Custom storefront
Home, collection, product and cart built as an application, designed around your catalogue and brand.
11 / Services
Shopify checkout, storefront built your way
A custom storefront in Next.js or Hydrogen, running on Shopify’s commerce engine and checkout — for brands whose experience no longer fits inside a theme.
- Projects delivered
- 50+
- Years of experience
- 10+
- Countries served
- 15+
- Typical timeline
- 8–14 wks
KEEP THE CHECKOUT REPLACE THE THEME
Shopify’s real value is not its themes. It is the part you never see: inventory, orders, payments, fraud checks, tax, and a checkout tested by millions of transactions. Going headless keeps all of that and replaces only the storefront — the pages customers browse before they buy.
Brands do this when the experience they want no longer fits in a theme. A configurator, an editorial shopping journey, a storefront that pulls content from a separate CMS, or simply a level of speed and polish that a theme with eight apps cannot reach.
It is not a decision to take lightly. A headless store costs more to build and more to maintain, and a handful of apps that inject their own front-end code will stop working until they are rebuilt. Done for the right reason it is excellent; done because it sounds modern it is an expensive way to get a slower store.
WHAT A HEADLESS STORE CHANGES
Three real differences between a themed store and a custom storefront.
Experience
No theme ceiling
Product pages, collections and landing experiences can behave exactly as designed, rather than as the nearest theme setting allows. This matters most for brands whose product needs explaining, configuring or styling.
Speed
Rendered ahead, served from the edge
Collection and product pages can be pre-rendered and cached close to the shopper, with live data for stock and price. That combination is hard to match with a theme carrying multiple apps.
Content
A proper CMS alongside commerce
Editorial content can come from WordPress or another CMS and sit beside product data in the same pages, instead of being squeezed into Shopify’s limited content tools.
WHAT THE BUILD INCLUDES
A headless storefront that your team can run and your customers can buy from.
Shopify checkout retained
The checkout, payments, fraud and tax stay with Shopify, which is where you want them.
Storefront API integration
Live inventory, pricing and cart state pulled from Shopify so nothing goes stale.
CMS for content
WordPress or a headless CMS for editorial pages, so marketing is not blocked by developers.
Performance strategy
Rendering chosen per template, images optimised, third-party scripts kept on a short leash.
Tracking rebuilt correctly
Analytics, conversion tracking and feeds re-implemented, since theme-injected app scripts no longer apply.
Go headless because a theme cannot do what you need, not because headless sounds better.
Ask if headless suits your storeWHO IT SUITS
Headless Shopify earns its cost in a few specific situations.
High-volume brands
Where a small conversion or speed gain is worth a significant sum each month.
Complex products
Configurators, bundles, made-to-order items and anything needing real interaction.
Content-led commerce
Brands whose editorial and products belong in the same experience.
Multi-region storefronts
Several markets sharing one codebase with local content and currency.
App-heavy stores
Stores slowed by a decade of accumulated apps, where the theme is now the bottleneck.
Distinctive brands
Where looking like every other Shopify store is itself the problem.
THE STACK WE USE
Shopify for commerce, a modern front end for everything the customer sees.
Shopify / Plus
Products, inventory, orders, payments and checkout.
Next.js or Hydrogen
The storefront application, with per-template rendering.
Storefront API
Live product, price, inventory and cart data.
Headless CMS
WordPress or similar for editorial content beside the catalogue.
HOW A HEADLESS STORE IS BUILT
Six stages, with a genuine go/no-go after the first.
-
01
Fit assessment
We check whether a well-built theme would meet the goal at a fraction of the cost. If it would, we say so.
-
02
Architecture
What Shopify owns, what the CMS owns, what the front end renders, and how each page is cached.
-
03
Design
Storefront, collection, product and cart designed for desktop and mobile.
-
04
Front-end build
The storefront application built against the Storefront API on a development store.
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05
Apps, data & tracking
Essential app functionality rebuilt, analytics and conversion tracking verified with real test orders.
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06
Launch & handover
Careful go-live, monitoring of the first orders, and training for the team.
WHAT IT COSTS
A headless store is a bigger investment than a custom theme, and it carries ongoing front-end maintenance. We quote both, and we will tell you when the theme route gets you 90 per cent of the result for a third of the money.
Get your estimate- What moves the price
- Number of templates and how interactive they are
- App functionality that has to be rebuilt in the front end
- Markets, languages and currencies
- Whether a separate CMS is part of the build
- Migration from an existing theme, including URLs
- Ongoing maintenance and hosting for the storefront
SIGNS YOU DO NOT NEED HEADLESS
Most stores are better served by a well-built custom theme. These are the signs that applies to you.
Get a straight recommendation- Reasons to stay on a theme
- Your store is slow mainly because of images and apps
- Marketing needs to build landing pages without a developer
- There is no budget for ongoing front-end maintenance
- Your catalogue and buying journey are fairly conventional
- You rely on several apps that inject storefront code
- The current theme has never actually been optimised
HOW LONG IT TAKES
Headless stores usually run 8–14 weeks. Rebuilding app functionality is the part most often underestimated.
| Stage | Typical time | What you receive |
|---|---|---|
| Fit assessment & architecture | 1–2 weeks | Recommendation, architecture, fixed estimate |
| Design | 2 weeks | Designed storefront, collection, product, cart |
| Front-end build | 3–5 weeks | Storefront running against live catalogue data |
| Apps, content & tracking | 1–2 weeks | Rebuilt app features, CMS content, verified tracking |
| Testing & launch | 1–2 weeks | Real test orders, redirects, go-live, training |
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Learn moreHEADLESS SHOPIFY QUESTIONS
What brands ask before leaving themes behind.
Still have a question? Ask us on WhatsApp
Yes, and that is the point. Payments, fraud checks, tax and the checkout flow stay on Shopify, which is the part you least want to rebuild.
Some will, some will not. Apps that work through Shopify’s admin and APIs usually continue; apps that inject code into the theme have to be rebuilt in the front end. We audit your app list during the fit assessment.
It can be significantly faster, because pages are pre-rendered and cached at the edge. But a bloated headless store is perfectly possible — speed comes from discipline, not from the architecture alone.
Meaningfully more to build, and more to maintain, since you own a storefront application. We quote both and compare them against a custom theme so the decision is made on numbers.
Yes, if we plan for it: a CMS with approved components lets them compose pages. This has to be built deliberately, unlike a theme where it comes free.
Not necessarily. Headless works on standard Shopify; Plus adds capabilities around checkout, B2B and multiple storefronts that some brands need.
It is fully under your control — often better than a theme, because you decide exactly what is rendered. It does have to be implemented deliberately, including metadata, structured data and sitemaps.
We map every existing URL, set up redirects, keep metadata, and monitor rankings after launch, the same as any other migration.
Yes. Your products, customers and orders never left Shopify, so reverting means building a theme — not a data migration.
Start with the fit assessment. If a custom theme gets you most of the way, that is what we will recommend.
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