The most expensive mistakes happen before the first line of code. We settle platform, sequence, and roadmap - as an audit, workshop, or retainer.
- Since 2019
- 150+ Migrations and Relaunches
- Official Shopify Plus Partner
What do we work on in an advisory engagement?
Platform and architecture decisions
Platform evaluation with an open outcome, an assessment of your existing landscape, effort and running cost over several years rather than licence prices alone - including the cases where Shopify is not the right answer.
Roadmap and prioritisation
A list of wishes becomes a reasoned order: what serves which goal, what blocks what, what can wait. The result is a plan your team can carry forward without us.
Internationalisation and make-or-buy
Market sequence, domain and language strategy, local payment methods and tax - plus the question of which capabilities you build, buy or deliberately leave out.
When is Shopify the right platform - and when is it not?
For: standard processes at high frequency
If ordering, payment, shipping and returns work in fundamentally normal ways, Shopify plays to its strength: you do not pay to rebuild the obvious.
For: international expansion
Markets, currencies, languages and local payment methods exist as platform features. This is precisely where in-house builds typically come apart.
For: a small in-house tech team
Hosting, scaling, PCI and security sit with the platform. If you have two developers, they should not be busy with infrastructure.
For: short time to market
If a market, brand or channel has to be live in months rather than years, the standard is almost always the faster route.
Against: deeply custom order and pricing logic
If price determination, quotas or order logic are the core of your business, you will work against the platform permanently rather than with it.
Against: configuration rather than catalog
Products that emerge from thousands of valid combinations fit poorly into a variant- and catalog-based model.
Against: regulated checkout requirements
Industries with verification, evidence or approval duties inside the purchase flow run into the limits of what the checkout allows.
Against: commerce is only part of the product
If the store is merely an appendix to a platform or software product, a storefront-only integration can beat a full shop system.
How does an advisory engagement actually run?
Take stock
Store, system landscape, data, numbers and processes are recorded. The result is a written assessment with prioritised findings - readable for management and IT alike.
Clarify goals and bottlenecks
We separate what genuinely holds your growth back from what merely annoys people. Both are legitimate, but only the first belongs at the start of a roadmap.
Assess the options
For every open question we describe two or three routes - with effort, risk, running cost and what each decision closes off for you.
Decide in a workshop
One or two days with your team. We facilitate, bring in experience from comparable setups and make sure decisions are actually made - but we do not make them for you.
Write the roadmap
The decisions become a sequence with timeframes and dependencies. Every item gets a goal it can be measured against later.
Support the build
On request as a retainer: recurring sessions, technical reviews, sparring on tenders and decisions during live operations - regardless of who ends up building.
Which format fits your question?
Audit
One-off, one to three weeks. Fits when you want to know where you stand and what is actually broken.
Workshop
One or two days, scheduled. Fits when the options are known and a decision has to be made.
Retainer
Ongoing, with a fixed allowance. Fits when you need continuous technical sparring without building a team of your own.
Second opinion
Short and focused. Fits when a quote, an architecture or a platform recommendation should be checked from the outside.
Is consulting the right next step?
Then an outside view pays off
Several routes are plausible
Two or three workable options are on the table, and there is no internal agreement on which of them will hold.
The decision is hard to reverse
Platform, domain strategy and data model can only be corrected later through migration, redirects or permanent double maintenance.
The wish list is longer than the budget
There are more initiatives than capacity, and the order is currently set by volume of voice rather than expected impact.
The last relaunch did not deliver
Technically everything works, the expected effect still failed to appear, and an independent assessment is missing internally.
Then you need delivery, not another analysis
The decision was made long ago
If platform, scope and sequence are settled, another round of analysis only costs time before the build starts.
Shopify developmentThe question is measurable
Whether load time and Core Web Vitals are good enough is answered faster and more precisely by real user data than by a workshop.
Shopify performanceIt is about the platform change itself
If the only open question is whether and how an existing store moves to Shopify, there is a separate free entry point for that.
Migration auditBrands with €950M+ GMV trust NICCOS
Common questions about strategy and consulting
Do you advise even if you do not build?
Yes. Audit, workshop and second opinion are standalone services and end with a document you can hand to another agency. If we conclude that we are not the right implementation partner, that goes into the result as well.
Do you always recommend Shopify?
No. We have worked predominantly on Shopify for years, which is exactly why we know its limits. If your requirements around ordering, pricing or configuration logic sit beyond what Shopify and its ecosystem cover sensibly, we say so.
What does consulting cost?
The price depends on the format and the size of your system landscape, not on store revenue. A focused audit is far smaller than a platform evaluation involving several vendors and departments. We name the price range in the first call, once format and scope are clear.
Who should attend the workshop?
At minimum one person who is allowed to decide, one from day-to-day store operations and one from IT. Without decision authority in the room you end up with minutes instead of a roadmap, and the open questions stay exactly as open as before.
How is consulting different from a quote?
A quote describes what we would build. Consulting settles beforehand whether and what should be built at all. Mixing the two turns the analysis into a sales conversation, which is why we separate them and bill advisory work on its own.
How long does a platform evaluation take?
It depends on the number of departments involved, not the number of platforms reviewed. The effort lies in sorting requirements from purchasing, logistics, marketing and IT so that they can be assessed against each other.
What happens after the roadmap?
You decide whether to build in-house, run a tender or continue with us. The implementation services - development, app development, system integration, SEO, performance and internationalisation - are described on their own pages and can be commissioned individually.
Which decision is on your desk?
Tell us where you are stuck. We will tell you whether an audit, a workshop or a short outside look is the right answer.
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