Agency spotlight: Above The Fray

With great growth comes great challenges. 2022 is estimated to be the first year that ecommerce sales hit $1 trillion, according to a report from eMarketer. This growth is happening amid inflationary costs and supply chain concerns, leading to continued disruptions this booming industry.

In this article we highlight a Buy with Prime Agency Partner that prides itself on identifying a company’s current state and providing strategic recommendations on the best ways to level up. Meet Above The Fray, an end-to-end ecommerce agency.

Above The Fray: From Design to Development

What makes this Buy with Prime Agency Partner stand out? Co-founded by ecommerce industry veterans Erin Hunt and Noah Oken-Berg, Above The Fray sits in Silicon Forest—Portland, Oregon—and has helped a wide range of clients in industry verticals like food and beverage, sports and outdoors, jewelry and apparel, and health and beauty. 

What brings these verticals together is a demand for the end-to-end ecommerce services that range from business strategy consulting to running day-to-day operations. Below are some of the services Above The Fray offers to help ecommerce businesses grow:

• Strategy: Business analysis and technical consulting services to build a roadmap for growth. 
• Design: Branding and UX/UI design to both tell a story and drive conversions. 
• Development: Custom web development and systems integration on top ecommerce platforms, including Shopify, Adobe, BigCommerce and more.
• Support: Ongoing maintenance and evolution support such as digital marketing and website security.

Introducing the Ecommerce Maturity Model

Thinking holistically about your business raises some important questions. Where do I scale? What are my opportunities and what's the next step? To address questions like this, Above The Fray created a perspective for evaluating an ecommerce business’s current state, as well as recommended next steps, known as the Ecommerce Maturity Model.

At the core of the model is an assessment that can help ecommerce businesses identify its current status across operations, data, technology, organizational model, and marketing activities. After the assessment is complete, Above The Fray works with clients to make recommendations for business growth. Learn more about the assessment and the ecommerce maturity model. 

How does Above The Fray define maturity?

When it comes to the ecommerce landscape, the Ecommerce Maturity Model defines a current state in six levels:

• Level 0: Ambitious. These businesses are online because they know they need to be, but most business aspects are manual and self-managed.
• Level 1: Embarking. Faced with technology and bandwidth limitations, an embarking business typically relies on templates and a legacy site.
• Level 2: Evolving. Functionalities are growing for a business at this level, and personalization is beginning to scale.
• Level 3: Proactive. Such a business has multiple storefronts and channels, with integrated processes.
• Level 4: Optimized. Digital commerce is a company-wide primary focus at this level, but there’s room for improvement when it comes to optimizing a business’s sales and touchpoints.
• Level 5: Innovative. Businesses here offer a holistic, customer-centric and omnichannel approach. They are industry pioneers.

With each level identified, Above The Fray’s assessment will recommend ways to level up. For instance, a Level 2 company seeking to get to Level 3 may identify chatbot help solutions or email marketing automation flows as a crucial next step.

Where does Buy with Prime fit in?

Above The Fray considers how tech advancements like Buy with Prime can fit into varying stages of business maturity. For example, since the agency provides guidance in areas like website development and order fulfillment, Above The Fray is working with clients to show the benefits of adding the easy one-click purchase option of Buy with Prime to their websites. From linking their Seller Central account to adding Amazon Pay, Above The Fray can help businesses integrate Buy with Prime with their Amazon business.

How do I learn more?

You can learn more about the collaboration between Above The Fray and Buy with Prime in the announcement post. And visit the Above The Fray website to learn more.