Custom Shopify themes
Online Store 2.0 themes designed from scratch around your brand, not a template with your logo dropped in.
Shopify Development · New York
Shopify development for New York brands.
Custom themes, Shopify Plus builds and headless storefronts for NYC e-commerce teams, delivered by a crew that treats page speed and conversion as part of the design.
What We Build
Shopify work, end to end.
New York runs on D2C: fashion in SoHo, beauty in Brooklyn, CPG brands shipping nationwide from a WeWork desk. If you are looking for Shopify website development in New York without the Manhattan-agency retainer, this is the model: senior build quality, US Eastern hours overlap, and a fixed quote before work starts. We work as your Shopify website design company and your ecommerce developer in one team, so design, build and conversion are not three separate invoices.
Shopify development for New York brands covers custom themes, app integration and store optimisation for the city's D2C economy. What separates stores here is speed under heavy imagery and an app stack that has been audited rather than accumulated, and both are measurable before you spend anything.
Shopify Plus builds
Checkout extensibility, B2B, multi-store and international setups for brands past the starter stage.
Headless storefronts
Hydrogen and custom front ends when you need speed and design freedom beyond Liquid.
Migrations
WooCommerce, Magento or custom carts moved to Shopify with SEO, redirects and order history intact.
Apps & integrations
Private apps, ERP and 3PL integrations, subscriptions, reviews and loyalty stacks wired in cleanly.
Store CRO
Product page, cart and checkout optimization that turns your existing New York traffic into revenue.
Stack & Specialties
Shopify Plus
Online Store 2.0
Liquid
Hydrogen / Headless
Checkout Extensibility
Klaviyo
Subscriptions
B2B Wholesale
Capabilities
What a Shopify web developer actually does here.
Plus
Shopify Plus and checkout
Checkout extensibility for custom checkout UI, post-purchase upsells, delivery estimates and trust signals at the payment step. B2B catalogues with company accounts and per-customer pricing. Scripts migration now that checkout.liquid has been retired.
Migrate
Migrations without losing rankings
An ecommerce website developer earns their fee here. WooCommerce, Magento and BigCommerce to Shopify. The work that matters is not the product import, it is the redirect map. Every old URL gets a 301 to its closest equivalent, content parity is held on ranking pages, and we baseline Search Console before and after.
Speed
Core Web Vitals and theme performance
App audits first, because app scripts are usually 40 to 60 percent of page weight. Then media, then theme code. Target is LCP under 2.5 seconds on mobile, INP under 200 milliseconds and CLS under 0.1, measured on field data rather than lab scores.
Build
Online Store 2.0 themes
When you build a Shopify website with us it ships on Online Store 2.0, with custom sections and metaobjects so your team can build pages without a developer. Lean Liquid rather than a multipurpose theme carrying code for features you will never use. Editable by marketers on a Tuesday without a deploy.
Headless
Headless and Hydrogen, when it is justified
We will build it, and we will tell you first whether you need it. Headless earns its cost when you have a named experience requirement Online Store 2.0 cannot express and permanent engineering ownership. Otherwise a lean theme beats it on both cost and speed.
Integrate
Apps, ERP and data
Subscriptions, reviews, search, loyalty and 3PL connections, chosen for what they cost in page weight as well as monthly fee. Server-side tracking so your ad platforms see conversions that browser pixels now miss.
Pricing
What Shopify development costs.
Most agencies make you sit through a call before they name a number. Here are the bands we quote in for Shopify website design services, so you can tell before you contact us whether we are in your range.
| Engagement | Range (USD) | Timeline | What it covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Theme build | $5,000 to $15,000 | 3 to 6 weeks | Premium theme, brand styling, product and collection templates, apps configured, launch |
| Custom Shopify build | $15,000 to $45,000 | 6 to 12 weeks | Bespoke design, custom sections, integrations, content migration, speed work |
| Shopify Plus build | $40,000 upward | 3 to 6 months | Checkout extensibility, B2B, complex catalogue, ERP and PIM integration |
| Platform migration | $8,000 to $30,000 | 4 to 10 weeks | WooCommerce, Magento or BigCommerce to Shopify, with full redirect mapping |
| Speed and CRO retainer | $2,500 to $12,000 per month | Ongoing | Development hours, Core Web Vitals, A/B testing, checkout and AOV work |
| Fixed-scope fixes | $150 per hour | Days | Bug fixes, app conflicts, theme edits, one-off integrations |
Quotes are fixed scope in USD after a store audit, not hourly estimates that drift. What moves a project between bands is catalogue size, how many systems need integrating, and how much content has to be produced rather than migrated.
Fixed scope, fixed price
You own the code
No lock-in retainer
Audit before quote
Categories
The New York categories we build for.
New York commerce concentrates in a handful of categories, and each one breaks a Shopify store in its own way. What follows is what actually goes wrong in each.
| Category | What the store has to solve | Where most builds fail |
|---|---|---|
| Fashion and apparel | Variant-heavy catalogues, size and fit confidence, fast seasonal drops, returns policy visible before checkout | Variant pages that split SEO equity, and size guides buried in a tab nobody opens |
| Beauty and personal care | Ingredient and claim detail, shade matching, subscription and replenishment, heavy review reliance | Review apps loaded in iframes, so the content never counts for SEO |
| Specialty food and beverage | Perishable shipping rules, zone-based delivery, subscription cadence, compliance copy | Shipping cost revealed at the last checkout step, which is the top stated reason for abandonment |
| Jewelry and accessories | High consideration, zoomable imagery, provenance and materials detail, financing options | Enormous unoptimised images that push LCP past four seconds on mobile |
| Home and interiors | Large-item shipping quotes, room context imagery, swatch and material selection, long consideration cycles | No saved cart or wishlist, so a two-week decision cycle has nowhere to live |
| DTC brands with retail | Inventory synced across POS and online, local pickup, store locator, unified customer data | Online and in-store treated as separate businesses, so stock and customer history never reconcile |
How We Work
From audit to launch, in four moves.
