Customer Service VA · E-commerce Customer Service

E-commerce Customer Service Outsourcing: a dedicated support VA for your online store from £5 per hour

Outsource your store's customer service to one dedicated person, not a call centre. Your VA answers tickets, live chat and marketplace messages in your brand voice, processes returns and refunds inside your policy, protects your seller ratings and hands you only the decisions that are yours. It is the online-store version of our customer service virtual assistant service: UK-managed, based in our Cairo office, working your hours across Shopify, Amazon, eBay and the other platforms you sell on, from £5 per hour on the entry rate, on a rolling monthly agreement.

Tickets and emailLive chatMarketplace messagesReturns and reviews

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✓ From £5/hour ✓ UK-managed ✓ Dedicated VA, not shared ✓ No long-term contract

What They Handle

What outsourced e-commerce customer service covers

Email and ticket response

Replies to customer emails and helpdesk tickets within your service standard, closes routine cases end to end and escalates anything outside their scope with the context written up.

Live chat during your hours

Staffs the chat on your store during business hours, or extended hours where you need them, answering pre-sale questions and order queries while the customer is still on the page.

Marketplace messages and reviews

Responds to buyer messages and reviews on Amazon, eBay and your store in compliant language, within the platforms' rules, so your seller metrics stay healthy.

AmazoneBay

Returns, refunds and exchanges

Processes returns and refunds inside the policy you define, arranges exchanges, updates the order in your systems and escalates only when your authority is needed.

Order and delivery queries

Tracks orders, chases couriers, updates customers on delays and turns "where is my order" tickets into a closed case rather than a complaint.

Help articles and post-purchase follow-up

Turns recurring questions into help articles and FAQ updates, then follows up after delivery to confirm satisfaction and ask for reviews before a problem becomes a public one.

Different stack? These are examples. Your VA is trained on your tools and your policies during onboarding and works inside your accounts, not ours.

Dedicated vs contact centre

A dedicated store VA vs an outsourced contact centre

A contact centre sells you agents by the seat or the ticket. The people change shift to shift, the scripts are generic, and the agent who answers your Amazon message this morning did not see the eBay return yesterday. That is fine for volume; it is poor for a brand whose reviews depend on tone and continuity.

A dedicated VA is one named person who learns your catalogue, your policies and your customers, and stays. They know which products get returned and why, which couriers lose parcels, and which customers are worth a goodwill gesture. Quality is supervised by a UK team rather than by a queue statistic, and if the fit is wrong we replace the person and carry the handover.

Choose a contact centre when you need hundreds of interchangeable agents overnight. Choose a dedicated VA when you need one person to run the front line of a store you care about.

Who It's For

Who e-commerce customer service outsourcing is built for

Shopify and WooCommerce stores past the founder-answers-everything stage

The inbox and the chat are eating the hours you should be spending on product and marketing. One VA takes the whole front line.

Amazon and eBay sellers protecting their metrics

Response times, return handling and review replies all feed account health. A VA who works inside the platforms' rules keeps the metrics where they need to be.

Multi-channel brands that need one voice everywhere

Store, marketplaces, email, chat and social messages answered by one person, in one tone, with one view of the customer.

Seasonal businesses with peaks

Scale hours up for Black Friday and Christmas and back down afterwards, without hiring and letting go.

Cost Comparison

What e-commerce customer service outsourcing costs in the UK

The entry rate is £5 per hour for the first 6 months on the Entry tier, 3 months on Mid, 1 month on Expert. It covers your dedicated VA's time, our office facilities in Cairo, and the supervision and management that keep quality up. After the promotion, the customer service rate card applies: £5.95 per hour full time on the Entry tier (160 hours a month, £952) or £6.50 per hour part time (80 hours a month, £520), with Mid at £6.84 and Expert at £7.44 per hour full time. Extended hours and weekend cover are available at additional cost.

Set that against a UK in-house support hire once salary, employer National Insurance, pension, holiday and a desk are counted; the comparison card on this page shows the calculator's model, and the full calculator gives your figures for your hours.

