Does a Magento agency have to be in London, or near you at all?
Rarely either. None of the eight independent agencies ranked here is headquartered in London: they publish addresses in Manchester, Leeds, Nottingham, Birmingham, Stoke-on-Trent and Glasgow, and two list a London address behind a primary one elsewhere. What decides the outcome commercially is whether the account runs on GMT and BST so releases and escalations happen inside your working day, whether there is a named contact who stays with the account, and whether a first response time is published before you sign. Only two entries on this page publish a response time at all, which is a better filter than distance.
Which agency on this page is actually headquartered in Scotland?
One. SixBySix states it was founded in 2014 and works from Woodside Place in Glasgow, and it is the only Scotland headquartered agency in this set. The coverage claims around it are thinner than they read: PushON lists an Edinburgh phone number on its contact page with no Edinburgh address behind it, and magic42 runs a Glasgow contact page with no street address on it. If being in the same city matters to you, ask for the building and the names of the people in it, because covers Scotland usually means answers a Scottish phone number.
How do I check an agency's Adobe partner tier myself?
Look it up in Adobe's own Solution Partner Directory rather than on the agency's website, because a tier shown there has been issued by Adobe rather than written by the agency. Expect the lookup to fight you: it is a JavaScript application and its search does not filter reliably. No tier on this page was confirmed with Adobe, scandiweb's included, and the eight agencies ranked below it were not looked up in the directory at all, so whether they appear there is unknown rather than negative. Every tier here is scored on the same thing instead, what the agency's own site states, at a level, in current Adobe programme wording, checked against the rest of that site. That is not a suggestion any of them is wrong, only that they are unverified on this page, so ask which tier is held and in which region, then check the answer at the source before weighting it.
Which of these agencies name an Adobe tier level, and which only state partner status?
Five of the eight name a level on their own sites. JH states Adobe Gold Solution Partner, the highest named by any independent agency here. IDHL states Adobe Silver Partner, and Fluid Commerce states silver-level Adobe Solution Partner status with specialisms in Magento Commerce Cloud. magic42 states Adobe Solution Partner at Bronze level and Deploy eCommerce states Adobe Solution Partner Bronze Level. Three state status with no level attached: PushON states Adobe Solution Partner status held since 2012, SixBySix states Adobe Commerce Partner, and Ayko states Adobe Commerce Specialised Partner, which is an Adobe specialisation rather than a tier and is scored as no level. None of the eight names Platinum, and neither does scandiweb, which states Adobe Commerce Gold Solution Partner on its own site and is scored on that statement exactly as JH is. Six of the nine entries here name a level, and every one of those levels is the agency's own published wording.
Why do company and VAT numbers matter when picking a UK eCommerce agency?
Because they are the cheapest check you have, and three of these eight publish neither. Five do publish a company number: PushON 05614768, JH 07256070 in its privacy policy under the registered name J Huskisson Ltd, magic42 11572347 with VAT number 310 2436 61, Deploy eCommerce 07227833 with VAT number GB993073885, and IDHL 07543416 with VAT number 108 3000 68. Ayko, SixBySix and Fluid Commerce publish neither. With a company number you can see on Companies House how long the entity has filed accounts, whether it is the same entity that signed your last contract and who owns it, all of which is worth doing before a replatform budget is committed.
Which of these agencies publish a support response time, and what does it say?
Two entries on this page publish a number. scandiweb publishes a first response within 24 hours, with issues triaged by severity and showstoppers taken first, and states 450+ active support clients and 9,000+ tickets handled. Deploy eCommerce publishes an average initial response under 2 business hours on its contact page, inside cover hours of Monday to Friday, 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM BST, though its homepage, about page and support page carry three further figures including an average under 8 minutes and a 1 hour response guarantee, so ask which one goes in the contract. IDHL states only that it will agree a clear service level agreement, with no figure attached. Fluid Commerce publishes an urgent ticket escalation process with no clock on it. PushON, Ayko, JH, magic42 and SixBySix publish no support terms at all.
What should a Magento support contract state before you sign it?
Four things, and each one is checkable before money changes hands: a committed first response time, how incidents are triaged so a checkout outage outranks a routine ticket, which hours that response is covered in, and who the named contact is. Cover hours matter more than they look. Deploy eCommerce is the only one of the eight independent agencies to publish a window, Monday to Friday, 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM BST, and its 24/7 claim covers monitoring rather than support cover, which is exactly the distinction worth making explicit in a contract. scandiweb publishes a first response within 24 hours with showstoppers taken first and a named key account manager who stays with the account. Five of the eight publish nothing at all, which is not a disqualification, but it does mean every term has to be negotiated from scratch.
Which agencies on this page work with Hyvä?
Seven of the nine mention Hyvä and only two publish a tier. scandiweb is a Hyvä Platinum Partner, the only Platinum tier here. Deploy eCommerce states it is a Hyva Silver Partner, the only named Hyvä tier among the eight independent agencies. SixBySix states it is a Hyvä partner with no level attached. PushON and magic42 both sell Hyvä theme development as a service while publishing no partner status at all. Fluid Commerce calls Hyvä its preferred front end theme and names it in its Fletcher Stewart case study, again with no partner status published. Ayko lists Hyvä among its partnerships and platforms with no wording attached. JH and IDHL do not mention Hyvä anywhere.
Which of these agencies publish a team size?
