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If your ecommerce brand has started to see growth, you may have considered working with an ecommerce agency. Here's everything you need to know.
In the past few years, the ecommerce landscape has become increasingly competitive. Everyday a new brand pops up looking to divert attention away from your audience.
For growing businesses looking to thrive in this crowded landscape, partnering with a professional ecommerce agency has evolved from something of a luxury to a near necessity.
Whether you've just launched your first online store, you’re scaling an existing business, or you’re a stalwart figure in the ecommerce game, an ecommerce agency can bring you the specialised expertise, the resources, and the strategic insights that are needed to maximise the potential of your ecommerce brand.
So if you’re interested in becoming a major player in the ecommerce space, partnering with an ecommerce agency should be a major consideration. But that begs the question…
An ecommerce agency is a specialised digital services firm that focuses exclusively on building, optimising, and maintaining the retail operations of ecommerce brands. Ecommerce agencies combine technical expertise in web development and specific platforms like Shopify with strategic knowledge of the specific digital marketing, user experience design, and conversion optimisation requirements of ecommerce businesses.
Unlike general web development companies or generalised digital marketing firms, an ecommerce agency understands the unique challenges of online retail, from inventory management and stock challenges to customer retention strategies and loyalty marketing.
An ecommerce agency serves as a comprehensive partner for any ecommerce business that is looking to establish or enhance their online presence. Each ecommerce agency will offer a different set of services and have different specialisms.
These services can range from initial website development and platform migrations to ongoing optimisation, marketing support, and strategic growth planning. When it comes to specialisms, these are going to be more agency specific. For example, New York-Based ecommerce agency, The Vaan Group, have a specialism of working with brands founded by celebrities.
If you’re an ecommerce brand looking to scale, there are many benefits of partnering with an ecommerce agency.
Today's ecommerce landscape extends far beyond simply setting up an online store. Successful commerce requires a sophisticated understanding of user experience design, conversion optimisation, search engine marketing, inventory management, customer service automation, data analytics - the list of things to think about is seemingly endless. In fact, the technical requirements alone can overwhelm some businesses trying to manage everything in-house.
An experienced ecommerce agency will understand the complexities of trading online and has developed systematic approaches to address them. An ecommerce agency will stay up to date with all of the current platform updates, the algorithmic changes, and the emerging technologies that could impact your business. All of this specialised knowledge allows ecommerce agencies to anticipate the challenges your business will encounter and implement solutions before any problems arise, saving you time, money, and potential revenue loss.
One of the most significant advantages of working with an ecommerce agency is their ability to conduct comprehensive market research and competitive analysis. An ecommerce agency will not only bring plenty of experience from working with similar businesses to your own, but they’ll have knowledge of your market and will be able to develop data-driven strategies based on industry trends, consumer behavior patterns, and competitor performance as a result.
A professional ecommerce agency will analyse your target market, identify opportunities for growth, and create a roadmap for achieving your combined business objectives. An ecommerce agency understands how to position your brand effectively, identify the most profitable customer personas, and develop messaging that resonates with the customers that make up your unique audience. This strategic foundation is crucial for long-term success in the digital marketplace.
Ecommerce platforms like Shopify, and the various choices for tech integrations, marketing platforms and more, will each have their own strengths, limitations, and optimisation requirements. An ecommerce agency brings deep technical knowledge of these platforms, understanding how to leverage their features for maximum performance and scalability.
An ecommerce agency can implement advanced functionality such as multi-currency support, complex product configurations, automated inventory management, and sophisticated returns functionalities both through their own expertise and through partnerships with third party tech platforms. More importantly, an ecommerce agency will understand how to optimise these technical elements for search engines and your CRM platforms, ensuring the entire customer journey is streamlined.
The technical expertise of an ecommerce agency can extend to site architecture, database optimisation, security implementation, and performance monitoring. An ecommerce agency can identify and resolve the issues that might not be apparent to business owners but could significantly impact user experience and search rankings.
While hiring an ecommerce agency requires an upfront investment, it's often more cost-effective than trying to build and maintain the same level of expertise in-house. If you consider the costs of hiring specialised website developers or shopify developers, designers, marketers, and analysts, plus the time required to train them on your specific needs, that’s a longer term investment.
An ecommerce agency provides access to a full team of specialists who have already mastered the skills and tools necessary for success. They can work more efficiently because they've solved similar challenges for other clients, and they have established relationships with technology providers that can result in better pricing and support.
The agency model also provides flexibility, allowing you to scale your support up or down based on business needs without the long-term commitments associated with full-time employees.
This is not to say that you shouldn’t hire internally. Some of the most successful ecommerce brands work on a hybrid model, where they’ll have a small internal team that works in tandem with an agency partner.
The ecommerce industry evolves rapidly, with new technologies, platforms, and best practices emerging regularly. Staying current with these changes while running your business can be challenging, but it's essential for maintaining competitive advantage.
An ecommerce agency makes it their business to stay at the forefront of industry developments. They attend conferences, participate in beta programs, and maintain relationships with technology providers to ensure they're always working with the latest tools and techniques.
This commitment to staying current means your business benefits from emerging opportunities without having to invest the time and resources required to identify and evaluate new technologies yourself.
Whilst there’s no exact way to determine if your business needs an ecommerce agency, a number of things will likely fall into place that will signal that it’s a good fit for you.
Some of the things you should consider are your current resources, your growth objectives, and the complexity of your online operations. For example, if you're spending a lot of time managing your website and marketing, and that’s detracting from the time you’re spending running the business - that’s a clear indicator that professional expertise could benefit your business.
Equally, if you’re about to step into a period of major expansion and know you’ll have to divert attention away from marketing and website optimisations, an ecommerce agency should emerge as the natural solution.
