clickpuls
4 slots Q2/26

E-COMMERCE CONSULTING · VIENNA · SINCE 2014

E-commerce consulting
from real merchant practice, platform-agnostic.

We advise DACH mid-market, brands and corporate units on platform strategy, channel mix, assortment and margin architecture, replatforming and international scaling — drawing on 15+ years of running our own shops, warehouses and brands. We also build Shopify and WooCommerce ourselves, but our recommendation follows the economics, not a favourite platform.

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Trusted by
Mercedes-Benz
BMW Deutschland
MINI Deutschland
Red Bull
IKEA
Allianz
A1
Sky
Electronic Arts
OBI

What e-commerce consulting at clickpuls means.

E-commerce consulting at clickpuls is strategic advice from operators with their own P&L practice — not "performance marketing with a consulting label", not a slide-deck show from a strategy firm, not implementation selling from a platform agency.

Our topic areas:

  • Platform strategy & replatforming — Shopify, Shopware, WooCommerce, Magento, PrestaShop, headless, custom
  • Channel mix — D2C shop, marketplaces (Amazon, Otto, Galaxus, Mercateo, willhaben), B2B portals, retail
  • Assortment and margin architecture across all channels
  • Conversion and funnel strategy — assortment, price, trust, checkout, retention
  • International scaling — DACH roll-out, markets/subfolders, tax, currency, fulfilment
  • DTC brand build-up — own-brand sourcing, brand strategy, assortment architecture
  • Operations & tech setup — ERP integration, PIM, warehouse, returns, tracking stack

Unlike implementation agencies we don’t sell you a shop, we sell you the recommendation on whether a shop is the right lever in the first place. Unlike performance-marketing agencies with "e-commerce consulting" as an add-on, we discuss business model, assortment and margins — not primarily CAC and ROAS. Unlike classic strategy firms we come from the day-to-day of running our own shops and warehouses and can build what we recommend ourselves.

Why our e-commerce consulting looks different.

Four traits that distinguish consulting by real merchants with implementation depth from a pitched-on advisory layer.

01

Operator practice from our own warehouse and brands

For 15+ years we’ve run our own shops, sourced assortments in Asia, built our own brands, operated a warehouse in Vienna, played marketplace strategies against own-shop logic and gone through replatformings between Shopware, WooCommerce and Shopify. We know the spots where theory breaks — margins that no longer hold after marketplace fees and returns, assortments that don’t work in a D2C shop because the CAC hurdle is too high, replatformings that fail on master data.

02

Platform-agnostic because we build several ourselves

We run both Shopify and WooCommerce builds in production and know Shopware, Magento, PrestaShop, Odoo and headless architectures from concrete migration projects. As a result our platform recommendation isn’t distorted by a partner model or a favourite-stack bias. Assortment, market, tech maturity and economics decide — not the tool we like selling most.

03

We can build what we recommend

Every recommendation is written with the knowledge that we could implement it ourselves — shop migration, app architecture, ERP integration, tracking setup, marketplace connection. That disciplines the consulting: recommendations that wouldn’t hold under implementation pressure don’t get written at all. You can have implementation done in-house afterwards, hire another agency or come back to us — all three paths work with our output.

04

WIFI Vienna trainer profile — methodology comes from teaching

Martin Ogris is a WIFI Vienna trainer for e-commerce — the content we recommend to mid-market leadership is tested against reality in every training cohort with experienced practitioners. That sharpens the argument quality: what cannot be explained in a WIFI course has no place in a recommendation to leadership.

Where we support e-commerce leads and leadership.

Platform strategy & replatforming decision

Most common starting point: a shop on a platform that no longer fits — too expensive (Shopware Enterprise, Magento Commerce Cloud), too rigid (old WooCommerce custom builds), too limited (Shopify Basic in a complex B2B setup) or simply outdated. Plus a list of vendor pitches in the inbox.

