For Michelle Goyette, Founder of Unique World Inspirations, fair trade is not just her passion – it’s the driving force behind her business, and the impact she hopes to leave on the world.
Having partnered with over 40 fair trade artisan groups located all around the globe, Michelle’s company helps others bring their unique products to the US market. As a result, Michelle ensures these groups are provided reliable work within a safe environment, wherein the money made can go back into their communities.
With such an important goal serving as her motivation, Unique World Inspirations is without a doubt Michelle’s ‘labour of love’.
But everything came to a screeching halt when the Shopify store she had spent months building was destroyed in just a couple of days after a developer she hired made changes to the code.
Michelle’s Rewind story
After setting up my website to look exactly the way I envisioned it, I decided to outsource some back-end work through a trusted source, as my shop was loading too slowly. After I paid for the work and it was done, I logged into my shop to confirm that the issue was fixed, and instead found that the entire website was messed up!
I couldn’t scroll through the Homepage, the pictures were overlapping, the Products were incorrect – it seemed as though everything that could’ve possibly gone wrong had gone wrong.
I freaked out. With a very limited understanding of coding, I couldn’t even begin to understand the extent of what had been done to my store – much less, how to fix it. Of course, I no longer trusted the developer I hired to fix what they’d done, so what was I supposed to do (aside from have a mini meltdown)?
That’s when a lightbulb went off in my head, and I remembered: I have Rewind!
All I needed to do was guesstimate the moment before the coding changes were made – and before everything was broken – and then go into my Rewind Vault and select that date and time frame. Within just a few minutes, my website was back to normal!
It really was as easy as it’s said to be, and saved me my sanity. All of my hard work was back, and the only thing gone was the developer’s mistakes. Truly the best $5/month I’ve ever spent!
Furthermore, as a store owner, I’m constantly messing around with my site. I’m not an expert, but I’m trying to do all of this myself. Sometimes I also make mistakes and I don’t always remember what steps I took or what was done that created the problem. Shopify is a great ecommerce platform and very easy to use, but when you start customizing things and you aren’t a webmaster, you make mistakes that are not always easy to fix.
It’s heartbreaking when you put your time, effort, and money – literally everything – into your business, and then a mistake happens. It doesn’t matter if it’s your fault or someone else’s; all it takes is one mistake to undo all of your progress. In most cases when the problem comes from a 3rd party app or purchased theme, Shopify is not able to fix it since it’s not their own code.
Rewind was recommended to me by a company that I’m working with and I thought, Well, since I don’t know what I’m doing, it’s probably a good idea. It’s proven to be such a stress-reducer, and after it came to my rescue I really realized its value. Now I have the confidence to do things myself, and if anything goes wrong, I don’t have to worry.
I believe in insurances in life, and Rewind is insurance for the countless hours that I’ve put into my website. I’m so glad they exist, and I’ll definitely be a customer forever!
Always have a backup
Kurt Elster, host of the Unofficial Shopify Podcast, dedicated an entire episode to discuss how unbelievably difficult it is to find a trustworthy contractor for your online store.
Michelle’s story highlights the importance for ecommerce entrepreneurs to have a robust data backup system in place when they are working with a contractor or web developer for the first time.
You never know how a code change, or one of these other data problems, can impact your business.
The easiest way to protect your online store from a data disaster is to set up an automatic backup using Rewind, the top-rated backup app in the Shopify App Store and BigCommerce App Store.
