Solutions

Three ways I show up for the Shopify brands I partner with.

Three engagement shapes — diagnostic, full implementation, or a senior voice on retainer. Each starts the same way: I check whether the work you're asking for is the work you actually need. Sometimes it isn't. I'd rather tell you that on a 30-minute call than after the work has already started.

The discipline

If your brief asks for a redesign and the data says it's a tracking problem, the diagnostic catches it before the quote does. Sometimes the work that's needed isn't the work that was asked for. None come back larger without a conversation first.

A note on respect

Every hour I work for you is an hour you trusted me with.

Most of the people who hire me are founders or small teams running established Shopify stores. I know what that looks like up close — payroll on the 1st and the 15th, a marketing budget that has to defend itself every month, an inventory order that has to defend itself.

So engagements get scoped the way a household budget gets scoped. What's the smallest version of this that gets you where you need to go? What can your team do themselves with a written playbook, instead of doing it twice over? Which fixes are worth doing now, which can wait six months, which aren't worth doing at all?

If a smaller scope is the right scope, telling you so is how I earn a long partnership instead of a one-time invoice.

— Erick Written April 2026

01 · Engagement shapes

Three ways we work together.

01Diagnostic

Find the leak. Get the brief right.

For operators who feel something is wrong but aren't sure what. You've heard "redesign your PDP" and "switch to a headless theme" — neither feels like the answer.

You should start here if

Conversion is slipping and you can't tell whether it's the site, the ads, or the data
A previous freelancer left work behind that nobody can explain
You're about to commission a major build and want a second opinion first
Your tech stack has accumulated 14 apps and you suspect half are doing nothing

02Most engagements

Most common

Strategy and implementation. End to end.

For brands ready to ship the fixes — not just hear them. Theme work, custom integrations, migrations, checkout improvements, and the connective tissue between your store and the systems behind it.

You should start here if

You need a Shopify Plus migration done without losing custom logic from your current theme
Your inventory or order data lives in three systems and they don't agree with each other
You want a custom feature (bundle builder, configurator, B2B portal) that travels with your business — not a SaaS rental
Your Google Merchant Center, GA4, or Klaviyo data has gone quiet or wrong

03Retained partner

A senior voice on call.

For established Shopify stores who don't need a full implementation but do need someone to read the proposals before they sign, sit in on vendor calls, and tell them when something's quietly going wrong.

You should start here if

You have an internal team or agency and want a check on their work — not their replacement
You're evaluating apps, vendors, or new platforms and want a second opinion that has nothing to sell you
You want quarterly health reports on the parts of your stack you can't see into
You'd rather pay a fixed monthly retainer than scope every conversation

02 · How we work together

Five steps. The first one is free. The last one keeps me on the hook.

30 minutes · free

Discovery call

The first ten minutes are spent on whether your problem is the problem you think it is. Sometimes the answer is no — and sometimes that's the whole engagement.

3–5 days

Written proposal

Scope, timeline, agreed terms, and what I'm explicitly not doing. No retainers disguised as projects.

Week 1–2

Diagnose

Audit the store, the data, the analytics, the apps. Confirm or reject the brief. Reset scope if reality demands it.

Weeks 3–8

Build & ship

Theme, integration, migration, or custom feature work. Demo every Friday. No surprises at launch.

30 days · included

Post-launch ownership

I stay involved. If something breaks, I fix it. Custom code is documented and travels with your business — not held hostage.

The 30-day promise

The first 30 days after launch are when I'm most useful — that's when small things break and big questions surface.

A working contract for what happens after the project ends — included in every engagement, free of charge, signed at kickoff so neither of us forgets.

24hours

I respond to anything that breaks within one business day.

If something I built stops working, I fix it. No re-quoting. No "that's outside scope."

SIGNED AT KICKOFF

30days

I stay reachable for questions, even small ones.

Need to know why a metafield is named what it's named, or whether to upgrade an app? Email me. The first month after launch is when those questions are most expensive — and they shouldn't cost you anything.

INCLUDED · NO CHARGE

Nolock-in

The code is yours. The docs are in plain English.

Every custom thing I build is checked into your repo with a README the next person can read. If you switch consultants in two years, they'll thank me. That's the whole point.

YOURS, NOT MINE

Afterthat

We move to a retainer, or we part as friends.

At day 31, we either start a Retained Partner agreement at the rate quoted in your proposal — or we end the engagement cleanly. No surprise invoices. No scope creep.

YOUR CHOICE · NOT MINE

03 · Sound familiar?

If you've said any of these out loud, we should talk.

Common symptoms I hear from Shopify operators ready to grow — and what's usually really going on underneath.