We deliver a structured platform recommendation:

  • Requirements matrix from real business needs (assortment depth, markets, multilingualism, B2B functions, custom logic, headless need)
  • Platform assessment along this matrix — Shopify Plus, Shopify, Shopware 6, WooCommerce, Magento Open Source, PrestaShop, custom with Next.js/MedusaJS, headless with commercetools/Saleor
  • Total cost of ownership over 5 years — licence/hosting, implementation, app stack, ongoing maintenance, internal admin cost
  • Migration-effort estimate with honest residual risks (master-data cleanup, redirect strategy, SEO risk, checkout takeover)

Output: a recommendation document with a clear ranking and the reasoning why the runner-up might fit better in 12 months. Plus a replatforming roadmap if the recommendation is migration.

What we deliberately do not do: "you should go to Shopify Plus" as a default answer. We have WooCommerce setups where Shopify Plus would be the more expensive and worse choice, and Shopify setups where Shopware 6 would be structurally superior.

Channel mix: D2C, marketplace, hybrid

One of the economically most consequential e-commerce decisions: which sales channels does a brand or assortment live in — and how do the channels relate to each other?

Typical discussion axes we structure:

  • Own shop as brand stage with higher margin and direct customer relationship
  • Amazon (DE/AT/CH) as reach lever with low CAC hurdle, but marketplace fee and assortment transparency
  • Otto Market (DE) and Galaxus (CH) as regionally strong hybrid marketplaces
  • Mercateo / Unite and willhaben for B2B and niche assortments
  • Bricks-and-mortar and wholesale as brand building plus cashflow

We deliver a channel-mix recommendation with:

  • Margin model per channel after all costs (fees, returns, advertising, fulfilment)
  • Assortment mapping — which products belong in which channel, which deliberately don’t
  • Price-consistency strategy across channels so one channel doesn’t cannibalise another
  • Sequencing recommendation — what to build first, what to add later

Background from our own practice: we have assortments that would never become economical in the own shop and scaled profitably via Amazon — and brands that, exactly the other way around, earn substantially higher margins in the own shop than in the marketplace channel. Both paths are valid, but the assortment has to fit the channel logic.

Assortment and margin architecture cross-channel

In DACH mid-market, assortments are often "historically" maintained — supplier relationships, grown categories, own-brand attempts, long-tail items nobody clears out. In e-commerce this becomes transparent: every article has a margin after marketing cost, return rate and inventory binding.

We deliver an assortment assessment with:

  • Margin classification per SKU on full cost (incl. inventory binding, returns, marketing share)
  • Long-tail analysis — which items pull cost without contribution
  • Own-brand potential — where it pays to build a DTC brand alongside the trading business
  • Bundle and cross-sell architecture for a larger basket
  • Price structure between list price, promotion price and marketplace price

For active brands we collaborate with our brand-strategy and brand-concept engagements — positioning, visual identity and tonality run focused there. We deliver the e-commerce strategic frame, not the visual branding.

What we are honest about: assortment decisions are political — supplier relationships, internal ownership, grown loyalties. We deliver the economic analysis as a decision basis; the political implementation has to come from inside the company.

Conversion strategy and funnel economics

"Conversion optimisation" is a frequently abused term in DACH — usually meaning UX pixel-pushing at checkout. Conversion strategy at clickpuls means something different: the economic question of which funnel levers have the biggest margin effect — and in which order.

We walk the funnel structurally:

  • Acquisition channels and their real CAC after attribution cleanup
  • Landing-page and assortment logic for the main entries
  • Trust signals — reviews, guarantees, payment options, local presence
  • Checkout friction and drop-off diagnosis
  • Retention — repurchase logic, email flows, subscription potential, loyalty

Output: prioritised funnel levers with effort estimate and realistic impact expectation. We cleanly separate levers we can empirically support from those that need to be tested in context.

What we don’t promise: "+30 % conversion in 90 days" is not a serious statement — conversion effects depend massively on status quo, assortment, traffic mix and market. We deliver levers whose impact becomes measurable and attributable, but no guarantee numbers.

International scaling: DACH and beyond

Many mid-market shops start with a domain for AT or DE and at some point hit the multi-market wall: different tax, different shipping logic, different language, different marketplace landscape, different payment preferences.

