A custom Next.js storefront on the front, your Shopify admin and checkout untouched behind it. The headless build we shipped for The Flower Room, now running a storefront no Shopify theme could produce.
The store works. You have the products, the orders, the operations dialled in. Then you want a landing page the theme cannot lay out, a product page the theme cannot structure, a checkout upsell the theme cannot reach. So you install another app. Then another. The store gets slower every time you add one.
You have outgrown the front end while the back end is still fine. That is the exact case headless was built for.
Where it costs you: mobile. Google found that as a page goes from one second to three seconds to load, the probability a mobile visitor bounces rises 32%, and most of that load time is the theme and its apps. Source: Google, mobile page speed benchmarks, 2017.
What a faster storefront moves
Sources: Deloitte and Google, Milliseconds Make Millions, 2020 (0.1s conversion and order-value lift). Google mobile page speed benchmarks, 2017 (bounce probability). Lighthouse scores from Studio Slate builds.
A theme optimised with apps still loads like a theme with apps. A headless storefront loads like a static page.
On a store doing a million a year, a fraction of a second at checkout is real money. Deloitte and Google measured 8.4% more retail conversions from a tenth-of-a-second gain. That is the number a theme cannot reach and a custom storefront can.
Page builders, speed boosters, custom-field apps, and layout add-ons all get rebuilt into the storefront. Every one you replace is one less monthly fee and one less script slowing the page. The average Shopify store runs around $120 a month in apps, and established stores run $200 to $500. Source: Shopify App Store statistics, 2026.
Catalogue, orders, discounts, Shop Pay, and every workflow your team already runs stay in Shopify. Your staff manage the new storefront from the same admin they log into today. You gain the front-end freedom without retraining anyone or rebuilding operations that already work.
The difference is whether Shopify stays underneath. We build both, and we will tell you which one fits on the first call.
Keep the Shopify admin and checkout, replace the storefront. Best when you have a lot of products, operations tuned around Shopify, and staff who know the platform. The checkout is doing its job, so you keep it. The Flower Room call.
From $7,997. Your Shopify plan continues.
Leave the platform entirely. Custom Next.js storefront, Stripe checkout, no monthly platform fee. Best when the plan, apps, and transaction fees have grown into a bill you want gone. Maison de Lune runs this way, on Next.js and Stripe with no platform underneath.
Custom ecommerce store >>>Shopify Checkout, Shop Pay, and your payment methods stay exactly as they are. We do not touch the money side.
Standard Next.js on your GitHub, deployed to your Vercel, on your domain. No storefront lock-in.
Front-end apps rebuilt as code. 100/100 Lighthouse. The speed a theme cannot reach.
The storefront is a one-off. Your Shopify plan carries on running the checkout you already trust.
One-off. Priced firm to your catalogue and scope after the first call. No monthly storefront fee.
Express delivery available on the storefront build. Ask in your kickoff call.
50% upfront, 50% on delivery. Keep the storefront current with a care plan, from $197 a month. Inherited a half-finished headless build from another agency? We take those over through headless takeover.
A small studio. A short list. We do not take every build.
Built The Flower Room, a headless Shopify storefront on Next.js with 1,018 tests, and Angels Link, a Next.js and Shopify healthcare platform. Knows the Storefront API and what belongs in Shopify versus what belongs in code.
We log into your Shopify admin with read access and map everything. Catalogue, collections, metafields, every installed app, every theme customisation, and every checkout script. You get a written plan of what stays in Shopify and what moves to the storefront before a line of code is written.
The new Next.js storefront gets built on a staging domain, reading live from your Shopify Storefront API, while your current theme keeps taking orders. You review real pages with your real products in the first week. Feedback in plain English, revisions by the end of the day.
Page builders, upsells, custom fields, and review displays get rebuilt into the storefront so they load instantly and cost nothing per month. We preserve every URL, map 301 redirects for anything that changes, and rebuild the product, breadcrumb, and review schema.
On launch day we flip the DNS and the new storefront answers the next request. Zero downtime, no maintenance page. Checkout still runs on Shopify, and your team manages the store from the same admin. The sitemap is resubmitted to Search Console that day.
15 minutes. No pitch deck. Send us your store URL and the apps you are paying for. We will tell you what a headless storefront would change and what it would cost.
