--- tytul: "E-commerce Consulting: Margin, Platform, Markets" opis: "A store that grows revenue while margin shrinks looks healthy in the dashboard. We subtract product cost, returns, fees and ads to show what earns." adres: https://justidea.agency/en/services/marketing-agency/ecommerce-consulting/ serwis: "JustIdea Agency" jezyk: pl zrodlo: automatyczny odpowiednik strony HTML, generowany przy każdym buildzie --- [Home](https://justidea.agency/en/)/[Services](https://justidea.agency/en/services/)/[Digital marketing agency](https://justidea.agency/en/services/digital-marketing-agency/)/E-commerce consulting Consulting [4.96 224 reviews](https://justidea.agency/en/justidea-reviews/) # E-commerce consulting: is your store actually making money? A store that grows in revenue while it shrinks in margin looks exactly the same in the dashboard as one that grows in a healthy way. The difference shows only after you subtract product cost, returns, logistics and advertising, product by product. That is what our ecommerce consulting does: we go through this calculation with you and decide what to change in the range, prices, platform and sales channels, whether you sell in Poland already or are about to enter the Polish market. Book a call about your store See what you get ** The calculation comes before the recommendation We start with margin after product cost and returns. Without that number, any advice about a store is guesswork. ** We also advise you not to do things The most common recommendation for a store is to withdraw part of the range, not to add another channel. ![A store's margin calculation broken down by product and channel](https://justidea.agency/assets/ill-doradztwo-ecommerce.svg) ![PrestaShop Expert ★★★](https://justidea.agency/obrazy/prestashop-expert-300x133-bba7abf7.webp) 3-6 weeks from data to decision Trusted by ![LPP](https://justidea.agency/obrazy/lpp-logo-2-b64d3a02.svg) ![House](https://justidea.agency/obrazy/logo-house-c706eeae.svg) ![Toyota](https://justidea.agency/obrazy/toyota2-1-63c6570a.webp) ![Fame MMA](https://justidea.agency/obrazy/fame-ffb4e0d0.webp) ![Surf Inc.](https://justidea.agency/obrazy/surfinc-91e5b73d.webp) ![LyoFood](https://justidea.agency/obrazy/lyo-cb899d46.webp) ![ExpertSender](https://justidea.agency/obrazy/expert-ca00548d.webp) ![Purinova](https://justidea.agency/obrazy/purinova-217da6ab.webp) ![Mennica Gdańska](https://justidea.agency/obrazy/mennica-98166c12.webp) ![Group IB](https://justidea.agency/obrazy/group-ib-b711171e.webp) ![Smart Kids Planet](https://justidea.agency/obrazy/smart-kids-151311c5.webp) ![SuperSonic](https://justidea.agency/obrazy/supersonic-a35404fe.webp) ![Wierzynek](https://justidea.agency/obrazy/wierzynek-1-d027e7cc.webp) ![RegoBis](https://justidea.agency/obrazy/regobis-a8b446e3.webp) Technology partners ![PrestaShop Expert ★★★](https://justidea.agency/obrazy/prestashop-expert-300x133-bba7abf7.webp) ![Google Premier Partner](https://justidea.agency/obrazy/google-premier-partner-d0211fa8.svg) ![Meta Business Partner](https://justidea.agency/obrazy/meta-partner-300x172-8802cc64.webp) ![ExpertSender Premium Partner](https://justidea.agency/obrazy/expertsender-premium-300x60-f6573b2d.webp) ![GetResponse MAX Trusted Partner](https://justidea.agency/assets/osiagniecia/partner-getresponse-max.webp) Starting point ## When does a store need a decision rather than a contractor? When the next campaign or the next module will change nothing, because the problem of your e-commerce sits one floor higher: in the margin, the range or the platform. Four situations where this shows most clearly: ** ### Revenue grows, the bank balance does not The classic case. Online sales grow for the products with the lowest margin or the highest return rate, and the dashboard shows only revenue, so it looks like success. ** ### Nobody knows which products make money Without sales analytics broken down by product, every promotion decision is random. It usually turns out that a small share of the range generates the entire margin, while part of it loses money. ** ### The marketplace or new market question Allegro (the largest marketplace in Poland), Amazon, your own store in a neighbouring country, or Poland itself for a brand from abroad. Each of these channels has a different cost of entry and a different effect on margin, and the decision to grow sales is often taken on a hunch. ** ### The platform gets in the way more than it helps Migration is expensive and irreversible, so before it you should settle whether the problem really lies in the platform or in what was built on it. Definition ### What is ecommerce consulting? **E-commerce consulting is** work in which someone from outside goes through a store's numbers, its range, platform and sales channels, and then says which decisions raise profit and which only raise turnover. An ecommerce consultant differs from agency management in one thing: the work ends with recommendations on paper, not with an invoice for running campaigns. The scope covers the store's business model, its platform and all sales channels at once. Margin, not revenue We calculate profit after product cost, returns, logistics