White-labelShopify development
You sold the storefront. We build the theme, the app, and the integrations underneath it — under your brand, on a live store, without putting the client’s revenue at risk.
In short
White-Label Shopify Development, defined.
White-label Shopify development is when an agency sells a Shopify build to its client and a partner studio does the engineering behind it. Blackbyrds Digital builds custom Liquid themes and Online Store 2.0 sections, Shopify Plus checkout extensions and Functions, custom apps for a single merchant, migrations onto Shopify, and the ERP, inventory, and subscription integrations that make a store run — all under your agency name. You keep the client, the strategy, and the credit.
You sell. You manage the client. We build.
Background
What an agency is really selling when it sells Shopify
Shopify takes the parts of commerce that punish mistakes and makes them somebody else’s problem: card data, uptime on a launch day, tax and shipping tables, payment methods, fraud checks, and an admin that a client’s operations team can actually learn. What is left for the agency is the storefront, the merchandising system, and the plumbing between the store and the rest of the business. That is where the project lives, and it is a bigger surface than most proposals allow for.
Most agency Shopify work looks the same in outline — a theme, then a long tail of integration. The store gets built, then the client wants subscriptions, a feed to their 3PL, a wholesale price list, reviews on product pages, and inventory that matches what is actually in the warehouse. The failure modes are just as consistent: a theme forked so far it can no longer be updated, a dozen apps each injecting their own scripts into every page, checkout customisation promised on a plan that does not permit it, and a migration where nobody mapped the old URLs. We build for the version of the store that exists eighteen months after launch.
Why agencies partner
Why agencies bring us Shopify work.
Liquid is a real skill and nobody staffs for it full-time
Shopify has its own object model, its own templating language, and its own conventions for sections, metafields, and metaobjects. A strong React developer is not automatically productive in it, and the gap shows up as a theme that works until a merchandiser touches it. Partnering gives you that skill per project instead of hoping your next hire happens to have it.
The plan tier decides what you are allowed to promise
Checkout customisation, Shopify Functions, B2B, and expansion stores are Plus territory, and plenty of proposals commit to checkout changes for a client who is not on Plus. We tell you what the client’s plan actually permits before the proposal goes out, which is a far easier conversation than the one that happens after it is signed.
The integration is the project, and it is scoped last
The pitch is a storefront. The build is a storefront plus an ERP feed, a subscription engine, a returns portal, a review platform, and a local payment provider that only has PHP sample code. This is the part that stalls agency teams whose strength is design and front end, and it is the part we are usually brought in for.
A migration puts revenue and rankings on the line
Moving a store onto Shopify is not a data export. It is URL mapping and redirects, historical orders, customer accounts and password resets, product reviews, subscription tokens, and the tax and shipping rules the finance team assumes will still work. A migration that loses organic traffic or breaks recurring billing costs the client more than the whole build.
Deliverables · 08
What we deliver.
- Custom Shopify themes in Liquid — Online Store 2.0 sections, JSON templates, metafields and metaobjects so merchandisers build pages without a developer
- Theme customisation on Dawn or an existing purchased theme, kept in a git repository so every change is reviewable, previewable, and reversible
- Shopify Plus work: checkout UI extensions, Shopify Functions for discount, shipping, and payment logic, B2B catalogues, and expansion stores per market
- Custom apps built for one merchant — embedded admin apps, theme app extensions, webhooks, and Admin and Storefront GraphQL API work
- Integrations: ERP and accounting, 3PL and warehouse systems, multi-channel inventory sync, subscriptions, email and CRM platforms, reviews, and regional payment providers
- Migrations onto Shopify from WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, or a custom platform — product, customer, and order data with redirects mapped before launch
- Headless storefronts on Hydrogen or Next.js against the Storefront API, when the front end genuinely justifies leaving the theme layer
- Performance and conversion work on live templates: app script audits, image delivery, and Core Web Vitals on collection and product pages
Capabilities
The technical detail.
- Storefront
- Liquid, Online Store 2.0 sections and JSON templates, metafields and metaobjects, theme settings
- Shopify Plus
- Checkout UI extensions, Shopify Functions, B2B catalogues, expansion stores, customer accounts
- Apps
- Custom merchant apps, theme app extensions, webhooks, App Bridge and Polaris admin interfaces
- APIs
- Admin GraphQL, Storefront API, bulk operations, and integration middleware in Node or Next.js
- Headless
- Hydrogen and Oxygen, or a Next.js front end on the Storefront API with cart and checkout handoff
- Data
- Platform migrations, product and customer imports, inventory sync, order and fulfilment feeds
- Performance
- App script audits, image and font delivery, Core Web Vitals on product and collection templates
Stack
What we build it with.
