More than 50%of our clients stay with us for more than 8 years
20+ senior expertsfor technology, marketing and AI
Exclusivelypermanently employed staff
Since 2009 · E-commerce for Shopware and Shopify
Self-check
No big bang. More a feeling that won't go away.
Switching agencies rarely starts with an argument. It starts with small moments when you think: this really ought to work differently.
How many of these moments do you recognise?
0 of 9 moments marked
01
You hear about errors from your customers. A customer calls because checkout is stuck. Your agency hears about it for the first time from you.
02
New ideas almost always come from you. Your agency implements what you ask for. But when did it last tell you, on its own initiative, what it would do next?
03
Small changes take weeks. A piece of text, a button, a shipping rule. What follows is a quote in blocks of hours and a date three weeks out.
04
When problems arise, everyone points at each other. Conversion drops. The tech team says it's the tracking. The ads agency says it's the store. And you end up moderating.
05
You're explaining your store from scratch again. Your contact has changed, for the second time this year. The knowledge about your store left with them.
06
Updates keep getting postponed. Plugins are outdated, and the next update is considered a “bigger project”. Or your store still runs on Shopware 5 and nobody has given you a clear plan.
07
You can't quite make sense of the invoice. You see hours. But not exactly who did what and what it achieved for your store.
08
Your agency knows your store. But not your business. It talks about plugins, tickets and releases. It doesn't talk about margin, product range, seasons and where your company wants to be in two years.
09
You don't know exactly who owns what. Where is the code? In whose name are servers, licences and accounts registered? Who would have access tomorrow if you gave notice today?
None of these points alone is a reason to switch.
Three of them together are no longer a coincidence. They are a pattern.
The worry about switching
Your worry about switching is justified. That's why we have taken it apart, piece by piece.
Behind the hesitation there are almost always the same four questions. Each one can be answered before you commit.
01
“What if something breaks afterwards?”
Your live store is never the first place where changes are made. Your store is mirrored to its own staging environment, and every change is tested there. From day one, your store is connected to our monitoring. If we do make a mistake, we fix it at our own expense. For financial damage caused by our fault, you are covered by our liability and cyber insurance.
02
“What if we can't get hold of the code and access?”
Then we find out before it becomes a problem. All access, accounts, licences and repositories are inventoried, and you see exactly what is missing. The code running in your store sits on your server or in your Shopify store. A missing repository is annoying, but rarely an obstacle.
03
“What if we end up paying twice?”
The takeover costs a one-off €1,200 excl. VAT. For that, you get not just a technical handover but, first of all, a clear picture of your store's condition and the necessary priorities. You only give notice to your current agency once you know exactly what the transition will look like.
04
“How do we tell our current agency?”
Factually, and at a time you decide. If you wish, we handle the coordination with your current agency: expert to expert, respectfully and collegially. Nobody has to lose face.
Switching is not a leap into the unknown if someone has surveyed the terrain beforehand.
The invisible bill
No invoice says “cost of staying”. You pay it anyway.
An agency that no longer fits rarely costs you all at once. It costs you in small amounts that nobody adds up.
01
The update backlog
Every postponed plugin update makes the next one more expensive. After two years, a monthly routine turns into a project with its own budget. With Shopware 5, there is also the question of how long your store will remain secure and maintainable.
02
The silent errors
A payment method fails on some smartphones, a filter stops working after an update, the feed is only half populated. The store is online, nobody raises the alarm. For a high-revenue store, just a few unnoticed checkout abandonments can quickly cost more than the monitoring itself.
03
The creeping loss of visibility
Rankings rarely crash. They slide. One client came to us after their Sistrix visibility had fallen from around 4 to around 2.6 with their previous SEO agency. Within five months it was back at around 3.8.
04
Falling behind
Some of your customers now also look for product recommendations via ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. A store whose data and content are not prepared for this does not appear in those answers. No monthly report shows this gap.
So the question is not whether switching costs something.
The question is which costs you would rather plan.
Before you think about switching: do you know who actually owns your store?
Many store owners only discover when they give notice that important parts of their store are not in their name.
These seven questions are worth asking even if you never switch:
01 Can you get your source code handed over at any time if you ask for it?
02 Is the hosting or server contract in your company's name?
03 Is the domain registered to your company?
04 Are your Shopware plugins and Shopify apps licensed in your own account?
05 Are you yourself the owner with admin rights in Google Ads, Merchant Center, GA4, Google Tag Manager and Search Console?
06 Is there up-to-date documentation of your integrations with ERP, PIM, inventory management and payment providers?
07 If your developer were unavailable tomorrow: who knows your code?
Our principle: your store belongs to you.
You sign your hosting contract directly with your hosting provider. You grant access rights yourself and can revoke them at any time. You buy plugin licences in your own account. Google Ads, Merchant Center and Analytics remain entirely in your hands.
The source code is managed in our Git repository. This makes every change traceable, and our liability and cyber insurance applies. On request, we hand the repository over to you at any time.
A working relationship should be based on quality, not dependency.
Every question you cannot clearly answer with yes belongs on the checklist before switching agencies.
