Custom e-commerce site — headless Next.js or Shopify theme — engineered for Core Web Vitals and ad ROI. Four to six weeks, from $2,999.
- Design
- Build
- Launch
fixed-price project
Who this is for
DTC or B2B founder doing $500k to $10M a year on Shopify or WooCommerce, ready for a faster and more branded storefront that stops leaking mobile conversions.
The pain today
- Shopify theme looks identical to every other DTC brand in your category
- Mobile Core Web Vitals are in the red and tanking paid-social ad quality scores
- Cart abandonment climbing with no clear owner for the checkout UX
- Category pages bury products below the fold with no real search
- Adding custom features means fighting plugins that break on every Shopify update
The outcome you get
- Branded storefront shipped in four to six weeks, from $2,999 fixed
- Mobile Core Web Vitals in the green on category, product, and cart pages
- Checkout friction audit with three to five fixes inside the first sprint
- Clean category taxonomy, fast on-site search, and product schema for SEO
- Klaviyo, Meta Pixel, and GA4 wired end-to-end and verified before launch
Why DTC brands outgrow stock themes
Stock Shopify themes are engineered for the median store. Once you pass $500k a year, the median is no longer your peer group. The limits start showing in specific ways: product detail pages that cannot express your brand voice, category grids locked into the theme author's idea of hierarchy, upsell flows that carry the aesthetic of whatever third-party app you bolted on last quarter.
Meanwhile, ad costs keep rising. A half-second delay in Largest Contentful Paint on a product page is not a technical detail — it's a conversion tax on every Meta or Google click you pay for. Google factors landing-page experience into ad quality scores, which affects both CPM and reach. The storefront is not separate from paid performance. It is part of it.
I pick the right platform for your roadmap — headless, custom Shopify theme, or a clean rebuild — based on your team's actual capabilities and your two-year plan, not on what happens to be fashionable. Having shipped 250+ projects since 2009, I've seen the same expensive mistakes repeat: brands going headless when a custom theme would have been faster, or staying on a bloated plugin stack when a rebuild was cheaper in year two.
Branded storefront shipped in four to six weeks, from $2,999 fixed
Headless, custom theme, or full custom — when each wins
Custom Shopify theme is the right call when your team already knows the Liquid ecosystem and you plan to stay on Shopify for the foreseeable future. It's the fastest path to a genuinely branded storefront, and it keeps your operations team on familiar ground post-launch.
Headless Next.js plus Shopify Storefront API wins when you need a content-heavy site, multiple storefronts, or best-in-class page speed. Headless builds consistently score 90+ on Lighthouse mobile where theme-based builds average 60 to 75. Expect a slightly longer build timeline — closer to six weeks — but years of performance headroom in return.
Full custom (Medusa or Commerce.js) only makes sense when Shopify's constraints block a specific B2B, subscription, or complex-catalog workflow that no app or headless layer can solve cleanly. Most stores under $10M a year should stay on Shopify with a custom theme or a headless layer on top. Going full custom for aesthetic reasons alone is expensive to maintain in year two, and I'll tell you that plainly in the first call.
45%: Bounce rate reduction after launch.
Core Web Vitals, product schema, and ad ROI
Meta and Google both weight landing-page experience in their ad auction. Faster pages win cheaper clicks and wider distribution. I target LCP under 2.5 seconds, INP under 200 milliseconds, and zero Cumulative Layout Shift on every storefront before launch — not as aspirational targets but as launch gates.
Beyond raw speed, product and category schema matters for organic traffic. Properly marked-up product pages with price, availability, and review schema get rich results in Google Shopping and standard search. I include schema setup in every tier. The LAK Embalagens B2B rebuild I shipped delivered a 45% bounce rate reduction and 3x Search Console impressions — the same catalog-first taxonomy and schema approach applies directly to DTC product pages.
PageSpeed Insights, WebPageTest, and real-device testing all run before I hand off a site. In 2026, passing Core Web Vitals is not a differentiator — failing them is a penalty. If your current site misses on any single metric, you are paying a conversion tax on every ad dollar you spend.
Checkout and cart abandonment — what I actually fix
The global average cart abandonment rate is above 70%. Baymard's research puts recoverable revenue from checkout UX improvements at $260 billion per year across the US and EU. That's the scale of the problem. The specific causes are more mundane: surprise shipping costs revealed at checkout, too many required fields, no guest checkout option, no Apple Pay or Google Pay on mobile, and a cart page that doesn't remind buyers why they wanted the item in the first place.
On Shopify's standard plan, I optimize everything up to the checkout entry point — cart page layout, shipping threshold messaging, trust signals, and the transition into checkout. On Shopify Plus, I can customize the checkout itself. On headless or fully custom stores, I own the entire flow end-to-end.
