How Big and Bright Inflatables Saved 70% Hiring a Shopify Store Manager

“If I had done this myself, it would have taken so much longer and cost us money in lost time and mistakes. Working with HireUA was easy and professional, and the cost difference compared to hiring locally was huge.”

Big and Bright Inflatables is a US-based manufacturer and distributor of commercial-grade bounce houses, water slides, and obstacle courses for party rental businesses. They ship nationwide out of Texas.

The business was small — just two people — and growing fast. But Joe, the owner, had a major technical problem on his hands: he needed to migrate his entire website to Shopify, and he had zero technical expertise to do it.

He wasn't looking for the cheapest option. He was looking for someone who could actually get it done.

The Challenge of Finding a Good Shopify Store Manager

Website migrations are one of those projects that sound simple until you're in the middle of one.

Every product listing needs to be exported, reformatted, and imported. Themes need to be configured. Coding issues pop up when things aren't compatible. Images, descriptions, pricing, variants — it all has to transfer cleanly or you're losing sales.

For Joe, this was a nightmare scenario. He's a manufacturing guy, not a web developer. He didn't know how to handle theme compatibility, custom coding, or any of the technical work involved in moving from one platform to Shopify.

He could have tried to do it himself. But here's the math on that:

If you're a business owner spending 20+ hours a week on tasks outside your expertise — tasks that would take someone experienced half the time — you're not saving money by doing it yourself. You're losing it. Every hour Joe spent fumbling through a website migration was an hour he wasn't spending on sales, manufacturing, or customer relationships. The things that actually make his business money.

And the mistakes? Those cost even more. A botched product listing, a broken link during peak season, a checkout page that doesn't work — that's not just wasted time, that's lost revenue.

Joe looked at a few agencies and freelancing platforms like Upwork. The pricing was steep, and he wasn't confident he'd find someone who actually knew what they were doing versus someone who just looked good on paper.

How HireUA Found the Right Shopify Manager

Joe came to us needing a Shopify store manager — someone who could handle the full platform migration and then stick around for ongoing store management.

The requirements were specific: Shopify expertise, coding knowledge for theme customization, experience with product catalog management, and strong English to communicate clearly.

We presented several vetted candidates within his budget. Joe interviewed three and went with Frank — a Shopify store manager based in Ukraine with a background in web development and e-commerce platform management.

Joe's take on the hiring process:

"The whole process was very streamlined and professional. I felt like there was value in vetting the potential people. All the things that really did matter — language proficiency and those kind of things — you didn't have to worry about. That was taken care of beforehand."

Frank started at 20 hours per week, and the migration work began immediately.

The Results

The difference was immediate. Tasks that would have taken Joe days of trial and error were getting done in hours. Frank handled the coding, the theme compatibility issues, the data migration — all the technical work Joe didn't have the skills or the time to do himself.

"It was really nice to be able to hand off those tasks. He could be working on it and then I could come back a day or two later and they would just be done. That was a huge benefit."

That's the part most business owners underestimate. It's not just about the money saved on the hire itself. It's about what you're NOT doing while someone else handles the technical work. Joe got to stay focused on sales, manufacturing, and customer relationships — his actual job — while Frank handled everything Shopify.

By The Numbers

At $1,300/month for a part-time Shopify store manager with real coding skills and e-commerce experience, Joe is paying a fraction of what a US-based Shopify developer would charge for the same work. A comparable US freelancer on Upwork runs $50-75/hour — at 20 hours a week, that's $4,000-$6,000/month. Joe's paying $1,300.

That's not a marginal savings.

That's a completely different cost structure.

Why It Worked

Small e-commerce businesses have a specific hiring problem: the work is too technical for the owner to do themselves, but not enough to justify a full-time US salary. You end up in this awkward middle ground where you're either overpaying for a freelancer or wasting your own time pretending to be a web developer.

A part-time Shopify store manager at $1,300/month solves that equation completely. You get someone with real technical skills — coding, theme customization, product management, platform migrations — without the overhead of a full-time US hire.

Frank's background in web development meant Joe didn't have to explain basic concepts or hold his hand through the technical work. He could hand off tasks, walk away, and come back to finished work. That's what a good hire looks like.

"I would absolutely recommend. The process was very streamlined and professional, and I felt like there was value in vetting the potential people."

Hire a Shopify Store Manager Like Frank

If you're running an e-commerce business and you're still doing your own Shopify management — or paying US freelancer rates for part-time work — there's a better option.

We source, vet, and place Shopify store managers who can handle platform migrations, theme customization, product catalog management, and ongoing store operations. Part-time or full-time, at a fraction of the cost you'd pay domestically.

One monthly bill. Lifetime replacement guarantee. No HR headaches.

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