Jonathan Bird Web Design & Development
  1. Website Platforms
  3. Shopify & Shopify Plus Development
Shopify

Shopify & Shopify Plus Developer

Shopify storefronts and integrations built for established retailers.

Our Shopify experience includes Jonathan’s senior development role during the Culture Kings migration from Magento to Shopify Plus, followed by complex storefront and integration work for brands including Beginning Boutique. We help established retailers assess Shopify or Shopify Plus, plan migrations, build custom storefronts, and connect the platform to the systems around it. We also identify when the requirements would be better served by another platform.

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Platform fit

Is this the right platform?

The platform should follow the requirements. These are the conditions we test before recommending Shopify.

A good fit when

Shopify is a strong fit for retailers that benefit from managed commerce operations, a mature ecosystem and predictable responsibility for core platform infrastructure.

Consider another option when

It may not suit highly bespoke B2B workflows, unusual checkout requirements or business rules that fight the platform on every release.
Case Studies

Featured projects built with Shopify

Selected production projects showing the requirements, integrations and ongoing responsibilities behind our Shopify work.

Want something like this for your organisation?

Tell us what you are trying to achieve. We will clarify the requirements and recommend a sensible next step before defining scope, timing, and cost.

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Capabilities

What we build with Shopify

Design, development, integration and support delivered by the people responsible for the technical decisions.

Shopify Plus Migrations

Moving from Magento, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, or a legacy custom build onto Shopify Plus. We ran the Magento to Shopify Plus migration at Culture Kings, including decisions about what to rebuild, how to preserve URLs and SEO equity, how to move customers and order history without breaking reporting, and how to plan and test the cutover.

Checkout Extensibility & Shopify Functions

Shopify has retired checkout.liquid, and scripts have to be rebuilt as Shopify Functions and checkout UI extensions. We build custom discounts, payment and delivery customisations, validation rules and checkout UI extensions, then maintain them as Shopify updates the checkout platform.

B2B & Wholesale on Shopify

Trade portals, company accounts, customer-specific catalogues, contract and tiered pricing, quote workflows, and net payment terms. Shopify now covers more wholesale requirements, but the setup still has to reflect the wholesaler’s pricing, approvals and account structure. See our B2B eCommerce development work.

ERP, Accounting & Marketing Integrations

We connect Shopify to Xero, NetSuite, MYOB, Klaviyo, and the rest of your stack. Retries, idempotency and monitoring are included so failed synchronisations can be detected and recovered. Browse all integrations.

Headless Shopify

A headless build uses the GraphQL Storefront API or Hydrogen for the storefront while Shopify continues to handle checkout and payments. It adds another application to build and maintain, so we recommend it only when the storefront requirements justify the extra cost and complexity.

Scale & Peak Traffic

Culture Kings ran high-traffic product drops on Shopify Plus. We design and test the theme, apps and integrations against peak trading conditions rather than average traffic.

Custom Themes & Storefronts

We build custom Liquid themes around the brand, merchandising and content requirements. Editors receive reusable sections and controls for routine changes, with performance and accessibility tested across the storefront.

Ongoing Support & Maintenance

Our senior team keeps the storefront context after launch. App updates are reviewed against your theme and tested rather than bulk-applied, while Shopify platform changes are handled before they become production issues. Most client relationships run for five to seven years. Optional website maintenance plans are available.

How the work is staffed

Who works on your Shopify store

Jonathan worked as a senior developer on the Culture Kings migration from Magento to Shopify Plus. The people who scope our Shopify work also write the storefront code, build the integrations and support the store after launch.

Separate project roles

Sales, delivery and technical work sit with different people.

  • Senior staff may scope and review the work while other developers handle most of the build.

  • Questions usually go through an account or project manager before reaching a developer.

  • App, integration and checkout decisions may be handled by different people.

  • The delivery team often comes in after the proposal is signed and has to learn the store from the brief.

  • A support team takes over after launch and has to learn the store.

  • Theme and app changes are applied without checking the changelog or testing the store.

Our team

The developers making the decisions also do the work.

  • Our senior developers write the theme code, checkout extensions and Shopify Functions.

  • You speak directly with the people responsible for the work, from scoping through support.

  • The developers building the store also make the app, integration and checkout decisions.

