Ecommerce Agency Australia: Development for DTC and B2B Brands

An ecommerce agency is a team that plans, designs, builds and looks after online stores. Some agencies only do marketing, such as ads and email. Others only do design. A full ecommerce agency covers platform choice, design, development, integrations, migration and support after launch. FactoryJet sits on the build side: we design and develop your store, connect it to your systems, and stay on afterwards. You own everything we build.

An ecommerce developer writes and configures the code that makes an online store work. That includes building the theme, setting up products and variants, connecting payment gateways, shipping rates and stock, linking the store to accounting software such as Xero or MYOB, and making the site fast on a phone. A good ecommerce developer also tests real orders end to end before launch, not just the pages.

Ecommerce web development is the technical work of building an online store: the storefront customers see, the cart and checkout, and the connections to payments, stock, delivery and accounts behind it. It sits on a platform such as Shopify, WooCommerce, Adobe Commerce or BigCommerce, or on custom code. Ecommerce website development usually also covers migration from an old store and the testing before launch.

Ecommerce web design decides what a shopper sees and trusts: layout, product pages, the order information appears in, and how checkout feels. Ecommerce development is the code underneath that makes it fast, takes payments, syncs stock and holds up on a busy sale day. A design nobody can build is just a picture. A build nobody designed usually converts badly. We do both as one team.

There is no honest single figure, because a small DTC launch and a B2B catalogue with ERP integration are different jobs. The drivers are product count, the platform and its apps, custom design, how many systems you connect, any migration, and B2B pricing rules. We quote a fixed price per stage after a free call. Published Australian ranges for online stores are in our website cost guide.

Website cost guide ↗ Shopify cost in Australia ↗

A platform store with a custom theme takes 3 to 5 weeks. An advanced store with subscriptions, B2B pricing or a migration takes 5 to 8 weeks. Headless, custom or ERP-heavy builds take 8 to 14 weeks. Catalogue size, integrations and how quickly product data and sign-offs arrive move the date more than the code does.

For well-run stores, yes. The ABS reported that online sales were 12.7% of all Australian retail sales in June 2025, up from 11.6% a year earlier, and 19.0% of non-food retail. Profit comes from margins, delivery costs, returns and repeat customers, not from having a store at all. A fast store with honest delivery costs and a clean checkout protects those margins.

AI website builders can put a basic store online quickly, and for testing an idea that can be enough. They struggle with the parts that decide whether a store makes money: clean product data, links to your stock and accounts, a migration that keeps your Google rankings, Australian Consumer Law, and speed on a real phone. We use AI tools inside our own process, but people design, check and own every decision.

There is no official list, and different writers use different five words. The version we find useful when planning a store is catalogue (clean product data), content (pages that answer buyer questions), checkout (short, honest, fast), connections (payments, stock, accounts and couriers talking to each other) and care (support after launch). A store that gets those five right usually does well.

Design from the product page outwards. Start with what a shopper needs to decide: clear photos from the angles people ask about, variants that are easy to pick, stock status, delivery estimate and the returns promise. Then build category pages with filters that work on a phone, and a checkout with guest option, address lookup and the total price shown up front. Test the whole flow on a real phone before anything looks finished.

The ones we fix most often: delivery costs that only appear at checkout, product descriptions copied from the supplier, category pages with no words on them, too many apps slowing the store, a checkout that forces account creation, and a replatform with no redirects that wipes out Google rankings overnight. Under Australian Consumer Law, a no refunds line or a price that excludes unavoidable fees is a legal problem as well as a sales one.

If you are running an online store as a business, yes, you should get one. An ABN is free from the Australian Business Register, you need it to register for GST once your turnover reaches the GST threshold, and the ACCC notes that reputable online sellers display their ABN. Without one, some business customers must withhold tax from what they pay you. Selling a few personal items as a hobby is different.

Validate demand before you build. Check that people search for what you sell and that you can land it with a healthy margin after delivery and returns. Then register an ABN and business name, pick a platform that fits your catalogue, set up payments, GST, Australia Post or courier rates and a refund policy that follows the Australian Consumer Law. Launch with a small range, measure what sells, and grow from there.

It is the observation that a small share of your products, customers or pages usually brings in most of the revenue, often quoted as 20% producing 80%. The exact split varies. The useful part is acting on it: check your own sales report, then put your best photography, copy, stock planning and ad budget behind the products and categories that actually sell, rather than spreading effort evenly across the whole catalogue.

Look at live stores they built on your platform and at your size, on your own phone. Ask who writes the code, who owns the code and accounts at the end, how they handle redirects in a migration, and what support looks like after launch. Get the timeline in weeks with named milestones. Check they know GST, Australia Post and courier rates, Afterpay and Zip, and Australian Consumer Law.

