Shopify · Store design & build
Shopify store design and build your team can run without us
A Shopify store is easy to launch and easy to get wrong. We design around how your customers buy, then build a theme that loads quickly, works for everyone and lets your team change pages on their own.
First decision
Custom Shopify theme, or a good one off the shelf?
Custom Shopify theme development is not always the right answer. The better themes in the Shopify Theme Store are well built, supported by their authors and good enough for many stores.
The honest test is how much you would change. If the answer is colours, fonts and a few sections, buy a theme. If it is the product page, the navigation and the way the catalogue is presented, a custom theme usually costs less over time than fighting someone else’s code.
-
A bought theme is enough when
The catalogue is straightforward, the brand can live within the theme’s layouts, and the budget is better spent on photography and content.
-
Customising one makes sense when
The theme gets you most of the way and you need a handful of bespoke sections. We add them cleanly, so theme updates stay possible.
-
A custom theme earns its cost when
The brand, the products or the buying journey are distinctive, and performance matters enough that you want only the code you use.
Design and build process
From first conversation to a store you can hand to your team
Five stages. Each ends in something you can look at, test or sign off.
-
01
Products, customers and constraints
We look at your catalogue, analytics, fulfilment and connected systems, then write down what will be built and what it will cost.
- Written scope
- Fixed price
-
02
Shopify store design, mobile first
Key templates are designed with real products and real copy: home, collection, product, cart and search. You review clickable designs before any theme code is written.
- Clickable designs
- Component library
-
03
Theme development in the open
The theme is built in Git with Shopify CLI and shown on a preview theme in your own store, so you test with real data.
- Preview theme
- Weekly demo
-
04
Content, apps and tracking
Products, collections and pages are loaded, the agreed apps are configured, and analytics and consent are set up and checked against test orders.
- Populated store
- Tracking plan
-
05
Go live, train and hand over
We work through the launch checklist, publish and watch the store closely. Your team is trained on the theme editor and given written documentation.
- Live store
- Training and handover notes
What goes into the theme
Built so that changing a page is your job, not ours
-
Online Store 2.0 sections
Every template is made of sections and blocks, so your team can add, reorder and edit content on any page in the theme editor. New landing pages need no developer.
-
Metafields and metaobjects
Size guides, ingredients, specifications, care instructions and designer profiles are stored as structured content. Enter them once and they appear wherever the theme needs them.
-
Performance
Responsive images served from Shopify’s CDN, very little JavaScript, fonts loaded sensibly and third-party scripts kept on a budget. We measure Core Web Vitals on real mobile devices.
-
Accessibility
Semantic HTML, keyboard navigation, visible focus, sufficient contrast and properly labelled forms. We test against WCAG 2.2 AA with a keyboard and a screen reader, not only an automated scanner.
Conversion basics
The parts of a store that decide the sale
None of this is clever. It is the groundwork that is most often skipped.
Finding products
- Navigation that follows how customers think about the range
- Collection filters built on clean product data
- Search that copes with misspellings and synonyms
- Sensible results when nothing matches
Product page
- Price, options and availability visible without scrolling
- Images that load quickly and zoom properly
- Delivery and returns information beside the button
- Clear messages for sold-out and back-order variants
Cart and checkout
- A cart that is easy to edit and honest about costs
- Accelerated checkout options where they suit your customers
- No surprise charges at the final step
- Order emails that match the brand
Analytics, consent and launch
Tracking you can trust, and a launch without drama
A new store with broken tracking cannot tell you whether it is working. We agree which events matter, set them up through Shopify’s customer events and the relevant sales channel apps, and check the figures against real test orders before launch.
UK and EU visitors must be able to refuse non-essential cookies. We configure a consent banner that connects to Shopify’s customer privacy settings, so analytics and advertising tags wait for permission instead of ignoring it.
Training and handover
Your team is shown how to build pages, manage navigation, use metafields and schedule changes. The theme lives in a repository you own, with notes a future developer can follow.
Questions
Shopify design and build questions
Should I buy a Shopify theme or have a custom one built?
Buy a theme if your catalogue is simple and you would only change colours, fonts and a few sections. Commission a custom Shopify theme when the brand, products or buying journey need layouts a bought theme does not offer, or when performance matters enough that you want only the code your store uses.
What is Online Store 2.0?
Online Store 2.0 is the current architecture for Shopify themes. Templates are built from sections and blocks that can be added and rearranged on every page, not only the home page. It also lets apps add features through app blocks, without editing theme code, which makes them easier to remove cleanly.
Can we edit the store ourselves after launch?
Yes, and the theme is designed for it. Pages are made of sections your team can add, reorder and edit in the Shopify theme editor, and structured content is managed through metafields and metaobjects in the admin. A developer is only needed for new section types or changes to how the theme behaves.
What are metafields and metaobjects in Shopify?
Metafields are extra fields attached to products, collections, customers and other records, such as a material, a care instruction or a size chart. Metaobjects are standalone structured entries, such as a designer profile or a store location, that can be reused across the site. Both keep content out of theme code.
Will a custom Shopify theme be fast?
It should be faster than most bought themes, because it carries only the features your store uses. Speed on Shopify is decided mainly in the browser: image sizes, the amount of JavaScript, fonts and third-party scripts from apps. We set budgets for each and test on real mobile devices.
Who owns the theme when the project is finished?
You do. The theme code is kept in a Git repository in your name, the store and its apps sit in your own Shopify account, and you receive documentation covering how the theme is structured. If you later work with another developer, they can pick it up without us.