Front Row Acquires Leading Shopify Agency BIA (Build in Amsterdam), Expanding Global Commerce Platform
Strategic acquisition strengthens Front Row's global presence and service offerings, paving the way for a full-service connected commerce platform for brands
NEW YORK, May 16, 2025 /CNW/ -- Front Row, an e-commerce agency and growth accelerator providing full-service marketplace management, digital marketing and retail media services to leading global brands, today announced the acquisition of Build in Amsterdam, an award-winning Shopify design and development agency that builds digital flagship stores for premium and luxury brands in the fashion and lifestyle space.
With this acquisition, Front Row is now uniquely positioned to deliver seamless commerce solutions across the entire customer journey, addressing the long-standing fragmentation in the D2C space and enabling faster, more effective growth for brands worldwide. Brands can now have a single partner to guide them through the entire e-commerce journey, from strategy and design to web development and ongoing optimization to omnichannel excellence. Build in Amsterdam also brings an impressive client roster including Mammut, Polaroid, and Suitsupply.
"At Front Row, we're building a connected commerce platform that brings together strategy, technology, and creativity to fuel e-commerce growth for today's leading brands," said Yuriy Boykiv, CEO of Front Row. "Adding Build in Amsterdam's world-class Shopify and design capabilities strengthens how we launch, scale, and optimize digital experiences. Their creative and technical excellence perfectly complements our full-funnel digital marketing and marketplace offering, helping brands stand out, convert more, and grow faster."
This acquisition not only enhances Front Row's creative and Shopify capabilities but also deepens its global presence, with strengthened operations in key markets across North America and Europe, including the DACH region (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland). It also brings together strategic consulting, digital branding, web development, performance optimization, and customer lifecycle management all under one roof.
"At Build in Amsterdam, we always had the dream of becoming a global full service e-commerce and branding agency. By joining Front Row, we take a huge leap toward our dream becoming reality," said Daan Klaver, Co-Founder and Creative Director of Build in Amsterdam. "By combining our services, we take a unique proposition in this fast changing e-commerce landscape."
With Build in Amsterdam's recurring revenue model, the partnership underscores a shared commitment to long-term client success and high-touch service. For brands, this means fewer vendor relationships, more consistent execution, and a partner that understands the full arc of digital growth.
About Front Row
Front Row is a leading accelerator and marketing agency helping brands maximize their ecommerce growth. The company is headquartered in New York City with offices in San Diego, Hamburg, and Bratislava. Leveraging our proprietary technology Catapult and robust capabilities, we design, market, distribute, and scale brands on a global scale.
Our expertise spans from strategic brand-building to omnichannel excellence, international market expansion, compelling content creation, logistics, and innovative design and branding. We ensure robust marketplace growth, seamless e-commerce management, targeted digital marketing, and actionable business intelligence. Trusted by industry leaders like OUAI, Essity, Wella, and Tatcha, we empower brands to achieve their full potential in the world of e-commerce.
About Build in Amsterdam
Build in Amsterdam is a premier digital agency specializing in branding and digital flagship store development using the Shopify platform. With a philosophy centered on emotion-driven design supported by logical implementation, the company has established itself as an industry benchmark for over a decade. Their integrated approach houses strategy, branding, and technology all under one roof, ensuring meticulous control over every detail of their work. This unique approach enables them to create emotionally resonant digital experiences built on sound technical foundations, consistently setting new standards in the industry. At the core of their success lies their unwavering ethos: "We build. We lead. We care. We never stop."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Globe and Mail
3 days ago
- Globe and Mail
4 Monster Stocks to Buy Right Now and Hold for 20 Years
Market volatility over the past few months could lead investors to sell and take their winnings home before things get worse. But investing success means riding out the short-term waves and holding on to long-term winners. The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) has already made up whatever it lost in value earlier this year, and it would have been a shame to have sold at a low and missed out on the quick rebound. If you can hold on for at least 20 years, you can choose excellent stocks and let them work their magic on your investments. Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Shopify (NASDAQ: SHOP), MercadoLibre (NASDAQ: MELI), and SoFi Technologies (NASDAQ: SOFI) are four monster stocks that should reward you well over the next 20 years. 