hiring
Nine red flags when hiring an ecommerce agency
The warning signs that reliably predict a bad project, drawn from the briefs and post-mortems we see.
Most failed ecommerce projects were predictable at the proposal stage. These are the signals, roughly in order of how reliably they forecast trouble.
1. They quote before asking what your store connects to
The fastest way to spot an agency that will blow through your budget. Integrations are the largest variable in ecommerce work. Anyone who gives you a firm number without asking about your ERP, 3PL, tax and subscription tooling has priced a website, and you’re buying a system.
2. The proposal has no exclusions
A serious proposal tells you what it does not include: content writing, photography, data cleanup, third-party licence costs, post-launch support beyond N days. An exclusions list is not the agency being difficult, it’s the agency having been burned before. Its absence means every one of those becomes a change order.
3. You never meet the people doing the work
Sales-led agencies are fine — someone has to sell. But if you can’t get thirty minutes with the actual lead developer before signing, you don’t know what you’re buying. Ask directly: “who writes the code, and can I speak to them?”
4. Case studies with no numbers
“We redesigned their store” is a portfolio piece. “Conversion went from 1.4% to 2.1% over four months, here’s what we changed” is a case study. If nobody in the portfolio will let them publish a number, ask why.
5. Reviews clustered in one month
Check the dates on the rating. Forty five-star reviews inside one quarter, then nothing, is a review drive rather than a track record. Steady reviews over years are worth far more than a higher average earned in a burst.
6. They agree to your timeline immediately
If you say “eight weeks” and they say “no problem” without asking what’s in scope, they either haven’t thought about it or they’re planning to renegotiate later. Good agencies push back on timelines. It’s the strongest positive signal in the entire process.
7. No staging environment or QA process in the proposal
Ask what their deployment process looks like. If the answer is vague, or if changes go straight to the live store, you will find out what that means during your busiest week.
8. The contract has no exit
You need to know: who owns the code, where the repository lives, and what happens if you part ways in month four. If the answer is “we host it and it’s ours”, you’re renting your own store. This is more common than it should be, and it’s the hardest problem to fix after the fact.
9. Cheapest by a wide margin
Three quotes at $45k, $52k and $9k does not mean you found a bargain. It means the $9k agency scoped something different — usually a theme install where the others quoted a build. Ask them to explain the gap. Sometimes there’s a good answer. Usually the answer reveals the misunderstanding.
What good looks like
For balance, the positive signals that track:
- They ask about your business before your website.
- They tell you something you didn’t want to hear in the first call.
- They decline part of the scope, or refer you elsewhere for it.
- The proposal has a discovery phase with its own deliverable and its own price.
- They have opinions about your catalogue.
The reference call
Always do it, and ask one question: “What went wrong, and how did they handle it?”
Every project has something go wrong. An agency whose references can’t name anything either hasn’t done enough work or has coached the reference. The way a team behaves in week nine when something breaks is the actual product you’re buying.
Want a second opinion on a shortlist you already have? Send it over — we’ll tell you what we’d ask them.