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# How to host an e-commerce site with Fathym

> December 30, 2021 by Rich Kurtzman, Brand Communications @ Fathym

In today’s world, just about anyone could benefit from having their own website.

Maybe you want to start a blog and discuss your favorite sports team, say, the Denver Broncos. Or you’re a small business and are looking to sell a product and legitimize yourself. Or you could be an artist simply trying to publish your work.

That’s probably why there are so many options out there when it comes to creating your own website. Luckily, we bring you a new option.

Our Fathym is easy, straightforward and by utilizing some nifty tools, our front end engineer George Hatch was able to create a website which was ready to improve and show off his partner’s small business.

## Fathym vs. Wix​

“What we were originally doing was creating a Wix site,” Hatch explained. “Alisha, my girlfriend, was working on that. Wix just restricts a lot of things. And not being able to have your custom URL up there just by default is one. Also, the standard templates they have, it makes yours site look like everybody else’s out there.”

That sounds less than ideal.

Conversely, with our Fathym, users with minimal or even zero coding experience can start by adding a custom domain, which is crucial. Look, it’s your website, and you need to be able to name the URL whatever you please. Luckily, that part is a breeze.

Not only that, but the HTTPS is added automatically, which is crucial for security.

After securing the RedwoodCrystals.com domain, Hatch turned to the design side of things. He utilized 11ty for the layout and style of the site, which was simple to do thanks to its low-code nature. And then Forestry was utilized for content management.

## Utilizing Forestry CMS​

“Using Forestry CMS allows non-developers to edit product information that is then synced up with the repository within GitHub,” Hatch explained. “This allows my partner to add and edit product information without having to know how to code.”

Next, George and Alisha turned to the e-commerce side of things. They not only wanted to show off their crystals but share them with the world too.

## Using Snipcart for e-commerce​

So, Hatch went to Snipcart as his solution which was easy to set up an account with, and their company offers a lot of other benefits as well.

“You can decide what kind of shipping you want, USPS, UPS etc.,” he explained. “They have all these options, too, like customizable taxes, discounts and they keep track of your orders as well.”

And per their website, Snipcart costs less than competitor Stripe, and they offer features like abandoned cart, cart customization and customizable invoices.

After choosing Snipcart, Hatch and his girlfriend were ready to go. Ready to show. Ready to grow.

“Fathym helped me be able to get that out there and understand, ‘OK, so I push to GitHub and then I connect that GitHub build to Fathym, or npm build to Fathym, and that’s all I need to do and then they (Fathym) handle everything else behind the scenes.

Fathym allows you to stay focused on your business by giving you easy-to-use tools for website hosting, release management, continuous integration, and security. Free up your time to work on your sales, marketing, and other aspects of your business.

Utilizing GitHub – a Git repository hosting service – Fathym can access your code quickly and easily. Fathym assists developers in getting their projects securely hosted with release management. It is totally out of the box, so you bring your own code and domain. Super easy and really helps you reduce costs without losing value.

“So, I think that’s what really empowered me to use Fathym. Being a developer and knowing how I can at least get the build out there. Going through Fathym, now I can take that build and then deploy it out there for the world to see.”

And the greatness only continues from there.

With Fathym, you own your code. That means you could take it anywhere you like in the future. Similarly, with Fathym, you have the security of knowing you won’t be left high and dry if your developer moves on. And you have the freedom to use multiple languages, which others don’t offer.

Right now, we’re in the exciting phase of bringing our phenomenal products to you. Currently, as we look to bring on users and improve our product, Fathym is being offered as a “freemium” program. We’d love you to jump in, join in and build something special today!

Join Fathym today!