About StoreBuilder Hi, I'm Tony
Twenty-six years building websites. One operator, capped at 30 clients, refusing to grow into something I cannot keep promises to. Here is the story of why StoreBuilder exists and what you are actually buying.
Twenty-six years and counting
I have been building websites since the late 1990s. Back when "responsive design" meant resizing your browser window and "SEO" meant putting keywords in a meta tag. The web has changed shape three or four times since then. The job, underneath, has not changed at all.
The job is the same one it always was. A small business needs to be found by the right people. The website is how that happens. Everything else - the stack, the framework, the shiny new platform - is just plumbing in service of that one outcome.
I run a boutique consultancy at webuildstores.co.uk for established small businesses on retainer. Real SEO work, monthly, with relationships that have lasted years. StoreBuilder is the other side of the same kitchen - templates for people who are starting out and need a real website fast, without the retainer commitment.
The promise behind the promise
Thirty clients, no more
I cap my client list at 30. Not as a marketing line - as a working constraint that decides what I can and cannot promise.
Same-day content updates. Real SEO work, not a dashboard pretending to be SEO work. The phone answered by the person who built the site. None of that is possible at 300 clients. Most of it is not possible at 100. At 30, with the right infrastructure, it is the standard - not the exception.
When the queue fills, the kicker becomes a waitlist instead of an instant start. The site still ships in 3 days. The free SEO month begins when a seat opens. I would rather be honest about the constraint than break the promise to fit one more in.
Why StoreBuilder exists
StoreBuilder started with a correction.
For a while, the trade templates lived on webuildstores.co.uk alongside the retainer consultancy. The thinking was that one site could serve both audiences - established businesses on retainer at the top, starting-out trades buying templates at the bottom. Same kitchen, same menu, two price points.
Phillip - our graphic designer, working with me for 26 years now - pushed back on it during a daily review. He pointed out something I had missed. Established businesses already have a name and a brand. They want a relationship and a retainer. People starting out do not have any of that yet. They want a price, a button, and a site that works on Monday morning. Same kitchen, but two completely different dining rooms.
I had a parked .co.uk domain - storebuilder.co.uk - that had been waiting for a reason. The reason had just walked through the door. Within 48 hours the trade templates had their own home, their own brand, and their own audience.
You are reading the result. webuildstores.co.uk for the relationship business. storebuilder.co.uk for the product business. Two dining rooms, one kitchen.
Three principles I will not break
No captive billing
You can leave at any time. The domain is yours, the work I have done is yours, and the relationship ends when you say it ends. No exit fees, no clawback clauses, no lockout from your own DNS records. I have seen what trapped customers look like and I refuse to be the person doing the trapping.
Show the work
Every change I make to your site is visible. You can see what was done, when, and why. No "trust us, we are working on it" agency reports. The git history is the receipt. If you ever want to leave, the source code goes with you - including the trail of every change.
Service over scale
I am not trying to grow this into an agency. I am trying to do good work for 30 people at a time, indefinitely. The templates side exists so that people who are not yet ready for a retainer can still get a real website from a real person, without paying retainer prices for the privilege. That is the point. There is no funnel into a higher tier you did not ask for.
Who you are working with
Two people make StoreBuilder happen. Tony Cooper - me - based in Telford, doing the building, the SEO, the customer conversations, the writing, and the deployments. And Phillip - our graphic designer for 26 years - handling visual direction, logos, brand work, and the eye that catches what mine misses.
Phillip and I have been working together since the year 2000. That is the entirety of my digital career. The relationship predates StoreBuilder, predates webuildstores, and predates whatever platform was fashionable in any given year. The constant is the working relationship. The platforms change. The two of us, working on the same problem, do not.
When you buy a template, the build is mine. The visual identity work that the template was originally founded on - colours, typography, the eye for what is right - that is Phillip. You will not normally meet him directly, but his fingerprints are on every template in the catalogue.
StoreBuilder and webuildstores.co.uk
Same person, same kitchen, two doors.
storebuilder.co.uk sells ready-made trade websites. Pick a template, pay £49/month or £995, get the site built and live in 3 days. The first month of SEO is free. After that you can stay, drop down, or walk away.
webuildstores.co.uk is the consultancy. SEO retainers from £169 to £995 a month, for businesses that already have a site (or one of these templates) and want the work that turns search traffic into enquiries. Capped at 30 clients. Tony does the work, end to end.
StoreBuilder is how a starting-out trade gets onto the map. webuildstores is how an established business stays there. Most clients eventually move from one to the other - it is the same person on the other end of the email either way.
Visit webuildstores.co.uk →Want to talk before you buy?
Pick a template, send your content, live in 3 days - or call first if you want a chat
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Plus your first month of Breakthrough SEO (£330 value) included free.