Big Sea acquisitions adds focused expertise in e-commerce

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (June 24, 2020) – Big Sea, one of the Tampa Bay area’s top marketing agencies, has acquired 70% ownership of Pineapple Development, a St. Petersburg-based web development agency.

Big Sea’s online marketing expertise expands with the addition of Pineapple Development, which specializes in building and maintaining e-commerce platforms using Shopify and Magento for clients like Pinch-A-Penny Pool Patio Spa. This specialized e-commerce expertise benefits Big Sea’s clients like Global Turf Equipment and Stillpoint Aromatics which have robust online marketing campaigns that lead to online stores.

“Now our clients will have a seamless experience in developing their e-commerce platforms and driving traffic to their online stores,” said Andi Graham, CEO and Managing Partner at Big Sea. “This partnership brings together experts who can deliver on both complex technical functionality and lead generation, which leads to success with online marketing.”

Pineapple Development CEO Donny Minchillo will remain in his leadership position and retain 30% ownership of the 12-person fully distributed firm. Its developers are located throughout the world, allowing the firm to attract and retain top talent and be fully responsive to client needs.

“As developers, we’ve been able to build powerful and nimble e-commerce platforms, but our clients have sometimes struggled to generate enough traffic to the online stores,” said Pineapple Development CEO Donny Minchillo. “That changes as they have greater access to Big Sea’s online marketing experts.”

In addition, Big Sea and Pineapple Development have partnered on Pineapple Pickup, which is an affordable option for restaurants to offer online take-out and delivery orders. Restaurants use Pineapple Pickup to create custom menus, set hours, communicate with customers and easily pull reports. Pineapple Pickup’s fees are a fraction of the cost of platforms like UberEats and DoorDash at only 7% of total pre-tax sales.

About Big Sea
Big Sea is a marketing agency founded in 2005 with offices in St. Petersburg, Florida and Colorado Springs, Colorado. Led by partners Andi Graham and Dzuy Nguyen, the agency earned a spot in Inc. Magazine’s 2019 list of Best Workplaces, based on employee surveys that measured workplace culture, benefits and employee engagement, and was named 2019 “Marketer of the Year” by the Tampa Bay chapter of the American Marketing Association. Its team of 20 experts provide full-funnel, content-focused digital marketing services to mid-market clients across the nation. For more information, visit https://bigsea.co.