Shopify theme development: fast to launch, fast to load.
Custom code, not a page builder or a template: our core from eight years on the Shopify Theme Store, cut down to exactly what your store needs, then designed for your brand. Live in three weeks.
Fast to launch, without cutting corners
A theme in three weeks usually means a premium theme with your logo on it. Ours is quick for a different reason: the core is already built. Its sections, settings, speed work and accessibility were done before your project started, so the three weeks go into your design, not into rebuilding a product page.
We spent eight years building themes for the Shopify Theme Store at Troop Themes (Blockshop, Emerge, Maker and Beyond). Our core is that work, whittled down to what a store actually needs: no feature sitting unused in the code, no setting nobody touches, nothing for a store that isn’t yours. It isn’t no-code: there’s no page builder or template underneath, just the theme’s own Liquid, CSS and JavaScript.
Why speed sells
Most of your shoppers are on a phone: over the 2025 Black Friday weekend, 74% of online store traffic and 67% of orders came from one (Nosto). And most of those phones aren’t the newest iPhone. The typical one is a $250 Android more than three times slower, and fewer than half of sites pass Google’s Core Web Vitals on mobile (Alex Russell, 2026).
Speed on that phone is a sales number. In Google and Deloitte’s study of 37 brands, a mobile site a tenth of a second faster converted 8.4% more retail shoppers, and they spent 9.2% more (web.dev). So we build for the phone your shoppers have, not the one in our pocket.
Fast to load
We tune a theme the way a machine shop tunes an engine: as fast as it’ll go, without blowing up. Most of that speed is decided by what the theme doesn’t load. Ours:
- Leaves out what starts off screen. The cart drawer, the search results and a pop-up load when someone reaches for them.
- Doesn’t draw the sections far down a page until they’re near the screen.
- Loads a section’s script only when that section is on the page.
- Works before any script arrives: product options and “load more” are plain links first.
- Speaks Shopify’s own storefront events, so apps and analytics hook in without extra code.
- Builds bundles, quizzes and other features into the theme, instead of adding another app for each.
- Stays smooth on slow phones: every animation is measured frame by frame on one, and a frame that drops gets fixed.
Every claim here, and how to check it yourself: the technical spec.
The details are done
- Accessible: every color pair in your brand checked against WCAG 2.2 AA, one visible focus ring on everything, tap targets of 48px on phones, and less motion for anyone who asks for it.
- To Shopify’s standards: the same standards Shopify’s theme review asks of every theme in its store.
- Editable: every setting in Shopify’s theme editor, grouped by what it changes, so your team changes the store without code.
Premium theme, custom theme, or ours
| Premium theme | Custom from scratch | Ours | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design | Shared with thousands of stores | Yours | Yours |
| Time to launch | Days, then customizing | Months | Three weeks |
| Speed and accessibility | The theme’s, then your apps’ | Whatever the build gets to | Built into the core |
| Code | Every feature for every store | Written from nothing | Our core, cut to what you need |
| Features | Usually another app | Built for you | Built into the theme |
| Editing with AI tools | Code for every feature to work around | Whatever the build left | A small core, documented for them |
Two guarantees
- On time: live within three weeks of having your content and access, or 10% of the build fee back.
- Faster: your new theme scores higher than your current one on Google’s mobile PageSpeed test, on the same pages with the same apps. If it doesn’t, we keep tuning at no charge until it does.
We measure both themes before we start and after launch, and send you the reports.
See your store on it before we talk
Book a call, and before it we build your homepage on the new theme, in your brand, with your real products, on a link you can open on your phone, and send a short video walking you through it. The call opens on it, with your product and collection pages built for it.
Only the sections your store needs
Our library holds 60+ sections. Your theme gets the ones your brand needs, set up for how you sell, and none of the rest: fewer settings for your team to wade through, and less code for a phone to load. If you need one the library doesn’t have, a chart comparing your product with the alternatives, say, we build it into your theme. There’s no limit to what goes in.
Premium sections
Some things are worth more than a setting: a product quiz that sends each shopper to the right product, a bundle builder, a product shown part by part. We build them into the theme, matched to it, and we can add one to the theme you already have.
After launch
Launch is the first sale, not the last. After it, take what you need:
- Premium sections, added whenever you want one.
- Fix bundles: speed, the buying path, and how search and AI read your product pages, each a fixed job.
- Watch & Build, a monthly plan. Checks watch the store, and we fix what breaks: anything that stops a sale (checkout, add to cart, a page down) gets a fix started within one business day. When nothing’s broken, we improve it, with custom code, new sections and changes tested where your traffic allows. Any question gets an answer within one business day. Month to month, with no lock-in.
Or run it yourself. The theme is documented for your developers and the AI tools they use, and when we improve our core, the update is yours to take.
FAQ. Straight answers.
Is it a premium theme with our logo on it?
No. It starts from our own core, and the design is yours: your type, colors, layouts and sections, built for how you sell.
Can our team edit it without code?
Yes. Every setting is in Shopify’s theme editor, grouped by what it changes, and every section can be added, moved and edited there.
Will it pass Core Web Vitals?
It’s built for them: what isn’t needed yet isn’t loaded, and the sections far down a page wait until they’re near the screen. Apps and heavy media can still slow any theme, so we measure your store with Google’s lab and real-user data before and after launch.
Do you use a page builder?
No. Page builders add their own code to every page. Your sections are built into the theme, so there’s nothing extra to load.
What happens when the theme needs an update?
Your theme is your own copy, so no theme update can overwrite your changes. When we improve our core, the update is yours to take if you want it. Changes go through your team in the theme editor, or through us.
What if we need a section you don’t have?
We build it into your theme, in the same code as the rest, and it’s in the fixed price we give you on the call.
Can our team work on it with AI tools?
Yes. The theme comes with two files written for AI coding tools: one says how the theme is built and the rules an edit keeps, the other maps your brand to the theme’s settings. A tool reads them before it starts, so it builds the way the rest of the theme is built and spends your time and tokens on the change, not on working out the code.