Written by MM Shopy Devs, who are one of the five. We have put ourselves first, which is what you would expect, so the useful thing we can offer is honesty about the rest: what each of these agencies is actually good at, and the cases where we would tell you to call one of them instead of us.
London has more good Shopify agencies than almost anywhere in Europe. The differences between them are not quality, they are shape: size, specialism, and what happens when your project does not fit their usual work.
1. MM Shopy Devs
Founded in London in 2017, now working from Barcelona with the UK still our largest market. We work with premium British brands including Private White V.C., Hunza G, Marfa Stance, Anglo-Italian and Cassandra Goad.
Where we are strong
- Shopify only, and always have been. We have never been a WordPress shop that added Shopify, or a general web agency with a Shopify team. Every project since 2017 has been on this platform. That focus is why our custom builds start further ahead: we are not learning the platform on your project.
- Premium and fashion-led UK brands. Our work is concentrated in apparel, outerwear, jewellery and luxury, which means sizing, returns, drops, editorial imagery and international duty are problems we have already solved rather than ones we will meet on your build.
- A boutique team. The senior people who scope your project are the ones who build it. There are no juniors to hand you to and no account layer between you and the developer.
Where we are the wrong choice
- We do not build ERP, PIM, warehouse or accounting integrations, or the custom API work that connects them. If your project depends on that, you need an agency that does it or a systems partner alongside us. We will say so on the first call rather than three weeks into scoping.
- We only take the work we can do properly. We run few projects at once on purpose, so if you need to start next week we may not be able to help. That is a real cost of the boutique model and we would rather name it than pretend otherwise.
Best for: premium and fashion-led brands who want senior people on the build and do not need enterprise systems integration.
More on how we work with UK brands: Shopify agency London.
2. Charle Agency
A London-based Shopify Plus agency with a strong reputation for design-led builds and a broad service range that includes ecommerce SEO and CRO alongside development.
Best for: brands that want design, development and ongoing marketing under one roof. If you want your SEO and your build handled by the same team, they do that and we do not.
3. Swanky
A Shopify Plus partner since 2016, with offices across the UK, France and Australia, and a particular reputation in subscription commerce.
Best for: brands running subscriptions, or trading across several time zones and wanting coverage in each.
4. Eastside Co
One of the larger Shopify agencies in the UK, operating since 2012 with a substantial in-house team and Shopify Platinum Partner status.
Best for: brands that need scale and formal process, or a team large enough to absorb a change of personnel without the project stalling. If you want a hundred people available, we are not that and they are.
5. Velstar
A Shopify Plus agency working across DTC brands, with a strong track record in growth-focused builds and ongoing optimisation.
Best for: brands wanting a long-term growth partner across build and marketing rather than a project team.
How to actually choose between them
The honest answer is that for most projects, several of these agencies would do good work. The decision usually comes down to three things.
Size and who does the work. Larger agencies bring capacity and cover; smaller ones bring senior attention. Ask who writes the code and how many other projects they are on. The answer tells you more than any case study.
Specialism against your category. An agency that has built twenty fashion stores has opinions about sizing and returns that do not transfer from selling industrial equipment. Ask what they have built in your category.
What they do not do. Every agency has a boundary. The useful question is whether they tell you where it is before you sign, or after.
We wrote a longer guide to this, including the questions we would want asked of us: how to choose the right Shopify agency.
Talk to us
If you are a premium or fashion-led UK brand and the limitations above are not dealbreakers, tell us what you are trying to do. If one of the other four is a better fit, we will say so.
