how to set up AWS Route 53 domain with Big Cartel

I bought a domain with Route 53 but I can't figure out how to set it up as a custom domain with Big Cartel. The Big Cartel instructions are as follows:

1) Create or edit a CNAME record with your DNS provider: Log in to your DNS provider’s control panel. From there, you’ll want to edit your DNS settings. You’ll be able to do this from the DNS manager, zone file settings, advanced forwarding, or whatever other weird thing your DNS company calls it. This is where you will edit or add a CNAME record. You’ll either create a CNAME record for www or you’ll need to edit the CNAME record if one already exists. Enter the following:

Alias: www

Type: CNAME

Points to: enter the full URL of your store (ex: mybigcartelstore.bigcartel.com)

2) Redirect to www: Time to redirect your non-www URL (ex: mycustomdomain.net) to the www URL (ex: www.mycustomdomain.net) with a 301 redirect. In the domain forwarding section of your selected domain, select forwarding only or a 301 redirect without masking.

In the Route 53 hosted zone section I have a CNAME record but I entered my bigcartel.com address in Value: and I'm not sure that's correct (is it supposed to be an alias?). I have no idea how to do step 2, the 301 redirect (Type: PTR? alias: no? value: mystore.bigcartel.com?).

any help greatly appreciated, thanks.

Solution

Finally figured this out. Here's what I did. Note you do not need SSL/cloudfront w bigcartel because they provide the SSL on their end.

1. in S3:

-make a bucket with your store name (mystore.com) (no www)

-enable public access

-in permissions -> bucket policy, paste this code to allow people to see your bucket, changing url after resource to your corresponding domain

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "PublicReadGetObject",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Principal": "*",
            "Action": "s3:GetObject",
            "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::mystore.com/*"
        }
    ]
}

-in properties tab, under "Static website hosting", select "Redirect requests"

-in the target bucket, write www.mystore.com, note www.

-for protocol: http

2) in Route 53:

-make a CNAME record for www.mystore.com

-alias: no

-value: mystore.bigcartel.com

3) in Route 53:

-make an A record for mystore.com (no www)

-alias: yes

-alias target: if AWS does not auto populate your S3 bucket, as it did for me, enter the s3 url WITHOUT your domain name in there. For example, my s3 bucket is called mystore.com so the URL endpoint is mystore.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com. Just take this part " s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com" and put that in Alias target

In hindsight I should have gone with google domains which sounds much more simple.