1. Could you explain to people who don’t know, what Xpellshop is?

At first there only was Xpell.com, a very nice website, coded in Swish with 3D animations. It caused a sensation and we got many awards for our website. After that we started creating further websites and then we decided to sell them as templates. In such a way Xpellshop.com was born in 2003.

Xpellshop offers Swish and Flash templates maintaining the highest standards of quality. We specialize in code and design of Swish templates because Swish is much cheaper than Flash and offers the same opportunities to create multimedia websites with nice effects. Our customers are mostly web designers who order our Swish templates, modify and sell them to their customers. It is really fast to buy a professional design and only make some changes in the content.

2. What was your motivation for starting Xpellshop? What was it like in the beginning?

Customers, who want to have very nice individual Flash websites, have to pay really much money. Our idea was to offer them much cheaper. To sell one design for $3500 is not so easy. But to sell a very nice design 10 - 50 times is more likely.

3. What are the core principles you use in your daily work?

It is important to work reliably and create a design that identifies the topic of the template. I also try to code the templates simply, so that customers can modify them very fast. And I make video tutorials to show them how to customize them.

When I create a Swish template, the most of work takes up the design. I try many different colors and positions and only when I see “that’s the perfect design for this topic” I start working and code the template. While coding, I start realizing how to animate it. That’s a growing process and at the end there is a (hopefully) nice template.

4. What distinguishes your web templates from competitors’ ones?

Other competitors like TemplateMonster create templates like on the assembly line. Surely they have nice effects, but if you look deeper, you can see that they are the same all the time. They don’t really look for the topic of a template.

For example: I create a Swish template for a photo designer. I put in an endless gallery to present as much photos as the customer wants to show. If you take a normal template from TemplateMonster, there is only a gallery which includes 10 images. Or if I create a website for a beauty salon, I will put in a registration form which also WORKS. TemplateMonster puts in a contact form and I am not sure if it works. (only a button send but nothing happens at all)

I just want to say that I think before I make a template. My aim is not to produce thousands of templates which have the same features, but to create really good solutions like these:

5. I know that you do not work on templates designs only, but you also develop custom projects. Do you remember your first big project?

If you mean a really big project, it was Mannesmann here in Germany. We created a local multimedia Flash presentation with share prices, weather and traffic information, slide shows, video shows etc. It also had rotating icons for navigation. We coded an automatic mode and a customer mode. So if someone wanted to know if there was any congestion on the highway, he or she could browse traffic information using a space navigator. This project was one of the biggest we have created until now.

6. In your opinion, what is your most successful work for the time being?

The most successful work was Xpell.com. With this website we got our foot into the www and managed to make a name for ourselves. In 2003 Xpell.com was at every forum and people discussed it. Some people said “Flash sites are pure shit and absolutely unnecessary”, however, the majority had contrary opinion.

7. What are the major difficulties that you or the company faces?

The major difficulty is to get reliable partners. I searched a month ago for a partner for coding all the Swish templates and also in Flash. I can do it myself, but I don’t have the time to do it. But if someone says he will make it, he works 1 or 2 days and after that I never hear anything. I noticed that your customers also want to have Swish templates instead of Flash. Even someone who reads my letters wants to work with me. Till now I have been making the whole project alone. Customer service, accounting…..

8. Do you have any future plans of the site that you could share with us?

Of course. If I had a partner who codes Flash templates, it would also be possible to offer those Flash templates at Flashmint. Further I am thinking about reselling Flash templates from Flashmint at Xpellshop.com.

Most of Xpellshop.com customers are from Germany. I would also like to expand to the United States and worldwide. It would even be possible to start a joint project selling Swish templates as a main product.

9. If you had any advice to give to somebody starting up their own template selling business, what would it be?

It is very difficult to start a business like this. First you must have some nice website designs and your own style. People must love your work and your personality. I did many free works for customers and so they come back every time. And you have to know much about SEO to push your website. If you don’t have traffic, you can’t sell any product even if you have the best website templates of all. I often see companies who offer templates I would never buy. But other visitors do purchase their products, as they couldn’t find your website because of bad SEO.

10. How do you see the future of Swish or Flash technology?

I think Flash and Swish will reach a higher level in the next years. Internet at home will be going faster and faster, so, loading a Flash website will be really fast. Flash and Swish are nicer and it is like a game to surf a great Flash or Swish site. Primarily Flash and Swish will be used for product or company presentations. I think this market will be going bigger and bigger. At the beginning of techno people said: “That won’t survive.” Today here in Germany is the 17th Love parade with about 1.000.000 people who scream to hard techno beats. For me, Flash and Swish sites are the techno of the www and they will outlive everything.

11. What websites or blogs do you follow on a regular basis?

I read the Swishzine, newsletters of SwishMax. I also look out for nice Flash and Swish sites every day. I don’t follow one blog or one website. Sometimes I also take a look at other template providers. It is important to know what your competitors are doing.

12. What are the tools you couldn’t live without?

That’s a very easy question. My life would be nothing without SwishMax and Fireworks. Both programs are absolutely great and I love to work with them.

Tags: Flash, flash design, interview, swish templates, templates, web, websites, xpellshop

This entry was posted on Jul 24 2008 at 9:18 am and is filed under Flash Templates, Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.