Shopify Development Agency

Shopify is quick to launch and slow to fix once a theme has been customised by three different developers over three years. Most of the Shopify work we do is not a first build. It is untangling a store where apps have piled up, the collection structure was set once at launch and never revisited, and page speed has dropped as more scripts were added. This is the Shopify side of our Web Design & Development service.

What we build on Shopify

Custom theme builds on Online Store 2.0, using sections and blocks so your team can move content around without a developer for every change. We work from Dawn or a paid theme as a base rather than building from nothing, because a from-scratch theme is rarely worth the extra cost against a well-built customisation.

Collection structure that matches how people search and shop, not how the product catalogue happened to get uploaded. This is the part most stores get wrong first: a collection page has to work as a landing page for a search term as well as a shelf of products, and those two jobs need different filtering, copy and internal linking.

App audits and removal. Every app adds script weight. We check what is installed, what it does, and what it costs in load time, then remove or replace anything earning its keep on convenience but not on speed.

Speed optimisation specific to Shopify’s constraints: image sizing and lazy loading, third-party script deferral, theme app block cleanup, and reducing render-blocking JavaScript within what Shopify’s platform allows.

Migrations to Shopify from WooCommerce, Magento or a legacy platform, including redirect mapping so existing rankings and backlinks carry over rather than reset to zero on launch day.

Custom app and integration work where a store needs something Shopify and its app store do not offer off the shelf. This sits alongside the theme rather than inside it: a customer-facing tool built as its own application, connected to the store rather than templated into it.

Custom app work alongside the store

Not every request belongs in the Shopify theme. For Sons, we built a product-tester tool as a standalone web application on Next.js and Supabase, sitting alongside their Shopify store rather than inside the theme itself. It is the right call when the feature needs its own database, its own logic and faster iteration than theme code allows. We will tell you plainly when a request is a theme customisation and when it is a separate build, because pricing and timelines differ between the two.

Common Shopify problems we fix

Collection pages with weak or no on-page copy, competing for the same search terms as the products inside them rather than ranking for the category term itself.

App bloat. Review apps, upsell apps and tracking pixels stacked on top of each other, each adding scripts that slow the store without anyone auditing the total cost.

Faceted navigation creating thousands of near-duplicate filtered URLs, most of them indexable by default and diluting crawl budget.

Checkout and cart customisations built for an older Shopify plan or theme version that break silently after a platform update.

Migration debris: old category URLs from the previous platform left unredirected, or redirected to the homepage instead of the matching collection.

Shopify development and Shopify SEO, together or separately

We build the store. We also run Shopify SEO for clients who want the collection structure, on-page work and technical crawl health handled as an ongoing programme rather than a one-off build. The two are complementary and not the same engagement. A theme build gets the foundations right once. Shopify SEO keeps that foundation working as products, collections and competitors change every month. You can start with either, and we will tell you honestly if a build has SEO problems baked into it that the retainer would otherwise have to spend the first month undoing.

Stores we have worked on

Seven of our published case studies are Shopify stores, so the platform’s quirks are familiar ground rather than a first encounter. The results for each are on their own pages. See the case studies for the full list.

What it costs

A Shopify store build starts from £8,500 excluding VAT, the same band as a WordPress build with e-commerce. What moves it within that band is the number of custom templates, the app and integration list, and whether a migration is involved. Care plans and development retainers are priced separately once the store is live, and every band is on the web development pricing page. There is no minimum term, 60 days’ notice, at any point.