--- title: "E-commerce Development: Shopify and Headless" canonical: https://wavect.io/services/ecommerce-development/ language: en description: "Build or extend an online store: Shopify and headless storefronts, checkout, catalog data, ERP and fulfillment integrations. Scoped, built and handed over." image: "https://wavect.io/img/general/bak/open_graph_preview.jpg" --- E-commerce Development # E-commerce development for the store you already run. Most stores need targeted engineering on the platform they have, not a replatform. We build and extend storefronts, checkout, product data and the integrations behind every order, then hand over code and runbooks your team can operate. THE ENGAGEMENT ## One order path. Fewer manual steps. Code your team owns. 1. **Trace the order** Storefront, checkout, payment, fulfillment and returns. 2. **Build the changes** Storefront, integration and data work on your platform. 3. **Test and hand over** Realistic order scenarios, monitoring and runbooks. DIRECT ANSWER E-commerce development is the engineering behind an online store: storefront, checkout, product data and the integrations that move orders to fulfillment and accounting. This engagement covers agreed changes on Shopify or a headless setup, tested against realistic order flows. Best for - A store that has outgrown its theme and app stack - Orders, stock or shipment data moving between systems by hand Consider another approach - Launching a store from a standard theme, where a theme partner is faster and cheaper - Accepting crypto or stablecoin payments as the main task ## Start where the store loses money or orders Trace one order from product page to delivery and refund. Note where data is retyped, where errors reach customers and where the storefront slows down. That list sets the scope, not a feature wish list. For an overview of commerce work we have shipped, see [E-commerce industry](/industries/ecommerce/). A content or brand website without a shop belongs with [Website Development](/services/website-development/). Accepting crypto or stablecoin payments is its own scope in [Crypto Payment Integration](/services/crypto-payment-integration/). A support chatbot that answers order, returns and product questions belongs with [AI Chatbot Development](/services/ai-chatbot-development/). ## Shopify, headless or custom, chosen by constraints A replatform is rarely the first fix. We recommend one only when the current platform is the measured bottleneck. Shopify themes and apps Theme and Liquid work, custom app logic, checkout extensions where your plan allows them, and cleaning up apps that conflict with each other. Headless storefronts A custom frontend (for example Next.js) on the platform's storefront API, when content, performance or several markets justify a second frontend to build and run. Checkout and payments Payment provider integration, tax and shipping rules, order confirmation and failure states. Refunds and partial payments get tested, not only the happy path. Catalog and product data Products, variants and prices from a PIM or ERP, with imports and validation, so the store does not sell what the warehouse cannot ship. ## Connect orders to the systems behind the store ERP, warehouse, fulfillment, accounting and marketplaces are where commerce errors compound quietly. We build the store-side integrations: order export, stock sync, shipment status and returns, with idempotent webhooks and a visible error queue instead of silent failures. Record sync between back-office systems that does not involve the store belongs with [API Integration](/services/api-integration/). ## Illustrative acceptance: a failed stock sync does not oversell Illustrative, not a client result. In a staging store, the warehouse feed for one variant fails. The agreed rule marks the variant unavailable after the defined delay and puts the failure in the error queue with SKU and timestamp. When the feed recovers, stock and availability return without manual edits. The record names the store and integration versions, test data, expected and observed results, and limitations. ## Assess, build and keep the store healthy Scope and quote each phase before work starts. You can use the assessment with your own team or commission the agreed build. 1. **Store assessment** - Receive the order-path map, failure points ranked by cost and a prioritized backlog with estimates. 2. **Build and test** - Receive agreed storefront, checkout and integration changes, tested against realistic order scenarios, including the peaks you expect. 3. **Continued development** - Agree scope, cadence and change limits separately. This does not establish 24/7 coverage or an uptime SLA. ## Keep the code, the accounts and the data Custom apps, integration code and theme changes live in your repositories. Store, payment and app accounts stay in your name. Performance work targets the pages that carry revenue: product, collection, cart and checkout. Search rankings are not promised; for a separate search diagnosis, use [Technical SEO](/services/technical-seo/). // proof ## Commerce engineering in shipped work MyMerch: process mapping, delivery automation, operational dashboards across more than ten Shopify storefronts and targeted Liquid work on conversion; the client reports a roughly 50% efficiency gain. LivLive: a custom drop checkout benchmarked at 1,000+ concurrent users. Afoma: on-chain features added to a live marketplace behind familiar social login. Each case shows its published scope, not a promised result for another store. ### [MyMerch](/case-studies/mymerch/) - **Status:** Live - **Outcome:** ~50% - Efficiency improvement for the MyMerch team - **Summary:** MyMerch's team puts the efficiency gain at ~50%. Fewer delivery errors, improved Shopify conversion, no rewrite. - **Stack:** Shopify, Shopify Liquid, JavaScript ### [LivLive](/case-studies/livlive/) - **Status:** Live - **Outcome:** +1,000 - Concurrent Users - **Summary:** AR-RWA platform: $2M+ raised through the product, 1,000+ concurrent users, six weeks flat. - **Stack:** Solidity, Typescript, React ### [Afoma](/case-studies/afoma/) - **Status:** Live - **Outcome:** Web3 