The decision often becomes clear when the cost of missed opportunities and inefficient operations exceeds the investment in professional ecommerce services. In other words, you’ll know when you know.
Whilst we can’t give you an exact recommendation, choosing an ecommerce agency to partner with should be a deliberate and considered decision.
It’s important to think about what you want to get out of working with an ecommerce agency. Maybe you need assistance with your marketing strategy, help developing a new website for your business, or you want an ongoing partner who can nimbly and strategically integrate themselves within your business.
Your specific needs should whittle your options down significantly.
Let’s say you needed help with branding and design, website development, and marketing - you could either work with three separate agencies for each aspect of your needs, or you could work with an agency who offers all three.
If the latter option is your preferred choice you’ll also get the benefit of getting everything under one roof and the agency will likely understand how everything works together. If you’re in this boat yourself - an agency like Cake Agency (that’s us by the way) might be a great choice. Cake Agency is a recognised Shopify Partner, meaning the team is well equipped to build a litany of different Shopify websites, they are also well experienced at holistically growing ecommerce brands with marketing, branding, and effective ecommerce execution.
Maybe the agency of choosing matches your specific niche - for example, fashion, footwear, or cosmetics - or maybe they’ve never worked in the industry before but their unique approach stuck out. Make the decision that feels natural to your business.
While we'd never bad mouth another agency, it's not a rare experience for a brand to approach us after having a bad experience with a different agency. So here are some things to look out for when selecting an ecommerce partner.
Some agencies may make particularly grandiose promises about what they can deliver for your business. This is far more common with smaller agencies with an unproven track record, but can be seen by agencies of any size.
No results are guaranteed, especially in an industry like ecommerce that's particularly hard to nail down. We may suggest that a number of things could happen if certain objectives are met, but we'd never undersell how difficult achieving those things are, and what is required for us to do so.
A reputable agency will provide realistic projections based on data, explain the factors that could impact results, and be honest about both opportunities and potential obstacles.
The consultation phase is your first glimpse into how an agency operates and communicates. Red flags during this stage often predict ongoing communication issues throughout the partnership.
If a consultation feels more like a sales pitch than a discovery session, if an agency has minimal interest in the intricacies of your business, or if there’s a general lack of preparation and care - these are all signs that your partnership won’t be as fruitful as you hoped.
A professional ecommerce agency should demonstrate genuine interest in understanding your unique situation, ask thoughtful questions, provide clear explanations, and maintain consistent, timely communication throughout the evaluation and discovery processes.
Being adaptable is great, but if a business doesn't have "their way" of doing things, it's worth raising some eyebrows. What methodology are you investing in?
A credible agency should be able to articulate their proven methodology, explain how they've refined it over time, and demonstrate how they'll adapt it to your specific needs while maintaining their core strategic approach.
For example, Cake Agency uses the “360° ecommerce methodology,” which believes that the design, web development, and marketing aspects of an ecommerce business all feed into each other and affect one another.
To get started working with an ecommerce agency, the first step is to get in touch with the select few agencies you’re interested in. An agency will then reach back out, and figure out what’s required to give your brand the best level of service possible.
Once you’ve made the decision on which agency you’d like to work with, you’ll likely have to sign a formal agreement or contract and go through a series of meeting where you and the agency figure out what the plan for your brand is.
From there, it’s only a matter of time before your business reaps the rewards of partnering with an ecommerce agency.
Whilst we will forever sing the praises of working with an ecommerce agency and have seen first hand how the partnership can benefit brands of all sizes, there are other options worth considering too.
A freelancer is a self-employed individual who provides services to clients on a project-by-project basis, rather than being employed under a long-term contract. This approach is more similar to working with an agency, however a freelancer may not have the same reputation as an established agency. An individual freelancer may not be able to work as quickly, or be able to deliver the same size project as an agency, but they’ll likely charge less as a result.
Investing exclusively in your own team is ultimately the ideal situation for many ecommerce brands. A dedicated internal team won’t be pulled away from working on other projects, and will be able to pivot as and when the business needs. However, hiring an internal team can be a lengthy process, especially if your brand isn’t well established.
A hybrid model is the most common approach for some of the most successful ecommerce brands trading today. A hybrid model combines the best of both worlds, giving your brand access to an agency’s skill set, but also the dedicated resource of an internal team. However, this is often the most expensive option, but often necessary for brands of a certain size.
The decision to partner with an ecommerce agency is ultimately about recognising that operating as a successful ecommerce brand requires specialised expertise, dedicated resources, and strategic thinking.
Whilst it's possible to build and manage the ecommerce operations of your business internally, you ultimately need to weigh up the time and resources it’ll take to handle things internally vs the cost of hiring an ecommerce agency.
An ecommerce agency brings together the technical skills, strategic insight, and industry knowledge needed to maximise your online potential. They’ll provide access to specialised tools and technologies, implement proven optimisation strategies, and offer the scalability required for long-term growth.
For businesses serious about ecommerce success, partnering with an experienced ecommerce agency isn't just a smart investment it's a near necessity.
If you’d be interested in working with a specialised ecommerce agency, contact us - we’d love to hear from you.
Olivia joined Cake as a Junior Account Executive fresh off from the oft travelled digital marketing fast track course at Birmingham City University.
Bringing with her a wealth of experience working in social media management and client facing content creation, Olivia has got stuck right into the world of eCommerce and delivering projects for our vast range of clients. Assisting in managing some of our toughest projects from ideation through to completion across the full mix of digital marketing channels, Olivia ensures that our work is to the high standard that we pride ourselves on, that our clients are happy, and that everything is finished on time.