and advertising, broken down by product and channel. It is the only measure at which promotion decisions stop being a lottery. Range and prices Which products drive the result and which eat it, where there is room for a price rise without losing sales, and what is worth withdrawing along with all its handling. These changes raise profit without adding a single euro to advertising. Logistics and returns The cost of shipping and handling a return can eat the whole margin on a low-value basket. We check where the break-even point lies, how customer service works after a return and what to do about it. Platform and channels Whether your current e-commerce platform can carry your plans for the next two years, whether a marketplace makes sense at your margin and which foreign market is the cheapest to test. We settle the choice of platform with numbers, not with a contractor's preference. How it works ## How long does e-commerce consulting take and what comes out of each stage? From three to six weeks, depending on the state of the data. At the end there is a document with recommendations and an hour of discussion, not a presentation. 1. 1 ### Data and access 1-2 weeks Analytics, the store admin panel, product costs, returns, shipping costs, ad spend. We work on your data, not on industry benchmarks, and put it together into one margin calculation per product and per channel. 2. 2 ### Interviews and the market 1 week Conversations with the people responsible for sales, purchasing and logistics, plus a review of the e-commerce market in your industry and of competitors' prices. This is usually where it turns out that some assumptions about running the business have no support in the data. 3. 3 ### Workshop and recommendations 1-2 weeks We test the conclusions against your knowledge of the market, then hand over a document: what to do, in what order, what to withdraw, how much it costs and who will do it. 4. 4 ### Support during implementation optional We can stay on call while the recommendations are implemented, also when someone else carries them out. This is a separate and cheaper form of working together, billed monthly. Client reviews ## Before you trust a consultant, look at the agency's ratings Consulting is bought on the strength of a conversation, and a conversation is not proof. The average below covers the whole of JustIdea, not consulting alone. 4.96 / 5 weighted average of 224 reviews across three platforms. Clients gave them, and each site below links to the profile with the full text of every review. [Read the reviews](https://justidea.agency/en/justidea-reviews/) [![Google](https://justidea.agency/assets/logo-google.svg) 4.97 / 5 156 reviews on our Google Business Profile See the profile](https://www.google.com/search?q=JustIdea+Agency+Krak%C3%B3w+opinie)[![Facebook](https://justidea.agency/assets/logo-facebook.svg) 5.0 / 5 33 reviews on our Facebook page See the profile](https://www.facebook.com/justidea.agency/reviews)[![Clutch](https://justidea.agency/assets/logo-clutch.svg) 4.9 / 5 35 B2B reviews, each verified in a call with the client See the profile](https://clutch.co/profile/justidea-agency) Certifications and partnerships ## Who puts their name to the recommendations Consulting is a document on which you base decisions for the year ahead. Below is what JustIdea can show beyond its own opinion of itself. ### PrestaShop Expert ★★★ PrestaShop, agency programme The top level of the agency programme. In consulting it means that the assessment of the platform is not an outside opinion, but the knowledge of someone who builds on it and knows what a module can do and what needs a rebuild. ### Google Premier Partner Google, top tier of the Google Partners programme A status awarded on the basis of client results. In e-commerce consulting it lets us estimate the real cost of acquisition in a new market or a new channel before you spend the first euro on it. ### Meta Business Partner Meta, partner programme Access to data and tools on Meta's side. In the margin calculation it lets us separate sales that would have happened without advertising from those you really pay for. Doubts before we start ## E-commerce consulting: four things we hear ### „We know our business better than anyone” Usually true, and that is not why we come in. A consultant does not bring knowledge of your industry, but a calculation made without attachment to decisions taken in your company before. The conclusions can be uncomfortable because of that, and we say them anyway, because that is what you pay for. ### „An agency will recommend what it sells itself” A fair suspicion. That is why the price of consulting does not depend on what you order afterwards, and in the recommendations we state plainly what your team will do and what someone else will do more cheaply. ### „We have an analyst, we calculate this in-house” Great, then the first stage is shorter and cheaper. We check the method of calculation instead of counting from scratch and go straight to the decisions. The difference usually lies in what goes into product cost and how a return is booked. ### „We have no time for workshops” A