  • The same senior team scopes and delivers the work, drawing on production Shopify Plus experience including Culture Kings.

  • The team that built the store continues to support it. Most of our client relationships run for five to seven years.

  • We review each change, test it in a preview environment and record the result before it reaches the live store.

Integrations

Systems we connect to Shopify

The business systems our team most often connects to a Shopify build. Browse every integration.

Integrating something else?

Tell us which systems need to exchange data and where the current process is failing. We will assess the APIs, constraints, and safest path forward.

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Straight advice

Choose the platform from the requirements.

We assess Shopify against the requirements and explain when another option would be cheaper or easier to maintain.

Start with constraints

Content, workflows, integrations, governance and ownership matter more than a feature checklist.

Avoid custom work without a reason

Configuration is preferable when it genuinely meets the requirement and remains maintainable.

Plan for operational ownership

The choice must still make sense for the team maintaining it after launch.

How our team works

The people making the platform decisions also deliver the work.

You speak directly with the developers and designers working on the project, and they continue to support it after launch.
  • Direct access to senior people
  • Design and development working closely together
  • Technical advice from the people responsible for implementation
  • Senior developers remain involved throughout delivery
  • The same team supports the site after launch
“Digital Bird has had a huge influence on our business providing many solutions besides just a fantastic reliable website. Jonathan is great to work with and has a solution to every challenge. Jonathan also has the ability to “dumb it down” and provide timely advice and assistance if something goes astray. With Jonathan we have in excess of 99% uptime on all three websites.”
Jeff Ross Director, Impact Office Supplies Impact Office Supplies Logo
Process

From the first decision to ongoing improvement

We keep strategy, design, development, and technical ownership close together. Your team is involved at the decision points, with clear recommendations and visible progress throughout.

  1. Step 1: Understand

    Clarify the audience, business problem, constraints, content, and measures of success.

  2. Step 2: Recommend

    Explain the viable options and trade-offs, then recommend the simplest sound approach.

  3. Step 3: Plan

    Agree priorities, responsibilities, scope, timing, and the decisions your stakeholders need to make.

  4. Step 4: Design and build

    Work in visible increments while strategy, user experience, content, and engineering remain connected.

  5. Step 5: Validate and launch

    Test the important journeys, performance, accessibility, content, integrations, and operational readiness.

  6. Step 6: Improve

    Monitor the live system, resolve issues, and continue improving it as requirements change.

FAQ

Common Shopify Project Questions

Common questions our team is asked about Shopify & Shopify Plus Development.
Shopify Plus is Shopify's enterprise tier. It adds checkout customisation through Shopify Functions and checkout UI extensions, higher API rate limits, expansion stores, B2B company accounts and catalogues, Shopify Flow automation, and a different support path. These features matter when checkout logic, wholesale, API capacity or multi-store management are limiting the standard plan. A theme redesign alone does not require Plus.
Shopify Plus is relevant when the store needs custom checkout logic, wholesale alongside retail, expansion stores or additional API capacity. Standard Shopify is usually the more economical choice when those requirements are absent.
A migration starts with an audit of the existing store and a decision about what to rebuild or retire. The scope can include products, customers, order history, the storefront, checkout logic, business integrations, redirects and the cutover itself. Order history, customer-specific pricing and redirect mapping need particular care. We handled these requirements during the Culture Kings migration from Magento to Shopify Plus.
Our senior specialists handle storefront code, integrations and architecture from the start and remain available for later changes. We take on fewer projects at a time, so we are not a fit for work that requires a large team to start immediately.
Yes. Connector apps may not cover partial refunds, multi-currency, surcharges or customer-specific pricing. We map those cases before choosing or building the integration, then add retries, idempotency, reconciliation and monitoring so failures can be identified and recovered. See the Xero, NetSuite, and MYOB integration pages.
Stores that used checkout.liquid or Checkout Scripts need that functionality rebuilt with Shopify Functions and checkout UI extensions. This can include discounts, payment and delivery method changes, validation rules and checkout interfaces. The replacement requires development, testing and maintenance as Shopify updates its extension points.

Bring us your Shopify platform decision

Book a free strategy session with the senior people who scope and deliver the work. We will help clarify the problem, test assumptions and identify a practical next step—without turning the session into a generic sales call.

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