Typical DACH roll-out sequence (frequent, not fixed):

  • AT start — home setup with Vienna warehouse and Austrian tax profile
  • DE as the second market — largest DACH market but different competitive density and different marketplace logic
  • CH as the third market — own tax and customs profile, FADP instead of GDPR as data-protection frame, payment preferences with TWINT, Galaxus as an important marketplace

For multi-market strategies we deliver:

  • Platform setup recommendation — Markets/subfolders in Shopify, WPML/Polylang in WooCommerce, dedicated Shopware sales channels
  • Tax and customs concept with recommendation on OSS procedure and CH customs setup (legal assessment belongs with your tax advisor)
  • Fulfilment strategy — own warehouse vs. 3PL per market, returns logic, shipping-carrier mix
  • Marketplace addition — where locally strong (Galaxus CH, Otto DE, willhaben AT)
  • Domain, URL and SEO strategy across markets

Beyond DACH — UK/IE, Benelux, Scandinavia, France, Italy — we advise based on assortment suitability; not every assortment scales linearly across language and consumer boundaries.

Operations, tech setup and vendor selection

An e-commerce setup is only as good as what runs behind the shop. We assess and prioritise the operations and tech-stack topics that become a growth bottleneck:

  • ERP integration — SAP Business One, Microsoft Dynamics, BMD, Odoo, NetSuite — data-flow architecture and selection
  • PIM systems — Akeneo, Pimcore, Plytix, Shopify/Shopware native PIM functions — when the separate layer pays off
  • Warehouse and fulfilment — own warehouse in Vienna/DE/CH vs. 3PL provider (DHL Fulfilment, byrd, fulfin), pick-and-pack models
  • Returns management — return rate as margin killer, return portals, customs returns for CH
  • Tracking stack — default GA4 + GTM, server-side tagging via stape.io or Cloudflare Worker, Consent Mode v2 for GDPR compliance, marketplace attribution
  • Payment stack — Adyen, Stripe, Mollie, Klarna, PayPal, Apple/Google Pay, local options (TWINT CH, EPS AT, Sofort/Klarna DE)
  • Customer-service stack — helpdesk, chat, self-service, AI-assisted first response

For vendor negotiations we know the typical discount bands of the larger providers (Shopify Plus, Shopware Enterprise, Adyen, Stripe), the hidden cost positions (sandbox licences, API limits, premier support, partner margins) and the points where vendors typically give in.

Hosting recommendation — where shop or surrounding services need to be self-hosted, we recommend EU hosting on Hetzner Frankfurt or Fly.io Frankfurt; for WordPress setups Raidboxes (Münster) is an established alternative.

WHEN DO YOU NEED THIS?

When do you need e-commerce consulting from us?

Four typical situations in which DACH e-commerce leads move from in-house discussion to structured external strategy consulting.

01 / TRIGGER

Before a replatforming decision

The shop is too old, too expensive or too rigid, three vendor pitches are on the table and the decision will carry 5–7 years. Before you commit to Shopify Plus, Shopware 6, custom headless or another path, we deliver a platform-agnostic assessment with TCO model and migration-risk analysis.

02 / TRIGGER

Marketplace entry or expansion

You’re considering entering Amazon, Otto, Galaxus or Mercateo — or you’re already there but don’t know whether the marketplace strategy is building brand substance or eroding it. We assess assortment fit, margin maths after fees and returns, cannibalisation risk against the own shop, and the sequencing of marketplace additions.

03 / TRIGGER

Stagnating revenue despite rising marketing spend

Performance marketing gets more expensive, ROAS drops, revenue no longer grows proportionally to spend — and the performance agency recommends more budget. Often the problem isn’t in marketing but in assortment, conversion logic or channel mix. We deliver an external position assessment instead of the next spend recommendation.

04 / TRIGGER

DTC own-brand build alongside the trading business

You’re a retailer or manufacturer considering building a DTC brand in parallel — different channel logic, different margin architecture, different brand positioning. We bring practice from our own own-brand builds and deliver the strategic clarity on whether, how and in what sequence the DTC track makes sense — including sourcing, brand and channel strategy.

Case studies

E-commerce consulting projects from our practice.