What you said

"Our conversion rate dropped after the redesign. The new theme must be broken."

What it usually is

Tracking — not the theme. A redesign moves DOM elements; if your GA4 events, Meta pixel, or Klaviyo flows are tied to old selectors, your data goes quiet first and your decisions go wrong second.

→ Diagnostic engagement

What you said

"Google says we have thousands of merchant center errors and I have no idea where they're coming from."

What it usually is

Variant-level metafields not mapping to the GMC feed schema. Not theme work. Not an app fix. A schema audit and a feed rebuild — typically 5–8 hours, not 40.

What you said

"We need a custom bundle builder / configurator / B2B portal but the quotes we're getting are well beyond budget."

What it usually is

You probably don't need 80% of what's being scoped. The version that ships in 4 weeks at a fraction of the cost solves 90% of the problem and lets you decide if the other 10% is worth the spend.

→ Strategy & Implementation

What you said

"Our two stores fulfill from the same warehouse and double-ship 50+ orders a month. We've been quoted three SaaS apps."

What it usually is

Webhook routing problem. A custom sync engine — written once, owned by you — costs less than 12 months of any of those SaaS bills and doesn't break when the vendor changes their API.

What you said

"We're switching themes and we'll lose the custom code we paid to build last year."

What it usually is

If the original code was written as a section or block — it migrates in a day. If it was hard-coded into the old theme, that's a separate problem worth knowing about before you switch.

What you said

"Our agency wants $X for Shopify Plus migration. Is that reasonable?"

What it usually is

Sometimes yes. Often no. A two-week diagnostic gets you a written second opinion you can put in front of your agency or use to renegotiate. Either way, you're not deciding on a major build blind.

→ Diagnostic engagement

04 · What I work in

Shopify, deeply. Plus the systems that touch it.

Six years in the Shopify ecosystem. Not a generalist who also takes Shopify work.

Shopify

Liquid & Online Store 2.0
Shopify Plus migrations
Hydrogen / headless
Storefront & Admin APIs
Functions & checkout extensibility
Theme architecture & sections

Data, tracking & SEO

GA4 & GTM
Meta & TikTok pixels
Google Merchant Center
Structured data & Schema.org
Server-side tagging
Klaviyo flows & events

Custom build & integrations

Node.js, Express, Firebase
GraphQL & REST APIs
Webhook orchestration & HMAC auth
Inventory & order sync
Bundle & configurator UI
B2B & wholesale portals

Performance & accessibility

Core Web Vitals & LCP
Lighthouse audits
WCAG 2.1 AA compliance
Theme & app render-block analysis
Image & font optimization
JavaScript bloat reduction

Adjacent & ERP

NetSuite & ShipStation
Algolia & search
Recharge & subscriptions
3PL integrations
Reviews & UGC platforms
ERP middleware

05 · From a recent engagement

Why operators come back.

Eric really went above and beyond on this one. This is the third time that we hire Eric for customization on our website, every time he has delivered but this time he showed patience and excellence as he worked with developers from a Shopify app that we needed to coincide with his work. Very happy that we hired Eric — he is a true professional.

Repeat clientShopify merchant · third engagement

Read all 31 reviews

06 · Practical questions

What operators ask before our first call.

Q.01

Are you a Shopify Partner?

Yes. Built into the Partner ecosystem since 2019, with development store access, Plus references, and direct merchant-success channels for engagements that need them.

Q.02

Do you take ongoing maintenance work?

Only inside the Retained Partner shape — and only for stores I've previously built or audited. I'm not a help desk, and pretending to be one would mean both of us getting worse at our jobs.

Q.03

Can you work with our existing agency or in-house team?

Often, yes. I've sat alongside agency teams as the technical lead, the data lead, or the second opinion. The Retained Partner shape is built for exactly this.

Q.04

What time zones do you work in?

I work on EAT — overlapping mornings with European brands and afternoons with US East Coast brands. Working with US West Coast clients works too; I just front-load the day for stand-ups.

Q.05

Will the code you write be ours, or yours?

Yours. Full source, in your repos, documented in plain English. If you switch consultants in two years, the next person can read what I shipped and pick it up. That's the whole point.

Q.06

What if I'm not a fit?

I'll say so on the first call. The honest answer for very small stores is usually "you don't need a consultant yet — you need an operator." I'll point you at the right resources and we'll part as friends.

Discovery call · 30 minutes · no obligation

Let's spend ten minutes on whether your brief is the right brief.

Bring the symptom you've noticed. I'll bring the questions that figure out what's underneath it. If we're a fit, we'll talk shape and scope. If we're not, you'll leave with a clear next move.

Schedule a discovery call