White-label
How the white-label part works.
Access under your Partner account
Store access is visible to the merchant, so we do not request it ourselves. Your agency’s Shopify Partner organisation invites us as team members and requests the collaborator access, which means your name is what appears in the client’s admin — not ours.
Theme work in git, not in the admin code editor
We develop with the Shopify CLI against a development or duplicate theme and keep everything in a repository. You get a preview link per change and a diff you can review, and nothing reaches the published theme until you say so.
We deal with app vendors, you keep the client
Subscription apps, review platforms, and payment providers all come with support queues and half-finished documentation. We handle that correspondence under your agency’s name where you allow it, and route everything else through you. We do not contact your client directly.
Use cases
When agencies call us in.
The redesign on a store that is already trading
The client is taking orders today, so there is no window for a broken week. We build on a duplicate theme, test against real products and real inventory, and publish once — with the old theme still there to roll back to.
The migration onto Shopify
Off Magento, WooCommerce, or a custom platform the client cannot maintain. We move products, customers, and order history, map every old URL to a new one, and rebuild the tax, shipping, and discount rules so the finance team is not surprised in week two.
The integration nobody scoped
The storefront is fine. What the business needs is Shopify talking to its ERP, its 3PL, or its marketplace listings without a founder reconciling spreadsheets at 11pm. We build the middleware, the webhooks, and the reconciliation, and we make the failure states visible instead of silent.
The move up to Plus
A client growing into Shopify Plus wants a branded checkout, custom discount logic, a wholesale channel, and separate stores per market. That work is checkout UI extensions and Shopify Functions, not the checkout template edits their last developer knew — we build it the way the platform now expects.
More white-label
Other disciplines we deliver.
Selected work
Related work.
Verdant Outdoor Gear — Organic Growth & Retention Engine
From paid-ad dependency and flat AOV to an organic-first growth engine with AI-driven recommendations.
Oh My Gulay Fashion Fulfillment Automation
A Manila DTC apparel brand connected Shopify, a Cebu 3PL, and Lazada/Shopee into one daily reconciliation pipeline.
Selecto — Custom E-commerce Platform with Multi-Channel Inventory Sync
From weekly overselling disasters and three separate fulfillment queues to one platform the brand actually controls.
Direct clients
Not an agency? The same team delivers this work directly under our own name.
Shopify FAQ
Questions agencies ask first.
Most of our Shopify work is theme customisation. Is that too small to bring you?
No — that is the majority of what we do on Shopify, and it is the work most agencies actually need covered. A scoped slice is a normal engagement: a set of sections, a PDP rebuild, a bundle mechanic, one integration. We quote it fixed, and there is no retainer to sign to get access to us for the next one.
Can you work in the client’s existing theme instead of rebuilding it?
Usually yes, and it is often the right call. We start by getting the theme into a repository so changes are tracked, then work in a way that does not fork it beyond the point of updating. If the theme has already been modified so heavily that it cannot take an update, we will say so and give you the honest cost of both paths rather than only the one that bills more.
Do you build Shopify apps?
We build custom apps for a single merchant — embedded admin apps, theme app extensions, webhook handlers, and middleware against the Admin and Storefront GraphQL APIs. That covers the usual reason an app is needed: something the store must do that no listed app does properly, or an integration with a system only this client uses. Public App Store products are a different business and not what we do.
Can you customise the Shopify checkout?
On Shopify Plus, yes: checkout UI extensions for what appears in checkout and Shopify Functions for discount, shipping, and payment logic. On lower plans the checkout is deliberately locked down, and anyone promising deep checkout changes there is either misinformed or planning something that will break. We will tell you which customisations the client’s plan supports before you put them in a proposal.
Should our client go headless with Hydrogen?
Usually not. Headless earns its keep when the storefront is genuinely an application, when content and commerce come from separate systems, or when a brand runs several markets off one front end. Otherwise it trades a theme any developer can edit for a build pipeline, a preview problem, and a second codebase to maintain — and the client feels that on every small change.
What do we get at handover?
The theme repository with its full commit history, the source and environment configuration for any custom app, a written record of every integration and the credentials it needs, and setup and deployment documentation — enough for your team or the client’s next developer to keep the store running without us. Commercial terms, including anything to do with rights in the code, are agreed per partnership before work starts rather than assumed from a web page.
Partner with us
Shopify delivered under your brand.
Send the brief, the designs, or the client conversation so far. You get a written scope, a technical approach, and a fixed quote you can mark up.