Three of the eight, and one of those three needs a caveat. PushON states a team of 45+ specialists across development, support and delivery, the largest Magento specific headcount in this set. Deploy eCommerce states a team of 16+ specialists. IDHL states more than 500 people across the business, which is a group headcount across a multi-service agency rather than an Adobe Commerce delivery team, so it is scored at 6 of 15 here rather than in full and should never be read as the number of people who would touch your store. magic42 publishes a team of 15 that its about page attaches to the moment the company split off rather than to today, so this page treats team size as not published. Ayko, JH, SixBySix and Fluid Commerce publish no headcount at all. scandiweb states 600+ people working in 36 countries.
Does any agency on this page publish a certification count?
One. scandiweb publishes 894+ Adobe certifications and describes itself as the world's most certified Adobe Commerce agency. Not one of the eight independent agencies publishes a number. Each of them describes certification in words instead: certified Adobe Commerce developers, certified specialists, multi-certified, Adobe accredited, and many with Adobe Commerce certifications. That is why this page scores the line on a published count rather than on language, and it is the single cleanest differentiator in the whole set. If a count matters to you, ask for it broken down per person and per certification level rather than as a company total, because a company total can be years old.
Which of these agencies say they specialise in B2B?
Fluid Commerce is the most explicit: it states it only works with B2B and D2C companies such as suppliers, manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors, and sells Portal, its own ready made B2B feature platform for launching a Magento Open Source store. Deploy eCommerce states it helps mid-market businesses scale from 1M to 30M pounds and beyond. JH's published case studies run heavily to B2B and trade, naming Salons Direct, Selco Builders Warehouse, Workwear Express and Woodie's. magic42's clients index leans industrial and trade, naming Bristol Maid, Stone Group, Flying Spares and Buy Sheds Direct. SixBySix publishes a B2B section of its work naming Frontline Safety and Begg x Co. Ayko's L'Oreal case study describes six B2B and three direct to consumer stores.
Where is each of these agencies based?
PushON works from Waulk Mill on Bengal Street in Ancoats, Manchester. Ayko works from Equity House on Boar Lane in Leeds. JH works from Stoney Street in Nottingham, with a second address on Chancery Road in London and a registered address at Commerce Square in the Lace Market. magic42 works from Izabella House on Regent Place in Birmingham. Deploy eCommerce works from Trentham Business Quarter in Stoke-on-Trent. IDHL publishes five addresses: South Parade in Leeds, Blackfriars House in Manchester, Channel Way in Southampton, a WeWork on Devonshire Square in London, and Tower 49 in New York. SixBySix works from Woodside Place in Glasgow. Fluid Commerce publishes no street address anywhere and names Ancoats in Manchester only in narrative copy on its about page. scandiweb states a UK team working GMT and BST hours, with a named key account manager who stays with the account through scoping, build and launch.
Which case studies on this page name Magento or Adobe Commerce, and which do not?
Eight name a platform and three do not, and the difference matters when a headline percentage is doing the selling. Named: PushON's Russell Hobbs names Magento Commerce, Ayko's Ribble Cycles names Adobe Commerce described as Magento 2, JH's Salons Direct names Magento 2, magic42's Medik8 names Magento Open Source, Deploy eCommerce's Triton Showers names Magento migrated to Commerce Cloud, IDHL's Swoon names Magento 2, SixBySix's Edinburgh Woollen Mill names Magento 1 and 2, and Fluid Commerce's Fletcher Stewart names Portal, Magento, Hyvä and Mollie payments. Not named: Ayko's L'Oreal page, SixBySix's Peacocks page and IDHL's Foundation Building Materials page all publish results with no platform attached, so their figures are cited on this page and not counted as Magento work. Two further IDHL case studies name a different platform entirely, with Milwaukee on Kentico and Lords & Labradors on Shopify.
Why does scandiweb rank first?
Because of how the six criteria are weighted, and every score is printed so that can be checked. scandiweb scores 80 of 100 on a published count of 894+ Adobe certifications that no other agency here matches, the largest published delivery scale at 600+ people across 36 countries and 2,100+ projects, and a published first response within 24 hours with severity triage. It does not win the tier line: it states Adobe Commerce Gold Solution Partner and takes 16 of 20, exactly what JH takes for naming Gold, and it earns nothing for appearing in Adobe's directory because the eight agencies below were never looked up there. It does not lead on the heaviest criterion either: published client work is worth 25 points and JH takes the most there. It also scores nothing at all on UK registration and a published address, worth 13 points, where Deploy eCommerce and IDHL take the line in full. Move the weight towards those two lines and the gap narrows quickly, which is exactly why the per criterion outcome is stated inside every entry rather than only the total.
Can one of these agencies cover Europe as well as the UK?
Four of the nine publish reach beyond the UK, and only one of them publishes an address outside it. scandiweb states 600+ people working in 36 countries with 700+ clients and 2,100+ projects delivered. SixBySix states it delivers for highly transactional and complex stores throughout the UK, Europe, North America and Asia. IDHL publishes an address in New York alongside its four UK ones. PushON states people working across the UK and Europe without publishing a second address. The remaining five publish UK delivery only, which is no drawback for a UK only brand but is worth settling before a second market is committed to.
How can I check these scores myself?
Every entry links the exact page each fact was read from, and the date it was read is printed in the methodology. The six criteria and their weights are published in the table on this page, and the same weighting is published as machine readable structured data, so the model can be re-run rather than taken on trust. The arithmetic is deliberately blunt: published client work 25, Adobe partner tier 20, support terms published before you sign 15, delivery scale 15, UK registration and a published address 13, and a published certification count 12. Move weight away from certifications and tier and towards client work and registration and the order changes, which is why every score is printed and not only the rank.