Grapefruit Commerce is a boutique digital agency based in Nova Scotia and British Columbia, serving small businesses ready to invest in their website.
We bring all the strategic thinking, creative chops, and technical know-how to help you get more customers and more sales.
We aren’t your typical agency. There are no layers of account managers or big overhead to pass along to you. We’re simply two hard-working, experienced communicators and business owners living on opposite sides of the country who genuinely want to provide a service that is often out of reach for small businesses with smaller budgets.
And we like to keep things simple. You have enough to manage as a business owner. You need real help without all the fanfare, which happens to be our specialty.
We focus on the things that matter, like building high-converting pages and developing Shopify websites that deliver a superior customer experience.
We also believe good writing is good business. We've watched mediocre websites go from meh to day-um with copy - the words on your website - tweaks that truly resonate with your customers or clients.
And we happen to do our best work with businesses with heart.
Businesses like...
Tourism and adventure operators
Boutique clothing stores
Service providers like bookkeepers and graphic designers
Mental health advocates and practitioners
Animal rescue organizations
Women-owned or locally-made products
If your work matters to real people, we want to help you talk about it.
We believe the internet gets better when more small businesses find their true voice online.
Hey-oh! I'm Amy! I may dress like a teenager, but I have the lived experience of a fifty-year-old and the work ethic of a GenX-er.
My digital marketing obsession began almost two decades ago, when I started my first service-based business and discovered the power of words. It turns out I have a knack for knowing what makes people click, read, and buy, and I've spent years improving those skills (because no one will ever perfect them).
Then I ran an ecommerce store for five years and learned I prefer the tech side of things. My focus morphed into building killer product pages, integrating systems so they actually talk to each other, and creating workflows that kill off boring admin tasks. Most recently, I led communications for a large nonprofit, building their strategy from scratch and growing both community engagement and donations along the way.
The good news? I've been in your shoes. I know what it's like to be a hard-working, bootstrapping founder. I've tried many things. Some worked, some didn't. But most importantly, I bring founder instincts to Grapefruit Commerce, along with expertise in content, user experience, and tech.
I know how to make your life easier so you can run your business and have a life, while still making money.
When I'm not elbow-deep in setting up Klaviyo workflows, connecting Jotform to Canva, or working on a Shopify backend, you'll find me on the West Coast trails with my rescue dog Happy, mountain biking, or nerding out on the latest tech.
Hi, I'm Susan and I love words! They're kind of magical if you think about it. Words marry you, get you divorced, land you the job (or lose it), turn a stranger into a customer, announce your new business to the world and get you found online, i.e., make you money! I agonize over things like colons vs semi-colons, ellipses and exclamation marks. It's also possible I spend too much time doing word quizzes on Merriam-Webster's website for fun.
I believe we can make the internet a little more human, one sentence at a time.
Long before I ever wrote words for a living, I worked as a certified scuba instructor. That led to nearly 12 years as Editor of The Undersea Journal, PADI's worldwide magazine for dive professionals, where I led editorial strategy for a global readership and streamlined a production system that saved the organization US$160K.
From there, I moved into government communications, advising Ministers and senior leaders on some of the province's most sensitive public issues. Different worlds, same skill set: knowing your audience, knowing how to reach them, and not using jargon or complicated words when plain language will do.
Eventually I realized I wanted to use my skills for good, for people or businesses that needed help reaching their people and getting found online. Not for boring, formulaic press releases that disappeared into the news cycle almost immediately. Small business owners pour everything into what they do, and most of them are drowning in advice that assumes they have a marketing department at their disposal. I don't work that way. WE don’t work that way.
That's what Grapefruit Commerce is built on: website copy that actually sounds like you, content and SEO strategy you don't need a marketing degree to manage, and some AI tools folded in to save you time without losing your "voice" in the process.
When I'm not indulging my (probably!) unhealthy fascination with local politics, you can find me in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, walking my pooches at Shubie Park or Rainbow Haven Beach, or out exploring the highways and byways for whatever treasure Nova Scotia's hiding around the next corner.
We met in an online writers' group where strong opinions about comma placement count as a personality trait.
While the Oxford Comma is still up for debate, we bonded over our love of dogs and started collaborating organically.
Amy quickly realized Susan was a brilliant editor, and Susan desperately needed Amy’s workflow magic. We started trading skills, and it clicked. Turns out we are both neurodivergent, which explains a lot, like our strategic approach to communication, systems obsession, and zero patience for fluff.
By the time we officially launched Grapefruit Commerce, we already knew our skills fit perfectly (and that we actually liked working together). Now we bring that combined writing and business-building power to other small business owners. We can’t wait to work with you!
Interested in learning how we can help you earn more money online? We'd love to hear from you!