Shopify Theme Design and Build Projects
Our Charle Launch services deliver Shopify and Shopify Plus theme projects end to end, from bespoke theme design and builds to customised templated theme projects built for performance, user experience and growth.
Tell Us About Your ProjectAs accredited Shopify Plus Partners, we help brands to achieve profitable growth, through data-driven Shopify theme design and high-quality execution. We support brands to design and build entirely bespoke Shopify themes or alternatively leverage pre-existing templates from the Shopify Theme library.
Get In Touch
Throughout our years of experience delivering custom and template Shopify ecommerce stores for businesses of all sizes and industries, we’ve refined a process designed to drive exceptional outcomes. Our mission is to craft high quality, engaging online experiences that deliver meaningful commercial impact for the merchants we partner with. Every project follows four distinct phases: discovery, design, development and QA, and launch, with our search-first mindset embedded throughout to support long term organic performance.
Each stage draws on the specialised skillset of our multi disciplinary ecommerce team, who combine human creativity with the power of AI to elevate quality, efficiency, and insight. We take an iterative and experimental approach to delivery, using data, testing and insight to refine decisions and improve outcomes, alongside reliable post launch aftercare to ensure long term success.
Get In Touch
Cambridge Satchel
We have a wealth of experience and expertise in delivering both entirely bespoke Shopify & Shopify Plus themes designed and built from the ground up from scratch alongside customised templated themes. Bespoke themes give creative teams complete freedom to design and build an online experience that is bespoke, and unique to your business that showcases your products uniquely. Bespoke themes are typically load faster as their code base only contains the exact architecture, features and functionality required to the design and are built using modern practices. The alternative and popular approach to launching new stores on Shopify is to leverage one of the existing premade Shopify themes. Our team will not only help you choose a suitable theme from Shopify's theme library but also make a wide variety of customisations so your ecommerce store matches your branding and offers an engaging customer experience. Bespoke theme projects are a powerful way to stand out in competitive markets and are great for highly custom requirements whilst template projects require lower levels of time and financial investment yet can still achieve admirable results.
Get In Touch
Candy Kittens
The initial phase of our Shopify theme projects is discovery, strategy and planning. The goal of this phase is to establish a thorough and objective understanding of the project and define clear strategic goals for growth. Our specialist Shopify web design team conducts detailed analysis across brand identity, art direction, colour, existing stores and user journey mapping to create a strong foundation for the project.
We carry out in depth UX research and competitor analysis to move into design with a broad understanding of the market. This includes gap analysis across competitors, behavioural analysis using existing analytics, heatmaps and customer feedback, and applying a search first approach to site structure, content foundations and page hierarchy. This ensures early decisions support visibility, performance and long term growth, while identifying friction points and opportunities in the customer buying journey.
The second phase of our Shopify theme projects is the design phase. Our creative team crafts wireframes for each page layout and maps the core customer journey across your store. Wireframing allows us to create layouts that are diverse in content, focused on the goal of each page, and free from unnecessary distraction. For bespoke theme projects, our designers then produce high fidelity designs that show exactly how the store will look once built, using considered and impactful ideas to create something unique to your brand. We also prototype designs using collaborative tools so you can experience how the store will feel before development begins. For template based theme projects, our team will recommend suitable themes and focus creative effort on page layouts, customisation and early store setup, ensuring design decisions support performance, usability and search first foundations. This dedicated design stage allows us to create memorable, growth centric store experiences that exceed expectations.
Explore Design Services
Following our discovery & creative phases, your Shopify theme project will proceed into development. This phase involves either building an entirely custom bespoke theme or customisations to a pre-built template theme. Our in-house team of Shopify developers who have decades of experience writing HTML, CSS, JSON, Javascript and Liquid will build your store using modern development practices. Our team build with quality, performance, communication and experience at the core to ensure your store performs well across all devices, operating systems and browsers. Our development team optimise stores for accessibility compliance and optimised for search engines (SEO).
Alongside the construction of the store, we also have a wealth of experience in integrating trusted Shopify technology app partners alongside complex options or custom integrations & architecture to scale. Our team has experience in building private custom apps should your requirements exceed the standard capabilities of a Shopify theme. We have decades of knowledge from our in-house specialists to support your business throughout the build phase of your project.
