Check out the full shop at: finegoods.bigcartel.com
BC: Can you tell us a little about yourself? How did you come to start Fine Goods Market?
FG: I’m (Rogie) a designer, front-end developer and illustrator. Fine Goods has been a dream of mine for a long time. I’ve always been designing goodies for the design community and also been obsessed with quality, fun shirts.
Fine Goods was created when I got the inspiration for the scripted type. I drew it up, made it into a logo, and a year later, here we are! Fine Goods, as a brand, is sort of an anti-brand. It’s really generic and feels like you’ve known about it forever. That’s why I like it.
BC: Your site launched earlier this week. How has the response been? Any immediate lessons learned?
FG: The response has been great! Everybody’s loving the goodies and all of the cool design details on the site. Oh, and yeah, sales aren’t too bad either.
The first immediate lesson I learned: If you have a mechanism to bring you massive traffic, turn on overselling at the beginning of launch and closely monitor your inventory levels. I found that tons of people were adding things to their carts, and lots of other shoppers couldn’t add an item because it was in another person’s cart, who may or may not have bought it.
BC: What makes your icons, tees, and plugins stand apart from others available online?
FG: I keep all of my products really close to my chest and I’d like to think I have an eye for detail and quality. Because of that, I’m not farming designs out, and I truly care about each product being quality. Quality is key.
BC: What are some of your design inspirations?
At some level, I’m inspired by people all around me. When it comes to icons, Tim VanDamme, Benjamin DeCock and Tanya Maifat do a wonderful job. When it comes to graphic design and lettering, I appreciate Jon Contino, Drew Melton, Chris Sandlin, Ryan Clark, Simon Walker and DISNEY.
BC: How has your experience been using Pulley to offer digital files?
FG: What I love about Pulley is the design. It’s dead simple and easy to use. I love that you upload a zip, enter a name, and bam! You’ve got a link to sell.
BC: Fine Goods Market is a beautifully customized shop that has all of the Big Cartel staff in awe. Can you tell us about your customization and design process for the site?
FG: I designed Fine Goods in the same way I’d design a site: limitless, without regard for the technology. I don’t want to think of how I have to cater my design to the e-commerce solution. Rather, I designed the site, implemented it as static HTML files, and when I was done, applied it to Big Cartel. With the awesome api you guys have, I just plugged it all in. You really have made a nice product with plenty of extendability.
BC: Any special plug or info you want to share that hasn’t been covered yet?
FG: I love how Big Cartel followed up on Twitter just to double-check and make sure that I didn’t need further help. Keep on keepin’ on! I’m loving your product.