01
Store audit
We review your current store, stack and analytics, and map what a rebuild or migration is worth.
02
Design & prototype
Conversion-first design in your brand, approved before development starts.
03
Build & integrate
Clean Liquid or headless development, apps integrated, speed budgets enforced.
04
Launch & grow
Zero-downtime launch, then CRO and iteration on real customer data.
Timeline
What the weeks actually look like.
| Stage | Duration | What happens | What we need from you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Audit and discovery | Week 1 to 2 | Store audit, analytics review, catalogue and integration mapping, fixed-scope quote | Admin access, analytics access, your commercial priorities |
| Design | Week 2 to 5 | Homepage, product and collection templates, then the rest of the system | Brand assets and one named decision maker |
| Build | Week 4 to 9 | Theme development, integrations, apps, speed work, staging environment | Product content and photography |
| QA and migration | Week 8 to 11 | Cross-device testing, redirect mapping, tracking verification, test orders | Payment and shipping account access |
| Launch and watch | Week 10 to 12 | Go live, 404 monitoring, funnel checks against the old baseline | Availability for a week-one review |
The single largest cause of overrun is not development. It is content and the feedback loop: product copy that is not ready, photography that slips, and review rounds that take ten days because four people need to agree. Name one decision maker, agree a turnaround in the contract, and have product content ready before design starts. Projects that do this land on schedule. Projects that do not add two to four weeks.
What You Can Expect
50+Stores shipped*
<2sSpeed target
ESTHours overlap daily
ZeroDowntime migrations
*Illustrative placeholders. Real numbers shared on your growth call.
FAQ
Working with us from New York
Do you work with New York based teams remotely?
Yes. Most of our e-commerce clients work with us remotely. We hold daily overlap with US Eastern hours for standups, reviews and launches, and communication runs through Slack and Loom between calls.
How do you price Shopify projects for US clients?
Fixed-scope quotes in USD after a store audit. Theme builds and Plus projects are priced by scope, not hourly surprises, and you'll know the number before work starts.
Can you take over an existing Shopify store?
Yes. We start with a code and speed audit, fix what's fragile, and take over iteration without forcing a rebuild unless one is genuinely needed.
Do you handle ongoing development after launch?
Most clients keep a monthly engineering and CRO retainer after launch. You get a roadmap, not a ticket queue.
How much does Shopify development cost in New York?
Theme builds run $5,000 to $15,000, custom builds $15,000 to $45,000, and Shopify Plus projects $40,000 upward. Migrations are $8,000 to $30,000 depending on catalogue size and redirect complexity. We quote fixed scope in USD after a store audit rather than open-ended hourly work.
How long does a Shopify build take?
A theme build takes 3 to 6 weeks, a custom build 6 to 12 weeks, and Shopify Plus 3 to 6 months. Migration adds 4 to 10 weeks. The most common cause of overrun is client-side content and slow review cycles, not development, so we agree feedback turnaround in the contract.
Do I need Shopify Plus or is standard Shopify enough?
Standard Shopify covers almost everything most brands need. Plus earns its price once you need checkout extensibility, B2B with company accounts and custom pricing, higher API limits or automation across multiple stores. Below roughly $8 to 10 crore equivalent in annual revenue, standard Shopify with good development usually wins.
Will migrating to Shopify hurt my search rankings?
Only if the redirect map is sloppy. Every old URL needs a 301 to its closest equivalent, and ranking pages need content parity. We baseline Search Console before the move and watch the coverage report for 404 spikes in week one. Done properly, rankings hold or recover within weeks.
Who owns the code and design files?
You do, unconditionally, and it is written into the contract. Ownership is never conditional on staying on a retainer. That includes theme code, design files and any custom apps we build for you.
Do you work with brands outside New York?
Yes. Most of our e-commerce work is remote and we hold daily overlap with US Eastern hours. A New York presence matters when you need photography or video shot in your space, in-person workshops, or category knowledge specific to this market. Otherwise geography should not decide your shortlist.
Do I need a Shopify web designer or a Shopify developer?
Most stores need both, and on smaller projects one person covers each. A Shopify web designer decides layout, hierarchy and how the brand reads on a product page. A developer makes it work in Liquid, fast, and integrated with your systems. If you want to build a Shopify website that both looks right and converts, do not hire only one half and hope the other takes care of itself.
Hiring
Hiring a Shopify developer in New York
What agencies charge, the five types of partner, and the questions that separate them.
How-toHow to build a Shopify store
A full step-by-step build guide, from plan choice to launch checks.
HiringHiring a Shopify developer
Costs, timelines, the vetting questions, and the red flags.
EcommerceHow to build an ecommerce website
Platform comparison, real cost ranges, and the build sequence.
PerformanceYour theme is costing you sales
Where Shopify speed goes, and the speed-first rebuild math.
SEOProduct pages that rank in AI answers
Shopify structural SEO quirks, and the citation playbook.
ConversionThe checkout layer nobody touches
Thresholds, bundles, extensibility and recovery: the AOV stack.
Your store should sell as hard as your product.
Get a Shopify store audit with honest findings and a fixed-scope quote in USD.
Book a Growth Call