Preview image of the case study Glow25 — Glow25 – Scaling WooCommerce to 5,000+ Orders per Day
Glow25E-Commerce / Beauty & Supplements

Glow25 – Scaling WooCommerce to 5,000+ Orders per Day

Head-of-Tech stint at Glow25 (07/2023 – 12/2024): led a 16-person tech team, scaled WooCommerce to 5,000+ orders per day, reduced the database from 350 GB to 60 GB, built a multi-server setup, introduced automated archiving and maintenance — plus prepared the replatforming from WooCommerce to Shopify for DE, FR and NL.

View case study
More clients

Clients who have trusted us for years.

  • MINI Deutschland
  • Allianz
  • Electronic Arts
  • Österreichische Fußball-Bundesliga
All case studies

Sounds like your project?

30–45 minutes for a first call — free and non-binding. We assess your use-case, estimate effort and risks, and give an honest recommendation — even if it means this is better built elsewhere.

Request a free consultation

Performance-marketing agency as "e-com consultant" or clickpuls?

An honest side-by-side — we are not criticising performance-marketing agencies, we are delineating what strategic e-commerce consulting must deliver and what performance marketing delivers.

Kriterium / Criterion
Performance-marketing agency with "e-com consulting"
clickpuls e-commerce consulting
Discussion level
CAC, ROAS, channel spend, creatives, funnel UX
Business model, assortment, margin architecture, channel mix, platform
Platform assessment
Rare — platform treated as given
Structured 5-year TCO model, platform-agnostic
Implementation depth
Tracking setup and campaign implementation
We can build shop, ERP integration, marketplace connection, tracking ourselves
Compensation model
Often percentage of ad budget — incentive towards more spend
Fixed-price discovery + optional accompanying retainer from € 1,700/month
When does the other path fit
When the strategy is set and pure ad performance is the lever
For platform, channel, assortment and margin decisions
Output form
Campaign reports, spend recommendations
Written recommendation with roadmap, TCO models and implementation options
OUR PROCESS

How an e-commerce consulting engagement with clickpuls runs.

Four phases from first call to ongoing accompaniment — transparent, plannable, no consulting mystery.

01

Free first call & scoping

30–45 minutes by call with leadership and/or the e-commerce lead. We understand the starting position, platform stack, channel mix, assortment architecture, desired output and time pressure. Output: concrete fixed-price quote for discovery or direct engagement including delivery date and required cooperation on your side.

02

Discovery & baseline assessment

2–6 weeks depending on complexity. Structured interviews with operational owners (e-commerce lead, marketing, sales, operations, IT), inventory of platform stack, assortment, marketplace setup, tracking stack, margin data, marketing performance. Discovery is its own paid engagement with fixed price upfront — no "free audit" followed by a sales loop.

03

Recommendation, roadmap & implementation options

Written recommendation document plus a 90-minute presentation for leadership and/or division heads. Contents: findings, 2–3 strategic options with investment logic, prioritised implementation roadmap (12–24 months), clear in-house vs. agency vs. vendor task split. You then decide yourself whether to implement in-house, hire another agency or continue with us — discovery outputs are deliberately usable without us.

04

Accompanying retainer (optional)

For ongoing replatformings, marketplace roll-outs or multi-market builds often useful: an accompanying retainer with a clearly defined monthly hour quota for sparring with in-house leads, vendor escalations, architecture reviews and quarterly roadmap update. Standard response time within 24 h on business days; faster SLAs available as a contractual add-on. Quarterly renewable, cancellable any time.

KEY FIGURES

Key figures from our e-commerce consulting engagements.

Realistic figures from active engagements across DACH — no marketing promises, no hype metrics.

Discovery duration
2–6 weeks

Fixed-price discovery with stack, assortment and channel inventory, interview series, margin audit, recommendation document and 90-minute presentation. Concrete quote after a free first call.

Accompanying retainer (optional)
from € 1,700/month

Monthly hour quota in one of several package sizes for sparring, vendor escalations, architecture reviews, marketplace accompaniment and quarterly roadmap updates. Unused hours roll over one month. Mini packages we don’t offer.

