What does a Shopify consulting service cover?
It has three parts. First, the audit: your store's technical setup, SEO status, user experience and page speed are measured in a single report. Second, strategy: findings are ordered by impact and effort and turned into a 3, 6 and 12-month roadmap. Third, direction: we decide which integration, which app and which team is genuinely required, and if the needed expert is not on our side we refer you without taking a commission. Consulting is not writing code or running ads; it is the decision about which work happens in which order.
Should I get consulting or technical support?
If your question is “what should I do”, consulting; if it is “who will do this”, technical support. Consulting produces decisions: an audit report, a priority list, a roadmap. Technical support applies the decision and keeps the store standing: theme fixes, app conflicts, bug fixing, regular maintenance. If your store works but you do not know where to invest, choose consulting; if there are concrete faults and a continuous maintenance need,
Shopify technical support and maintenance is the right start. Some brands take both: the roadmap comes out of consulting and delivery runs on the support side.
How long does the consulting process take?
The audit and roadmap part typically takes 1-2 weeks; store size, product count and how many channels you sell through set that duration. What follows is not a schedule but a rhythm: implementation follow-up and monthly review continue for as long as we work together. Our standard package that combines setup and consulting is completed in a maximum of 30 business days. Asking only for a one-off audit report and then continuing with your own team is also possible.
How does pricing work, and is there a commission?
Consulting is priced by scope: do you want only the audit and report, or is the roadmap and monthly review included as well? Scope is settled in the first call and the proposal is given in writing. In our standard proposals invoicing happens in two stages: half of the fee at the start, the remaining half when the work is completed. Third-party costs such as the domain, app licences and Shopify subscription fees are outside the proposal and are purchased in your name. We take no commission from any expert, agency or software vendor we refer; this is a deliberate decision, because the moment we take a commission the advice starts serving the commission instead of your need.
Can a small or brand-new store get consulting too?
Yes, and this is usually where it pays off most. In new stores most mistakes come from the structure built in the first three months: the wrong theme, a pile of unnecessary apps, a collection and URL structure set up broken from the start. Fixing those later costs more than building them right at the beginning. For new brands the scope is kept smaller as well; you do not carry the same audit load as a large store.
What should I look for when choosing a consultant?
Look at four things. First, the field record: are there case studies published with real brand names? Second, independence: does the consultant take a commission from the app or agency they recommend, and do they say so openly? Third, concreteness of the output: what exactly is delivered under the heading of strategy, a report or a dated roadmap? Fourth, measurement: is it written down up front which metric will be tracked and with which tool? On our side the answer is this: six years on Shopify only, a 5.0 Shopify Partner rating with more than 210 verified reviews, and
case studies published with real brand names.
Can I get consulting in parallel while working with my current agency?
You can; a good share of consulting requests arrive exactly this way. In that setup our role is not to do your agency's job but to measure whether the work being done serves the right work: the audit is independent, priorities are ordered against your brand's goals, and your agency's reporting is compared with that picture. If you want us to work with your agency directly, a joint working arrangement on technical topics can also be set up, and in that arrangement who does what is put in writing up front.
What is in the audit report?
The report has four sections: technical setup (theme code, app conflicts, data structure), SEO (indexing, title and description structure, structured data, internal linking), user experience (collection and product page flow, cart and checkout steps, mobile usage) and speed (mobile and desktop measurements, which resource is slowing things down). Findings are written concretely: a shut-down analytics service still loading on the page, two separate apps doing the same job, a size showing in stock while its quantity is zero, a language alternate URL that does not work. Every item is marked by impact and effort, so the report becomes a work plan rather than a list.
Can I get consulting before moving to Shopify?
Yes, and taking it before you make the migration decision is the best moment. What gets discussed at this stage: how much of the data on your current platform can move, how the URL structure and organic traffic will be protected, which Shopify plan fits you, which integrations are required and the realistic work order of the migration. Data is never moved in one go; it is first tested on a small group, record counts are compared, and only when the difference is zero is everything transferred. If you have already decided to migrate, you can also look at our
migration to Shopify process.
Do you also handle the implementation after the consulting?
We can, but it is not required. Once the roadmap exists there are three paths: our team delivers it, your team delivers it and we follow up, or an independent expert we refer delivers it. Measurement and the monthly review stay the same in all three. We do not run consulting as a doorway to selling our own services; there are cases where the report says you do not need to do this work right now.