Successful ecommerce websites can’t be built in a day – in fact, it’s best not to ever think of such a website as finished. This is because the online market is constantly changing, evolving, and the most successful ecommerce companies are equipped with the tools to evolve with it. One such tool is partnering with an ecommerce agency.
Where digital marketers are a broad term encompassing all types of online marketing, an ecommerce consultant is a specialized relationship that works specifically with ecommerce clients to ensure that their website is properly optimized for every step of the client journey. This means a website that has the right front-end design to attract new customers, the right shopping tools to make it easy for customers to find the product or service they want and check out, the right post-purchase tools that enable customers to track shipped products, and the right follow-up tools to help transform those first-time customers into repeat customers and referrals.
Why not hire an in-house staff member to perform this type of service? When determining to hire any internal employee, companies must either choose a specialist or a generalist. A specialist may provide high value as they have the specific skillset and a high level of knowledge in the area for which you’re hiring them for. However, that skillset and knowledge comes at a hefty salary, on-board training, and benefits costs. Young and growing companies may then instead opt to hire a generalist who has lower costs but the big disadvantage of not being fully prepped and skilled to help a team succeed.
So thus there comes the alternative option of hiring an outside ecommerce agency with whom you get to enjoy full access to an entire team of skilled and knowledgeable specialists – including digital strategists, front-end and back-end developers, interactive designers, and others – but you don’t have to finance their benefits, salary, and onboard training. This is the cost-effective and strategic option.
Ecommerce Agency Definition
The ecommerce agency definition is best summarized as an external team of skilled individuals who come in and work side-by-side with online businesses and shops to resolve complex issues and meet and exceed current and ongoing commercial goals. An agency is capable of doing this as they offer businesses a team of creative, marketing, and technological experts who have the right tools to get things done and done right.
Young and growing businesses may understandably be concerned with the prospect of hiring an outside agency, especially when it requires back-end web development and the requisite sharing of key business details. Know that when you hire on an ecommerce consultant, you create an agency relationship which is a legal relationship and bound to certain stipulations. However, it is important to be selective and choose only an experienced and well-vetted team when entering into an agency relationship, and to follow-up with strict NDAs and business agreements, as in doing so, you give the agency authority to act on your behalf.
With great skills comes great responsibility and a great ecommerce agency will offer the best of skills and show a history via referrals of maintaining their clients' best interests and business security.
Full Service Ecommerce Agency
So now that you know how important it is to be selective but also how valuable an ecommerce agency can be, the next question is invariably how. How do you know you’re selecting the right ecommerce agency?
If you’ve been in business for some time now, then you’ve likely been accosted before by digital marketers and digital marketing agencies promising the world. How is ecommerce different from that? First, any individual with a Chromebook may call themselves a digital marketer but they cannot truly be an ecommerce agent or member of a robust ecommerce digital agency.
This is because, as noted above, a full service ecommerce agency employs a team of specialists. Specialists in creative web design, development, marketing, sales, platform delivery, and more. There is an emphasis here on creativity as one of the most valuable assets a great ecommerce management agency will bring is a unique, outside opinion and skillset. A knowledgeable and experienced full service ecommerce agency will partner with their merchant client and aide them in better defining, communicating, and growing a brand’s value and reputation via online commerce.
Ecommerce Marketing Agency
As a business owner or manager, you are undoubtedly passionate about your specific or niche product line or service in a way that outside groups won’t be able to match. But likewise, a skilled and experienced ecommerce marketing agency is going to be just as equally passionate about helping your ecommerce business meet and exceed online shop goals. When you hire such a e commerce PR agency, you have the option to hire them on specifically to help you learn how you can better to craft content and market your products, or you can establish that more comprehensive agency relationship defined above and give them the full reins to accomplish what needs to be done on their own.
As with all things, there are pros and cons to each decision and choosing one’s best for your company will depend on where you are now with your ecommerce and where you want to be. Hiring an ecommerce agency to act more as a tutorial digital marketing agency tutorial is a great way to see what is successful and get members of your own team up to speed with how better to perform as online store marketing companies. But if your store needs a lot of work and you have long-term goals for what you want your ecommerce site to achieve with content and advertisements, this short-term relationship may not be enough.
In contrast, hiring on an ecommerce content marketing agency with marketing experience, you may be looking at more ongoing costs, but you can also enjoy results that would not be possible otherwise with your current in-house team.
Ecommerce Design Agency
There are a lot of great plug-and-play website platforms out there that can make it easy for individuals and start-ups to hit the ground running with their own website. However, even the best of these platforms are limited and there is no comparison to the skills and understanding a full service ecommerce design agency and ecommerce website design agency can bring to the table to create a fantastic aesthetic and UX across devices.
As with marketing, an ecommerce company can opt to hire a freelance web designer or a web site design agency to simply build their website and then take it from there, or they can opt to partner with a website and ecommerce branding agency for the long-haul. As before, a long-term agency relationship may be more expensive, but you get some pretty outstanding advantages. With a long-term ecommerce design agency relationship, the front-end and back-end developers within that agency will be able to grow with your company, creating a gorgeous looking website with a great user-friendly interface from the onset and then evolving that branding to meet the changing demands of your audience and business goals.
Ecommerce Development Agency
Where web design refers generally to a websites's aesthetics and usability, web development is about taking that design and branding and creating a comprehensive and highly functional website from it. Sometimes called programmers, web developers use programming language to convert static layouts into dynamic and gorgeous websites, often with interactive components.
Of all the skills a full-service ecommerce agency brings to the table, this one is perhaps the most important and it’s our own skills at this that has lent us to being named one of the best e commmerce websites development company in the industry. This facet is critical as just a few wrong lines of code can completely destroy a company’s website and and a poorly-functioning ecommerce storefront can cause would-be customers to go elsewhere.
But our ecommerce development agency members aren’t renown for being the best just because they create a properly functioning storefront. No, we are one of the top 10 ecommerce development company because we innovate, creating comprehensive solutions like seamless mail tracking that improves customer experience as they know exactly when products are shipped and when they will be received.
Ecommerce Agencies Reviews
Your business is your baby and even though hiring an ecommerce agency can offer so many benefits, it is important to not hire anyone. There are certainly many fantastic individual freelancers who can provide you with great marketing content, great website design, and great web development, but if you want a partner for the long-run that can offer all of the above through one large experienced and collaborative team, then you want to hire a full-service ecommerce solution company.
Start your search by asking other business owners for their experience and recommendations and searching online for top ecommerce marketing agencies and third-party ecommerce agencies reviews. When you reach out to a potential ecommerce agency to partner with, ask them about previous clients so that you can see for yourself how their work holds up in real life. Explore their clients’ websites and ecommerce tools. Once you have an agency you want to partner with, ask about trial projects. While professional agencies aren’t likely to do work for free, they will often offer a discounted trial period for those clients looking to hire a long-term partner.
Never forget that the top ecommerce marketing agencies and development teams will treat you and you hiring them as the beginning of a partnership relationship. Hired agencies should aim to collaborate, to create the customized solutions that will meet your unique business needs and branding.