The process
Six steps. One goal: your store keeps running as if nothing had happened.
Your store doesn't move on one big moving day, but step by step while it keeps running. From the order, the takeover usually takes one to two weeks.
01Free of charge
Initial call and first assessment
First, it's about your starting point: store system, integrations, current contracts, goals and what bothers you about your current working relationship. And we tell you openly whether, in our view, switching makes sense at all. Directly with a senior expert or with managing director Zoran Artmagic.
Your effort: one conversation.
02Order placed · €1,200 fixed price
Technical deep dive
If you decide on the takeover, our senior developers review source code, theme, plugins and apps, integrations, hosting and tracking. The focus is on legacy issues, security risks, update backlogs and performance bottlenecks.
Your effort: grant access, and we tell you exactly which.
03Takeover · usually 1–2 weeks
Status report
You get a clear picture: what is running stably? Where is action urgently needed? What has priority, what can wait? And what exactly will the transition look like?
Your effort: read it and set the date for giving notice.
04Takeover · usually 1–2 weeks
Orderly takeover
Your store is mirrored to a staging environment, the deployment pipeline is set up, all access is taken over and your system landscape is documented in our CRM. If you wish, we handle the coordination with your current agency.
Your effort: give notice to your current agency.
05Takeover · usually 1–2 weeks
Monitoring and arboro.PULSE
Your store is connected to our diagnostic system. In arboro.PULSE you see the condition of your store at management level and can drill down whenever you need to.
Your effort: none.
06Afterwards
Stabilise, then develop further
First we secure the foundation: updates, legacy issues, critical errors. Then we create a roadmap with you, from performance to SEO/GEO to Google Ads. You decide what gets implemented.
Your effort: set priorities.
Clarity first. Then the notice.
In the no-obligation initial call, we look at your starting point and tell you openly whether, in our view, switching makes sense at all.
If you decide to take the next step, our senior developers review your store in detail. The structured takeover, including technical deep dive, status report, staging environment, inventory and access handover, costs a one-off €1,200 excl. VAT.
You only give notice to your current agency once you know what you are taking over, where the risks lie and how we would proceed.
Structured takeover at a fixed price: €1,200 one-off.
Excl. VAT. Usually completed within one to two weeks. No open-ended hour budgets to get started.
01
Technical deep dive and status report
Source code, theme, plugins, apps, template overrides, integrations, hosting and tracking, checked for legacy issues, security risks and update traps. You receive the result as a status report with clear priorities.
02
Development and staging environment
Every future change is tested there before it goes live.
03
Complete inventory
Custom adaptations, marketplaces, ERP, PIM, CRM and payment integrations, documented in our CRM. In an emergency, every developer in charge has the full picture immediately.
For the ongoing operation of your store, at least SLA-1 from €99 per month applies. For most Shopware stores we recommend SLA-2 at €500 per month with monthly plugin updates; for Shopify, SLA-1 is usually sufficient. Development is billed by actual effort, to the minute, with a cost estimate in advance for larger tasks.
SEO and GEO in one contract, with technical implementation in the same team. If your tech agency keeps working for you, you and your agency receive fully worked-out on-page changes from us for implementation.
Your account remains your account, with its entire history. Campaigns, feed and tracking are taken over, and the first check is whether the data Google optimises on is correct.
Tech, SEO/GEO and Google Ads in one team. If conversion drops, it's not everyone searching in their own area, but one team searching for the cause.
After the switch
Imagine the first Monday after the takeover.
You open arboro.PULSE and see at a glance how your store is doing. Availability, checkout process, tracking, feed, visibility.
Over the weekend, a payment method failed in checkout on some devices. You don't hear about it from an annoyed customer, but from a short message: cause found, fixed, tested.
In the regular meeting you don't have to think about what to ask for. Your team at arboro tells you what it would do next and why. And also what it advises against.
And if you have a question about SEO, tech or Google Ads, it's the same phone number.
01
arboro.PULSE included
Your cockpit for the condition of your store, 100% included and exclusive to arboro clients. With read-only rights, data processing in the EU, login with 2FA.
02
Contacts who stay
Only permanently employed senior experts work on your store, no changing freelancers. Your store is documented within the team, not in one person's head. In addition, we have our work regularly reviewed by independent specialists.
03
No paid onboarding
If a new colleague joins your project, you don't pay for their onboarding. This is a firm company value at arboro.
Nach etwa 7 monatiger Zusammenarbeit kann ich voller Zufriedenheit sagen, es war die 100% richtige Entscheidung die Firma ARBORO zu beauftragen.
Die Erfahrung die ich mit alten Vordienstleister gemacht habe, trübte leider meine Ansicht zu Marketing-Agenturen.
Bei ARBORO fühle mich vom ersten Tag an rundum zufrieden und aufgenommen. Danke an dieser Stelle an Herr Artmagic und sein Team.