Social Login - Live in Production - **Summary:** Live marketplace, on-chain primitives, no crypto jargon, social login + invisible wallet creation. - **Stack:** Typescript, Solidity, Ethers.js These are selected projects, not our full portfolio. We have shipped 100+ products since 2018. ## Questions before you start ### Do you set up Shopify stores from a theme? Not as a theme shop. If you need a standard theme configured, a Shopify theme partner is faster and cheaper. We take on the engineering: custom logic, integrations, checkout, data and performance. ### Should we move to headless? Only if content, performance or multi-market needs justify a second frontend to build and run. Many stores get further with targeted work on the existing theme. ### Can you connect our ERP or warehouse system? Usually, if it has an API or file interface we can access. We confirm interfaces, data ownership and a test environment during scoping. ### Will you tell us to replatform? Only if the current platform is the measured bottleneck. The assessment shows the evidence either way. ### Can the store handle drops or campaign peaks? We load-test the paths that matter (checkout, cart and inventory) against the peak you expect and fix what breaks before launch. Results apply to the tested setup. ## Choose your next step - [See our e-commerce industry work](/industries/ecommerce/) - [Sync records between back-office systems](/services/api-integration/) - [Accept crypto and stablecoin payments](/services/crypto-payment-integration/) ## Structured Data ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@id": "https://wavect.io/#organization", "@type": [ "Organization", "ProfessionalService", "LocalBusiness" ], "employee": [ { "@id": "https://wavect.io/team/kevin-riedl/#person", "@type": "Person", "jobTitle": "Managing Director", "name": "Kevin Riedl", "url": "https://wavect.io/team/kevin-riedl/", "worksFor": { "@id": "https://wavect.io/#organization", "@type": [ "Organization", "ProfessionalService", "LocalBusiness" ] } }, { "@id": "https://wavect.io/team/christof-jori/#person", "@type": "Person", "jobTitle": "Managing Director", "name": "Christof Jori", "url": "https://wavect.io/team/christof-jori/", "worksFor": { "@id": "https://wavect.io/#organization", "@type": [ "Organization", "ProfessionalService", "LocalBusiness" ] } } ], "founder": [ { "@id": "https://wavect.io/team/kevin-riedl/#person", "@type": "Person", "jobTitle": "Managing Director", "name": "Kevin Riedl", "url": "https://wavect.io/team/kevin-riedl/", "worksFor": { "@id": "https://wavect.io/#organization", "@type": [ "Organization", "ProfessionalService", "LocalBusiness" ] } }, { "@id": "https://wavect.io/team/christof-jori/#person", "@type": "Person", "jobTitle": "Managing Director", "name": "Christof Jori", "url": "https://wavect.io/team/christof-jori/", "worksFor": { "@id": "https://wavect.io/#organization", "@type": [ "Organization", "ProfessionalService", "LocalBusiness" ] } } ], "legalRepresentative": [ { "@id": "https://wavect.io/team/kevin-riedl/#person", "@type": "Person", "jobTitle": "Managing Director", "name": "Kevin Riedl", "url": "https://wavect.io/team/kevin-riedl/", "worksFor": { "@id": "https://wavect.io/#organization", "@type": [ "Organization", "ProfessionalService", "LocalBusiness" ] } }, { "@id": "https://wavect.io/team/christof-jori/#person", "@type": "Person", "jobTitle": "Managing Director", "name": "Christof Jori", "url": "https://wavect.io/team/christof-jori/", "worksFor": { "@id": "https://wavect.io/#organization", "@type": [ "Organization", "ProfessionalService", "LocalBusiness" ] } } ], "name": "Wavect GmbH", "subjectOf": { "@id": "https://wavect.io/verified-claims.json#dataset", "@type": "Dataset", "creator": { "@id": "https://wavect.io/#organization", "@type": [ "Organization", "ProfessionalService", "LocalBusiness" ] }, "description": "A machine-readable registry of quantitative and qualitative claims published by Wavect, with review dates, localized page appearances and public third-party citations where available.", "inLanguage": "en", "isAccessibleForFree": true, "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/", "name": "Wavect verified publication claims", "url": "https://wavect.io/verified-claims.json" }, "url": "https://wavect.io/" }, { "@id": "https://wavect.io/team/kevin-riedl/#person", "@type": "Person", "jobTitle": "Managing Director", "name": "Kevin Riedl", "sameAs": [ "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q139796365", "https://www.linkedin.com/in/wsdt", "https://github.com/wsdt" ], "url": "https://wavect.io/team/kevin-riedl/", "worksFor": { "@id": "https://wavect.io/#organization", "@type": [ "Organization", "ProfessionalService", "LocalBusiness" ] } }, { "@id": "https://wavect.io/team/christof-jori/#person", "@type": "Person", "jobTitle": "Managing Director", "name": "Christof Jori", "sameAs": [ "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q139796367", "https://www.linkedin.com/in/jocr77/", "https://github.com/jo-chris" ], "url": "https://wavect.io/team/christof-jori/", "worksFor": { "@id": "https://wavect.io/#organization", "@type": [ "Organization", "ProfessionalService", "LocalBusiness" ] } }, { "@id": "https://wavect.io/#website", "@type": "WebSite", "inLanguage": [ "en", "de", "es", "zh" ], "name": "Wavect", "potentialAction": { "@type": "SearchAction", "query-input": "required name=search_term_string", "target": { "@type": "EntryPoint", "urlTemplate": "https://wavect.io/search/?q={search_term_string}" } }, "publisher": { "@id": "https://wavect.io/#organization", "@type": [ "Organization", "ProfessionalService", "LocalBusiness" ] }, "url": "https://wavect.io/" } ] } ``` ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@id": "https://wavect.io/services/ecommerce-development/#service", "@type": "Service", "areaServed": [ { "@type": "Country", "name": "Austria" }, { "@type": "Place", "name": "Worldwide" } ], "category": "Software Development", "dateModified": "2026-10-30", "description": "Build or extend an online store: Shopify and headless storefronts, checkout, catalog data, ERP and fulfillment integrations. 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