Custom Shopify Theme Development
Custom theme development includes a variety of services: Implementing simple changes to a Shopify theme based on an existing design. Getting new, optimized features that bring in more revenue and serve your customers. Improving the overall design, functionality of the theme, and its ability to convert traffic. Integrating third-party tools. And many more.
Why choose us.
for Custom Shopify Theme Development
Thousands of Hours of Theme Experience
We've worked on more than 100 Shopify storefronts, so we've seen everything. And we only work with Shopify stores. This experience allows us to avoid common pitfalls, such as not being aware of the platform's limitations. Or create frontends that are customizable in all the ways a merchant needs.
You'll also get the best possible advice on how to optimize your budget, and distribute it where it matters.
Features that Don't Reduce Site Speed
For us, there's no reason to do custom development if the result isn't as optimized in terms of speed as possible. It's one of the main reasons to go this route. Better than using apps, and less costly on the long run.
Our principle of Liquid-first development allows our code to have minimal impact on the site's speed.
Customizable Without Extra Code
We don't want you to have to be tied to a developer for every change. Instead, we want you to be able to customize your theme's features easily, without any extra code.
We achieve this by creating theme settings to give you control of the features. The more theme settings, the more aspects you can customize. For example you can disable a feature for visitors for certain countries. Or, you may want to optimize it by changing its copy.
Measurable Results
On certain cases we use split tests and analytics to measure how our theme work affected your KPIs. GA4 allows us to measure various aspects of a feature, when it comes to how users interact with it.
This way you can be sure that you made a good investment. You also have a lot of data for future reference, to further improve and optimize the frontend.
Our process.
Requirements Gathering and Planning
We'll start by gathering all the necessary details to make sure that the project will be a success. This stage predicts complexities that might arise, and helps us shape the full picture of your plan.
Design and Mockups
We'll create mockups of varying detail. This allows quick iteration over the result's layout, content and style. Research is done througout this stage, to make sure the result will provide a great user experience.
Implementation
Development of the actual code for the feature. Best Shopify development practices, optimized and maintainable code are used to implement the designed changes, additions or features.
Testing, Launch and Feedback
Cross-browser and functional testing. Publishing the customized theme. Monitoring post-launch performance and make necessary optimizations based on user feedback and analytics.
Tools and methods.
Competitor analysis
We want to build theme features that are better than competitors, so that customers will have a better experience on your website.
We analyze other e-commerce websites from the same or different industries, and find out how they've implemented the required features. We also get ideas about what already works, so we can improve it.
This usually involves about 3-5 of the best performers.
Liquid-first approach
Liquid is Shopify's templating language and the backbone of theme customization.
Our solutions prioritize using Liquid due to the performance benefits. JavaScript is used for functionality only when necessary.
Code rendered with Liquid and CSS loads instantly, whereas Javascript can slow down page load, which is why it should be used on a need-only basis.
Shopify apps
Most custom features in Shopify frontends can be implemented with theme code only.
However, there are features that need to interact with the Shopify API, or other backends.
This is where apps come in. We can choose between using an existing app and developing on top of it, or developing a fully custom app for your store. The choice largely depends on the projected return on investment.
Frequently Asked Questions.
Do I need to have a full document with my requirements?
You don't. We can help you build a requirements and specifications document. It has all the details about what the result should look like, and a rough description of how it should be implemented in Shopify.
With that document, we can proceed with the final proposal. This way, the proposal will have a well-defined scope, and will get the best possible price.
How much does custom Shopify theme development cost?
The final cost depends on the scale of the scope. There's a lot of flexibility. We'll advise you on how to make the best possible use of your budget.
Some changes are very low-cost, such as updating a theme section to have a different style. Larger projects also vary. For example, if you're testing out a new features, we'll work only on what's impactful and provide an easy way for future extension. If you plan to launch a large feature on a high-traffic website, the cost will reflect the number of phases required, for example a research phase or a long quality assurance phase.
Do you have experience with my theme?
We've worked with hundreds of themes. All themes in Shopify utilize the same Shopify Liquid API.
So it's very likely we've already worked with the code of your theme. In the case we haven't, it will be very easy to pick up its code and work with it.
Do you also do design, or do you just develop the code.
We can also take on the design phase of any project. See our relevant Service regarding this.
We design using the existing theme as a basis. This helps us use your current style features (e.g. text styles, colors, other details) in our design tools.
We actually prefer to design the features first, since it's less costly for you, and the result is much more coordinated.
Let's talk about Custom Shopify Theme Development
