MICRO-COMMERCE + HAND-PAINTED GOODS · Illustration / art goods

Mandy — hand-painted animal art shop

Mandy is our co-founder's own shop, selling the Taiwanese foothill animals she paints herself: leopard cat, oriental pied hornbill, pangolin, and one ginger cat. Every piece is a limited-edition giclée print. This isn't a mockup — it's a live shop taking orders, and it runs on mo-shop, the micro-commerce system we built ourselves.

Services · mo-shop micro-commerce launch / product page structure / brand colour & type / on-site analytics

▸ See the live site mandy-shop.mo-studio.org

01 · Needs

Client needs

· Sell the artwork directly, instead of waiting for price enquiries in Instagram DMs
· Show how many of each limited print have sold, so buyers can see what's left
· The shop should feel like the paintings — not like a marketplace listing
· Fast on mobile, so people arriving from social don't bounce
· No extra admin panel: products and orders in one place

02 · Problem

The problem they faced

When an illustrator posts work on Instagram, the usual ending is: DM asking the price, quote sent, message seen, nothing. Every order means explaining size, material, shipping and bank details all over again — selling three prints costs about as much conversation as selling thirty. People like the work, but there is nowhere to simply press buy.

03 · Goals

Website goals

· Check out straight from Instagram or Threads, with no DM in between
· Product pages that state size, material and edition size, so nothing needs a one-to-one reply
· Pages that use the shop's own brand colours and type, not a generic commerce template
· An admin with only products, orders and payments — usable from a phone

04 · Approach

Our approach

Launched on mo-shop, the micro-commerce system MO Studio built. Underneath it's WordPress + WooCommerce, with one isolated codebase and database per shop — no data shared between stores. The shop-owner view strips out every piece of WordPress jargon and keeps only what an owner needs to read. The visuals follow the shop's own brand profile (warm cream, forest green); the paintings are the hero, with no promo carousels or countdown timers. When it's time to upgrade to a full site, it's still WooCommerce — products and orders don't move.

05 · Outcome

Outcome

✓ 4 limited editions live, shop open for orders

✓ Leopard cat print: 3 sold (shown publicly on the site)

✓ Mobile: artwork, price and purchase in one screen

⏳ Repeat purchase and social referral numbers — still accumulating

06 · Learning

What we learned

「Selling your own work and building a website for a client are two different kinds of hard. The most useful part of opening this shop wasn't finishing the features — it was timing how many minutes it actually takes to list one painting. That number decides whether an owner keeps using it. Our own shop had to sell first before we could ask clients to put their business on it.」

Up Next

Want to see more cases

All work Plan my website