At some point every growing brand hits the same wall. The founder is still the one deciding what goes on the homepage, chasing the developer, approving email, and wondering why conversion dropped last Tuesday. Nobody owns the store. Everybody touches it.
The usual answers are a full time hire at $150K+ a year, or a handful of vendors stitched together with you in the middle. Neither one is great when you’re growing but not yet huge.
I’m Carson Cobb. I run Shopify stores for growing DTC brands on monthly retainers. Over 6+ years I’ve worked on 50+ Shopify stores and supported more than $40M in client revenue. A fractional head of ecommerce engagement is the deepest version of that work: I own the channel, not just a task list.
What a fractional head of ecommerce actually does
The title sounds bigger than it is. In practice it means one person is responsible for how your Shopify store makes money, and that person is me.
That covers:
- The roadmap. What we fix, build and test each month, ranked by revenue impact, not by who asked loudest.
- The numbers. Conversion rate, average order value, subscription share, repeat rate, and the tracking underneath them so we can trust what we see.
- The store. Product pages, collections, cart, speed, merchandising and promos. I do most of this work myself.
- The stack. Shopify, Recharge or Skio, Rebuy and Klaviyo, plus every other app you’re paying for. I keep what earns its place and remove what doesn’t.
- The vendors. Designers, developers and agencies get clear briefs from me, and I check their work before it ships.
- The reporting. A short, plain update on what moved, what didn’t and what’s next.
You stop being the project manager for your own website.
Fractional vs full time vs agency: when you need which
There’s no single right answer. Here’s how I’d think about it.
A full time head of ecommerce makes sense when the channel needs someone inside the business every day, leading a team of their own. You’re paying $150K+ a year before benefits, and it can take months to find the right person. For a brand that’s growing but not yet at that scale, it’s a lot of fixed cost for one role.
An agency makes sense when you have a clearly scoped project, like a full redesign, and someone on your team who can manage it. Agencies are built to deliver projects. They’re less often built to own your numbers month after month.
A fractional head of ecommerce makes sense when you need senior ownership of the store without a senior salary. You get someone who sets direction and does the work, on a retainer you can adjust as you grow.
Many brands end up with a mix. I’ve written a longer, honest version of this in my agency vs fractional head of ecommerce comparison, including when I think an agency is the better pick.
What the first 90 days look like
I work the same way on almost every store, because the order matters.
Month 1: tracking, speed and key pages. I make sure the numbers are right before I change anything. Then I fix the pages that carry the most revenue, usually the hero product pages and the cart, and clean up whatever is slowing them down on mobile. More on that on my conversion optimization page.
Month 2: order value. Upsells and bundles in Rebuy or your theme, a real subscription offer in Recharge or Skio, and Klaviyo flows that bring people back. If subscriptions are part of your business, my Shopify subscriptions page covers how I approach them.
Month 3: testing roadmap and promo calendar. By now I know your store well enough to plan tests that matter and to map out promos ahead of time, so the next sale isn’t put together the night before.
After 90 days the work becomes a steady rhythm: test, fix, ship, report.
What a month looks like in practice
Here’s a real sample month for a skincare client, anonymized.
A month like that starts with a short review of the numbers and a ranked list of what to work on. Then the work itself: product pages, cart and upsells, speed, email, and planning the next promo with the founder in one call instead of ten threads. It ends with a plain update on what moved.
By the end of that month, conversion had gone from 2.1% to 3.2% and average order value from $58 to $64.
Not every month looks like that. Some months are mostly groundwork. But the point is that one person was looking at the whole store and choosing the work that mattered most.
Plans
The plan most brands pick for this kind of ownership is Head of Ecommerce at $5,500/mo. That’s where I own the channel end to end: roadmap, store, stack, vendors and reporting.
If you need hands on work but you’re keeping strategy in house, Operator at $3,000/mo is the plan I recommend for most growing brands. I run the store with you month to month.
Other ways to work together:
- Advisor, $1,000/mo. A lighter option when your team does the work and you want a senior second opinion.
- Hour Block, $1,250 for 10 hours. For a defined batch of work.
- Store Sprint, $1,500 one time. One week. I audit the store and fix the highest impact problems that same week. If you move to a retainer, the $1,500 is credited toward it.
- Extra work beyond a plan is $125/hr.
Every plan is listed on the pricing section.
Who this is a good fit for
This works best for founders of growing brands who sell on Shopify and feel the store has outgrown the way it’s being run. It’s a strong fit in categories where reorders and order value matter, like supplements, beauty and skincare, food and beverage and pet products.
It’s probably not a fit if you want someone to only run ads, or if you need a team of five on day one.
Book a 20 minute intro call
If you’re tired of being the person who holds the whole store together, let’s talk. Book a 20 minute intro call, tell me where the store is today and what’s frustrating you, and I’ll tell you honestly which plan makes sense, or whether you need a full time hire instead.