Response times (standard)
within 24 h on business days

Standard response within 24 h on business days for every request. Faster SLAs (e.g. 4h response in CET business hours or 24/7 on-call) are available as a contractual add-on, not an automatic default.

Practice background
own shops & brands for 15+ years · WIFI Vienna trainer

We advise from our own operator practice — dropshipping, own assortment brands with a warehouse in Vienna, B2B marketplace strategy, Shopify setups since 2023. Martin Ogris is a WIFI Vienna trainer for e-commerce — the methodology is sharpened in a teaching context against experienced practitioners.

Ready for a first call?

30–45 minutes by call, no commitment. Tell us briefly what you need — we get back within one business day with concrete next steps and a realistic effort estimate.

Request a free consultation
DACH CONTEXT

E-commerce consulting for AT, DE and CH.

DACH e-commerce is not one market but three closely related ones with their own rules. Anyone who ignores that builds multi-market setups that work in one market and underperform in the others.

The most important local differences we actively factor in:

  • Marketplace landscape — Amazon is strong everywhere, but on top there are nationally strong players: Otto Market and Kaufland in DE, Galaxus and Digitec in CH, willhaben and Shöpping in AT, Mercateo/Unite cross-region in B2B
  • Payment preferences — Klarna and Sofort dominant in DE, EPS and Klarna in AT, TWINT and Postfinance in CH, Apple/Google Pay rising everywhere, classic credit cards weaker in AT/DE than in CH
  • Tax & customs — OSS procedure for EU cross-border shipments from AT/DE, separate tax and customs profile for CH (non-EU), VAT thresholds per market
  • Data-protection frame — GDPR in AT/DE, FADP (revised data protection act) in CH with its own logic on data export, processing agreements and access rights
  • Shipping and carrier mix — Austrian Post and DPD AT in AT, DHL and DPD DE in DE, Swiss Post and DPD CH in CH; multi-country shipping with carrier swap at the border
  • Linguistic tonality — same language area, but different brand perception; shop texts with AT tonality often feel foreign in DE and vice versa

Our clients’ locations: mostly in Vienna, Salzburg, Linz, Innsbruck, Graz, Munich, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Cologne, Frankfurt, Zurich, Basel and Bern — with engagements that physically or logistically span several DACH markets.

Funding landscape we actively factor in:

  • Austria — FFG innovation vouchers, aws digitalisation funding, Vienna Business Agency, regional economic funding for e-commerce internationalisation
  • Germany — "Digital Jetzt" (BMWK), ZIM, foreign-trade programmes for e-commerce export
  • Switzerland — Innosuisse programmes for innovative distribution and platform projects

Discovery and strategy phases are eligible for funding under several of these programmes.

Working mode: Consulting runs remotely via video calls plus on-site meetings across DACH as needed — for accompanying retainers from the larger package upwards, on-site meetings are included in the fee.

Legal, tax or GDPR/FADP-specific assessments belong in professionally appropriate hands — we actively recommend the parallel involvement of your lawyers, tax advisors or data-protection officers and deliver the strategic and technical recommendation alongside.

FREQUENTLY ASKED

Frequently asked questions about e-commerce consulting.

What does e-commerce consulting at clickpuls cost?

Discovery and strategy engagements as fixed price, ongoing accompaniment as a consulting retainer from € 1,700/month net.

Standard flow:

  • Fixed-price discovery — effort and price depend on platform complexity, channel count, assortment depth and interview count; concrete quote after a free first call
  • Strategy and recommendation engagements also fixed price
  • Accompanying retainer from € 1,700/month net with a clearly defined monthly hour quota

Why no mini package: Mini packages leave no room for clean sparring reviews or meaningful quarterly updates. After the first call you receive a concrete fixed-price or retainer offer — binding and comparable.

How do you differ from a performance-marketing agency that also offers "e-com consulting"?

We discuss business model, assortment, margins and platform — performance-marketing agencies discuss CAC, ROAS and spend.

