> About > One human, end of the phone

I've been
designing and
building websites
since 1997.

No agency. No account managers. No team across three time zones. Just me, the same software I've been refining for twenty-eight years, and a phone that I answer.

1997
Year established
600+
Retail sites built
29
Years on the phone
1
Person, start to finish
> 01 > The story

Started with one shop.
Never quite stopped.

The short version: a Cornish wine merchant needed an online catalogue in 1999. I built it. Word got around.

1997

First website built

An 'intranet' website for a medical libray in a hospital. Interesting project.

1999

First shop online

A wine merchant in Truro. Hand-rolled HTML, a clunky basket, and a fax machine for orders. It worked.

2000

Futurestore software

After the fourth or fifth shop, I'd had enough of starting from scratch. Built my own ecommerce platform. Still using it - still improving it.

2008

Estate agents come knocking

Turns out the same software runs property listings nicely too. A whole second specialism by accident.

2019

500th shop

Stopped counting properly somewhere around here. Antiques dealers, gallerists, confectioners, wholesalers, the lot.

Today

Still here, still answering

Working with around one hundred and fifty active clients. Building multiple new sites each quarter. Picking up the phone.

A quick overview? how to build an ecommerce website

> 02 > How I work

Seven things
I don't budge on.

  1. 01

    I pick up the phone.

    Not a ticketing system. Not a chatbot. The same person who built your site answers when it rings.

  2. 02

    Fixed prices, no surprises.

    You get a number before I start. That's the number. I don't do scope-creep invoices.

  3. 03

    One human, start to finish.

    Same person on the call, the design, the build, and the support. No handoffs, no telephone game.

  4. 04

    I don't outsource.

    No offshored development team you'll never meet. The work happens here, in Cornwall, by me.

  5. 05

    Plain English. Always.

    No jargon, no “synergies,” no acronyms I haven't explained. If I can't describe it simply, I don't understand it well enough yet.

  6. 06

    I host what I build.

    On servers I control. So when something needs a fix at 8am, I don't have to phone someone else first.

  7. 07

    I answer for years, not weeks.

    Some of my clients have been with me since the early noughties. I'm still picking up when they ring.

- Studio > Cornwall EST. 1997
Lawrence - founder of FutureStore
29
years
600+
shops
1
phone
Lawrence > Founder > Redruth, Cornwall
> 03 > The human

Hello, I'm
the studio.

I started FutureStore in 1997 from a back room in Cornwall. I'd built one online shop for a friend and rather enjoyed it. Twenty-nine years later, I'm still doing it.

In that time the studio has mostly stayed deliberately small - one person, one phone, one desk full of development servers. Clients come for a website and stay because they can ring up and get me, not a queue.

Outside work: walking the dog on the beach, growing tomatoes, writing books (badly), and a long-running disagreement with the jackdaws trying to nest in my chimney.

☎ 01209 706544 > info@futurestore.co.uk > Redruth, Cornwall
> 04 > Where

Run from
a granite studio
in Cornwall.

Some of my clients are in Cornwall and Devon. Most are scattered across the rest of the UK. One or two are overseas, oddly enough. I work over the phone and email and once or twice a year someone drives down for a cup of tea.

Visit / write / phone →
FutureStore Studio
Redruth, Cornwall
United Kingdom
Mon – Fri 09:00 – 17:30
Saturday By arrangement
Sunday Closed (the dog gets walked)

Pick up
the phone.

That's really how this works. You ring, I have a chat, you decide whether I'm right for you. Twenty minutes. No slides.

☎ 01209 706544 Or send a note > See the portfolio >