1. Amazon: E-commerce and AI Amazon is the leader in e-commerce and cloud computing, two massive growth industries. It has about 40% of the U.S. market share in e-commerce and about 30% of the global market for cloud computing. Both of these industries are growing organically, and Amazon is benefiting from these organic tailwinds. Shoppers know Amazon as the king of e-commerce, and the company is heavily investing in keeping its lead there. But management has identified generative artificial intelligence (AI), primarily through the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud-computing business, as its main growth driver over the next few years. Amazon said it would invest upwards of $100 billion in 2025 alone to keep building out this business, and it offers a huge assortment of features and tools to every size and stripe of client. AWS itself generated a 17% year-over-year increase in sales in the first quarter and has a $117 billion annualized revenue run rate. Management expects that with generative AI, that rate will increase. "We thought AWS had the chance to ultimately be a multihundred-billion-dollar revenue run rate business," CEO Andy Jassy recently said of the pre-generative AI opportunity. "We now think it could be even larger." Advertising and streaming continue to grow and add value to the business, and Amazon is investing in new concepts like Zoox autonomous vehicles and Project Kuiper broadband. It has a huge growth runway, and its stock should keep rewarding investors over many years. 2. Shopify: The other e-commerce giant You won't see Shopify on any list of highest e-commerce sales because it doesn't sell products, it sells e-commerce services, like websites and payment processing. But its gross merchandise volume (GMV) is similar to Amazon's e-commerce sales, giving you a picture of Shopify's important and dominant position in the e-commerce space. Shopify is also benefiting from the organic tailwinds of e-commerce growing as a percentage of retail sales. According to eMarketer, e-commerce accounted for 20.3% of retail sales in 2024, and that's expected to increase to 23% by 2027. Even that's still a small percentage, and with each percentage point translating into trillions of dollars, Shopify has a long growth runway. It also continues to identify new ways to expand its market share and help its clients increase their sales. It has gone from a platform helping small businesses get online to targeting large businesses with individual e-commerce components. It offers a full-service omnichannel platform combining physical and digital retail, and it's making a bigger move into international, where there are several bigger players. International sales only accounted for 30% of the total in Q1, and that could be a huge growth driver in the coming years. Patient investors should expect Shopify to be a top stock as it keeps growing and innovating for the foreseeable future. 3. MercadoLibre: The Latin American tech disruptor MercadoLibre is similar to Amazon in that its core business is e-commerce, but it has dipped its toes into several other businesses that are driving fantastic growth. It operates in Latin America and offers a host of digital services in both e-commerce and financial technology. It consistently reports strong growth across metrics, such as a 40% increase in GMV year over year and a 72% increase in total payment volume in the 2025 first quarter. The opportunity here is enormous because Latin America lags many other global regions in both e-commerce and digital penetration. In fact, 85% of sales are still offline, and some of its regions are underbanked, leading to a greater necessity for digital financial services. Because its regions are still in their early innings in its industries, there are so many levers MercadoLibre can pull to move growth. It's doing so step by step, bringing in new, unique visitors to its ecosystem and generating higher purchase frequency. It's launching all sorts of innovative services, such as a new, free streaming initiative powered by its growing ad business. MercadoLibre has a wide-open runway and tons of opportunities to grow its business and stock gains. 4. SoFi: The modern way to bank SoFi is a digital financial disruptor offering all banking services online. It targets the young professional who's just starting their financial journey and appreciates SoFi's tech focus and easy-to-use interface. Although its core business is lending, it has successfully expanded into a large array of financial services like bank accounts and investing tools. These are fee-based products that have low costs and are becoming incredibly profitable. Even the lending business is bouncing back as interest rates go lower, and lending revenue increased 25% year over year in Q1. Financial services, though, more than doubled, and contribution profit increased 299%. It's adding members at a high rate and generating higher engagement through cross-selling and upselling, and SoFi has a massive growth opportunity over the next 20 years as it gets closer to its ambition of becoming a top-10 U.S. bank. Should you invest $1,000 in Amazon right now? Before you buy stock in Amazon, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Amazon wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $653,389!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $830,492!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor 's total average return is982% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to171%for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of May 19, 2025 John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Jennifer Saibil has positions in MercadoLibre and SoFi Technologies. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, MercadoLibre, and Shopify. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Globe and Mail
4 days ago
- Globe and Mail
