Do I need to learn marketing and design to build an online shop?
Software engineers transitioning to e-commerce face a steep learning curve because online retail requires performance marketing and design work on top of development. This industry inexperience makes it difficult to match a high tech salary, leaving developers wondering if they can succeed without mastering entirely new skill sets.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
Do I need to learn marketing and design to build an online shop?
- 1considering getting hired at an existing brand or implementation agencyDid this help you?
- 2Learning design and performance marketing to qualify for listingsDid this help you?
- 3Filtering freelance work for strictly development-only tasksDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I am thinking about a career change and start an online shop.”source ↗
“However, I have zero experience in e-commerce nor marketing.”source ↗
“Will I ever make as much money as employed in Tech (~120k as freelancer in Europe)”source ↗
“Upon looking at Shopify and other Ecommerce jobs on UpWork, I can't help but notice that almost all of them require designing/redesigning and or performance marketing kind of work, on top of development.”source ↗
“Is this normal? Is it not enough to just be a developer, but do I need to learn how to design and market as well?”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 29How to get Etsy traffic and sales for a niche store
- 5Is it too late to shift from NetSuite to Oracle Fusion or DevOps?
- 11Migrating an established online store to Shopify Plus
- 6Is TikTok Shop worth it compared to Etsy and eBay?
- 2Can you use Shopify for a rental or self storage business?
- 5Why can't I find in-stock items on retail websites?