One accountable team
No gaps between agencies, and no argument about whose job the storefront was.
WE RUN IT, YOU TRADE
Full Shopify store management
For brands without an in-house ecommerce team, we run the store day to day — development, merchandising support, campaign pages and the roadmap. Mighty Jaxx and Trunki are both managed this way.
IN SHORT
- For brands without an in-house ecommerce team, we run the storefront day to day rather than waiting for briefs.
- One team is accountable for the whole storefront, which removes the gaps that appear when work is split between agencies.
- Where there is an in-house team, we usually take the engineering and leave merchandising with them.
- It includes the proactive work: noticing the thing nobody raised a ticket about.
- Trunki and Mighty Jaxx are both managed this way.
The gap this fills
Plenty of good brands have no ecommerce team. A founder who knows the product, someone doing marketing, a warehouse — and a Shopify store that gets attention when something breaks.
The usual fix is hiring an ecommerce manager, which works if you can find a good one and afford them. The other fix is several agencies: one for development, one for paid, one for email. That works too, right up to the point where something falls between them, and the thing that falls between them is usually the storefront itself.
Full management means one team is accountable for the store. Not for briefs delivered — for the store. Including the parts nobody raised a ticket about.
How it works
Five stages. Stage two prevents most of what goes wrong in managed relationships.
- 01
Take ownership properly
A full audit of theme, apps, integrations and analytics, plus the commercial context — margins, seasonality, what the business is trying to do this year. We cannot run a store on technical knowledge alone.
- 02
Agree the boundary
What we own, what you own, what we decide without asking. Ambiguity here is what makes managed relationships frustrating for both sides.
- 03
Build the calendar
The trading and campaign calendar for the year ahead, so launches, peaks and quiet periods are planned against rather than reacted to.
- 04
Run it
Development, campaign pages, merchandising support, performance, integrations and app management — executed, not queued for approval piece by piece.
- 05
Report to the business
Regular reporting against the numbers that matter commercially, in language a founder or board reads, not a development changelog.
Retainer against full management
| Development retainer | Full management | |
|---|---|---|
| Who sets the work | You brief, we deliver | We propose and run the roadmap |
| Proactive work | Suggested | Executed within the agreed boundary |
| Campaign calendar | You own it | We plan against it with you |
| Reporting | What shipped | Against commercial numbers |
| Best for | Brands with an ecommerce lead in-house | Brands without one |
What we run
- Development, releases and QA end to end
- Campaign and landing page production against the calendar
- Merchandising support — collections, navigation, seasonal changes
- Performance, Core Web Vitals and the maintenance cycle
- Apps: what is installed, what it costs, what should be removed
- Integrations and the systems behind the storefront
- The roadmap, reviewed with you against commercial priorities
What stays with you: buying, inventory ownership, pricing, brand direction and customer service. We run the storefront, not the business.
Why the boundary matters
The conversation worth having on day one
Managed relationships fail in one of two directions. Either the agency waits for approval on everything, in which case you have bought a slower version of a retainer. Or it acts freely and eventually does something commercially wrong, because it did not know a margin, a supplier constraint, or a promise made to a retail partner.
So we agree explicitly what we decide alone. Usually: technical and maintenance decisions, small optimisations, anything time-sensitive. And what always comes to you: brand, pricing, commercial position, anything with a contractual dimension.
Written down, revisited as trust builds. It is a dull conversation that prevents most of the friction.
What you get
Proactive, not reactive
The work nobody briefed gets done, because noticing it is part of the job.
Commercial reporting
Reported against business numbers, in language a founder or board reads.
Continuity
The same senior people, year after year. Most of our clients have been with us for years.
Brands we manage
Trunki
Trunki moved from Magento to Shopify Plus, with a configurator for the custom, one-off ride-on designs the brand is known for. We have managed the store since.
Moonglow
Moonglow sells jewellery set to the moon phase of a date that matters to you. We built Find Your Moon: the customer enters a date of birth or other significant date, the store renders that moon phase, and it drives the personalised product.
Mighty Jaxx
Trunki
Trunki moved from Magento to Shopify Plus, with a configurator for the custom, one-off ride-on designs the brand is known for. We have managed the store since.
Store management questions
What does full store management cover?
Everything on the storefront side: development, campaign and landing pages, merchandising support, performance, integrations and the roadmap.
Do you work alongside an in-house team?
Often, yes. Where there is an in-house team we usually take the engineering and leave merchandising with them.
What does full store management cover?
Everything on the storefront side: development, campaign and landing pages, merchandising support, performance, integrations, app management and the roadmap. It does not cover buying, inventory ownership or customer service, which stay with the business.
Do you work alongside an in-house team?
Often. Where there is an in-house team we usually take the engineering and technical roadmap and leave merchandising and trading with them, because they know the customer and the margin better than any agency will.
What decisions do you make without asking?
Whatever we agree at the boundary stage. Typically that is technical and maintenance decisions, small optimisations and anything time-sensitive; anything affecting brand, pricing or commercial position comes to you.
Related
Ongoing Retainers
A named senior team in your timezone, with agreed response times and a roadmap reviewed monthly.
Campaign & Landing Pages
Ongoing landing page production for brands shipping campaigns faster than a project cycle allows.
Maintenance & Theme Health
App audits, theme updates and the unglamorous work that keeps a store fast after launch.
If you have an ecommerce lead in-house, a development retainer is usually the better fit.
NEXT STEP
Month-to-month retainers
Fixed monthly blocks of senior hours, no long lock-in. The people who built your store are the people who keep improving it.