2 Brilliant Growth Stocks to Buy and Hold for 20 Years
The stock market has whipsawed back and forth to start 2025, and no one knows how the markets will perform the rest of the year. But history is clear: If you regularly buy shares of growing businesses, you're going to see those investments multiply into much larger sums down the road. Here are two companies still growing at high rates that are just getting started on tackling their long-term opportunity. 1. Shopify Shopify 's (NASDAQ: SHOP) business continues to grow at robust rates, as it becomes the go-to e-commerce platform for merchants to build and operate online stores. The stock has returned 3,800% since 2015, yet Shopify's share of global e-commerce spending is just 12%, leaving a long runway ahead. When merchants grow their sales, Shopify benefits. Subscriptions to use its online selling tools are just a small part of the company's revenue. Three-quarters of its revenue comes from merchant solutions, including payment processing, shipping, and other services. This means when you invest in Shopify, you're benefiting from the online sales growth of all the businesses that use the platform. Revenue grew 27% year over year in the first quarter. This reflects strong growth in gross merchandise volume across its merchant base, which increased 23% year over year to $74 billion in the quarter. The speed with which the company introduces new tools for its merchants to adapt to different economic environments is a competitive advantage. For example, its recent tariff guide tool, powered by artificial intelligence, makes it easier for small businesses to manage duty collection on cross-border sales. Management credits this ability to quickly launch new tools as the reason why its merchants have outperformed the broader e-commerce market. Wall Street is aware of Shopify 's long-term potential, which is why the stock trades at a high valuation of 15 times trailing revenue. This is below the stock's average 21 sales multiple in recent years. This growth stock still has a lot to offer patient shareholders over the next few decades. 2. Coupang Coupang (NYSE: CPNG) looks like an early-stage Amazon. It's the leading e-commerce brand in South Korea and continues to post double-digit revenue growth as it begins to expand in Taiwan. The stock price has doubled over the past three years and could grow in value for decades to come. Coupang had over 23 million active customers in the first quarter. This grew 9% year over year in the first quarter, but the company has a huge opportunity to drive more-frequent spending with many of these customers, as it follows Amazon's playbook of expanding selection and logistics infrastructure. Revenue grew 21% year over year on a constant-currency basis. It's seeing strong momentum with sellers taking advantage of its fulfillment services, where volumes are growing much faster than its overall business. Coupang's Rocket Delivery services, which promise next- or same-day delivery on millions of items, continue to win over customers. Coupang is bringing in premium brands through its Rocket service, such as Dolce & Gabbana. This suggests it is just tapping into its potential to drive higher spending by its customers. The number of customers purchasing across nine or more categories grew over 25% last quarter, much faster than the growth of its total customer base. It's very possible the company is on course to lead e-commerce markets across the Eastern Hemisphere, similar to Amazon's success in Western countries. Customers are clearly responding to its wide selection, fast shipping, and other benefits like food delivery and digital entertainment through Coupang's WOW membership program. The stock just broke to a new 52-week high following its first-quarter earnings results and could have room to run in 2025 and beyond. It trades at a price-to-sales multiple of 1.6, which is fair for a growing e-commerce business. Should you invest $1,000 in Shopify right now? Before you buy stock in Shopify, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Shopify wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $639,271!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $804,688!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor 's total average return is957% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to167%for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of May 19, 2025 John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. John Ballard has positions in Coupang. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon and Shopify. The Motley Fool recommends Coupang. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Canada Standard
23-05-2025
- Canada Standard
Canada's skills crisis is growing - here's how we can fix it
Canada is facing a significant skills shortage. According to recent data, 77 per cent of Canadian businesses surveyed say they are unable to find suitably skilled candidates for the jobs they have available. Even among those who apply with relevant skills, 44 per cent don't have the required level of proficiency to secure employment. At present, there are about 700,000 job vacancies across the country. This mismatch persists despite Canada having one of its largest-ever graduating classes - nearly 360,000 students from colleges, universities and trade schools. As labour shortages deepen across sectors, the disconnect between formal education and real-world job requirements is becoming harder to ignore. Canada's skills shortage is expected to worsen in the coming years. Between now and 2028, 700,000 workers in the skilled trades are due to retire. Canada's