workshop is usually one afternoon, and without it the recommendations are written without your knowledge of the market and end up in a drawer more often. It is the cheapest part of the project and the one that pays off most. Limits of the service ## How is e-commerce consulting different from marketing consulting and from a data warehouse? Short answer E-commerce consulting settles decisions about the store itself: margin after returns, range, prices, platform and sales channels. Marketing consulting settles what to spend the promotion budget on, and a data warehouse builds the numbers on which both conversations rest. Consulting does not force you to change the agency that runs your campaigns today. We write the recommendations so that whoever already works for you can carry them out, also when that is not us. With a store we start from the margin calculation, because without it any advice is guesswork, no matter who gives it. ![Three different conversations: decisions about the store, decisions about the promotion budget and the numbers on which both rest](https://justidea.agency/assets/ill-doradztwo.svg) ### This is the service - Revenue grows and the bank balance does not. - You do not know which products make money after returns and logistics. - You are considering a marketplace, a new market or a change of platform. ### Start with something else - The question is what to spend the ad budget on to grow sales: that is marketing consulting. - The numbers sit in four systems and nobody connects them: first a data warehouse. - You want someone to run the campaigns: those are separate channel services. What we talk about in consulting ## A formula for a store that does not end up like nine out of ten A talk (in Polish) about what decides whether a store survives its first years. Who has to be on the team, which margin you need to know, how much capital goes into a start in fashion and why the same fix gives a different result at small and at large scale. This is the scope of the first consulting call, only without your numbers. **![Mateusz Haber during his talk on the formula for success in e-commerce](https://justidea.agency/obrazy/wideo-9-na-10-ecommerce-upada.webp) Watch the talk · 18 min Event.Ecommerce.pl 2.0 · May 2024** ![Mateusz Haber](https://justidea.agency/obrazy/mateusz-haber-5ab92683.png) „Better to own 1% of Apple than 100% of a kebab stand”, **Mateusz Haber**, CEO of JustIdea Agency and CEO of Surf Inc. [Watch on YouTube →](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_aaMncmCSI) Scope and pricing ## Three levels, depending on what needs to be decided We price consulting by scope and the number of working days, so we give the amount after a conversation. Every option includes a margin calculation per product and per channel and an hour of discussion with your team. Below is what really sets the three levels apart. ### Margin calculation The shortest form of e-commerce consulting, for your online store to begin with. We put together profit after product cost, returns and advertising, broken down by product and channel, and show what follows from it. For companies that want to see the numbers first. Quote after a call - Margin per product and per channel - Effect of returns and logistics - List of products that lose money - An hour of discussing the results Book a call about your store Most popular ### Full consulting The option chosen most often. The calculation plus interviews, a competitor review, a workshop and a document with recommendations set in order, with an estimated cost and the right contractor named for each item. Quote after a brief - Everything in the Margin calculation option - Team interviews and a market review - Workshop with the management board - Recommendations with order and cost - Assessment of the platform and sales channels Book a call about your store ### Consulting with on-call support Full e-commerce consulting plus ongoing availability during implementation, billed monthly. For companies that implement with their own team and want someone to consult operational decisions with along the way. Quote after a brief - Everything in Full consulting - Ongoing availability during implementation - Monthly progress review - Recommendations adjusted when the data changes Book a call about your store FAQ ## Ecommerce consulting: questions before you decide **### What is e-commerce consulting?** It is work in which someone from outside goes through a store's numbers, its range, platform and sales channels, and then points to the decisions that raise profit, not just turnover. It ends with a document of recommendations set in order, with an estimated cost and a note on who should carry out each of them. **### How is it different from marketing consulting?** Marketing consulting settles decisions about channels and the ad budget, meaning what you spend money on for promotion. E-commerce consulting settles decisions about the store itself: margin, range, prices, logistics, platform and sales channels, meaning whether the store makes money at all. With a store you usually start with the second, because without a healthy margin even the best-run campaign only speeds up the losses. **### I am looking for an ecommerce consultant on an ongoing basis. Do you do that?