Ecommerce Software Development For Merchants Who've Outgrown Their Apps
Most merchants don't need a custom build. If Shopify plus a few apps still fits, stay there. We build when the apps stop fitting: stock that won't reconcile between POS and online, orders landing from four channels, a checkout that stalls on sale day.
Why Merchants Bring Us In After The Apps Stop Fitting
Custom commerce work is expensive and slow to reverse. Here's how we keep it honest, and what you actually get for the money.
We'll Tell You To Stay On Shopify
If your catalogue, channel count and fulfilment rules still fit an off-the-shelf stack, buying apps beats commissioning code. We say that in the first call, before anyone writes a proposal.
- Honest Build-Or-Buy Answer
- App-First Where It Works
- No Proposal For Proposal's Sake
- Scope Only What Breaks
Stock That Reconciles Across Every Channel
One product selling on your site, Amazon, eBay and three shop floors needs a single source of truth. We build the sync layer and the rules for what wins when two systems disagree.
- Single Stock Ledger
- Channel-Level Buffers
- Conflict Rules You Set
- Oversell Alerts Before Dispatch
Checkout Speed Treated As A Revenue Number
Slow checkouts lose baskets that were already won. We measure field-level timings on real devices and networks, then cut the scripts, redirects and third-party tags that cost you money.
- Real-Device Field Data
- Tag And Script Audit
- Fewer Steps To Pay
- Measured Before And After
POS And Online Counted The Same Way
Shop staff selling the last unit while a web order is in flight is a returns problem, not a bug. We reconcile Lightspeed, Square or Shopify POS with online stock on a schedule you can defend.
- POS To Web Reconciliation
- Reserved Stock Handling
- Click-And-Collect Logic
- End-Of-Day Variance Reports
Order Management Built On Your Fulfilment Rules
Which warehouse ships, when a split shipment beats a delay, what a backorder promises the customer. Those rules are yours. We put them in code instead of a spreadsheet in someone's inbox.
- Routing Rules In Code
- Split And Partial Shipments
- Backorder Promise Dates
- Exceptions Surfaced Early
Peak Traffic Tested Before The Sale
Black Friday isn't the time to find your checkout's ceiling. We load-test against your own basket mix and payment flow, then fix what falls over while there's still time.
- Load Tests On Real Flows
- Payment Path Under Load
- Queue And Rate Limits
- Rollback Plan Ready
PCI-DSS Scope Kept Deliberately Small
The cheapest way to protect card data is to never hold it. We build against PCI-DSS using hosted fields and tokenisation from providers like Stripe, so card numbers stay out of your systems.
- Tokenised Card Handling
- Hosted Payment Fields
- Documented Data Flows
- Smaller Audit Surface
The People Who Built It Answer The Phone
Support after launch goes to the engineers who wrote the code, not a triage desk reading a runbook. You get named contacts, agreed response times and a backlog you can see.
- Named Engineers, Not Tickets
- Agreed Response Windows
- Visible Shared Backlog
- Handover Docs Included
From Storefront To Stockroom, The Systems Retail Actually Runs On
Eight areas of commerce work. Most projects start with one problem and grow from there, so we scope them separately.
Headless Commerce Development
A custom storefront on Next.js or Hydrogen, with Shopify, Adobe Commerce or BigCommerce kept as the commerce engine behind it. Worth doing when your design or content needs outrun the theme.
- Custom Front End, Proven Backend
- Content And Commerce Split
- Faster Page Rendering
- Reuse Existing Catalogue Data
Order Management System Development
One place where orders from your site, Amazon, eBay and wholesale accounts land, get routed, and get chased when something stalls. Built around your warehouses, carriers and promise dates.
- All Channels, One Queue
- Warehouse Routing Rules
- Carrier And Label Handling
- Exception Dashboards For Staff
Product Information Management
One record per product, with copy, images, specs, variants and channel-specific fields, then syndicated out. Stops the drift between what your site says and what Amazon shows.
- Single Product Record
- Channel-Specific Attributes
- Bulk Enrichment Workflows
- Image And Asset Control
Multi-Channel Inventory Sync
Retail inventory software that keeps one truthful stock number and pushes it to every listing. We handle bundles, kits, pre-orders and the awkward cases that break most off-the-shelf connectors.
- Near Real-Time Stock Pushes
- Bundles And Kits Supported
- Marketplace Listing Updates
- Oversell Protection Built In
POS And Online Stock Reconciliation
Connect Lightspeed, Square or Shopify POS to your ecommerce stock so shop sales, transfers and returns land in the same ledger. Includes click-and-collect and ship-from-store where you want them.
- Store And Web In Sync
- Transfers Between Locations
- Click-And-Collect Flows
- Daily Variance Reporting
Subscription And Recurring Commerce
Billing cycles, skips, swaps, pauses and dunning for subscription boxes. Usually built on Stripe billing, with churn and failed-payment recovery wired into Klaviyo flows from the start.
- Skip, Swap And Pause
- Dunning And Retries
- Cohort And Churn Reporting
- Prepaid And Gift Plans
Checkout Performance And Peak Traffic
Profiling, caching and load testing aimed at the pages that carry money. We tune the basket and checkout path first, then work back through category and product pages.
- Core Web Vitals On Money Pages
- Caching And CDN Strategy
- Load Tests Before Sale Events
- Third-Party Tag Cleanup
Returns And RMA Management
A returns portal customers can use without emailing you, plus the warehouse side: inspection, restock or scrap, refund triggers and the reason codes that tell you what to fix.
