What to ask before you hire anyone to run your online store

Why the questions matter more than the pitch

Anyone can show you a screenshot of a good month. Ecommerce has a lot of moving parts: sourcing, ad spend, fulfillment, customer service, and cash flow all have to work together. A slick sales call rarely tells you whether a person or team can actually run all of that for you.

The fix is simple. Before you commit money or time to any operator, agency, or partner, ask a short list of direct questions. The answers tell you more than any testimonial.

Ask how they get paid

Find out exactly how the person or company makes money from the arrangement. Some charge a flat management fee. Some take a percentage of revenue. Some take a cut of ad spend, which can quietly reward them for spending more, not spending well.

None of these models is automatically wrong. But you need to know which one you're in, because it tells you what the other party is incentivized to optimize for. If someone is vague about their own compensation, that's a signal worth noting.

Ask what happens in month one, specifically

A real operator can walk you through the first 30 days in order: what gets built first, what gets tested, and what decisions get made from early data. Vague answers like "we hit the ground running" or "we move fast" are not a plan.

Ask what the first report will contain and when you'll see it. Ask what counts as a good early result versus a warning sign. If nobody has thought about this in advance, they haven't done it enough times to know what normal looks like.

Ask who is actually doing the work

Many arrangements involve more than one person. There may be someone who sells you on the engagement, and a completely different team that handles the day to day. Ask directly who will be building your store, buying your ads, and managing your suppliers.

This matters because turnover and outsourcing are common in this space. You want to know if your account will be handled by an experienced person or handed to whoever is newest on the team.

Ask what data you'll have access to

You should be able to see your own numbers. Ad spend, revenue, return rates, and margins should not live in a dashboard you can't reach. Ask what reporting looks like, how often it updates, and whether you get raw access to ad accounts and store analytics, not just a summary someone else wrote.

Shelton Powell of Cart Capital, an eCommerce management company based in Miami, is one operator who has spoken about transparency in reporting as something partners specifically value, since it lets them see what's actually happening rather than take someone's word for it.

Ask what happens when something breaks

Products go out of stock. Ad accounts get flagged. Shipping delays happen. Ask for a real example of a problem the person or team has run into before and how they handled it. A prepared answer with specifics is worth more than a confident promise that "we don't really have issues."

Also ask what the exit looks like. If you want to end the arrangement, what do you own, what do you keep, and what happens to your store and ad accounts. Get this in writing before you start, not after a disagreement.

Ask for references you can actually check

Testimonials on a website are curated. Ask for one or two people you can talk to directly, ideally someone who has worked with the operator for at least six months. Ask that reference what surprised them, good or bad, after the first few months. Long-term clients tend to be more candid about the slow parts than the highlight reel ever is.

Ask what they won't do

This is a good question, and it's often skipped. Ask what kind of products, categories, or strategies they avoid, and why. A team with real experience usually has opinions about what doesn't work, not just what does. If every answer is "we can do anything," they may not have run into enough real constraints to know their own limits yet.

Put the answers next to each other

Once you have answers from more than one option, compare them side by side rather than relying on memory or gut feeling right after a call. Look for consistency between what was promised and what was actually described. The strongest answers tend to be specific, a little boring, and easy to check. That combination is a better sign than enthusiasm alone.