How to sell made-to-measure products online

The short answer.

If you sell a handful of set sizes, a standard shop on a platform like Shopify or WooCommerce will do the job well. If customers type in their own measurements and the price follows a simple rule, such as a price per square metre, a price calculator app or plugin is usually enough.

It gets harder when the price depends on several things that affect each other, when some combinations can't be made, or when every order has to be turned into a cutting list or production sheet. That's the point where stacking plugins starts to creak, and a custom-built calculator, sometimes sitting alongside your existing shop, often works better.

Why made-to-measure is awkward for a standard shop.

Most online shop platforms are built around a simple idea: a product is a thing on a shelf. It might come in a few versions, like small, medium and large, and each version has a price and a stock count. For the vast majority of shops, that works brilliantly.

Made-to-measure products don't fit that shape. A worktop, a roller blind or a sheet of timber cut to size isn't one of a few versions. It's one of thousands of possible combinations of width, height, material, thickness, finish and edging. You can't sensibly list every one, and you don't keep the finished item in stock anyway. You keep the raw material and make the product after the order comes in.

So the shop has to do something extra: work out a price on the spot from the customer's choices, check the combination can actually be made, and pass every detail through to whoever makes it.

What apps and plugins can do.

Shopify and WooCommerce both have large marketplaces of add-ons, and product options are a well-served corner of them. There are apps and plugins that add measurement boxes to a product page, work out a price from width and height, charge by length, area or weight, show or hide options depending on earlier choices, and let customers upload a drawing or photo.

For plenty of made-to-measure businesses, that's all they'll ever need. If your pricing fits on a postcard, you have a manageable number of options and your orders are simple to make, try an app or plugin first. It's the cheapest and quickest route, and you keep everything a standard shop already handles, like payments, order emails and shipping.

Before you commit to one, test it with your three most awkward real orders, not the tidy example on the demo page. Then place a test order and read the email it produces, because that's what your workshop will be working from. If both look right, you're probably fine.

When plugins stop being enough.

The trouble usually isn't one missing feature. It's the pile-up. Any one of the problems below can often be solved with the right plugin or a bit of custom code. When you're juggling most of them, your pricing ends up spread across settings nobody fully understands, which is really a spreadsheet problem in a nicer outfit.

Your prices follow rules that depend on each other, like a finish charged by area but edging charged only on the edges the customer picks.
You have minimum charges, offcut charges or price breaks that the calculator can't quite express.
Some combinations can't be made, such as a maximum width that depends on the material, and customers keep ordering them anyway.
You're running two or three add-ons that each do part of the job and don't always agree with each other.
Every order arrives as a block of text that someone retypes into a cutting list or job sheet.
Delivery depends on the size and weight of what's been made, and the checkout can't work it out properly.
Trade customers need their own prices, saved quotes or account terms.
Changing a price means editing it in several places, and you're never quite sure you caught them all.

Your options, from simplest to most involved.

There's a sensible ladder here, and it's worth climbing only as far as you need to. Whichever rung you land on, the common sizes can have an instant price while the genuinely unusual jobs go through a request-a-quote form.

Set sizes as normal products. Offer the few sizes most people buy, and handle anything unusual by quote.
A standard shop plus a price calculator app or plugin. Good for straightforward pricing by area, length or weight.
A standard shop plus a custom-built calculator. The calculator handles your pricing rules and checks, then hands a finished, priced item to the shop's normal basket and checkout. How well this works depends on the platform and how your shop is set up.
A fully custom shop. For businesses where the calculator is the whole point, with production paperwork, trade accounts and delivery rules built in from the start.

What a good made-to-measure shop gets right.

Whichever route you take, these are the things your customers, and your workshop, will thank you for.

Clear instructions on how to measure, with a simple diagram, before anyone types a number.
Units shown next to every box, so nobody enters inches where you meant millimetres.
Sensible limits, with a friendly message when a size can't be made.
A price that updates as they choose, with no surprises at checkout.
A summary of exactly what they're ordering before they pay.
Lead times stated plainly, because made to order takes longer than off the shelf.
An order confirmation email that repeats every measurement and option.
Samples or swatches for finishes, if colour and texture matter.

Don't forget what happens after the order.

The shop is only half the job. Once an order is paid, someone has to make it. In many made-to-measure businesses that's where the real time goes: reading the order, working out the cuts, writing a job sheet, checking the raw material is in and booking the delivery.

A system built for the job can take most of that off your hands. The workshop screen shows today's orders with every measurement laid out clearly. A cutting list or production sheet prints without anyone retyping it. The customer gets an email when their order moves from being made to being dispatched. And the office can see which orders are waiting on material, without walking out to the workshop to ask.

That's often where the real payback is. Getting orders online is good. Getting them from the website to the saw without anyone copying them out is better.

How With Gumption can help.

We build online shops and ordering systems for businesses that sell made-to-measure and cut-to-size products. Sometimes that's a price calculator added to a shop you already have. Sometimes it's a full ordering system with production sheets, trade accounts and delivery runs built in.

We start by looking at how you price and make things now, and we'll tell you plainly if an off-the-shelf app would do. If it would, we'll point you at it. If it wouldn't, we'll build the part that's genuinely yours and keep everything else simple.

Questions people ask.

Can Shopify sell products with custom dimensions?

Yes, with help. There are apps in the Shopify App Store that add measurement boxes to a product page and work out a price from the sizes a customer enters. For simple pricing rules, plenty of made-to-measure businesses find that works well. If your pricing has lots of rules that affect each other, or orders need to feed straight into production, test an app against your real products before you commit.

Is WooCommerce or Shopify better for made-to-measure products?

Neither is simply better. Both suit plenty of businesses, and both have add-ons for measurement-based pricing. The right choice depends on your products, your budget, who looks after the website and what else it needs to connect to. Write out your trickiest real orders, including the awkward ones, and try them against whichever setup you're considering before you decide.

Should I show an instant price or ask customers to request a quote?

Where you can, show a price. Many customers would rather see what something costs straight away than wait for a reply. For the common sizes and options, an instant price usually works well. For very large, unusual or complicated jobs, a request-a-quote form that collects the right measurements up front is often more honest than a calculator trying to cover every possible case.

Can a custom price calculator work with my existing shop?

Often, though it depends on the platform and how your shop is built. In many cases a calculator can sit on your product pages, handle your pricing rules and checks, then pass the finished item into your existing basket and checkout. We'd look at your setup first and tell you plainly whether that's workable, or whether a separate ordering system would make more sense.

How to sell made-to-measure and cut-to-size products online.