Actuate is a results-driven eCommerce agency in the North West, built to help brands sell more, scale faster, and stop being held back by outdated platforms. We design, build, and optimise online stores that turn browsers into buyers and websites into serious revenue drivers.
If you’re ready to take your store to the next stage or want to fix what’s not working, we’re ready when you are.
If your platform is slowing you down, your UX is dated, or your store’s stuck in development limbo, we’re the team that gets things moving again. We work with growing retailers across the North West to plan, design, and build better eCommerce experiences.
Whether you’re launching a brand-new store or refreshing what you’ve already got, we help you move faster and sell more. Our entry point? The NNP Workshop. It’s a fast, focused audit that shows you what’s broken, what’s working, and where the revenue’s leaking.
The sooner you solve today’s issues, the sooner you get to your next nice problem.
Your online store should keep pace with your goals, not slow them down. We build fast, flexible, scalable stores using Shopify, Magento, Adobe Commerce, Aero Commerce, and Hyvä. As a seasoned Shopify developer in the North West and trusted Magento agency in the North West, we help brands choose the right platform, then build it right – clean code, strong UX, and integrations that actually work.
From custom builds to complex integrations and ongoing support, we make sure your store’s not just built to last – it’s built to grow with your brand.
We’re based in Manchester, working closely with ambitious brands to deliver stores that perform across the UK and beyond.
From furniture to fashion, we’ve helped brands in your space grow faster with tech that fits.
We move quickly, but never cut corners. Expect faster timelines with zero faff.
We don’t disappear after your site goes live. Our team sticks around to support your growth, day in and day out.
From eCommerce conversion rate optimisation to post-launch testing and speed improvements, we keep performance sharp.
We don’t just fix what’s broken. We help you reach the next nice problem worth solving.
There’s no point sticking with a site that can’t keep up. We’ll help you build something that performs today and adapts for tomorrow. From design and development to CRO and strategy, Actuate supports every step.
We begin with the NNP Workshop: a fast, focused audit that uncovers what’s holding you back and where growth is leaking. No fluff. Just clear, commercial insight.
Based on what we find, we map out a realistic plan of action. Platform recommendations. UX priorities. Technical requirements. All aligned with your goals.
We create interfaces your customers can actually use. Every journey is mapped, tested, and refined to guide users from landing to checkout – and back again.
We build clean, scalable eCommerce stores on Shopify, Adobe Commerce, Magento, Aero and Hyvä. Stable, secure, and built to last.
We optimise for speed, CRO, and SEO – identifying and testing improvements post-launch so performance doesn’t stall.
We’re with you for the long haul. Once your site is ready to go live, we make sure it stays ready for your next nice problems: new angles, fresh campaigns, smarter fulfilment – whatever comes next.
One of the most important parts of your eCommerce strategy is your choice of digital platform, ensuring this fits with the needs of your growing business. That’s exactly why we take a holistic view of your entire business, assessing your overall aims, sales goals and growth ambitions.
So, what is the difference between Magento and Adobe Commerce?
Magento is a great choice for start-ups and SMEs, offering customisable open-source eCommerce applications, which can be added at any point, it is free to use and therefore provides maximum functionality for no annual fee; once built, the only costs to cover are your domain and hosting.
Adobe Commerce and Adobe Commerce Cloud are commercial platforms with additional features and support options. It’s perfect for national or international businesses with multiple branches or franchises as it can create sub-accounts with different pricing, offers and even products using the tiered account structures, making regional management hassle-free, and far less time-consuming.
Adobe Commerce is usually a better choice for medium-large organisations as both are licenced software and have an annual fee; however, this can depend on your specific circumstances and your projected turnover growth. Our eCommerce experts are always happy to advise; simply hop on a call.
Ultimately, this depends on your site’s ability to grow with your successful, expanding business. A flexible site with customisable features will offer maximum scalability – growing as you grow. This prevents you from frequently rebuilding your site. In fact, we only build sites that we guarantee will meet your needs for the next 3 – 4 years, minimum.
In short, very.
Okay, we’ll expand on that. Google’s Core Web Vitals Search Algorithm rewards websites that optimise their site speed and performance to better user experience for their customers. So, the faster your site, the stronger your SEO, contributing to your overall position on the search engine results pages, or SERP.
But how fast does a website need to load? The ideal page load speed is 1-2 seconds. But it is worth keeping in mind that delays are costly. According to research by SEO consultancy, Hobo, 53% of mobile site visits are abandoned if pages take longer than 3 seconds to load. A 2-second delay in load time resulted in abandonment rates of up to 87%.
The faster your performance the better. As a certified Hyvä theme partner, we are able to turbocharge your site, delivering lightning speeds, and the very best shopping experience for your customers – which, by extension, maximises your sales.
Both platforms support a wide variety of payment gateways offering wide consumer choices including PayPal, Braintree, WorldPay and Authorize, along with Apple Pay, Google Pay and Amazon Pay. Magento 2 also includes credit options, such as Klarna and Clearpay.
As you’d expect from Adobe, both Magento 2 and Adobe Commerce have a whole host of cybersecurity features to protect both you as a business and the Personal Identifiable Information (PII) of your customers.
Secure Payment methods, as above, mean that you’ll remain compliant with the PCI Standard, whilst frequent updates for Magento 2 and Adobe Commerce ensure that all known vulnerabilities are immediately remedied by Adobe. We highly recommend that all Magento customers migrate to Magento 2, mitigating any cybersecurity risk, keeping your customer data safe, and your business legally compliant.
Magento 2 and Adobe Commerce both support the sale of digital downloads and services as well as the physical products that you might traditionally associate with eCommerce.
Whether you are selling Business-to-Business, (B2B), Business-to-Consumer, (B2C), or Direct-to-Consumer, (D2C), we can advise on the best platform for your business.
Well of course, we love nothing more than meeting new, like-minded people, and as great as video calls are, there is nothing better than getting our heads together around a table.
We offer a free consultation with absolutely no obligation.
Our Magento and Adobe Commerce agency in Manchester is located centrally, right by Piccadilly train station. Let us know when’s good for you, and we’ll pop the kettle on.
Can’t meet us in person? That’s not a problem, just drop us a line and we’ll hop on a video call.