antiquated apprenticeship system is struggling to produce enough workers to fill this gap. It is slow, outdated and has low completion rates: just 32 per cent of male and 35 per cent of female candidates complete their training. Completing an apprenticeship can take up to four years in Canada, while many other nations have much higher completion rates in two years or less. It is not just trades that Canada has challenges with. If current trends continue, Canada is projected to face a shortage of 100,000 nurses by 2030. Significant shortages are also expected in technology-related positions, construction engineering and K-12 education, where demand for teachers and school administrators is rising. Meanwhile, rising demand is expected for jobs related to artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing and supply chain management. Some employers are losing confidence in using qualifications as a basis for hiring. Increasingly, they feel degrees and diplomas don't adequately prepare people for work. As a result, some organizations have moved to skills-based or competency-based hiring where candidates share skills portfolios and work testimonials to secure a position. As of 2024, approximately 80 per cent of Canadian companies have implemented some form of skills-based hiring practices, up from 74 per cent in 2023. Read more: Employers should use skill-based hiring to find hidden talent and address labour challenges Other companies, like Shopify, take candidates from high school and put them through custom programs designed to ensure they have the skills needed to work in a particular organization or industry. Colleges and universities have long been seen as the primary pipelines for skilled labour. But as employer expectations evolve, Canada needs to reconsider the role these institutions play in producing skilled workers. Simply expanding existing programs or opening new programs will not solve the underlying problem. What's needed is a fundamental rethinking of how we prepare Canadians for the workforce. Canada's new government, in collaboration with provinces, territories and industry, needs to pursue a five-pronged strategy to address the country's deepening skills crisis: 1. Modernize the apprenticeship system. Canada must transition from a traditional, time-based apprenticeship model to a flexible, competency-based system. Instead of being tied to rigid journeyperson-to-apprentice ratios and multi-year timelines, learners should be able to demonstrate their skills on demand anywhere, anytime. The goal should be to reduce completion times to two years or less. Learning should be accessible through multiple formats, including workplace mentorship, YouTube tutorials, boot camps, micro-credentials and virtual labs. What matters is not where learning takes place, but whether a learner can demonstrate competence. 2. Accelerate skills recognition through micro-credentials. Canada should fast-track the adoption of micro-learning, stackable micro-credentials and competency-based certification. Micro-credentials are short, focused learning experiences that recognize specific skills or knowledge. In fields like IT, project management and supply chain management, many professionals succeed without formal academic degrees, instead relying on industry-recognized certifications. This model must expand into other sectors, especially health care, manufacturing and finance, where skills-based hiring could address labour shortages. 3. Recognize informal and experiential learning. Millions of Canadians develop valuable skills through informal, self-directed and work-based learning. Yet Canada's prior learning assessment and recognition systems, which convert informal learning into certified learning, remains fragmented, under-utilized and overly bureaucratic. Canada needs a nationally coherent, on-demand competency-based assessment system. Certified assessors should be able to validate individuals' skills and link them to job profiles, occupational standards and credentials. This is not just an equity issue, but is an economic imperative. Other countries are much better at this than Canada is. 4. Shorten and re-design post-secondary programs. The misalignment between program outcomes and labour market demands is well-documented. Closing this gap should be a top priority for post-secondary reform. Many college and university programs could be made shorter, more agile and more aligned with workforce needs - especially programs linked to workforce needs and skills in demand. Competency-based, work-integrated learning models that are designed with industry and delivered in two- or three-year formats could dramatically increase job readiness. 5. Incentivize employer investment in upskilling and reskilling. Canada needs a stronger incentive framework for continuous learning. Canada's training credit - a refundable tax credit that helps offset the cost of eligible training fees - helps some individuals, but employers still view training as a cost rather than a driver of productivity, retention and competitiveness. A new approach should include tax incentives for employers and employees investing in learning; co-funded, industry-led training partnerships; industry-sponsored micro-credentials; and public recognition for employers who demonstrate leadership in workforce development. Canada cannot meet today's workforce challenges with outdated systems and thinking. Doing more of the same and expecting different results is no longer an option. What is needed is evidence-informed and future-focused reforms that prioritize skills, flexibility and inclusion.
