Not too long ago, you couldn’t buy an ecommerce platform that did everything you needed it to do. This left CTOs with two choices that nobody loved: you could either build an entire platform from scratch, or you could buy something off the shelf and Frankenstein it into something that mostly met your business needs. In response, many businesses chose the former and ended up with custom ecommerce platforms that promised the flexibility they needed to deliver incredible customer experiences and pivot quickly when buyer demands changed.
But in time, that degree of customization turned out to be a Trojan horse. Steve Bauer, vice president of ecommerce at Arhaus, told us in a recent webinar that their previous platform put their developers in a never-ending cycle of new features creating almost instant tech debt. He added, “We were rethinking [the platform], tweaking it, and deprecating it all in one fell swoop. There’s a high cost to going into something like that, only for it to go away very quickly.”
Today, this makes the conversation about how customizable Shopify is equal parts nuanced and exciting for brands across all revenue bands and industries. Shopify is not a blank slate, but thousands of brands have chosen to replatform to Shopify because it’s as flexible as you need it to be. They can bring their favorite apps or integrations along with them, or choose to use off-the-shelf features in concert with integrations through their own APIs.
In this article, we’ll explore the ways in which Shopify is composable by default, empowering you to build unique commerce experiences the way you want to build them.
Data types you can store on Shopify
As commerce expands to some of the newest technologies on the market, one of the biggest sources of anxiety for any technology leader is the infrastructure required to store and support the required data structures. This is for good reason: most commerce platforms do not support emerging data structures by default.
Shopify, on the other hand, has more flexible and complex data structures that can support the newest technologies on the market, including 3D and AR.
Brands can use Shopify’s flexible data customizations to extend their stores with metafields and metaobjects. Metafields allow brands to extend native data models across properties such as Customers, Orders, and Products. Retailers can use Metaobjects to create bespoke data models.
Metaobjects give you a clearer path to create custom content and deploy it to your website. Brands use metaobjects to extend Shopify with unique content such as lookbooks, quizzes, or size guides. Metaobjects also work like all other content on your storefront, and can be easily regionalized for all markets with the Translate and Adapt app.
With more flexible data structures at their disposal, enterprises typically choose to build on Shopify in one of four ways:
- Building a custom template with Liquid
- Building a custom storefront with Hydrogen and Oxygen
- A more customized checkout experience with Shopify Checkout
- Building the way you want with Shopify Functions
Building a custom template with Liquid
Liquid is a templating language originally designed by our CEO, Tobias Lütke. Today it’s used by brands such as Daily Harvest to build custom experiences quickly while also maintaining a smaller tech stack.
Like a traditional programming language, Liquid has syntax and includes concepts such as output, logic, and loops. It also interacts with data the way an app might interact with a web-centric language like PHP.
However, that’s where the similarities end. Liquid doesn’t let you get too far under the hood of the platform. This can be jarring for experienced developers—but Liquid is endlessly customizable. This cheat sheet will give you a good idea of how you can use Liquid to build the unique experiences your customers crave.
On top of flexibility, Liquid also has several powerful features that everyone gets by default. Specifically, it makes tricky SEO work much easier for developers to build and maintain, including:
While many companies find that Liquid templates set them up for long-term success, others still want slightly more customization and flexibility. When that’s the case, Shopify has the tools you need and the clearest path to building even more custom storefronts.
Building a custom storefront with Hydrogen and Oxygen
Not too long ago, brands that wanted tech stack flexibility and server-side control couldn’t even consider moving to Shopify. Today, Shopify’s toolkit for building headless commerce experiences is the fastest, most efficient, and most reliable way to ship more custom experiences.
Shopify’s official development stack includes Hydrogen and Oxygen. Hydrogen is built on the React-based Remix framework, giving developers the benefits of its high-quality web development standards and the ability to fast-track development with components, hooks, and utilities that are preconfigured to work with Shopify’s APIs. Hydrogen also has features like Optimistic UI, which makes the user experience on the front end feel instantaneous even though server requests are happening behind the scenes.
Hydrogen storefronts can be hosted by any third-party solution you prefer. However, Oxygen is the easiest and fastest way to deploy your store. Oxygen is Shopify’s global hosting solution that’s included with all Shopify plans at no extra cost, and includes guaranteed uptime and full control of deployment management.
If you want even more control over your tech stack and framework, you can use our Storefront API, which gives you the flexibility to choose the Shopify components you need while maintaining full control over your end-to-end solution. Storefront API is device and platform agnostic, meaning that you can use it to build experiences across emerging surfaces such as web, mobile apps, video games, AR/VR, and more.
