Too many brands fall into the trap of thinking their Shopify site needs to be “custom” to stand out. It doesn’t.
For most businesses, custom design and especially custom development are a waste of time and money. It adds complexity, slows down launches, and introduces technical debt you don’t need. You can get a unique look and feel, improve conversion, and scale effectively without reinventing the wheel.
The smarter move is to work with a partner who understands the ecommerce customer journey and build on top of a proven, off-the-shelf Shopify theme. Even if you plan to customize further down the line, starting with a solid theme gets you to market faster, sets your store up for sustainable growth, and any partner in the ecosystem should be able to work on it.
The Real Problem: Bad Strategy and the Wrong Partners
Most of the problems we see start early. A brand hires a designer with no real ecommerce experience, someone who’s focused on aesthetics, not performance. Or worse, they greenlight a completely custom design before understanding what that means once they get to development.
What then ends up in the inbox of the folks they want to "finish" things? Incomplete Figma files, no mobile designs, and page layouts that break core ecommerce patterns. Maybe we'll get a beautiful homepage with no thought to how collections, product variants, or mobile navigation should work. Or design elements that require functionality Shopify doesn't support natively, with no plan for how to build or manage them.
It’s not just undefined design issues we see, but core UX problems. Most customers have been trained subtly by Amazon and Walmart on how to buy online. When fancy designs break that expected flow, you introduce friction. Unless you’re a household brand name, you can’t afford to change how people are used to shopping.
Why Shopify Themes Are the Smarter Choice
Off-the-shelf Shopify themes offer flexibility, performance, and scalability out of the box. They’ve been tested across thousands of stores, built by developers who understand the platform, and designed with conversion best practices in mind.
They’re also highly customizable. You’re not locked into a cookie-cutter layout. You can adjust colors, typography, layout sections, imagery, and UX flows often without touching code. With the right creative direction, your store can look unique, even without hiring a developer, while still benefiting from a battle-tested foundation.
And most importantly, these themes are modular and mobile-optimized. You can launch faster, avoid bugs, and iterate quickly as your business evolves.
Custom Isn’t Always Better—It’s Just More Expensive
Custom design and development sound impressive, but they rarely deliver more value than a well-executed theme build, especially if you’re doing under $10M a year. I know brands doing over $100M a year on off-the-shelf theme foundations.
Going fully custom means higher upfront costs, longer timelines, and added maintenance. It makes small updates, like adding a new section, a bigger lift than necessary. Instead of changing settings in the customizer, you’re rewriting code and pushing timelines to create assets that were not accounted for in the original scope.
Custom development should only be considered when you have very specific needs that cannot be met with a theme or app, and a team ready to maintain the codebase long term. For most brands, that’s just not the case.
A Better Approach: Start with a Theme, Customize with Strategy
The smarter approach is simple:
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Work with a partner who understands Shopify UX.
Not just someone who can make things look good, someone who knows how people actually shop online. -
Start with a premium Shopify theme.
Choose one that aligns with your content structure, product catalog, and brand goals. Get strategic about which sections you’ll use out-of-the-box and which ones you may customize later. -
Customize where it counts.
Want a unique hero section? Custom typography? Interactive content? No problem. But don’t throw out the whole system just to make something “different.” Work within the theme and iterate from there. -
Plan for growth.
Your store will change. New campaigns, collections, apps, or content formats will come up. Starting with a modular theme gives you the flexibility to adapt without a full redesign every quarter.
Final Thoughts
Custom isn’t better, it’s just harder, more expensive, and often unnecessary. Most brands need smart design, not custom development. By starting with a theme and working with the right partner, you’ll get to launch faster, optimize more effectively, and create a Shopify store that actually converts.
Stop chasing custom. Start building smart.
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Chase Clymer is the co-founder of Electric Eye, a top-tier eCommerce agency laser-focused on helping brands grow their sales through strategic design, development, and marketing. With a deep understanding of what makes online stores scale, Chase has worked with countless brands to turn browsers into loyal customers.
He’s also the voice behind Honest Ecommerce, a no-fluff weekly podcast and community where real store owners and eCommerce experts share the tactics that actually work. Through insightful interviews, hands-on resources, and honest conversations, Chase empowers entrepreneurs with the knowledge they need to confidently grow their business in an ever-changing digital landscape.
Whether he's behind the mic or behind a strategy session, Chase is dedicated to helping online brands cut through the noise, skip the hype, and focus on what really moves the needle.
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