Three structural differences:

  • Compensation model — performance agencies are often paid as a percentage of ad budget; that creates an incentive toward "more spend". Our fee is decoupled from spend (fixed-price discovery + retainer from € 1,700/month)
  • Discussion level — we assess whether the assortment fits the channel, whether the platform carries the growth steps, whether the margin architecture holds cross-channel. Performance marketing takes all of this as given
  • Implementation depth — we can build shop, tracking, marketplace connection and ERP integration ourselves; performance agencies usually can do tracking and campaigns but not the shop

When is the performance agency the better path: when strategy, platform and assortment are set and only clean ad performance remains. In that case we actively recommend collaboration with specialist performance agencies.

Are you platform-neutral or do you push Shopify because you are a Shopify agency?

Platform-neutral, because we build several ourselves — Shopify, WooCommerce and experience with Shopware/Magento/headless from migration projects.

How we systematically rule out platform bias:

  • Requirements matrix upfront — the recommendation is tested against real business needs, not favourite tools
  • 5-year TCO model — Shopify Plus is not cheaper everywhere, Shopware Enterprise not more expensive everywhere
  • Realistic migration effort — even when the recommendation is "stay", that’s often the economically better answer

Concrete examples from our engagements:

  • WooCommerce setup where we argued against a switch to Shopify Plus — custom logic would have been three times more expensive in apps or custom apps
  • Shopware 6 recommendation for a B2B setup with price-list and payment-term logic that Shopify doesn’t cover natively
  • Shopify Plus recommendation for an international DTC brand with Markets setup, where Shopware would have been substantially more effort

When the recommendation is Shopify and we then implement, that’s transparent — you can hand the implementation to another agency at any time.

What does the WIFI trainer background concretely bring?

Methodological sharpness — content is regularly tested against experienced practitioners in the WIFI Vienna course and has to hold up in a teaching context.

What that means practically:

  • Argument sharpness — recommendations that wouldn’t hold in the course don’t make it into a leadership recommendation
  • Up-to-dateness — course content is updated with each cohort against market reality (new marketplaces, payment options, tracking realities, AI tools)
  • Bridge from theory to practice — teaching forces transferability between strategy and day-to-day, which in mid-market engagements is often the bottleneck

What it doesn’t mean: the WIFI background qualifies specifically for e-commerce, not for other disciplines like AI consulting or brand strategy. On the relevant service pages we don’t claim it.

When do you recommend replatforming and when keeping the existing setup?

Replatforming only when the economic lever over 5 years is clearly positive — otherwise "stay and selectively extend" is often the better answer.

Typical situations for a replatforming recommendation:

  • Platform licence is out of proportion to the business model (e.g. Magento Commerce Cloud at mid-tier revenue)
  • Custom-code debt so high that every change creates more effort than a rebuild
  • Structural limits of the platform block strategic steps (markets, B2B functions, headless need)
  • Vendor risk — platform sunset announced or unclear roadmap

Typical situations for "stay":

  • Custom logic is modernisable with manageable effort
  • Migration risk (SEO, data, checkout, operations) exceeds the expected lever
  • Other levers in the business (assortment, channel mix, conversion) have higher priority

Our honest experience: in roughly half of replatforming discoveries the recommendation is "not now" — targeted refactoring, app consolidation or channel extension often beat the more expensive migration.

How do you handle marketplace strategy — Amazon vs. own shop?

Hybrid is usually the right answer, but assortment mapping and margin maths decide — not "play both channels at full".

How we structure the question:

  • Margin model per SKU per channel on full cost (marketplace fees 8–15 %, advertising, return rate, fulfilment, warehouse)
  • Brand-positioning question — which assortments belong in the own shop for brand building, which can be scaled via marketplace
  • Cannibalisation risk — the same SKU in marketplace and own shop often cannibalises the higher-margin channel
  • Sequencing recommendation — what to build first, what to add later

Frequent answers from our practice:

  • High-price, consultation-heavy assortments stay in the own shop
  • Commoditised assortments with low CAC are scaled via marketplace
  • Brands with a brand-building claim keep the main line in the own shop, secondary/outlet assortment in the marketplace

Marketplace-specific platforms (Amazon SP-API, Otto Market, Galaxus, Mercateo) we integrate technically — but the strategic "in or not" question comes before the integration.

