Last updated on November 16, 2023

Image Credit: Yotpo Studio
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Moran Khoubian
Director of Global Partner Marketing
January 24th, 2018

In a fresh initiative for 2018, Yotpo’s Partners Team has just announced the winners for the first-ever Partner of the Year Awards.

Table Of Contents

This prize was created to recognize the agencies that are shaping the future of eCommerce.

But before we dig into who won and why, let’s dial back and flesh out what makes an agency a game-changer for both emerging industry leaders and established commerce brands. With all the noise in advertising these days, the brands that make it to the big leagues need to scale authenticity and community — both difficult tasks. eCommerce agencies that help their clients leverage their customer voice as part of their marketing strategy understand the next wave of brand-building. It’s agencies like these — with an eye to innovation in the commerce industry — that we want to honor with our new Partner of the Year Award. And while we work with many standout partners, two of them really blew our minds as we worked with them side-by-side over the last year.

And the Winners Are..

Drumroll, please:

The winner for the Partner of the Year in the Shopify Plus category is BVAccel!

BVAccel is the fastest-growing Shopify Plus agency in the world and a leader in the eCommerce space. We’ve been lucky to grow along with an agency that has their finger on the pulse when it comes to the importance of customer content marketing, and they’ve used that knowledge to propel tons of our shared clients to success. By implementing Yotpo for brands like MVMT, UNTUCKit, Chubbies, and more, BVAccel has demonstrated that they have exactly what it takes to give great brands the tools to scale successfully.

 

The winner for Partner of the Year in the Magento category is Gorilla Group!

Gorilla Group is an award-winning eCommerce solutions provider and world-class web development agency. Gorilla’s innovative mindset positions them perfectly to identify the next game-changing brands. With an eye for only the best commerce businesses, they help clients break through barriers with user-generated content by helping them seamlessly implement Yotpo. Our shared clients, like RXbar, are seeing massive success thanks to this dedication to next-level marketing and execution.

 

A Word with the Winners

We sat down for a chat with Jonathan Poma, Nikki Johnson, and Andrew Pizula of BVAccel, as well as with Gorrilla Group’s Caleb Bryant, Meredith Guetig, and John Budz. They each shed some light on eCommerce industry trends as well as how their clients have benefitted from user-generated content.

1. What do you think sets apart the strongest brands?

BVAccel: Customization — making consumers feel like every experience of the website is the brand’s. Never veer from branding guidelines — spend a little more to make it all your brand!

Gorilla Group: A) Transparency. B) Listening to their customers and building solutions that not only engage those individuals, but make their lives easier.

2. Where do you see the future of eCommerce marketing going?

BVAccel: UGC will be here to stay for a while — but flawlessly being able to use UGC in Faecbook and Instagram ads will be the next rise of eCommerce Marketing.

Gorilla Group: Consumer expectations continue to change so it’s tough to predict the future. I believe that consumer demand will continue to force brands to respond quickly and, as a result, continue to innovate in how they market and message to the consumer. Platforms like Yotpo that continue to deliver product solutions that help brands understand and interact with the voice of the customer will be critical to succeeding in eCommerce in the future.

3. Why is UGC important in your perspective?

BVAccel: It’s honestly the most humanistic trust signal a brand or product can have. Seeing a product in the wild on a real customer’s Instagram or reading reviews of your peers or other consumers makes it easy to believe in the product and eases the nerves of the purchasing decision.

Gorilla Group: User-generated content has really impacted how brands interact with their customers and how they manage their brand reputation. UGC as a result has become a powerful influencer within the market and has behoved brands to interact with their customers more transparently than ever before.

4. What is the biggest value you give your clients?

BVAccel: Our team’s diverse background and experience, combined with the breadth and depth of our experience, brings a historical perspective to everything that we do. When you combine that with the fact that data informs every decision we make, we’re extremely proud of the value we’re able to deliver for our clients. We like to say that “we’re informed by data and inspired by design — giving our merchants a leg up, creating confidence that every implementation and strategy has been thought out and validated in the real world.”

Gorilla Group: We approach each project by aligning business goals, user desires, and delivery objectives into a cohesive strategy. We’re able to deliver truly innovative experiences by balancing possibility with viability to create lasting opportunities.

5. How is Yotpo helping your clients? Where do they see most value? 

BVAccel: The Yotpo support and accounts team has been amazing! They provide our clients and our strategists with a fresh, exciting, and valuable perspective that sets the bar high. We know that, when referring merchants to Yotpo, they’re going to be well taken care of. Our merchants have seen the most value in the support and functionality.

Gorilla Group: Many of our clients have requested alternatives to incumbent ratings and reviews solutions that had gained market share over the years but stopped innovating. Yotpo offered a fresh perspective, not only on ratings and reviews, but also other ways to take advantage of the trend of users documenting their lives and sharing that content on social media.

6. How do you feel about being awarded as Yotpo’s agency of the year?

BVAccel: Grateful. So grateful. It’s surreal — we’ve worked together for years in the ecosystem, and getting to be a part of each others’ success is so humbling. It really feels like just yesterday we were both starting out and wanting the future of eCommerce to be Shopify.

Gorilla Group: Being named Yotpo’s agency of the year is an honor that we quite frankly didn’t expect. We partnered with Yotpo to solve our clients needs so being recognized for doing that was an unexpected surprise.

The year ahead

Choosing just two of our amazing partners for this honor was one of the hardest things we’ve had to do. We can’t wait for another another year of working with the best agencies out there to redefine the eCommerce space and help great brands succeed.