Vergangenes Jahr sind wir mit unserer alten SEO Agentur schleichend von einer Sistrix Sichtbarkeit von ~4 auf ~2.6 abgerutscht. arboro hat uns innerhalb von 5 Monaten wieder auf ~3.8 gehoben und dabei auch noch gezielt wichtige Rankings/Keywords verbessert!
arboro arbeitet sehr professionell und gewissenhaft. Zusätzlich hat man das Gefühl, dass man was für sein Geld bekommt. Es wird ordentlich Content und auch A/B Tests erstellt. Ebenfalls gibt es Ansprechpartner zu technischen Themen z.B zur Ladezeit Verbesserung.
Haben vor kurzen auch einen SEA Vertrag unterzeichnet:)
Your store still runs on Shopware 5? Then you don't have to switch agency and system at the same time.
Many Shopware 5 store owners hesitate twice over: they want to switch agency but fear that this will immediately trigger a migration.
It doesn't. Shopware 5 remains fully our responsibility, including security updates and custom plugin development. You switch agency first and then decide calmly when a migration to Shopware 6 or Shopify makes economic sense.
“I have been working with Shopware since version 2 and have taken over many stores from other agencies. Almost all store owners had the same feeling beforehand: something isn't right, but switching seems bigger than the problem.
That's why we tell you openly in the very first conversation whether switching makes sense for you. I don't want clients who stay with us because they can't get away. I want clients who stay because it pays off for them.
The fact that more than half of our clients have been working with us for over eight years, some for more than fifteen, is for me the most honest proof that this works.”
Zoran Artmagic Managing director, arboro GmbH · in e-commerce since 2009 · working with Shopware since version 2
Who we are a fit for.
For manufacturers and retailers whose Shopware or Shopify store is a business-critical revenue channel. For managing directors and store managers who want a partner who thinks ahead and takes responsibility.
Who we are not a fit for.
If you are looking for the cheapest ticket processor, we are not the right choice. Nor are we if your store runs on a system other than Shopware or Shopify and is meant to stay there. Our focus is exclusively on these two systems, but all the way down to the code.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about switching agencies.
The initial call and first assessment are free of charge. The structured takeover costs a one-off €1,200 excl. VAT.
This includes a technical deep dive with status report, a development and staging environment, a complete inventory of your system landscape and the handover of all access.
For the ongoing operation of your store, at least SLA-1 from €99 per month applies. Development is billed by actual effort, to the minute, at €150 per hour excl. VAT.
No. You only give notice to your current agency once the status report is available and you know exactly what the transition will look like.
Do keep an early eye on the notice periods in your current contract, though, so that you choose the timing yourself.
Usually one to two weeks from the order.
How quickly it goes depends mainly on how fast the access details are available and how many integrations your store has. Your store keeps running throughout the takeover.
You decide. If you wish, we handle the coordination: expert to expert, respectfully and collegially.
You can also manage the handover yourself; in that case we tell you exactly which access details and documents to request.
No. Our principle for existing stores is: stabilise rather than rebuild blindly.
Your store is taken over as it is, and you see what should be addressed immediately, what later and what not at all. A relaunch is only recommended if it makes economic sense for you.
First we check what already belongs to you: domain, hosting, Shopware account, Shopify store, Google accounts.
The code running in your store sits on your server or in your Shopify store and in most cases can be secured from there, even if no repository is handed over. You see exactly what is technically missing. Contractual questions about rights of use are best clarified with your lawyer.
Hosting and licences are in your name: you sign your hosting contract directly with your hosting provider, and we only receive access rights that you can revoke at any time.
You buy plugin licences in your own account. The source code is managed in our Git repository so that every change is traceable and our liability and cyber insurance applies. On request, we hand the repository over to you at any time.
Switching agencies on its own does not change anything about URLs, content or technology.
Rankings are usually lost through errors afterwards, for example a deployment that sets pages to noindex. That is why we include the SEO status in the deep dive and monitor indexing and visibility from day one.
It remains your account, with its entire history and all learning data. You remain the owner, arboro only receives access.
The same applies to Merchant Center, GA4 and Google Tag Manager. Before we change any campaigns, we check whether tracking and feed are delivering correct data.
Yes. Many clients start with shop support and add SEO/GEO, Google Ads or server-side tracking later.
If you work with us for SEO and with another agency for tech, you and your agency receive our fully worked-out on-page changes for implementation.
Yes, fully, including security updates and custom plugin development.
A migration to Shopware 6 or Shopify is planned together with you when the timing makes economic sense for your company.
Yes. As a Shopify Partner, we take over themes, apps, checkout extensions and integrations.
Since Shopify runs hosting and servers itself, SLA-1 at €99 per month is usually sufficient.
A fixed team of permanently employed senior experts, no changing freelancers.
The knowledge about your store is documented within the team. If someone is unavailable, a colleague knows your code.
With a free initial call.
The conversation looks at your starting point, and you find out honestly whether, in our view, switching makes sense. Afterwards you decide calmly whether to commission the takeover.
You don't have to decide anything today. Just find out where your store stands.
One conversation, an honest assessment and then a clear picture: is switching worth it for you, and if so, what would it look like?
No sales theatre. No standard pitch. Just a conversation with people who understand e-commerce and will also tell you when something doesn't make sense.
Would you like personal advice for your shop?
I look forward to your call or your appointment request! You are also welcome to use our callback service. You usually get a reply within one hour on business days.
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