Shopify · Shopify Plus
A Shopify agency in the UK, run by the developers themselves
Shopify takes hosting, security and checkout off your plate. What is left decides whether the store sells: the theme, the apps, the data and the integrations. Our Shopify developers design, build and maintain all four.
Shopify services
Five ways we work on Shopify
Each has its own page with the detail. Start wherever your problem is.
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Store design & build
A custom theme, or a good bought one properly adapted, built on Online Store 2.0 so your team can edit pages without a developer.
Store design & build -
Shopify Plus
Checkout Extensibility, Shopify Functions, B2B, expansion stores and the move away from checkout.liquid, for merchants who need what Plus adds.
Shopify Plus -
Apps & integrations
Custom apps for the things the App Store does not do, and dependable connections to ERP, warehouse, PIM and accounting systems.
Apps & integrations -
Migration to Shopify
Products, customers, orders and content moved from Magento, WooCommerce or a bespoke platform, with redirects and rankings protected.
Migration -
Shopify audit
An independent review of theme code, installed apps, speed, tracking and accessibility, written up in plain English with priorities.
Request an audit
Why Shopify
The platform for teams who would rather sell than maintain
Shopify is a hosted platform. Shopify runs the servers, applies the security updates and keeps the checkout online on your busiest days. You never plan an upgrade project.
That changes where the money goes. Instead of infrastructure and upkeep, the budget goes on the storefront, the customer experience and the systems behind it.
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Hosted and secure
Hosting, a content delivery network, TLS certificates and a PCI compliant checkout are part of the subscription.
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Fast to launch
No infrastructure to provision, so the project is design, content, data and integration from the first week.
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A deep app ecosystem
Reviews, subscriptions, search, loyalty and returns are usually an app away, and custom apps cover the rest.
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Shopify Payments and Shop Pay
Payments built into the admin, with an accelerated checkout that remembers returning shoppers’ details.
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Shopify Markets
Local currencies, languages, domains and pricing for each country you sell to, managed from one store.
The honest limits
What Shopify asks you to accept in return
Shopify is opinionated, and that is most of why it works. It also means some things are decided for you.
- Checkout control is limited below Plus. On the standard plans you can brand the checkout, but its steps are fixed. Adding your own fields, content or logic to them is a Shopify Plus feature.
- App costs add up. Most apps charge monthly, and many add scripts to every page. A long list of apps is paid for twice: in subscriptions and in speed.
- You work within platform conventions. URL structure, the product and variant model, and the way discounts combine all follow Shopify’s rules.
- Other payment providers cost extra. Shopify charges an additional transaction fee when you use a third-party gateway instead of Shopify Payments.
For most direct-to-consumer brands none of this is a problem. For a complex B2B catalogue or heavily customised pricing, Magento 2 may be the better home.
Plans
Shopify or Shopify Plus?
The storefront, admin and theme system are the same. The difference is how far you can go beyond the defaults.
| Shopify (standard plans) | Shopify Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| Checkout | Branding and settings; the steps are fixed | Checkout UI extensions add fields, content and offers to the checkout steps |
| Custom checkout logic | Shopify Functions through App Store apps | Shopify Functions in your own custom apps, written for your rules |
| B2B and wholesale | More limited natively; often handled with apps | Shopify’s full native B2B set: company accounts, catalogues and price lists, payment terms |
| Additional stores | Each store is a separate subscription | Expansion stores for other regions or wholesale, under one organisation |
| Scheduled campaigns | Manual, or through apps | Launchpad schedules sales, theme changes and product releases |
| API capacity | Standard rate limits | Higher rate limits for busy integrations |
| Cost | Lower monthly subscription | A substantially higher platform fee, agreed with Shopify |
| Typical fit | Most small and mid-sized brands | High-volume, international or B2B merchants who will use the extras |
Plenty of successful stores never need Plus. More detail on our Shopify Plus page.
How we build
Standards that keep a Shopify store fast and editable
Shopify stores rarely break. They slow down, fill with apps and become hard to change. These habits prevent that.
Theme
- Online Store 2.0 themes with sections on every page
- Theme code in Git, developed with Shopify CLI
- Changes built on a preview theme and reviewed before publishing
- Structured content in metafields and metaobjects, not hard-coded
Apps
- No app bloat: every app has a job and an owner
- Theme features preferred where an app is not needed
- Leftover code from removed apps cleaned out
- Custom apps only where buying does not make sense
Quality
- Performance budgets for scripts, images and fonts
- Accessibility built in and tested against WCAG 2.2 AA
- Analytics set up properly, with consent respected
- Documentation and training at handover
Technology
The Shopify stack we work in every day
- Storefront
- Liquid Online Store 2.0 Sections & blocks Metafields Metaobjects Theme app extensions Hydrogen
- Checkout & logic
- Checkout UI extensions Shopify Functions Shopify Payments Shop Pay Web pixels
- APIs & tooling
- Admin API (GraphQL) Storefront API Webhooks Bulk operations Shopify CLI Git
- Platform
- Shopify Plus Shopify Markets B2B on Shopify Shopify Flow Launchpad
- Integration
- ERP WMS & 3PL PIM Accounting Marketplaces Email & CRM
Questions
Shopify questions we hear most
What does a Shopify agency do?
A Shopify agency designs, builds and maintains online stores on Shopify and Shopify Plus. That covers theme design and development, choosing and configuring apps, building custom apps, connecting the store to systems such as ERP and warehouse software, migrating from other platforms, and ongoing improvement work once the store is live.
Do I need a developer to run a Shopify store?
Not for day-to-day running. Shopify is designed so merchants can manage products, orders, discounts and page content themselves. Shopify developers are needed for the things the admin cannot do: a custom theme, changes to theme code, custom apps, checkout extensions and integrations with other business systems.
What is the difference between Shopify and Shopify Plus?
Shopify Plus is Shopify’s enterprise plan. It uses the same admin and theme system as the standard plans, and adds checkout customisation through Checkout UI extensions, Shopify Functions in custom apps, the full native B2B feature set, expansion stores, Launchpad and higher API limits, for a substantially higher platform fee.
Is Shopify or Magento better for my business?
Neither is better in general. Shopify suits brands that want a hosted platform, low maintenance and a quick route to market. Magento 2 suits retailers with complex catalogues, customer-specific pricing or logic that must live inside the platform. We work on both and set out the trade-offs in our Magento vs Shopify comparison.
Can you take over an existing Shopify store?
Yes. We start with an audit of the theme code, installed apps, page speed, tracking and accessibility, so both sides know what state the store is in. Then we agree a prioritised plan, usually beginning with app clean-up and performance before any new features are added.
Why is my Shopify store slow?
Shopify’s servers are rarely the cause. Slow Shopify stores are usually slow in the browser: too many app scripts, oversized images, heavy theme JavaScript, and code left behind by apps that were uninstalled. An audit identifies which of these costs the most, and most of them can be fixed without a redesign.