A site proposal for RAW Concepts. What we observed, what we recommend, and exactly what we'd do — in two phases, at a price that gets you out of the Shopify mess this week.
Reed — you mentioned this in person yesterday, and you already know what we built for Korie at Threaded. So we don't need to spend this document proving the work. We need to spend it laying out exactly what we'd do for RAW, in what order, and what it costs.
The short version: your website situation is fixable in the next ten days for under $1,500. The bigger conversation — the real online storefront, the build configurator, the deposit billing, the customer build-status pages — that's a Phase 2 problem we scope when the timing's right. This document covers both, but only one of them is a number you have to decide on today.
Shopify is a great platform — for the wrong kind of business. It was built for high-velocity drop-ship retail: t-shirts, beauty products, packaged goods that ship in 48 hours. You built a custom-fabrication shop with four-to-twelve-week lead times, no-refund custom orders, and product packages priced at $500–$617 a set. Those are two different businesses. The integration breakage you keep hitting isn't a bug — it's the platform telling you it's the wrong tool.
Customers can place orders for product variants that don't exist, or at prices that don't reflect the build. For a shop with a "once the build has begun, no refund is possible" policy, that's not a UX issue — it's a customer-service blowup with legal exposure waiting to happen.
Anyone searching "custom headlights Oklahoma" or "lift kits Edmond" right now lands on a locked page. Your Facebook (3,210 followers, posts within the last 24 hours) is doing the brand work the website should be doing — and there's nowhere for that audience to convert.
Custom halo headlights, prism builds, lifted F-250s, full air-ride suspensions — there's no build gallery, no project portfolio, no installation timeline, no before-and-afters. The site lists products. It doesn't show the work. People buy from shops where they can see the work.
The profile exists, shows up in search, and is pulling 50 reviews at 3.9 stars — real proof the work is reaching people. But the description reads as generic ("vehicle customization shop"), the custom headlight work isn't called out, services aren't itemized, no Google Posts go out, and the photo set is sparse. The rating has clear room to climb with a structured review-request flow. Meanwhile, secondary directories show the wrong address — Cylex lists 22 W 4th, Buzzfile lists 42 E 12th, when the actual address is 19 W 5th. That inconsistency splits the local ranking signal between three different "RAW Concepts" entries instead of consolidating it on the real one.
Locally, you're competing with Auto Accessories Unlimited (Norman, 25 years deep, seven sub-brands, active across every platform) and Truck Gear (Edmond and Shawnee). Nationally, the custom-headlight builders you're actually competing with online — Lighting Trendz, TEQ Customs, Precision Retrofits — have vehicle-specific landing pages, build galleries, and lifetime warranties featured prominently. Your current site doesn't compete with any of them, even when it's up.
"4–12 week lead times. Once a build begins, no refund." That's not a warning to bury in the About Us — that's the language of a craftsman who takes the work seriously. Front-and-center, it qualifies leads, sets expectations, and filters tire-kickers. Buried, it just feels like fine print.
The thing we noticed talking to you — and the thing the current site doesn't see — is that RAW Concepts is actually two businesses in one shop, and both deserve to be on the front page.
The lift kits. The wheel-and-tire packages. The big F-250 builds. The air-ride suspensions. Window tint. Light bars. This is the daily bread, and it's the work that fills the shop floor. Edmond and OKC know you for this, and the website needs to make that immediately clear to anyone driving past or searching locally.
This is the work that scales through reputation, referrals, and Google Business Profile. Phase 1 sets this up cleanly.
The custom headlights. The halos. The prism builds. The bi-LED retrofits. This is the work that built RAW's reputation in the first place, and it's the work that — when the site is right — sells to truck owners in Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, anywhere with a Ford F-150 and an opinion about lighting.
You've talked about moving away from this side. But this is the work that travels. Phase 1 keeps it visible. Phase 2, when ready, can bring it back as a real e-commerce product line — or sunset it gracefully, whichever you choose. Your call. The site shouldn't force the decision either way.
Phase 1 is what you're deciding on now. Phase 2 is the future-state conversation, scoped when the timing is right. We've laid out both so you can see the full arc — but you only have to make a call on Phase 1.
A bespoke site on rawconceptsllc.com — built for RAW's actual identity, not a stock theme. We get you off Shopify, get the brand visible online again, and set the foundation that Phase 2 builds onto. No more wrong prices. No more orphan SKUs. No more password-protected homepage.
This isn't a favor and it isn't a discount on a low-budget rebuild. RAW is a different conversation than Threaded — a real business operating at real scale, and it deserves to be treated that way. The reduced Phase 1 number reflects three things: a seven-plus year working relationship that doesn't require the usual discovery overhead, the fact that you need to be off Shopify in days rather than months, and the reality that Phase 2 — the full e-commerce migration and ongoing operations — is where the real engagement lives. Phase 1 gets you out of the current mess and onto a foundation that's worth scaling.
When Phase 1 has done its job — when the lead flow is steady, the gallery is full, and you're ready to sell online again — we scope the full e-commerce migration. We don't quote it today, because pricing this right requires understanding what your product catalog actually needs to do by then. But here's the shape of it:
Rather than describing what the new site could feel like, we built a directional concept you can scroll through. It walks across desktop, tablet, and phone — opening with the local empire, showing the heritage builds in gallery form, and ending with the mobile quote flow plus Axle answering customer questions at the bottom.
It's not a finished site. It's a sketch of where Phase 1 lands. Best viewed on a desktop or laptop, but it works on any screen.
View the concept preview →Opens in a new full-screen experience · Click anywhere to skip the intro
If any of this lands, text me and I'll come by. We can walk through the demo, talk through what's missing, and figure out whether the timeline and the price work for where you are right now.
If it doesn't, no worries. Nothing changes either way — the processing side runs the same, and we stay friends.
Text Steve · (405) 913-1956