How MAXBURST Doubled Its Revenue in 3 Years as a Shopify Partner (2024)

When MAXBURST started as a Shopify Partner, we were primarily working with small and medium-sized e-commerce businesses. But as Shopify expanded its offerings, MAXBURST was able to grow with us, taking on more and larger clients, and opening new revenue streams by providing unified commerce solutions across D2C, B2B, and retail.

“You saw where (Shopify) was going, right? All the new updates that were coming out based on customer demand. (I thought), ‘Yeah, this meets the requirements.’… It was a lot easier to use, a lot easier to maintain, customers were really happy with it, and the total cost of ownership was a lot lower than other platforms,” said Jason Sidana, director of business development and strategic partnerships at MAXBURST. “And as Shopify grew, we grew as well.”

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By growing with Shopify’s product innovations, MAXBURST has benefited from the following:

• Doubled revenues in 3 years
• Shopify accounts for ~70% of their total revenue
• Growth from 20 employees to over 40

Challenge: Replacing Disconnected Platforms

When his agency merged with MAXBURST in 2021, Jason brought his first-hand experience of trying to run an e-commerce business using competitor platforms. His family owns a shoe and clothing store and wholesaler that built their websites on Magento (Adobe Commerce) and BigCommerce. If something sold in the store, they had to manually reduce inventory in the wholesaler and other sales channels. Or if an item sold in the sales channel, they had to tell the store or warehouse to pull inventory.

“It was a ton of maintenance work. We spent a ridiculous amount of money and energy just maintaining the data,” Jason said. “Using a unified database commerce platform like Shopify definitely streamlines that. You don’t have to do as much work. You don’t have to spend time just managing inventory, managing pricing, managing different platforms. It’s all in one place.”

In addition to Jason’s personal experience, merchants were also coming to MAXBURST with disconnected trading platforms. They had one for point of sale and one for e-commerce. They had middleware that connected everything, which ultimately drove up their costs even more. And if something went down or their server went down, they couldn’t make transactions in the store or sync their inventory.

When Shopify POS launched, MAXBURST seized the opportunity to help these merchants unify their commerce.

Solution: Improving customer service

MAXBURST got to work helping merchants unify their commerce. Shopify’s product differentiation allowed them to uniquely position themselves in the marketplace and helped them expand into new segments and verticals.

For example, one of their clients is a women’s apparel company with eight stores in Texas. With Lightspeed as their POS and BigCommerce as their e-commerce platform, they were struggling to manage separate inventories. When MAXBURST helped them migrate, they moved their products, customers, and even transaction history to Shopify.

“When we finished the project, it was like they had always been on Shopify,” Jason said. “Moving them to Shopify makes it a lot easier for them to keep their products published because now it’s just one source instead of two places managing inventory.”

With Shopify, MAXBURST streamlined the customer journey. The first order of business was to fix a problem with the merchant’s gift card data. Lightspeed was set up so that if they sold a gift card in-store, it couldn’t be used online. If a mom bought a gift card for her daughter living out of state, she couldn’t use it. Once that problem was fixed in Shopify, the merchant was able to help those customers place orders, increasing revenue, retention, and loyalty.

MAXBURST also created a buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS) option for customers. Now, retail associates get a notification on their tablet when someone makes a purchase, and as soon as they finish packing the order, the system seamlessly sends a notification to that customer to pick it up. And because customer data is now unified, the retailer can better manage its loyalty plan to reward those customers online or in-store for pickup.

As it shifts its agency focus toward unified commerce solutions, MAXBURST also began taking on more B2B clients—specifically, those focused on supply chain and distribution to a variety of retailers and distributors.

One of MAXBURST’s clients is a wholesale retailer that sells blank clothing. Their wholesale clients—think retailers and screen printers—wanted a site where their customers could shop directly. While the front end of the new site looks simple, MAXBURST built complex backend rules and integrations, all natively in Shopify. Specifically, they created a custom matrix that lets customers see all the sizes, colors, and quantities of each product, and added discounts like volume-based pricing.

Results: Harness the power of the ecosystem

MAXBURST attributes much of their success to their partnership with Shopify. Jason says the strength of the platform, ecosystem, and support they receive from the Shopify team keeps them going.

“There are a lot of reasons (for sticking with Shopify). One is support. We have a partner rep. Any questions we have, we have access to the product team or we can get direct answers. Ease of use, ecosystem, total cost of ownership — it’s a whole bunch of checkboxes that cover everything. It’s been a great relationship.”

In particular, adding Shopify POS has been one of the biggest factors in MAXBURST’s success. Not only has it opened up a whole new service offering and revenue stream, but it’s also unlocked new segments and verticals. Jason says it’s often even a catalyst for additional services they can offer those clients.

The results speak for themselves. MAXBURST’s growth on Shopify has come in the form of doubling its headcount and doubling its revenue. And as Shopify continues to introduce new features, MAXBURST is confident it will be able to help more and more customers stay ahead of the game.

“Shopify is ahead of the curve. There’s never been a moment where I felt like they were lacking something. … You can see that Shopify is constantly changing, innovating, and staying on top of what’s trending,” Jason said. “When (new technology) hits the masses… you know Shopify is going to be there. They’re going to have some kind of app, functionality, or tool that works with it. So merchants don’t have to build something out of the box to make it work.”

Looking ahead, MAXBURST is focused on continuing to expand its reach. As Shopify serves more high-end merchants, it allows MAXBURST to acquire customers in those segments as well. “(Shopify) is not only innovative, but it’s also moving up,” Jason said. “They’re very focused on midmarket, large, and now even enterprise. They’re doubling down on that.”

And while it’s been a major factor in their business growth, MAXBURST’s partnership with Shopify isn’t something they’re trying to keep a secret. Instead, their advice to other agencies is to seize the opportunity.

Watch the full interview

Watch the full video interview with Jason Sidana, Director of Business Development and Strategic Partnerships at MAXBURST, and Sayed Saber, Director of Retail Partnerships at Shopify, to learn more about the MAXBURST story.