Agencies that show up often in Australian ecommerce searches and AI answers include 23 Digital, Acidgreen, OSE, Aligent, Convert Digital, Prosper Digital, Overdose, Shakewell and Stone Digital, plus FactoryJet. Each has a different centre of gravity: some lead with Shopify Plus, some with Adobe Commerce or B2B integration, some with marketing. We list them further up this page with a neutral note on each.

A freelancer suits small, well-defined jobs such as theme tweaks or setting up one app. An in-house developer makes sense once you have steady work every week and someone senior to manage them. An ecommerce agency fits a new build, a replatform, or anything touching design, development, integrations and SEO at once, because you get several specialists and cover when someone is away.

You do not need an agency down the road. We work remotely with brands in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and the Gold Coast, using video calls, shared boards and a staging store you can click through at any time. What matters is that the agency understands Australian shoppers, Australian delivery and Australian consumer rules, and that senior people turn up to the calls.

A written scope listing pages, features and integrations; the platform and why; who does the work; a timeline in weeks with sign-off points; how products, customers, orders and URLs move if you are migrating; what testing happens before launch; what is handed over; and what support looks like afterwards. If a proposal is a mood board and a total, ask for the rest before you sign.

Most Australian stores run on Shopify or Shopify Plus, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Adobe Commerce (Magento) or Maropost Commerce Cloud, which many Australians still call Neto. The right one depends on your catalogue, B2B needs, team and integrations, not on popularity. Our best ecommerce platform in Australia guide compares them on AUD prices, GST, Afterpay and Zip, and shipping.

Best ecommerce platform in Australia guide ↗

Shopify suits most DTC brands that want less to manage, because hosting, security and checkout are handled for you. WooCommerce suits businesses already built around WordPress and content, and it gives more control, but you (or we) look after hosting, updates and speed. For Shopify-specific builds, see our Shopify development page for Australia, where we go deeper. See the full Shopify vs WooCommerce comparison for Australia too.

Shopify vs WooCommerce comparison for Australia ↗ Shopify development ↗

Adobe Commerce, the paid version of Magento, earns its place with large catalogues, several stores or brands on one back end, and complex B2B rules such as company accounts, negotiated quotes and approval chains. It needs specialist developers, proper hosting and regular upkeep. For a small or mid-sized DTC brand it is usually more platform than the job needs.

Headless ecommerce means the storefront customers see is built separately from the commerce engine that holds products, prices and orders. It gives full design freedom, top speed, and one catalogue feeding a website, an app and other channels. It also adds build and maintenance work. Most Australian brands do not need it on day one. It makes sense when a standard theme is clearly holding you back.

Commerceflo is FactoryJet’s own AI commerce operator, currently in early access. It runs a DTC store, B2B portals and marketplace listings on one data model, with AI agents that propose fixes for stock, pricing and content and act only after you approve. We built Belle Maison’s DTC store on it. We still build on Shopify, WooCommerce, Adobe Commerce and BigCommerce, and recommend Commerceflo only when it fits.

Yes. Orders, customers, payments and GST should flow into Xero or MYOB without anyone retyping them. Where a proven connector exists we set it up and configure it properly, including tax codes, payout reconciliation and refunds. Where your setup is unusual, or you run an ERP such as NetSuite, Dynamics 365 Business Central or Pronto, we build or configure the integration and document it.

Whatever your platform supports and your customers use: card payments through Shopify Payments, Stripe or your bank’s gateway, PayPal, Apple Pay and Google Pay, and buy now, pay later options such as Afterpay and Zip. We check each one works on a real phone with a real order before launch, and that refunds and payouts reconcile in Xero or MYOB.

Yes. We connect Australia Post and couriers such as StarTrack, Sendle or your 3PL (third-party logistics warehouse) so shoppers see real delivery prices and times at checkout, and your team prints labels without copying addresses. We also set sensible rules for bulky items, remote postcodes and free shipping thresholds, so delivery costs do not quietly eat your margin.

Yes, and this is where a lot of DIY migrations go wrong. We map every old URL to its new address with one permanent (301) redirect, keep the product and category structure Google already trusts, carry over structured data and reviews, and test on a staging store first. After launch we watch rankings and traffic so anything that slips gets fixed early.

Yes. B2B ecommerce needs trade logins, account-specific prices, quick order by SKU, bulk upload, quotes, pay on account with credit limits, and prices shown ex-GST for trade buyers. We build it on Shopify Plus, Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce or WooCommerce, connected to your ERP or accounts software. We built this kind of B2B ordering for Bombay Petals.

