Absolute Reviews 3

Absolute were shortlisted to build our new Ecommerce site at the start of 2025. Migrating from a bespoke CMS to a Magento Hyva build the team were quick to understand our expected goals and outcome for the new website and we quickly aligned. Unlike other agencies we spoke to their technical understanding was apparent from the beginning, speaking to actual developers as opposed to salespeople who don’t build the websites.

The projects team were fantastic in the approach. Friendly, professional but also very knowledgeable and advised the best approach in achieving what we needed. Their understanding from a technical perspective as well as a business point of view was invaluable, instead of just coding a website they understand the customer journey and the best way to build the site for a smooth and frictionless experience for all users.

As with all projects there is creep and this was expected due to the nature of our business and the complexities of it. The team were transparent and upfront about any additional costs associated with the build and worked with us to ensure we got exactly what we needed to get the site live.

The quick approach ensured that we were able to get our new site up and running before our previous site reached end of life.

The final build represents a significant improvement over our then bespoke site delivering quicker loading times, expanded functionality and improved user experience. We are continuing to work with Absolute for the second phase of our website build and currently have a support plan in place to ensure everything is running smoothly. We look forward to our continued journey with Absolute and would highly recommend others to work with them.

Absolute have delivered my new site above expectation in a very difficult period.
My account manager has been exceptional, with immediate responses to any queries and regular updates without being prompted.
Also a mention to the development team who have also been amazing. I am delighted with the final result and would not hesitate to recommend the team at Absolute Design or use them again in the future.

We commissioned Absolute Design in June 2023 to migrate our existing PHP-based website to Adobe Commerce (Magento). The goal was to significantly improve site speed, user experience, and overall site authority. They came recommended by Adobe as one of several potential partners, and we chose them — perhaps naively — because their quote was roughly 40% lower than the next provider’s.

At first, things looked promising. The team were friendly, approachable, and seemed a good fit. Unfortunately, the project soon began to unravel. Timelines slipped repeatedly, costs escalated sharply, and by the end we had spent around three times the original quote.

In hindsight, the project was never properly scoped by Absolute. We accept some responsibility, as our in-house eCommerce expertise at the time was limited. However, the lack of clear planning, technical direction, and proactive project management from Absolute caused major issues. The repeated delays meant we began paying substantial Adobe hosting fees for a site that wasn’t even live — roughly £100,000 in wasted hosting costs, on top of the inflated development spend.

When the site finally went live — about a year later than planned — it quickly became clear that the build quality was poor. The site used an outdated Porto theme, soon to be obsolete, and lacked the performance improvements we’d expected. In fact, site speed and user experience were worse than before. Even more frustratingly, Absolute repeatedly invoiced us to fix their own errors, leading to spiralling costs and growing frustration.

While their team were polite and generally responsive, their technical competence and billing practices left much to be desired. Their approach was reactive rather than proactive, offering little guidance, innovation, or best-practice insight. The end result felt like a minimal-effort build designed simply to get the site out the door.

We eventually switched to a new development partner, who reskinned the site using a Hyvä front end. The difference was immediate — vastly improved speed, smoother UX, and much better overall performance, at a fraction of the ongoing cost.

In summary:

If you have a small, non-critical website, Absolute Design might be adequate.
But if you’re migrating an established, business-critical eCommerce site to Magento, we would strongly advise caution.
Be especially wary of their billing practices — you may end up paying to fix problems they created themselves.