Custom Ecommerce Development for Brands Past the Shopify Theme

Headless commerce on Next.js with Shopify Hydrogen, Medusa, or BigCommerce backends. Custom storefronts, checkout flows, order management, subscription billing, and the ERP integration layer your operations team can trust.

When the theme starts costing you money

Most brands hit the same wall at $2M–$15M in annual revenue. The Shopify theme that got them to product-market fit starts costing them margin. Page speed slips, conversion rate drops, and the Lighthouse audit recommendation list never shrinks. The wholesale and B2B side needs catalog and price-list features the theme cannot handle. Subscription customers need a portal experience that Recharge or Bold cannot quite deliver. ERP sync is a manual export. The marketing team adds another app and the storefront slows down again.

Custom ecommerce development is the rebuild that gets you back the margin those workarounds cost you. Headless on Next.js for the storefront. Shopify, Medusa, or BigCommerce for the commerce engine. A custom OMS layer for the operational complexity your apps cannot model. Built once, owned forever, and faster than the theme it replaces.

What we build

Headless storefronts on Next.js with Shopify Hydrogen, Medusa, or BigCommerce backends
Custom checkout flows when Shopify Checkout limits your conversion optimization or B2B workflow
B2B portals — price lists, account hierarchies, quote workflows, custom catalogs, net-terms billing
Subscription experiences beyond Recharge — custom cadence, build-a-box, swap-and-skip flows
Order management — fulfillment routing, partial shipment, returns, exchanges, and back-order handling
ERP and accounting integration — NetSuite, QuickBooks Online, Xero, Sage with reconciliation
3PL and shipping integration — Shipstation, Shipbob, Easypost, ShipHero, and custom warehouse APIs
Tax and compliance — Avalara, TaxJar, Stripe Tax, and the structured data your compliance team needs
International — multi-currency presentment, localized content, market-specific payment methods
Core Web Vitals performance — sub-second LCP, edge-cached product pages, structured data on every product

Our methodology

Two-week discovery — current funnel audit, conversion rate review, ops bottleneck mapping, headless-vs-theme recommendation. From there we run an eight- to twenty-week build with biweekly demos and a parallel preview environment so your marketing team can review pages before launch.

Discovery is paid separately at $2,500 so you can decide whether to commit before any code is written. The deliverable is a wireframed storefront, a backend architecture recommendation, an integration map, and a phased estimate — useful even if you take it to another developer.

Process & timeline

Week 1-2: Discovery sprint — funnel audit, headless decision, integration map, phased plan
Week 3-6: Foundations — storefront skeleton, commerce backend wired, product and category templates
Week 7-14: Build sprints — checkout, account, OMS integrations, B2B if scoped, preview environment live
Week 15-18: Hardening — performance pass, Core Web Vitals, structured data, accessibility, SEO migration
Week 19-20: Launch — DNS cutover with rollback, 60-day post-launch support, conversion-rate monitoring

Tech & tools

Next.js 15 + App Router

Shopify Hydrogen + Oxygen

Medusa + PostgreSQL

BigCommerce + Catalyst

Stripe + Shopify Payments

Algolia + Typesense

Avalara + Stripe Tax

Shipstation + Easypost

Sanity + Contentful CMS

Same Next.js backbone as our web applications and SaaS platforms. Payments wired through our Stripe integration playbook.

Reference builds

Commerce patterns we ship show up across our case studies. Bridgepointe Painting runs a Stripe + QuickBooks Online checkout layer that closed month-end from three days to thirty minutes — the same reconciliation patterns power our ecommerce ERP work. A motorcycle shop ops platform handles parts catalog, service-bay workflows, and customer record consolidation across in-store and online. A contractor estimating engine ships quotes through a customer-facing checkout-style flow.

Whether the front door is a storefront, a quote portal, or a service-bay UI, the same architecture survives — fast, owned, integrated, and built for the actual operations team behind it.

Custom ecommerce development served from Macon, GA, with clients across Atlanta, New York, Dallas, and beyond.

Pricing

Fixed-fee per phase. Typical ranges:

Headless storefront on Hydrogen or Medusa (DTC, single-currency): $20k – $55k
B2B portal with price lists, quote workflows, and net-terms billing: $40k – $90k
Full custom OMS with ERP and 3PL integration: $55k – $120k
International multi-storefront with localization and tax compliance: $70k – $140k
Discovery sprint with funnel audit, headless decision, and phased plan: $2,500 flat

60-day post-launch support included on every ecommerce build. Optional retainer for ongoing feature work, seasonal campaigns, and platform upgrades.

What you get

Full source code repository in your GitHub organization
Shopify, Medusa, or BigCommerce accounts in your name
Production deployment plus preview-per-PR environment for marketing review
Core Web Vitals report with documented baseline scores
60-day post-launch support — bug fixes, performance regressions, integration adjustments
Admin documentation for your operations and marketing teams
Migration plan from your existing theme or platform with SEO redirect map
Optional retainer for continued feature work and platform upgrades

FAQs

Headless commerce or stay on a Shopify theme?

If your storefront is a content site with a cart, stay on a Shopify theme. Headless makes sense when you need a unique customer experience, B2B catalogs with quote workflows, complex subscription logic, or international localization. We tell you straight on the first call whether headless is the right call or whether a Shopify theme rebuild is the better spend.

Shopify Hydrogen, Medusa, or BigCommerce?

Hydrogen when you want to keep Shopify's product, inventory, and checkout and replace the storefront layer. Medusa when you want full ownership of the commerce engine on Node and PostgreSQL. BigCommerce when you need enterprise features like B2B price lists and multi-storefront out of the box. We map the decision to your operational complexity, not vendor marketing.

Can you integrate with our ERP, OMS, and 3PL?

Yes. NetSuite, QuickBooks Online, Shipstation, Shipbob, Easypost, Avalara, and dozens of others. Order flow, inventory sync, tax calculation, and label generation are routine parts of the scope. We build the integration layer your operations team can actually trust.

What about Core Web Vitals, SEO, and performance?

First-class concerns. Every storefront we ship hits sub-second LCP on real devices, edge-cached product and category pages, structured data on every product, and an architecture that responds to Google's Core Web Vitals updates without a rebuild. Headless done right is faster than a theme — done wrong it is slower, so we build it right.

Do we own the code?

Completely. You get the GitHub repository, the deployment configuration, the OMS integration code, and the documentation. Your Shopify, BigCommerce, or Medusa accounts are in your name. There is no platform tax, no per-storefront fee, and no exit ransom.

E-commerce engineering reading

All posts

Related services

Custom Stripe Integration

Custom checkout, marketplace flows, and accounting sync.

Subscription Billing

Recurring revenue for subscription commerce.

API Development

ERP, OMS, and 3PL integration layers.

Background on our data-ownership philosophy: the custom CRM development guide. To scope an ecommerce project, contact us directly or read our custom storefront vs Shopify comparison.

Ecommerce Development — Where We Serve

Georgia-based engineering team, working with ecommerce brands across 14 US metros. Discovery and build run remotely; in-person merchandising and ops sessions easy to schedule in Atlanta and the Southeast.