How to hire a Shopify expert to level-up your e-commerce store

Congratulations: Your Shopify store is ready for the next stage in its growth – exciting times indeed. Now that you’ve identified the need for leveling up, you may be wondering how to go about it.

The best way to upgrade your online Shopify store is to hire a Shopify expert instead of trying to do it yourself. 

Why? 

Well, you could spend all your weekends and spare time figuring out Shopify’s tech stack and code, and you’d probably still struggle to learn everything. 

All that extra time Shopify is taking up could be used to focus on growing your business instead.

A Shopify expert knows the platform inside out, and has experience in all aspects of it, from setting up a Shopify test site to upgrading and maintaining it once it’s up and running.

We’re going to look at the different ways you can hire a Shopify professional to guide your store through the transition, and how you can test their skills with TestGorilla’s Shopify test to ensure they are a safe pair of hands to leave your precious store in.

What can a Shopify expert do for my business?

If you have a Shopify store, you already know that you’re using one of the largest e-commerce platforms out there, that continues to grow year-on-year. This growth means the demand for Shopify professionals is larger than ever as store owners are choosing to let the experts handle all parts of their Shopify empire.

You may be surprised to know just how broad a Shopify expert’s services are. Because experts understand Shopify’s tech stack and all the common problems Shopify users face, they can take the platform’s basic features and create an online store that gives your customers the best shopping experience. 

Not only that, but the platform is so vast that Shopify has designated experts into categories:

• Store design

• Store setup

• Development

• Expert advice

• Sales and marketing

• Content writing

Here are just a few examples of the services that go into making those categories:

• Store setup and configuration

• Developing custom themes

• Integrating third-party APIs

• Store performance optimization

• Developing custom plugins

• Development and troubleshooting 

• Shopify SEO and content marketing

• Migration to Shopify

• Shopify Plus support and services

• Shopify Audits and consultancy

• Ads and promotion management

• Support and maintenance

Shopify experts are also proficient in using code for Liquid, React, JQuery, HTML5, CSS3, and Ajax API. 

A Shopify expert benefits your business in many ways, but perhaps the most important part is that they do all the heavy lifting for your online store, leaving you to focus on growing your brand.

Where can I find a Shopify expert?

Before you start your search for a Shopify star, it will help to narrow down what you need them to do. You should clearly define the budget and project details up front, so they will know what is required. You should also explain the requirements of the position by writing a Shopify developer job description.

Shopify Experts Marketplace

Shopify itself has a Shopify Experts Marketplace, which is where many store owners go first to find a professional. Here you can find freelancers and third-party agencies who provide Shopify services. You can either browse the marketplace or create a job request that enables the experts to find you. 

Finding an expert by browsing the marketplace 

Once on the Shopify Experts Marketplace menu, choose a service you are looking for. If it’s not there, you can get help by clicking on Expert guidance.

You can then choose to filter experts by price, country/region, and language. This will bring up a list of experts who fit your filters, and you can click on their profiles to see information about them. 

If you find one who looks like they could be suitable, request a quote and add your preferences and job details. If they are interested, they will contact you for more information.

Finding an expert by creating a job request

The other process you can use to find a professional on the Shopify Experts Marketplace is to create a job request. On the marketplace menu there is an option to create a job. Click on it, and choose a service. All you do then is enter the job details and preferences then click on the send job option.

You will be matched with experts, and if they are interested they will contact you for more information.

Creating a job request is a good idea, because you can go into detail about what you need and you are not committed to hiring a Shopify expert just because they answered your ad. You can decide whether you want to take the hiring process further or not.

Hire an expert from your Shopify admin panel

Did you know that you can also hire an expert directly from the Shopify help center within your Shopify admin? Login, go to the account menu in your admin panel and click the Hire a Shopify Expert option.

You will then be taken to a categories page, where you click to expand a category and then choose a goal. Next step is to submit your requirements, enter the details about your business, customers, and proposed schedule and budget. 

Shopify professionals will then look it over, and if they are interested they will contact you to discuss it further.

Freelance websites

There are thousands of Shopify professionals who have a profile on freelance websites, such as Upwork, Fiverr, and PeoplePerHour. 

On these sites, you can create an account and post a job, or browse for contractors who have the Shopify skills you seek. Freelance websites usually provide reviews from previous clients who have hired that particular freelancer, so you can see if they did a good job. 

There’s a caveat, though: Sometimes clients will simply give a 5-star rating without saying much, and some will give a high rating simply because they don’t want the freelancer to give them a bad one in return. If you’re going to take this route to hire a freelancer, choose a shortlist of top-rated ones who have been on the site for a while and have many good, detailed reviews. 

They should also have a portfolio of past work they can show you, and should be happy to answer any questions you may have about their experience and skills.