Hire one that has built a live trade portal connected to an ERP, not just DTC stores. Ask to log in to a B2B store they built, ask how they sync customer prices and credit limits from your ERP, and ask who supports it after launch. FactoryJet builds B2B stores for Australian wholesalers and manufacturers, working remotely with no Australian office. Compare us with the agencies listed on this page.

B2B ecommerce is selling to other businesses online instead of to the public. Trade buyers log in, see their own prices and payment terms, reorder quickly by SKU and pay on account. Behind the store, orders, stock and credit usually come from an ERP or accounting system. For wholesalers it replaces orders taken by phone, email and PDF with orders that arrive complete.

Yes. Shopify says its B2B features work on the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Shopify Plus plans. Every plan gets company profiles with locations, net payment terms, minimum and maximum order quantities, quantity price breaks, saved cards and draft orders with PO numbers. Plus adds unlimited B2B catalogues, prices set per company, deposits and partial payments. Very complex quoting or pricing logic may still need an app or custom work.

Shopify Help: B2B features by plan ↗

For many Australian wholesalers, yes, especially if you already sell DTC on Shopify and want trade buyers in the same store and stock pool. It is less suited if every customer has a negotiated price across thousands of SKUs on a non-Plus plan, since those plans allow three active B2B catalogues. We check your price lists, payment terms and ERP before recommending it.

Shopify says B2B is included on the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus plans, so on those plans you are not paying for a separate B2B add-on. What you do pay for is the Shopify plan that fits your catalogue and pricing, any apps, and the build work: trade theme, price lists, ERP or Xero and MYOB integration, and migration. Our Shopify cost guide has Australian ranges.

Shopify cost in Australia ↗

Yes. We connect your store to Amazon Australia, eBay Australia and Kogan Marketplace so products, prices and stock are managed in one place and orders flow back to one system. The rule is one source of truth for stock, so you never sell the same last item twice. Catch is no longer an option: Wesfarmers wound it down in 2025.

The Australian Consumer Law. business.gov.au says all businesses selling goods and services in Australia must comply with it, including businesses that are overseas. It covers consumer guarantees (products must be of acceptable quality and match their description), honest advertising and pricing, and terms that are clear and easy to find.

Not for faulty goods. You cannot have a store policy that overrides consumer guarantees, so a blanket no refunds line is off the table. You can choose whether to offer change-of-mind returns, and if you do, you must follow your own policy. In a 2025 sweep of over 2,000 retail websites, the ACCC flagged statements such as sale items cannot be returned. We write return pages that stay inside the rules.

The ACCC says businesses must show the total price as a single figure, including GST and any unavoidable fees, and must tell shoppers up front what extra fees apply and when, rather than adding them at the end. If you show prices only to other businesses, such as in a trade portal, you do not need to include GST. We build both rules into product pages and checkout.

The ACCC says it is against the law to create fake or misleading reviews or arrange for others to do so. You must not hide or edit genuine negative reviews, and any incentive for leaving a review must not depend on it being positive and must be disclosed. We set review apps up so every genuine review can publish and nothing gets filtered by star rating.

Yes, completely. The platform account, domain, theme, custom code, integrations and documentation all sit in your name from day one. There is no licence to rent from us and no hosting you cannot move. If you ever want to take the work in-house or to another developer, you can, and it keeps running. We would rather keep you because the support is good than because you are locked in.

We stay close for the first weeks after launch, when real customers on real phones surface things a test store never does. After that you choose the shape: ad-hoc fixes when you need them, a monthly support plan covering updates, security patches and small improvements, or planned growth sprints for new features. The same engineers who built the store look after it. For WooCommerce and Shopify stores, our monthly website maintenance plan covers tested updates, checkout testing and backups.

Monthly website maintenance plan ↗

Senior engineers do the work, with the founder, Bhavesh Barot, involved in scoping every project. FactoryJet was founded in 2014 and has served 500+ businesses. We work with Australian brands remotely, with calls booked at times that suit your business day, a shared project board, and a staging store you can review whenever you like. There is no handoff to juniors after the sales call.

Yes. Every store we build ships with clean URLs, product structured data and fast pages, which is the foundation for both. For ongoing work, our SEO service for Australian businesses handles rankings and content, and our AI SEO service focuses on getting your brand named in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. Nobody can guarantee a ranking or an AI mention, so we never promise one.

Send your name and work email through the form on this page. The founder replies within 24 hours to book a short call, where we look at your catalogue, your current store if you have one, and which platform actually fits. That first conversation is useful whether or not we end up working together, and it costs nothing.