- Self-Serve Returns Portal
- Inspection And Restock Steps
- Automated Refund Triggers
- Reason-Code Reporting
Six Kinds Of Retailer, Six Different Breaking Points
The problem that pushes a merchant into custom software is rarely the same twice. These are the six we see most.
D2C Brands
Brand-led storefronts where the theme now limits design, content and launch speed.
Marketplace Sellers
Sellers juggling Amazon and eBay listings, stock buffers and repricing alongside their own site.
Multi-Store Retail Chains
Chains where each shop's POS, stock and transfers need to agree with the website.
Wholesalers Moving To B2B Ecommerce
Trade accounts, price lists, credit terms and reorder flows moving off email and phone.
Subscription Boxes
Recurring billing businesses fighting churn, failed payments and complicated skip and swap rules.
Retail Plus Online Brands
Brands running shops and a website that must share one stock number and one customer.
The Tools We Reach For When Money Moves Through The Page
How An Ecommerce Build Runs, Step By Step
Seven stages from first call to steady state. The first one often ends with us telling you not to build.
Discovery And Build-Or-Buy Call
We map your channels, catalogue size, order volume and fulfilment rules. If an off-the-shelf stack still covers it, we say so and the project stops there.
Operations And Compliance Mapping
We walk the real process with the people doing it: warehouse, shop floor, customer service, finance. Card data flows and PCI-DSS scope get documented at this point, not later.
Architecture And Integration Design
We decide what stays on your platform, what becomes custom, and how each system talks to the next. You get the diagrams and the reasoning, not just a price.
Build And Integration
Development runs in short cycles against a staging environment with real catalogue and order data, so the integrations with POS, ERP and marketplaces get tested as they're written.
Load And Peak-Traffic Testing
We simulate your own basket mix and payment path at several multiples of normal traffic, find the ceiling, and fix it before a sale event does the testing for us.
Phased Launch
One channel, one store or one product line goes first. We watch orders, stock and payments through a full cycle before the next phase turns on.
Hypercare And Ongoing Support
Close monitoring straight after launch, then an agreed support arrangement: response times, a shared backlog and updates as platforms and payment rules change.
Customer Records, Card Data And Your Code: Who Holds What
Commerce systems hold payment details and customer histories. These are the rules we build to, and the ones about ownership.
You Own The Code
The repository, the infrastructure accounts and the documentation are yours from day one. No licence fee for your own build, and no lock-in that makes leaving us expensive.
Card Data We Never Touch
Payments run through hosted fields and tokens from providers like Stripe or Adyen. Card numbers don't reach your servers or ours, which keeps PCI-DSS scope where it belongs.
Encryption In Transit And At Rest
TLS 1.2 or higher for anything crossing a network, AES-256 for stored customer and order data. Secrets live in a managed vault, not in config files or a chat thread.
Role-Based Access Control
Shop staff, warehouse pickers, customer service and finance each see what their job needs. Refunds, price changes and data exports sit behind separate permissions you control.
Audit Logs And Order Trails
Every status change, refund, stock adjustment and manual override is logged with who did it and when. Useful for chargeback disputes, and for finding what actually went wrong.
Data Residency And Exit
You choose the hosting region for customer data, and GDPR deletion and export requests are handled in the build. Your data comes out in a usable format whenever you ask.
No Testimonials Here. Four Commitments Instead.
We'd rather put four things in writing than show you a star rating. These go in the contract, not just on this page.
You Own The Code And The Accounts
Full repository access from the first commit, plus your own hosting, payment and analytics accounts in your name. Ending the relationship costs you nothing technical.
Fixed Scope And Price After Discovery
Discovery is paid and separate. Once it's done, the scope and the price are fixed. If we misjudged the work, that's our problem to absorb, not a change request.
Phased Rollout, Never A Big-Bang Switch
We launch one channel, store or product line at a time and watch a full order cycle before the next phase. Any phase can be rolled back the same day.
Support That Survives The Handover
Documentation, a code walkthrough for your team or next agency, and an agreed support arrangement with named engineers and response times. No dependence on us by design.
Questions Merchants Ask Before They Commission A Build
The six that come up in almost every first call.
Most merchants should add apps. If you're on one or two sales channels, under a few thousand SKUs, and your fulfilment rules fit what an app offers, custom code is a worse deal. Building makes sense when apps start fighting each other, or when a rule central to your business can't be expressed in any of them.
A front end you control completely, with Shopify, Adobe Commerce or BigCommerce still handling catalogue, checkout and payments. You get faster pages and design freedom. You also take on more maintenance, because the storefront no longer updates itself with the theme. It's worth it when the theme is genuinely blocking you, and not before.
Yes, that's a common project. We connect POS systems like Lightspeed, Square or Shopify POS to your online stock, agree what happens when two systems disagree, and add reporting on variance. Perfect real-time accuracy across every location isn't realistic, so we design buffers and reservation rules that stop overselling instead.
We integrate with the Amazon Selling Partner API and eBay's Sell APIs for stock, pricing and order collection, so marketplace orders arrive in the same order management system as your own. We don't manage your marketplace accounts, write your listings or handle seller performance. That stays with your team.
No, and for most merchants you don't need your developer to be. We build so card data never touches your systems, using hosted fields and tokenisation from providers like Stripe or Adyen. That keeps your own PCI-DSS obligations as small as they can be. Your compliance status is still yours to hold.
We test that before you find out live. Load testing runs against your real basket and checkout path at several multiples of expected traffic, and we fix the bottleneck we find. We also agree a rollback plan and queueing behaviour, so degraded is the worst case rather than down.