Do you advise B2B e-commerce the same way as B2C?

Yes — we advise both segments, but with clearly different methodology. B2B is not "B2C with a company name in checkout".

B2B-specific topics we cover:

  • Price lists and customer groups — per-customer prices, volume tiers, discount logic
  • Payment terms and credit checks — purchase on invoice, early-payment discount, limit check
  • Reorder logic — quick-order via SKU, cart templates, order pads
  • Approval workflows — multi-step release for large orders
  • EDI and punch-out integration — OCI, cXML for customers with their own procurement systems
  • Marketplace track — Mercateo/Unite for cross-regional B2B sales

Platform recommendation is often different in B2B: Shopware 6, Magento Open Source with B2B extension, Shopify Plus B2B (substantially stronger since 2023) or custom headless often beat standard Shopify in complex B2B setups.

What we point out: B2B e-commerce is often not a full replacement for classic field-sales and sales processes, but an efficiency layer on top. The consulting takes this into account.

Do you factor in GDPR and FADP in the consulting?

Yes, technically and strategically — but the legally binding assessment belongs with your lawyers or data protection officer.

What we deliver technically and strategically:

  • Tracking-stack architecture with Consent Mode v2, server-side tagging and marketplace attribution under GDPR/FADP-compliant conditions
  • Hosting recommendation — EU hosting (Hetzner Frankfurt, Fly.io Frankfurt) as default; CH hosting for FADP-sensitive setups
  • Data-flow classification for data-processing agreements with shop platform, marketplace, payment, fulfilment, CRM
  • Marketing-stack assessment under EU-US Data Privacy Framework — which US tools stay pragmatic, which are critical without alternative
  • Cookie banner and consent logging as technical implementation

CH specifics — FADP has been in force in the revised version since September 2023 and has its own requirements on data export, processing agreements and access rights. For CH engagements we factor this in.

What we don’t provide: legally binding assessment, privacy policies, cookie-banner texts, DPIA creation, communication with authorities. That belongs in professionally appropriate hands.

Do you also do subscription strategy?

Yes, within assortment and retention consulting — but only if the assortment economically supports it.

Assortment preconditions for subscription:

  • Consumption or repurchase logic — coffee, personal care, pet food, vitamins, plant care
  • Margins above full cost despite subscription discount and higher service load
  • Operational resilience — inventory binding, shipping frequency, customer-service load peaks

Tools we assess:

  • Shopify subscription apps (Recharge, Skio, Loop)
  • WooCommerce Subscriptions (native + extensions)
  • Custom setups for brands with their own operations logic

Strategic side questions:

  • Acquisition economics — higher CAC acceptable at higher CLV
  • Churn maths — typical drop-off rates and counter-levers (pause function, gift mode, assortment swap)
  • Cancellation UX — legally compliant cancellation instead of dark pattern

Where we wave off: subscription as a "hype answer" to growth pressure — not every assortment supports subscription logic, and badly executed subscription erodes trust faster than no subscription at all.

What do you not do in e-commerce consulting?

Clear delineation — we are strategy and implementation consulting, not an ad agency, not legal counsel, not market research.

What we don’t do:

  • Creative ad production — campaign creatives, ad videos, display banners. We refer to specialist performance and creative agencies
  • Operational performance-marketing steering — daily campaign steering, bid management, budget allocation. Specialist agencies do this better
  • Legal assessment — GDPR/FADP evaluation, terms drafting, competition-law review. Belongs with lawyers
  • Market research in the classic sense — representative consumer surveys, brand-tracking studies, conjoint analyses. Belongs with market-research institutes
  • Investment advice — assessment of acquisition targets, M&A support, financing structures. Belongs with specialist M&A advisors
  • Affiliate or influencer marketing operations — we help with the strategic question of whether these channels fit, but not with operational steering

We say so actively: when a request clearly belongs in another discipline, we refer transparently — no invented engagements, no selling of disciplines we are not strong in.

Related services.

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E-COMMERCE · PLATFORM-AGNOSTIC

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