A customer describes what they want
They type it in their own words, the way they would say it to you.
“A dining table, 2.4 metres long, in elm.”
The catalogue stopped.
The business hadn’t.
For businesses that make to order
Which customers does your website turn away before you ever see them?
Some customers leave because you can’t help them. Others leave because your website never found out whether you could.
What Specify does
Specify is an online store for businesses that make to order.
It is for any business that makes, builds or fits things to order. Here it is for a table maker.
The store checks it against what you make
It fills in the size, the wood and the rest. It keeps to the limits you set.
2.4 metres: within your limits. Elm: not one of your woods.
They order it, or you get a clear request
If you already make it, they can order and pay. If not, it comes to you to decide.
A request for an elm table, 2.4 metres long. You choose the answer.
No price or promise goes to a customer until you have said yes.
Founding partners
Pay nothing while we learn from you.
We are looking for founding partners in the sectors we have not proved yet. We cover the platform and our own work while the partnership runs. In return we learn how this holds up in a business like yours.
Try it
This is a Specify storefront, running.
Different businesses, one platform. They all let a customer describe what they need instead of choosing from what has already been published. Pick one and use it as a customer would.
Tables made to the customer's length, width and wood, within the workshop's own limits, rather than sold by SKU.
https://furniture.specify.digital Open full screen
Your sector is not one of these yet. Become a founding partner
Want one of these built around your own products? Ask for a preview of your shop
Things worth trying
- Describe the table you want in your own words
- Choose a length and see the workshop's limits
- Ask for a size or a wood the workshop does not list
Sectors
Built for trades that make to order.
How Specify handles each trade's own problem, in the trade's own terms.
The Premature No
Did the business say no? Or did the website just stop knowing what to do?
A Premature No is a request turned away too soon. The business never really looked at it.
It can look like an empty search result. Or a filter with no match. Or a product page with no way to ask for more. The website hit the edge of its catalogue. It treated that as the edge of the business.
A Premature No does not mean the request was possible. It means the answer came before anyone could know.
Demand-driven commerce does not mean making anything a customer asks for. It means a real request gets a real look first.
The same Premature No shows up in many trades. It hits anyone who builds, fits or supplies to order. The catalogue is smaller than the workshop.
Where this goes
A website that knows what your business can do.
Most of what you can make never reaches your website. Specify is built to change that.
Four things make it work. A Structured Opportunity turns a loose request into something you can answer. A Capability Map holds what you can really make. A Constraint Record holds the rules that apply. A Decision Record keeps the answer and the reason for it.
Each one is a plain document your team can read. Together they are how a website starts saying yes to real work.