All work

Lauzon Music

A family guitar shop in Ottawa, open since 1945. Their whole business is putting instruments in people’s hands. That’s my kind of business, so I run their online side day to day: the store, the listings, ads, email and search.

Visit lauzonmusic.com (opens in a new tab)
The whole Lauzon Music homepage, scrolling from the top to the footer

What I built

  1. The move to Shopify

    Platform

    On September 9, 2026 I moved lauzonmusic.com off WooCommerce and onto Shopify. About 1,700 products came across with their descriptions, every old address was redirected, and the shop’s own till stays in charge of prices and stock. Search traffic didn’t drop.

  2. Have it, order it, or admire it

    Site structure

    The site is in three parts: the Shop is what’s on the wall now, the Catalogue is models you can order, and the Hall of Fame keeps sold one-of-ones as a record. A buyer always knows which one they’re looking at, and search splits the same way, in-stock first.

  3. Selling what isn’t on the wall

    Pre-orders

    Online, the shop could only sell what it had in the building. Now supplier price lists go in and approved product pages come out, priced at each brand’s advertised minimum, paid in full or with a 25% deposit. Seventeen brand lines went up in the first two weeks.

  4. One photo standard

    Photography

    Every in-stock guitar is photographed in the shop, the same way: a close-up of the body on the card, the back when you hover, full front and back on the page. I moved 245 guitars to it without a reshoot. No AI-made instrument photos, ever. This crowd would spot a wrong detail in a second.

  5. New stock, listed by talking

    Run with AI

    Staff talk a new arrival through in a chat, and the AI hands back the whole listing, specs checked against the maker and written in the shop’s voice. Nothing moves until the shop marks it received, and it goes live once the photos land.

  6. The chores that run themselves

    Operations

    About 400 Reverb listings stay in step with the site on their own, and a sold guitar comes off Reverb in about ten minutes. Every morning, sold pages get redirected, the Google feed gets updated, and anything live without photos gets flagged.

  7. Ads, email and search

    Marketing

    Email wired into the new store from launch week, Google results that say in stock in Ottawa, sold or on pre-order before anyone clicks, and the ads and search work run week to week.

Built for
guitar people

Gear has specs, and they matter. But someone buying a guitar like this wants to see the exact one, so a listing can carry a video of that guitar, not a stock clip.

When a one-off sells, its page points to a new one you can order instead of a dead end. Free setup on every guitar is something you ask for after the order, from a menu, not a line of copy.

And the reviews and claims on the site are real. Anything the shop couldn’t back up came off.

What it
changes
for them

  • Moved platforms without losing search trafficSearch Console showed no measurable drop after the September 9 move.
  • Selling what isn’t in the shopSeventeen brand lines on pre-order within two weeks of the Catalogue opening.
  • Listings nobody has to typeNew stock goes live once its photos land.
  • Reverb that keeps up on its ownAbout 400 listings, and a sold guitar comes off in about ten minutes.
  • People still make the callsThe AI drafts. I approve every price, email, ad and design change, and people answer every customer in chat.

Building something
you care about?

If you could use a hand with the online side, I’d like to hear about it.

Tell me about your business