A more customized checkout experience with Shopify Checkout
While we’ve seen several incredible examples of headless storefronts on Shopify, some of the world’s leading brands still opt to use our full platform and customized instances of our best-in-class commerce components, such as Shopify Checkout.
Shopify Checkout is the best-converting checkout in the world, outperforming peers by up to 36% and by 15.2% on average. It also offers several customization options that allow companies to make Shopify Checkout their own. On the front end, developers can change the look and feel of Shopify Checkout with the GraphQL Branding API. On the back end, you can extend or replace components you want using custom logic via Shopify Functions.
Speaking of Shopify Functions, let’s talk about how leading brands are using Shopify components to build storefronts the way they want to build them.
Building the way you want with Shopify Functions
Shopify Functions not only unlocks customized back-end logic for Shopify Checkout—it allows developers to customize the back-end logic of the entire platform.
Functions allows developers to build powerful customizations for discounts, shipping, and payment methods that can execute under five milliseconds, and can scale up to support your company’s biggest sales events. In 2023, Shopify handled 145 billion requests on Black Friday and generated $4.2 million in sales per minute over the course of the weekend. Functions are installed within an app, which means that you can configure them directly in the Shopify admin without having to change or write any new code. This also eliminates the need to copy and paste code from store to store.
Developers can write a Function in any language that compiles to WebAssembly and build the UI with AppBridge and React. They can also write the Function in their local environment before deploying it via Shopify CLI.
Shopify built Functions for two reasons. First, it gives brands a clearer path to building unique buying experiences quickly. More importantly, they’re easier to use and doesn’t require extensive updates to code when you need to adjust promotions.
A clearer and customizable path to growth
As you can probably guess, the conversation around Shopify’s customizability is complex and multifaceted. But that’s by design. Everyone at Shopify is committed to keeping our customers at the edge of innovation—and in many cases, that means giving them powerful tools that are as flexible (or not) as they need them to be.
While Shopify is not a blank slate, it also gives you the customization options you need to accelerate growth and speed to market, while also reducing your total cost of ownership. As we’ve seen from some of the world’s most innovative companies, Shopify’s paths to getting to market are equal parts flexible and opinionated, in ways that enable top brands to stand out from the competition.
Ready to explore moving to Shopify? Get in touch.
Read more
- How to Save Time Automating Major Sales Events, Campaigns & Product Releases with Launchpad
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- What is an Order Management System (OMS)? Your Guide to Choosing One
- What are the retail trends for 2023?
- Ecommerce Basics: A 101 Guide
- Shopify Migration | Transfer Your Store or Website to Shopify
- The Top 6 Benefits of Headless Commerce
- How to Optimize Your Mobile Checkout Flow
Shopify Customization FAQ
How much does it cost to customize a Shopify store?
Shopify customization costs vary widely depending on scope, from free theme editor tweaks to enterprise-grade builds costing well into six figures.
A theme customization project can run from a few hundred dollars for simple styling changes up to tens of thousands for deep front-end work, while headless storefronts built with tools like Hydrogen start much higher and scale further for enterprise needs. The right investment depends on whether you're adjusting existing components or building custom logic from the ground up.
Do I need coding skills to customize Shopify?
Basic Shopify customization requires no coding skills, but deeper changes call for development knowledge. Merchants can adjust colors, fonts, layouts, and checkout branding directly through built-in editors without writing a line of code. Deeper customization, such as writing custom Liquid templates, building a headless storefront, or configuring back-end logic with Shopify Functions, requires technical skills in Liquid, React, or WebAssembly-compatible languages.
Should I customize my theme or build a custom storefront?
Choose theme customization to move fast within Shopify's existing framework, and choose a custom storefront when you need full control over the tech stack or a unique front-end architecture. Theme-based customization keeps maintenance simpler because it works within Shopify's native structure, while a headless storefront requires managing a separate codebase and deployment process. Teams with limited developer resources typically start with theme customization, while those needing device-agnostic experiences across web, mobile, or emerging surfaces move toward a custom storefront.
How long does Shopify customization take?
Shopify customization timelines range from a few weeks for basic theme adjustments to several months for full custom builds. Basic customization projects, such as theme editor changes or simple Liquid tweaks, typically take around four to eight weeks, while more complex builds like headless storefronts or custom Functions can run twelve to twenty weeks or longer. The timeline depends on how much of the platform is being modified and how many integrations are involved.
Can I customize Shopify without hiring a developer?
Yes, merchants can make many Shopify customizations without hiring a developer. Built-in theme editors let you adjust colors, layouts, checkout branding, and navigation with no code required. For deeper functionality, such as custom Liquid templates, headless storefronts, or Shopify Functions, working with a developer or Shopify Expert is generally more efficient than attempting it without technical experience.
