Move your store. Own it this time.
Some merchants come to us because whoever built their store still holds the domain, the hosting and the logins, and will not let go. Others come because the host they are on quietly forbids what they sell. The job is the same either way: get everything into your name, onto infrastructure that will not drop you, without going dark.
Two ways this usually goes.
Someone else is holding your store
You paid for the build. The site went up. But the domain is registered to them, the hosting account is theirs, and your store login is a limited user, or there is no login at all.
Requests for access get slow answers, or none. The monthly fee keeps going out for work you cannot see. And if you stop paying, the site goes dark, because the switch has never been in your hand.
This is more common than most merchants realise, and in most cases far more of it is recoverable than you would expect.
You are on the wrong host and have not been told yet
Nothing dramatic has happened. The store works. But the acceptable-use policy you agreed to forbids your category, your card processing is a workaround rather than a real merchant account, and it holds only while nobody looks closely.
Or the platform simply will not let you build what your category needs. No age gate worth the name, no room for research-use labelling, and a checkout that drops the payment methods your customers actually use.
Moving before a suspension is cheap. Moving afterwards, with your funds held, is not.
Signs you do not actually own your store.
Read these honestly. You do not need to send us anything to work out where you stand.
- Domain renewal notices go to somebody else's inbox.
- You have never logged into the registrar, only into the site.
- Your store login is not a full administrator.
- You cannot download a complete backup by yourself.
- The payment processor account is in the developer's business name, not yours.
- Nobody has ever sent you the hosting account credentials.
- Cancelling the monthly fee would take the site offline.
Any one of these on its own is fixable in an afternoon. Several together mean your business is running on somebody else's permission.
The audit comes first, and it comes before the invoice.
We will not quote a recovery blind, because the price depends entirely on what turns out to be in your name. So the first thing we do is find that out and tell you, whether or not it leads to work for us.
Talk, then audit what you actually own
A call first, about what you sell and what has already gone wrong. Then we check the registrar record, the hosting account, the store admin and the merchant account, and tell you plainly which are in your name and which are not. You get that answer before you commit to anything.
Recover what can be recovered
Where an account is legitimately yours, we go through the provider's own transfer and account-recovery process to get control back. Where it is not recoverable, we say so early instead of billing you to chase it.
Move or rebuild the store
The store goes onto hosting in your name. If it can be exported, we export it. If access is blocked, we rebuild the catalogue and content from what you hold and what is public, and you end up with a cleaner store than the one you lost.
Reconnect payments
Processing is set up in your business name, with the underwriting prepared alongside you. If your category is the reason you were stuck in the first place, this is the part that unsticks it.
Hand over the keys
Every account is in your name, you hold every credential, and you could stop working with us the next day without your site noticing. That is the whole point of the exercise.
What is in your name when we finish.
Every one of these is an account you can log into, move, or take to another agency without asking us.
The registrar account
The domain is registered to you, renewal notices come to your inbox, and you can move it anywhere.
The hosting account
Opened in your name, billed to you, with full access rather than a limited user seat.
The store admin
A real administrator login, plus a backup you can download yourself whenever you like.
The merchant account
Processing underwritten to your business, not sitting inside somebody else's account.
Business email
On your domain, in your control, so password resets never route through a third party.
The compliance layer
Age gates, disclaimers and product copy built to the standard your processor expects.
What we cannot promise.
You have already been told what you wanted to hear once. We would rather be the ones who told you the awkward part on the first call.
We do not break into accounts.
Everything we do goes through the provider's own transfer and recovery process, with your written authorisation, as the owner of the business. If a provider will not release an account to you, we will not go around them.
A domain held in someone else's name may not come back.
If it is registered to them and they refuse to release it, that is a dispute between you and them, and it may need the registrar's dispute process or a lawyer. We will tell you that at the audit, not after you have paid. In the meantime we can have you trading on a new domain quickly, which is usually the faster route to being back in business.
We cannot guarantee a processor will approve you.
Underwriting decisions belong to acquirers and banks, not to us. We prepare your application properly and advocate for you, and we set up a backup where the category warrants it. The full position is in section 05 of our terms.
Some data does not travel.
Order history and customer records come across when we have access to the database. Where we do not, we can usually still bring products, content and images. We tell you what is realistically coming with you before the work starts, rather than discovering it halfway.
The full terms set out where responsibility sits on both sides.
The questions we get asked every time.
Will my store go offline during the move?
The new site is built and tested in full before anything points at it. We move the mail records first so email keeps flowing, then cut the web records over once the store is verified. Downtime is measured in minutes, and in practice customers do not notice.
What happens to my search rankings?
We keep your URLs where we can and redirect the ones that have to change, so the links pointing at you still land where they should.
My developer has stopped replying. Is that still workable?
Usually, yes. Most of what you need is recoverable directly from the providers, because registrars and hosts care about who is on the billing and the account record, not about who built the site. Silence is common, and it is not the end of it.
Can you keep my current platform, or does everything change?
If your platform can do what your category needs, we keep it and move it. We change it when the platform itself is the constraint, which usually means it forbids what you sell or blocks the checkout you need. We tell you which of the two you are looking at.
What does a migration cost?
It is quoted fixed-scope like every other build. A clean move where you hold the accounts is cheaper than a new build. A recovery, where access is missing and parts have to be rebuilt, depends on what the audit turns up, and you get the number before any work starts.
Find out what you actually own.
Send us your web address and what you can and cannot log into. We will tell you where you stand before you spend anything with us.
Start a migrationWe reply to every enquiry, including the ones we cannot help with.