** Yes, in the option with on-call support. One person on our side runs the consulting project and then stays available during implementation, billed monthly. We do not replace a full-time role and we say so plainly: at a large scale your own head of e-commerce is cheaper, and we work best where such a position cannot be justified. **### How much does e-commerce consulting cost?** A strategy consultation with our CEO costs €250 net per hour, less for clients whose channels we already run. Consulting spread over a longer period is priced by scope and the number of working days, so we give the amount after a conversation in which we agree what exactly needs to be decided. The conversation itself is free, and the quote does not depend on whether you order the implementation of the recommendations from us. **### What exactly does an ecommerce consultant do?** An ecommerce consultant does not run campaigns or build the store: they decide what the bottleneck is and write down in what order to fix it. During the consultation they go through the margin calculation, the range, logistics, the platform and all sales channels, from SEO and paid search to marketplaces, and compare it with what the market in your industry looks like. They are sometimes called an outside e-commerce manager, but the difference matters: a manager is responsible for execution, a consultant for the decision. **### Does consulting cover marketing or only the store itself?** Both, because margin and the ad budget are one equation. We check whether Google Ads and Facebook Ads deliver orders at a cost that fits within the product margin, whether performance marketing scales the right products and where marketing automation can replace manual work. We do not run these channels as part of consulting: we assess them and say what to change in the marketing strategy, also when someone else runs them. **### Do you work on our data or on industry benchmarks?** On yours. The margin calculation comes from your store admin panel, product costs, returns, shipping costs and ad spend. Industry data comes in where we compare your store with the market: for competitors' prices and the cost of entering a new channel. For the calculation itself, read-only access is enough, with no right to change anything in the store. **### How long does a consulting project take?** Usually from three to six weeks, depending on the state of the data. The first stage is the one that tends to stretch, because product cost and returns rarely sit in one place and have to be gathered from several systems. The workshop itself is one afternoon. **### What do I get at the end?** A document with the margin calculation per product and per channel and with a list of decisions ranked by their effect on profit, with an estimated cost and a named contractor for each item. Plus an hour of discussion with your team. The document is yours and you can implement it with anyone. **### Do we then have to order the implementation from you?** No, and we set the price that way on purpose. Consulting costs the same regardless of what you order afterwards, and we write the recommendations so they can be implemented without us, marking which ones your team will do. Some clients come back after a quarter, and that is fine, but it is not a condition. ## E-commerce consulting: what is worth knowing ** ### Why the calculation comes before the recommendation A store shows revenue in the dashboard, because that is how the dashboard works. Profit requires subtracting product cost, returns, shipping and advertising, product by product, and that data sits in four different places. Until it lies in one table, a conversation about range and promotions is an exchange of hunches. ** ### Marketplaces and new markets: the cost of entry can mislead The platform's commission is the smallest of the costs. You also have to add returns handled on different terms, translations, customer service in a second language and tax in the country of sale. The same applies in the other direction, when a foreign brand enters Poland: Allegro, InPost parcel lockers and BLIK mobile payments are what Polish shoppers expect, and each changes both the cost and the conversion. Settling whether it adds up takes a few days and is often cheaper than a quarter of testing it in practice. ** ### When the platform really is the problem Less often than it seems. Usually a specific limitation can be named that no module will get around, and then migration makes sense. When there is no such limitation, rebuilding the store moves the old problems to a new engine and costs a year. ** ### E-commerce consulting from Kraków, run remotely JustIdea's office is in Kraków, and a consulting project rests on your data and on conversations, so we run it for companies across Poland and for brands from abroad that sell here. It is worth meeting in person for the workshop, because it is the only stage at which having the whole team at one table changes the result. ** ### Who e-commerce consulting is for Most often for companies that