Start your website from a template or have it built for you

The site builder is part of the Atelier plan. It opens on the Website page of your dashboard. It starts with the page you already have. This guide covers the two fastest ways to build your site: start from a template, or press Build my site for me.

Both of them change your draft only. Buyers keep seeing your current page until you press Publish. The draft you had before is saved in History, so you can bring it back.

The six templates

A template is a whole site, not a blank layout. It is built from what your shop already has: your name, tagline, logo, banner photos, gallery, products, categories, about text, reviews and Instagram handle. A shop with no photos yet still gets its own name and words. The products, reviews, drops and openings sections fill in as you add them.

Monogram boutique is soft and classic, with a big welcome photo, a row per collection, reviews and a Meet the maker section. Team & workwear is bold and square. It puts your products first, then how-to-order steps, a business quote button and an FAQ. Baby keepsakes is gentle and full of photos, with your gallery, a lookbook, reviews and an email sign-up. Market & pop-up puts a countdown to your next live event up top, with your openings, your products and your Instagram. Minimal studio is clean and simple, with one column, one product per row, and your story. Holiday shop opens with an announcement and a countdown to Christmas, then featured products, gift pairs and an FAQ.

Every template also adds five pages: About, FAQ, Contact (a contact form, a map when your shop has a location, and your social links), Size chart (real adult, youth and hat measurements in inches), and Policies, which is only added when you have written policies on your Storefront page. The menu and the footer link to them. A page you already have at the same address is left alone, so applying a second template never makes a second About page.

1. 1
   Open the Website page and press "Templates".
2. 2
   Each card shows a small drawing of the layout, the template's name and who it is for. Press "Use this template" on the one you want.
3. 3
   Your home page draft becomes the template, filled in with your shop's own products, photos and words. The draft you had is saved in History as "Before the " plus the template's name.
4. 4
   Change anything you like in the builder, then press "Publish" when it looks right. Until then buyers see your current page.

Build my site for me

Type one sentence about your shop, like "I make monogrammed totes and baby blankets for gifts", and press "Build my site for me". Broidry looks at your products, prices, categories, about text, turnaround, custom requests, reviews and photos. Then it picks a template and writes your welcome line and section headings. It rewrites your About paragraph in your own voice and writes five FAQ questions buyers really ask. It also puts the sections in an order that fits what you sell.

Broidry only writes what your shop's settings already say. If you have not set a turnaround, the FAQ says to ask you instead of making a number up. If you have not written policies, there is no Policies page. Prices come from your products. Broidry never guesses a price.

If Broidry can't write new words right then, you still get a site. It picks a template and uses the words your shop already has. The message under the button tells you whether Broidry wrote new words or used the ones you have. You can use Build my site for me up to five times a day.

Ask your Shop Assistant to edit your website

On Atelier, tell your Shop Assistant what to change on your site. Say what you want in plain words. It makes the change on your draft. An Undo button shows under its answer for thirty minutes.

Things it does: "Add a Christmas section with my stocking listings" adds a heading and that category's products (or the products whose names match). "Add a reviews section", "add an FAQ", "add a gallery", "add an email sign-up" and "add a countdown to December 15" each add that block. "Change the welcome line to Stitched in Sheboygan" swaps the words. If the same words are in two places, it asks which one. "Make the background cream and the buttons navy" sets the colors. "Use my logo's colors" takes them from your logo or banner photo. "Move reviews up" and "put the gallery at the top" reorder sections. "Take the FAQ off" removes one. "Use the Baby keepsakes template" applies a template. "What's on my website" reads it back to you.

Your Shop Assistant never publishes on its own. When you say "publish it", your Shop Assistant shows Yes and No buttons under its answer. Nothing goes live until you press "Yes, publish it".