Typical wins in a focused sprint: clear free-shipping threshold above the fold, guest checkout as the default path, express payment options enabled, and urgency signals that are factually true. Lying about stock levels to create pressure is a tactic I don't use — buyers notice, and it kills repeat purchase rates.
My e-commerce site process and pricing
Week one is an audit: current performance scores, funnel data, category taxonomy, and mobile UX. The output is a rebuild plan and wireframes, not a proposal deck full of stock photography.
Weeks two to four are design, build, and integration — Klaviyo, reviews, subscriptions, and any analytics stack wiring. Week five is QA, SEO migration verification, and launch.
Starter at $2,999 covers a focused Shopify theme rebuild for stores with a clear brief and no complex integrations. Business at $7,999 covers a full redesign with custom product and collection templates, up to five integrations, and content sections. Corporate at $11,999 and up covers headless Next.js storefronts, international setups, and complex catalog requirements.
Every tier includes a 14-day money-back guarantee and a 1-year bug warranty. SEO migration is included in every tier — redirects are written before launch, not discovered after. I take on one to two website projects per quarter by design, which means you are working with me directly, not a project manager handing off to a junior.
Integrations — what works and what I skip
I have wired Klaviyo, Okendo, Yotpo, Stamped, LoyaltyLion, Recharge, Bold, Rebuy, and Judge.me into Shopify and headless builds. The test for any integration is simple: does it earn its weight on the page? Every extra script is load time, and load time is conversion.
For ERP and inventory sync (NetSuite, Cin7, others), the right route is usually an official connector or a middleware like Celigo or Pipe17. That work tends to fall under Applications-subscription scope rather than a fixed-price website project, and I scope it separately if the rebuild surfaces that need. My integration experience runs deep — at bolttech I led the payment service connecting 40+ payment providers for a $1B+ unicorn — so I can give you an honest read on where a storefront integration ends and a systems-integration project begins.
Payment gateways I stick to in production: Stripe, PayPal, and Shopify Payments defaults. Plugins that touch checkout UX on standard Shopify are a known landmine — they break on every major update and cost weeks of budget to maintain. I flag these in the week-one audit.
Recent proof
A comparable engagement, delivered and documented.
Turned a B2B manufacturer into a digital showroom
Designed and developed a high-performance institutional website to showcase packaging solutions and generate qualified leads.
Read the case studyFrequently asked questions
The questions prospects ask before they book.
I map every existing URL before work starts. Redirects are written into the project plan, not discovered after launch. Meta titles, descriptions, H1s, product schema, and image alt text all carry over. Search Console audit runs before and after. Rankings typically hold within a week and often improve because the new site is faster. If rankings drop beyond normal fluctuation, I fix it at no extra charge under the 1-year bug warranty.
A custom Shopify theme build typically runs $2,999 to $7,999 and takes four weeks. A headless Next.js plus Shopify Storefront API build runs $7,999 to $11,999 and takes five to six weeks. Headless wins on raw performance and flexibility for content-heavy or multi-storefront setups. For most brands under $10M a year, a well-built custom theme gets you 90% of the benefit at half the cost. I'll tell you which one fits your roadmap in the first call.
On a standard Shopify plan, I optimize the cart page, shipping messaging, trust signals, and the entry into checkout. On Shopify Plus, I can customize checkout itself. On headless or full-custom builds, I own the whole flow. Typical fixes: free-shipping threshold above the fold, guest checkout as the default, Apple Pay and Google Pay where available, and urgency signals that are factually accurate. The global cart abandonment rate is above 70% — even marginal gains here return real revenue.
Yes. Klaviyo, Okendo, Yotpo, Stamped, LoyaltyLion, Smile, Recharge — I have wired all of them into Shopify and headless builds. Integrations are included in the Business tier and up. At the Starter tier, up to three apps are included; additional integrations are priced per app. I do not add tools you do not need — every extra script costs page speed, and page speed costs conversion.
Four to six weeks for a Shopify custom-theme or headless build with a clear brief. Week one is audit and wireframes. Weeks two to four are design, build, and integrations. Week five is QA and launch, including SEO migration verification. Scope creep is the main timeline risk — adding features mid-build. I lock scope at the start of week two, which is what lets me hold the timeline. In 17 years I have not ghosted a customer or missed a confirmed launch date.
Yes, if the apps are well-maintained and do not override the storefront theme or hijack checkout. I audit the existing stack in week one and flag anything dragging performance, duplicating features, or breaking on theme updates. You decide what stays. I have shipped builds with Rebuy, Okendo, Klaviyo, Judge.me, Recharge, Bold, and others. The test is always the same: does the app earn its weight?
Every website tier includes a 1-year bug warranty. If something I built breaks — layout issues, integration failures, checkout errors — I fix it at no extra charge. The 14-day money-back guarantee covers the first two weeks if the project is not meeting expectations. After that, the warranty covers bugs specifically, not scope additions. New features or design changes after launch are scoped separately.