have been selling for a few years and have reached the point where further marketing stopped increasing profit. In B2C it is usually about the range and returns, in B2B about the customer service process and how much it costs to handle an order. We also advise before a store launches, when a business model and a platform have to be chosen. The scope is narrower then, because there is no own data yet: we work on competitors' prices and offers and on costs, not on your margin. ** ### What consulting will not do It will not replace implementation or running the channels: a recommendation is not work done. It will not deliver a result either if nobody in the company has time to implement, and we say so in the first call, because a document in a drawer is the most expensive thing you can buy from us. Nor will it replace the tools that support decisions day to day: if the numbers sit in four systems, they have to be connected first, and that is separate work. ** ### What usually comes out of the calculation and what we do next Three things come back in most projects. First: part of the range loses money, so optimisation starts with withdrawing products, not with another promotion. Second: the cost of acquisition is measured against revenue, so campaigns scale what pays back worst; then a store audit and a review of channels show where to increase sales without raising the budget. Third: managing orders and returns eats hours nobody counts, and there marketing automation and system integration pay back faster than any advertising. We write the conclusions so they can be carried out at the pace of your business, also without us. ** ### Consulting versus running online sales day to day Consulting sets the direction, running the channels is daily work, and it is worth separating the two in the budget as well. If after the recommendations you decide to go ahead, the work is done by the digital team responsible for campaigns, SEO, content and social media, and the consultant's role is to check whether the effect of the marketing activity is moving towards the agreed goal. We then measure online business growth with three numbers: margin after returns, the cost of acquiring new customers and whether the user experience on the purchase path improves, because that is what decides whether conversions can grow without adding traffic. Other services ## What else can we do for you? A recommendation from consulting almost always points to specific work: counting the data, improving the purchase path, settling the ad budget or preparing the entry into a new market. Below are the pages that most often come up in the same conversation, each with its own scope and its own quote. [### Marketing consulting What B2B marketing consulting involves: we say what to do, in what order and what not to do, based on your numbers. View ›](https://justidea.agency/en/services/marketing-agency/marketing-consulting/) [### Data warehouse A data warehouse for e-commerce: ads, store and warehouse integrated in one database, analysed with one measure and reported as profit after product cost and returns. View ›](https://justidea.agency/en/services/marketing-agency/ecommerce-data-warehouse/) [### UX audit When the calculation shows that traffic is there but the basket does not close: a UX audit of the store shows at which step people drop off. View ›](https://justidea.agency/en/services/marketing-agency/ux-audit/) [### International expansion When the consulting shows that the next step is a new market: entering Poland from abroad or taking a Polish store to other countries, with the costs counted before the launch. View ›](https://justidea.agency/en/services/international-expansion/) ## Let us start with one question: how much is really left? In a free consultation we go through how you calculate profit today and tell you what is missing from that calculation. Sometimes that is enough to see the problem without ordering anything. ![A store's margin calculation after product cost, returns and advertising](https://justidea.agency/assets/ill-doradztwo-ecommerce-rachunek-marzy.svg) Book a call about your store First consultation free of charge and with no obligation Book a call about your store Contact ## A conversation about your numbers: 30 minutes The call is led by a new business specialist. When we get into the details of an account, the specialist for that channel joins in. We reply within one business day. A quick review of your tracking and campaignsThree priorities for the next quarterA written summary that stays with you Before the meeting we review your website, your visibility and what your campaigns show from the outside. We will not open with “so, what does your company do?”. [4.96 224 reviews](https://justidea.agency/en/justidea-reviews/) What happens after you send it 01 within 1 business day ### We reply to your email The reply comes from the same new business specialist who will run the call. No qualification form and no call from an unknown number. 02 this week ### A 30-minute conversation We go through your numbers and your questions. If it turns out we are not the right fit, we will tell you straight away.