Shopify agencies

Another web search for Shopify expert agencies will bring you a huge amount of results. These agencies are all clamoring for your business, and many of them will be accredited by Shopify as a Shopify Partner agency. That does go a long way towards giving you peace of mind that you are hiring professionals to take care of your store. 

Some smaller agencies will concentrate on just one or two areas in Shopify, such as theme and app development, or marketing and sales, while larger agencies may handle everything to do with Shopify.

While you can easily hire a skilled Shopify expert from an agency, be prepared to pay a premium price. A rough costing for a store redesign can start around $10,000, and a custom build from $23,000 or so by a reputable agency.

How can I make sure a Shopify expert has the right skills?

Anyone can call themselves a Shopify expert – it doesn’t mean they are. Even on Shopify’s own discussion boards you can see complaints by clients about unprofessional behavior from Shopify listed experts.

It’s not cheap to get expert help to set up or upgrade your Shopify store, so you need to be sure your hard-earned money isn’t being wasted on an “expert” who only knows just enough about Shopify to be dangerous.

Make the wrong hire here and you could end up with a horrendous mess that will cost even more to fix, or your customers will start leaving in droves because your store experience is so bad. And once they leave after a bad experience, most will never come back.

Another issue with choosing a Shopify expert from a list is that you may not end up with the most skilled candidate, simply because humans are known to suffer from unconscious hiring bias.

Recruiters often aren’t even aware they are being biased, but even the smallest of factors can put an employer off hiring someone. Things like a candidate’s hometown, hair color, age, or even religion can affect whether they are chosen for an interview, and ultimately for the job.

That’s a real shame. Not just for the candidates, but also for employers who may be missing out on the best hire they never had. There is, however, a simple solution to this and the potential lack of skills issue.

The answer is an unbiased and cheat-proof Shopify test created by someone who is a proven professional in the field.

How TestGorilla can help you find the best professional with the Shopify Test

Skills-based testing is the way forward for employers. It removes the need for skim-reading piles of CVs, reading reviews on freelancer websites, or conducting pre-qualifying interviews. Skills-based testing  saves your brand money, as well as speeds up the whole hiring process.  

If you’ve never considered doing skills testing before, then our handy guide to pre-employment testing is a great read to learn more about the hows and the whys of the testing process.

TestGorilla’s Shopify test can be used to predict real-world job performance in four key areas of Shopify expertise:

• Store development

• Store management

• Advanced customization using code

• Using applications to extend functionality in Shopify

Below are a couple of sample questions from the Shopify test, showing the level of knowledge that candidates need to have:

The question above in the Shopify test evaluates the applicant’s knowledge of code. All candidates will need to be able to code in Liquid, which is Shopify’s coding language, to pass the Shopify test.

The question below deals with taxes, which can be a filter to sort out those who don’t understand how it works:

You also have the option to add custom questions to the Shopify test, which is useful if you want to look for candidates with a specific area of Shopify expertise. You can even watch video responses to custom questions.

Candidates are automatically graded and ranked by our screening process, and you can select the top scorers to interview. We would recommend creating an assessment for a more rounded picture of your applicants. TestGorilla assessments consist of up to five different tests, all given in one sitting. Not sure if assessments are right for you? This post on the benefits of online candidate assessments may help you decide.

If you are interested in creating an assessment, why not take a look at our test library for relevant tests to add to the Shopify test? If you are looking for a Shopify expert, you might want to add the Attention to Detail (Visual) test, Clean Code test, and the Critical Thinking test to the Shopify test.These will evaluate the candidate’s ability to catch inconsistencies in visual details, write clean, easily maintained programming code, and make sound decisions using analytical skills.

What are the next steps?

Skills-based testing and assessments are a modern and fast way to test a candidate’s job and soft skills using real-life scenarios. The Shopify test is a great first step to filter the applicants without bias and by using a data-driven method. 

The next step to finding a Shopify expert is to ask to see a portfolio of past work, talk to their previous clients if possible, and then invite the top candidates to interview.

You may be worried that candidates won’t like the Shopify test experience, or that they may be offended at being asked to take a skills test. Our post on skills testing concerns takes an in-depth look at all the questions raised, and shows how to create the most enjoyable testing experience for your applicants.

What if a potential Shopify expert who wants to work for you isn’t willing to take a Shopify test even after you’ve explained the reasons and the process? 

Decline politely, and walk away. There are more experts out there who will be happy to prove they have the Shopify skills you need by taking the Shopify test, so you don’t need to take a chance on making a bad hire that will cost your business a great deal.

If you’d like to know more about the Shopify test, and perhaps even take one or two tests yourself for the full candidate experience, then get started with TestGorilla for free today.