Why we opened a New York office

We've opened our first international office in New York. This wasn’t just a huge step forward for our company, but it also made us the first Shopify-only international agency.

Many people have asked why. I'll tell you.

Why go through the pain of getting a visa, beginning in a new market, the logistics of a new office, the distraction and the risk over-extending?

International is what we do

Starting off in London, with European brands as clients, we had early experience building websites for multiple languages and currencies. Even small businesses need to do this in the EU.

It put us in a good position, especially now that we partner with some of the biggest brands on Shopify Plus—Hasbro, Bulletproof, Mavi Jeans and Crabtree & Evelyn. They all have international requirements that we're able to deliver on. In the US, this is a distinctive skillset because many brands have never had to deal with this, so a lot of agencies don't have experience with it.

Typically, our services start with replatforming to Shopify Plus and then building out a Multi-store architecture that can power multiple regions. Our Ongoing Success team then take over to make constant improvements that boost top-line revenue and operational efficiency. Often this includes launching in to even more regions.

International is the new obvious route to growth for DTC brands. 

The US is the largest Shopify market

The US economy is enormous and it’s also the primary market for Shopify Plus.

Naturally, being where those brands are makes sense for our agency.

I often get asked, “aren’t there already loads of Shopify agencies in the US?”

Firstly, yes there are. And some are very good. But there aren’t any e-commerce agencies that specialize in international and borderless commerce as we do. Our experience with multi-region Shopify deployments is more substantial than even the slickest Plus agencies in the US.

Secondly, Shopify is a booming ecosystem. Partner revenue's estimated to have leapt from $800 million to $1.2 billion between 2017 and 2018. And that doesn’t look to be stopping soon, as more and more brands switch to Shopify. More importantly, the size of brands on Shopify is getting bigger and more notable every year, and we exist to help those high-growth brands. The Shopify ecosystem is not slowing down.

Our US-based clients range in size from the largest toy manufacturer in the world, Hasbro, to the brand new DTC candle brand, Good Chemistry, of parent company ILLUME.

Hedge against Brexit

Brexit is like watching somebody attempt to burn down their own house.

The consequences of leaving the world’s largest trading bloc will be terrible for the UK economy. The plummeting pound is already evidence of what the markets think.

Earning USD in a foreign market is a way of hedging against the risks. Most of our production team are in London, so the strength of USD compared to GBP has also made our production costs lower than the competition here in the US, whilst allowing us to recruit the best talent in two world-class cities.

Finding talent will get harder as talented EU nationals decide not to seek work in the UK. For anybody my age, it’s always been without question that you can live, work and travel to Europe without hassle. Now we the British people are pointlessly taking a sledgehammer to our own economy. We Make Websites can weather the fallout, but it’s deeply frustrating as an SME because conditions are hard enough without throwing a potential recession in.

One side effect could be that large companies can reduce operating costs by using a modern SaaS e-commerce platform like Shopify. So a potential silver lining is that we’ll see more big companies switching to lower-cost-of-ownership solutions. In the meantime, we need the Brexit deadlock to clear somehow so that companies can actually budget accurately for 2020 and ahead.

More world-class talent

New York is full of talented people pushing their careers forward. For us, it’s a great place to find smart and driven people that want to join our mission to be the best Shopify agency in the world. 

It’s a dynamic environment full of exciting brands and talented marketers. The whole place buzzes and I do think there is a certain je nais se quoi about being a 'New York agency'. Most of our clients are outside of NY. I get it. It means you can access the talent without dealing with New Yorkers.

Timezone coverage

E-commerce is a time-pressured environment, with huge coordination needed for campaigns and of course 100% uptime around the clock.

Being spread over more time zones allows our team to be active for longer days to better service our clients.

It can sometimes be a bit of a hassle, but we’ve made improvements to our schedules to make the most of the overlapping day between the east coast and the UK.

Be where our clients are

I was allowed into the US on a visa that is dependant on our trade with the US. Even without being here, we were being pulled here.

A lot of our large clients have a presence in both London and New York, like Lightbox, Harper Collins and the BBC. Being present in both cities lets us meet their needs better and also gives us a deeper cultural understanding in both regions. Clients feel we’re closer to their businesses.

Where next for We Make Websites?

For now, we’re shoring up our team here and making sure that the brands we want to work with know that we’re here in Manhattan and ready for projects.

We're hiring in both London and New York and we're always launching new work.