Ecommerce Strategy and Consulting
Playceholdr works with brands and retailers across New Zealand and Australia on the decisions that sit around an ecommerce build rather than inside it.
Platform selection, replatforming, ecommerce audits, scoping and prioritisation, and the commercial questions that determine whether a website project is worth doing at all.
We consult as people who build. Advice that cannot be implemented, or that ignores what implementation actually costs, is not worth much.
Should we replatform, and if so to what
Shopify or BigCommerce, for how our business actually works
Do we rebuild the store or improve what we already have
Why is traffic holding up while conversion is not
What should be in scope, and what should wait
How do we run B2B and DTC without duplicating everything
Which integrations matter, and in what order
We have a fixed budget. Where does it go for the best return
Ecommerce audits
The most common starting point, and the one that produces the clearest output.
An audit is a structured review of an existing store and the operation around it. Depending on scope, it covers the customer experience and where customers drop out, the checkout and conversion path, analytics and whether the data can be trusted, technical health and performance, catalogue and information architecture, apps and integrations, platform fit against current requirements, and search visibility.
The deliverable is not a list of everything wrong. It is a prioritised set of findings separating the things costing you money now from the things that are merely imperfect, with an estimate of effort against each so you can make an actual decision about sequencing.
Audits are useful before a rebuild, when performance has plateaued and nobody can say why, when an internal team wants an outside read on their own store, or when a business is deciding whether to keep investing in the current platform.
A findings list without effort estimates is not a plan. It is a longer version of the problem.
Platform selection and replatforming
Replatforming is one of the most expensive decisions an ecommerce business makes, and it is regularly made on the wrong basis: a frustrating experience with the current platform, a demo that showed well, or a recommendation from whoever is available to build it.
Choosing between Shopify and BigCommerce
The useful comparison is rarely feature by feature. It is about how your business actually runs.
Shopify tends to suit brands where the operation is relatively conventional, where the DTC experience carries the business, and where a large app ecosystem and a large local development market are worth more than deep native configurability. Shopify Plus extends that into higher volume, B2B and more customisable checkout. Where the decision is already made and the work is implementation rather than platform choice, that sits under Shopify development.
BigCommerce tends to suit businesses with more configuration complexity: larger or more structured catalogues, layered pricing, more involved account structures, and requirements that would sit awkwardly on top of a consumer platform.
The questions that actually decide it are about catalogue structure, pricing logic, the ERP or systems of record, whether you sell B2B, and what your team needs to be able to change without a developer. If wholesale or trade ordering is central to the decision, our B2B ecommerce work covers those requirements in more depth.
Deciding whether to replatform at all
Often the honest answer is no, or not yet.
A replatform costs more than the build. It costs data migration, integration rework, retraining, SEO risk during transition, and a period where the business is operating on something unfamiliar during the change. If the underlying problem is a badly built theme or a broken integration rather than the platform itself, replatforming is an expensive way to solve a cheaper problem.
We would rather work that out with you before a proposal exists than after.
Pre build strategy and scoping
Where a build is going ahead, the strategy work sits in front of it.
That covers understanding the commercial objectives and how success will be measured, defining requirements against how the business actually operates, mapping the customer journeys that matter most, deciding what is in scope for launch and what belongs in a later phase, and identifying the integration and data dependencies that tend to determine the real timeline.
The main output is usually a much smaller launch scope than the one the business started with, and a clear reason for everything that was deferred. Projects rarely fail because they were too focused.
This work can lead into an ecommerce website design engagement with us, or be handed to another team. Both are fine.
Ecommerce roadmaps and ongoing advisory
Once a store is live, the constraint shifts from what to build to what to do next.
We work with internal teams on prioritisation: what to test, what to fix, what to build, what to leave alone, and how to sequence it against available budget and development capacity. That can run as a defined roadmap piece or as an ongoing advisory relationship where we sit in as an external ecommerce lead for businesses that do not have one, and it stays useful whether it works alongside ongoing ecommerce support or a separate delivery team.
For brands with an internal marketing team but no senior ecommerce owner, this is frequently the highest value engagement we run, because the bottleneck is not execution capacity. It is deciding what is worth executing.
Consultants who build
Most ecommerce consultants cannot implement what they recommend. Most agencies advise in a direction that happens to require the work they sell.
We are transparent about sitting in both categories, which is why we would rather be specific about how it works. We build on Shopify and BigCommerce, so our estimates of effort, cost and feasibility come from having done the work rather than from a benchmark. When we recommend against a project, or recommend a smaller one, we are recommending against our own revenue, and that is worth more to you than a strategy document written by someone with no exposure to the build.
Consulting engagements do not require you to build with us. Some clients take the audit or the roadmap and execute it internally or with another partner. If that is the better outcome, it is the better outcome.
Capabilities
Ecommerce audits
Structured review of the store, the funnel, the data and the technical foundation, with prioritised findings.
Platform selection
Working through Shopify, Shopify Plus, BigCommerce and the alternatives against real operational requirements.
Replatforming strategy
Assessing whether to move, what it genuinely costs, and how to sequence a migration to limit risk.
Requirements and scoping
Defining what a build needs to do, what belongs at launch, and what is better deferred.
Conversion and funnel analysis
Identifying where customers are dropping out and what is actually causing it.
Analytics review
Checking that tracking is correct and that the numbers being used to make decisions can be trusted.
Ecommerce roadmaps
Prioritised plans for what to build, fix and test across the next few quarters.
Ongoing advisory
Acting as an external ecommerce lead for teams without a senior ecommerce owner.
Common questions
What does an ecommerce consultant actually do?
In practice, helps a business make a small number of expensive decisions correctly. Which platform to be on, whether to rebuild, what to build first, why conversion is where it is, and where a fixed budget should go. The work usually produces a specific deliverable, such as an audit with prioritised findings, a platform recommendation, a defined project scope or a roadmap, rather than open ended advice.
Should we choose Shopify or BigCommerce?
It depends on catalogue structure, pricing logic, whether you sell B2B, what systems you need to integrate with, and what your team needs to manage without a developer. Shopify generally suits conventional DTC operations and benefits from a larger app and development ecosystem. BigCommerce generally suits businesses with heavier configuration, pricing or account structure requirements. We work across both, so the recommendation is not shaped by what we happen to build.
Do we need a full rebuild, or can we improve the store we have?
Frequently the second, and it is worth establishing which before commissioning either. If the platform still fits the business and the problems are concentrated in specific templates, integrations or the checkout path, targeted improvement usually delivers more for the money. A rebuild makes sense when the foundation limits what can be changed, or when the business has moved past what the current store was designed for. An audit answers this question directly.
How long does an ecommerce audit take?
Most audits run around two to four weeks depending on scope, catalogue size and how much analytics access is available. The output is a prioritised set of findings with effort estimates, along with a session to work through it, so the business can decide what to act on rather than receiving a document and no direction.
Can you work alongside our internal team?
Yes, and a good share of our consulting work runs that way. That includes advising an internal team through a build delivered by someone else, providing an outside read on their own store, or acting as an ongoing external ecommerce lead where there is no senior ecommerce owner internally.
Working through an ecommerce decision?
Tell us about your projectYou might be weighing a replatform, trying to work out why a store that looks fine is not converting, deciding how to spend a fixed budget, or wanting an outside view before committing to a project that has already been scoped internally.
We can work on a defined piece such as an audit or a platform recommendation, run the strategy phase in front of a build, or work with your team on an ongoing basis.
The first step is understanding the decision you are actually trying to make.