash course last fall in order to up their digital game during the pandemic. Here’s what they had to say about their experience.

Shaundel and Raymond, the founder of KIDCoders, knew a lot about eCommerce prior joining our class. However, the digital platform offer is abundant and though one might have a lot of experience with eCommerce, there is always a learning curve when creating a website or switching to a new platform. In their case, the owners needed to understand how exactly Shopify worked:

“We needed to understand the important details: how to add different languages, how-to set up a secure payment method and a way to keep track of our inventory.”

Setting up shop in 5 weeks

In the field, Christine and Alison kept hearing the same story. Retailers agreed that eCommerce was the way to go, but that it had many unknown variables: for those who had more experience, they didn’t have the time to learn a new platform, while others didn’t know exactly how to tackle the project. 

“We keep hearing about the importance of eCommerce in the media, but our retailers had so much to deal with. Demystify the whole process was the goal,” says Alison Birss, retail expert

Christine and Alison decided to move ahead with an intensive short eCommerce class and soon enough, registrations were rolling in.

When Shaundel and Raymond got wind of the initiative, they seized the opportunity. They were honest about the 5-week deadline mentioning that it was a tight, but it also allowed them to fully immerse in their project and get their website running in time for Christmas.

eCommerce is like relaunching your business in a digital way

Ultimately, they were successful in their endeavour and learned many things along the way, even though it wasn’t their first-time diving into the eCommerce world. When asked about what they would tell future eCommerce retailers about the process, they compared launching a new platform to the (re)launching of their business:

“Often, people get discourage, but eCommerce is like relauching your business: start with the stuff you like doing and soon enough, you’ll rekindle the spark you first had when you lauched it! If you did it once, you can do it again - better!”

About KIDCoders

Founded in 2016, KIDCoders’ mission is to teach kids of all ages to code.  Students stay engaged and learn skills surrounding the objectives of game design. This helps students tackle educational challenges such as math, problem-solving, critical thinking and public speaking which enables them to showcase what they have learned in a high quality and professional manner. Students start out by learning the fundamentals of programming and through a series of pathways, go on to become hand-coders with a good understand the logic & game building skills through fun and simple activities.

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PME MTL West-Island supports commercial entrepreneurs in the development and financing of their business projects, whether to set up a new street business, develop an online business platform, or create jobs in the area.

You need help to finance your retail business or idea? Consult our COVID-19 resources or our Retail businesses consolidation due to COVID-19 program