The vigorous quality assurance follows our build phases, conducting detailed user-acceptance-testing across multiple devices, platforms, screen sizes, websites and operating systems to identify design discrepancies, issues and bug fixes. Our team thoroughly test for both functional and design-related bugs to deliver a high-quality and performant store for your customers. Following quality assurance, our team will support you fully with our proven and tested launch process. If you are migrating from another platform such as Magento, BigCommerce or Woocommerce we'll support with dedicated redirects and domain changes. With a pre-launch checklist, dedicated support on hand for questions and queries and post-launch aftercare - our team will support you every step of the way and provide everything you require for success to deliver a Shopify theme on time to budget.
Get In Touch
Following the launch of your new store, growth does not stop. We provide ongoing Shopify support and growth services through Charle HelpDesk and Charle SiteLab, offering clients clear advice, reliable information and transparency throughout every stage of engagement. Our retainers support Shopify and Shopify Plus brands across the ecommerce platform, helping manage complexity as stores scale and revenue grows.
Charle HelpDesk delivers dependable Shopify support and maintenance, giving clients direct access to experienced theme developers for development, design updates, app development, checkout optimisation and technical guidance. From homepage improvements to resolving time sensitive issues and deadlines, our team works as an extension of your business, providing clarity, responsiveness and accountability.
Charle SiteLab focuses on growth, experimentation and optimisation. Using data, insight and innovation, our team reviews performance, analyses user behaviour and tests improvements across key journeys, including product pages and checkout. Learnings from experimentation shape future roadmaps, helping brands make informed decisions that improve conversion, revenue and long term performance.
The key advantage of building a bespoke Shopify theme for your e-commerce store, particularly with the help of skilled web designers in London or elsewhere in the United Kingdom, is the ability to create a storefront that fully aligns with your brand’s personality and values. Unlike pre-built templates, which are used by thousands of other businesses, a custom Shopify theme sets you apart, capturing the attention of your target audience with unique elements, graphics, and user experiences tailored to your business needs.
Custom themes offer greater customization of aspects like navigation menus, product pages, and tablet screens, ensuring your storefront is optimized for scalability and traffic growth. By focusing on your specific business operations, a bespoke theme can integrate seamlessly with APIs, ERP systems, and payment solutions, offering a smoother shopping experience for users. Moreover, custom themes prioritize coding best practices, leading to faster pages, fewer errors, and improved security—critical factors when handling orders, payments, and visitor data.
While pre-built themes may have lower prices and faster delivery times, they often come with limitations in creative freedom, functionalities, and adaptability. Pre-designed templates may include features and libraries you don’t need, which can slow down your site and dilute the shopping experience. In contrast, bespoke themes allow you to focus on the specific steps and elements required to meet your business needs, whether it’s migrating from another platform, integrating developer tools, or customizing dashboards to streamline staff operations.
Of course, creating a custom Shopify theme takes pride, hands-on attention, and adherence to industry trends and best practices. It also allows your company to push boundaries and set new standards for your e-commerce store. By building a custom theme, you ensure your storefront not only reflects your brand but also keeps up with the latest tips, tricks, and news in the world of e-commerce, helping you deliver a shopping experience that stands out to thousands of potential visitors.
Ultimately, whether you’re focusing on improving your product pages, scaling your sales, or enhancing public perception with case studies, a bespoke Shopify theme gives you the tools to shape your store’s personality, exceed user expectations, and meet your business goals.
Shopify has over 300 different themes for you to choose from, so it can be quite a task to narrow down your search. We'd advise you to initially narrow your search by aesthetics to create a shortlist of themes that you like the look of. Following this, install the themes as trials into your store, to begin seeing the sections and customisability that the theme has to offer. Remember to explore the different layout options within the theme, as you can often create something very unique using the settings included. Lastly, we would recommend you review the load speed of the theme, to ensure you are choosing a performant and aesthetic choice.
It's important to remember that every theme project is unique and has a custom scope and therefore timings will be different. However, as a general rule for a typical template project - you can expect these projects to take 8 - 12 weeks. For bespoke Shopify theme projects, you can expect these to take around 6 - 8 months.
Absolutely, we support merchants to not only launch bespoke or pre-built template Shopify storefronts but also to migrate to Shopify and Shopify Plus. We have a wealth of experience in platform migrations such as Magento, BigCommerce and WooCommerce. From data export and import to content management and a seamless transition, we have a trusted track record of migrating brands to Shopify.
We are an accredited expert Shopify agency we partner with brands to design, develop, launch, support and grow Shopify & Shopify Plus stores. We are a Shopify agency, ready when you are. Talk to our team about your project.
Get in touch