Everything between the store you see today and the first real order, in plain words. Twelve steps, in order. Tap nothing here - this page is just the map. Tell Instinct when you finish a step and the page updates.
Real numbers, no surprises.
You are further along than it feels.
Each step says what it is, what it costs, and who does it - you (Jack), us, or both.
What it is: the address people type, like noor-newyork.com. Right now the store lives on a temporary demo address; this makes it yours.
Cost: about $10.46 a year at Cloudflare (the honest wholesale price) or ~$15 through Shopify. Renewed yearly.
Why first: the email address and the real site both hang off the domain, and good names get taken.
What it is: like a Social Security number, but for NOOR. Banks and Shopify ask for it. EIN stands for Employer Identification Number - you don't need employees to get one.
Cost: free. Ten minutes on irs.gov, the official government site. Anyone charging for this is a middleman.
What it is: New York's permission slip to collect sales tax, called a Certificate of Authority. Clothing sold in NY is taxable, so the state requires this before your first sale.
Cost: free. One online form on the NY Tax Department site (form DTF-17). Do it about three weeks before launch - the state takes some days to approve.
What it is: paying Shopify to actually run checkout, orders, and inventory. The store is already built inside Shopify; this switches it from free trial to real.
Cost: current deal is 3 days free, then $1/month for 3 months, then $39/month on the Basic plan you already picked ($29/mo if paid yearly).
What it is: the part that takes the customer's card and deposits the money in your bank. Without it, the store can show products but can't charge anyone.
Cost: no monthly fee - just 2.9% + 30¢ per sale on Basic, taken automatically.
What it is: putting the store on a permanent internet home so the demo address becomes your real domain, 24/7. You already chose Replit, and you have an account.
Cost: about $20/month for Replit's Core plan, which covers publishing a site like this.
What it is: an address like [email protected] for order confirmations and customer questions. Customers trust it far more than a Gmail address.
Cost: free with Zoho Mail's free plan (up to 5 addresses, web access) or $7/user/month if you'd rather have it inside Gmail (Google Workspace Business Starter).
What it is: your aunt's pieces, photographed, named, priced, and loaded into the store. This is the one step nobody can do for you two - it is the store.
Cost: $0 to start. Phone photos in soft window light against one clean wall match the NOOR look you already approved. Pro photography can come after sales begin.
What it is: four short pages every store must show: how returns work, what you do with customer data, shipping promises, and terms of sale. Payment companies and customers both look for them.
Cost: free. We write them from standard templates tuned to NOOR's real policies - you just tell us your return window and shipping promise.
What it is: we place a genuine $1 order with a real card, you watch the money appear in Shopify, then we refund it. This proves checkout, tax, and email receipts all work before a stranger tries them.
Cost: $1, refunded.
What it is: a Limited Liability Company separates NOOR's problems from your personal money. Nice to have early, but New York lets you sell as a sole proprietor first.
Cost: $200 state filing, plus NY's unusual rule that new LLCs publish a notice in two newspapers for six weeks (price varies a lot by county), then a $50 certificate. Total usually lands in the low-to-mid hundreds. You can file it yourself - no lawyer needed for a simple one-owner LLC.
What it is: we remove the password, point the domain at the live store, and you post the link. That's it - the demo becomes a business.
Cost: $0.