UK In-House · Entry level

UK in-house support hire (calculator model)

£2,161 a month gross salary, full time (the calculator's customer-service benchmark, ONS ASHE 2025)

Monthly salary£2,161

Benefits (5% of salary)£108

Equipment and office£442

Management time (2 hrs a week)£156

~£2,866/mo

~£34,396 / year

Ant Assist VA · Entry

Dedicated E-commerce Customer Service Outsourcing

160 hrs a month · £5/hour for the first 6 months (£800/mo), then £5.95/hour on the customer service rate card

VA hours (160h × £5.95/hour standard rate)£952

Management and supervisionIncluded

Recruitment and onboardingIncluded

Office infrastructureIncluded

£952/mo

£11,424 / year at the standard rate

You save ~£22,972 / year at the standard rate (est.)

What the £5/hour entry rate includes

Dedicated VA, never shared
UK-hour aligned support
Management and supervision included
Recruitment and onboarding included
Office infrastructure included
VA replacement available
No NI, pension, or holiday costs
No long-term contract, rolling monthly

These are typical estimates. Get your exact numbers in the full calculator.

Calculate your exact savings →

Process

How to outsource your store's customer service: from first call to live cover

First call

A 15-minute call about your platforms, your channels, your ticket volumes and the hours you need covered.

Matching

We select a VA from our in-house team with experience on your platforms and introduce them to you.

Onboarding

Together we document your tone of voice, your refund and returns policy, your escalation rules and your common scenarios before a single message is answered.

Live cover

Most clients have their VA active within 5 to 7 working days of signing up. Your VA works your hours from our managed office.

Ongoing management

A UK team supervises quality, reviews the work with your VA, and scales hours with your seasons.

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Why Managed

Why a managed store VA beats a contact centre or a freelancer

Managed, not just placed.

Your VA is recruited, trained and supervised from our own in-house office. Not a shared agent pool, not a freelancer profile.

Replaceable without restart cost.

If the fit is wrong, we replace the VA and carry the handover. No re-recruitment, no starting from zero.

No NI, pension, or holiday overhead.

One hourly rate; the employment costs sit with us.

Language and cultural alignment with UK customers.

Trained on your tone of voice and your scenarios before they answer anyone.

Your data stays yours.

Every VA signs an NDA and a data-processing agreement, works through password managers, and you can revoke access at any time.

Rolling monthly.

Scale hours up or down, pause, or cancel with 30 days' notice.

Rated 5.0 on Google.Trusted by our clients

FAQ

Common questions about outsourcing e-commerce customer service

Our VAs work across email (Gmail, Outlook), helpdesks (Zendesk, Freshdesk, Help Scout, Intercom), live chat tools (Tidio, LiveChat, Drift), and telephone via VoIP platforms. On the store side they are experienced with Shopify, Amazon Seller Central, eBay, Etsy, WooCommerce, and Wix. If you use a tool not listed, let us know during onboarding and we will assess it.

Yes, that is a core part of our onboarding. We spend time documenting your tone of voice, common scenarios, and escalation rules before your VA handles a single message. Clients regularly tell us customers cannot tell the difference.

Yes. Your VA can process refunds and exchanges within whatever policy you define. They will handle the communication, update your systems, and escalate to you only when a situation requires your direct authority. Most routine refund and return scenarios are handled end-to-end.

Yes. Our VAs understand Amazon's policies and work within them. They respond to messages and reviews using compliant language, process orders and returns to Amazon's standards, and flag anything that could affect your account health immediately.

That depends on your package. Most clients start with UK business hours (9am to 5pm Monday to Friday). Extended hours and weekend cover are available at additional cost. We will agree coverage windows during onboarding.

No long-term contract is required. We operate on a rolling monthly basis. You can scale hours up or down, pause, or cancel with 30 days' notice. Most clients stay because consistent customer service coverage becomes a business-critical function quickly.

Didn't find your answer? Browse more common questions in the Help Center.

Get Started

Every customer answered, from £5 an hour.

One dedicated support VA for your store. Book a free 15-minute call.

Book a free 15-min call Calculate your savings →

Discovery callRole briefVA matchedOnboarded into your tools

A free 15-minute call, no obligation. Or get an instant estimate with the calculator.