WEB DEVELOPMENT

Headless Commerce Agency for Fast Storefronts

If your Shopify theme buckles under SKU count and conversion rates are sliding, a custom Next.js storefront gives you the speed and control your catalog actually needs.

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WEB DEVELOPMENT AT A GLANCE
  • Next.js
  • Shopify Hydrogen
  • Medusa
  • Saleor
  • BigCommerce
  • Vercel
  • 95+LIGHTHOUSE AVG
  • 12+ yrsSENIOR-LED
  • Fixed feeNO SCOPE CREEP
  • 200+PROJECTS SHIPPED
CLUTCH 5.0 VERIFIED

Overview — 01

We build custom Next.js storefronts for DTC and B2B brands whose Shopify or WooCommerce theme can't handle their catalog anymore, connecting to Shopify Hydrogen, Medusa, Saleor, or BigCommerce at a fixed fee with a delivery date set before work starts.

What changes is control. Rendering, URL structure, and cart logic move into code your team owns, while product and inventory data still lives in whichever backend fits -- Shopify Hydrogen, Medusa, Saleor, or BigCommerce. Content -- blog posts, landing pages, campaign copy -- moves into a headless CMS like Sanity or Payload, so merchandising teams publish without waiting on a deploy. A typical build runs eight to sixteen weeks from discovery to launch, with a working staging environment on real product data visible around the two-week mark and a first live page inside four weeks on most projects.

Pricing is fixed before work starts: most headless commerce builds fall between five and thirty thousand pounds, depending on catalog size, backend choice, and how many integrations (search, subscriptions, ERP, loyalty) need wiring in. You get a written number and a fixed delivery date in the contract, not a rolling estimate that grows as scope creeps. The agency behind this page is Social Animal, based in London, founded in 2026.

Headless Commerce Development

Headless commerce development is the practice of replacing a monolithic theme -- Shopify Liquid, WooCommerce, or Magento -- with a custom Next.js storefront that talks to your commerce backend through an API instead of a templating engine. It's for DTC and B2B operators whose catalog has outgrown what a theme can express: complex variant logic, multi-region pricing, bundle rules, or a checkout that needs to do something a theme's app marketplace can't cover.

The gap — 02

What is holding your current website back?

Common gaps we find in nearly every audit.

Your Shopify theme slows to a crawl once you pass a few hundred SKUs with complex variant logic, filtering, or bundle rules.
Risk: Slower category and PDP pages directly correlate with lower add-to-cart rates, and Lighthouse scores that hurt organic ranking over time.
Every merchandising or UX change requires a developer to work inside Liquid template constraints that were not designed for your catalog structure.
Risk: Engineering time gets consumed by theme workarounds instead of features that differentiate your brand, and release velocity slows as SKU count grows.
You cannot run the same storefront across multiple regions, currencies, or sales channels without duplicating theme code and splitting your content workflow.
Risk: Duplicate codebases diverge quickly, SEO signals get diluted across domains, and the operational overhead of keeping themes in sync compounds with every product launch.

Safeguards — 03

How we build this right

Every safeguard, built in from Day 1.

PCI Scope Reduction

By offloading payment processing entirely to Shopify Payments, Stripe, or a dedicated checkout service, your custom Next.js frontend never touches raw card data, keeping your PCI surface area minimal and audit documentation straightforward.

GDPR and Cookie Consent Architecture

We build consent management into the data-fetching layer from the start, ensuring analytics scripts, personalization calls, and third-party pixels fire only after verified user consent signals, with a clear audit trail.

Core Web Vitals Accountability

Every build ships with a defined LCP and INP target agreed in the project spec. We instrument real-user monitoring before handoff so you have baseline data to hold against regressions after your team takes ownership.

Scope — 04

What we build

Purpose-built features for your industry.

Next.js App Router Storefront

We use the Next.js App Router with React Server Components to render product and collection pages at the edge, keeping time-to-first-byte under 200ms for catalog pages regardless of variant count. Static generation and on-demand revalidation are configured per route type based on how frequently your data changes.

Backend-Agnostic Commerce Layer

Your storefront communicates with the commerce backend through a typed API layer we write during the project, which means swapping Shopify Hydrogen for Medusa or adding a second backend for B2B is an interface change rather than a rewrite. We document every endpoint and data shape so your internal team can extend it.

Custom Checkout and Cart Logic

We implement cart state, discount application, subscription rules, and upsell logic in code you own rather than inside a SaaS cart widget. This lets you express product relationships — bundles, configurable products, tiered pricing — exactly as your catalog requires them without workaround scripts.

Structured Content Integration

Storefront copy, collection landing pages, and campaign content are managed through a headless CMS — Sanity, Contentful, or Payload — with typed schemas that match your editorial workflow. Merchandising teams can publish without a deployment, and content changes propagate to the edge within seconds via webhook-triggered revalidation.

Stack — 05

Built on a modern, secure stack

Next.jsShopify HydrogenMedusaSaleorBigCommerceVercelSanityStoryblok

Process — 06

Our development process

From discovery to launch. Quality at every step.

01

Catalog and Architecture Audit

1 week

We map your existing product data model, variant structure, integration dependencies, and current performance baselines before writing a line of code. This produces a written architecture decision record that specifies which commerce backend, rendering strategy, and CMS setup fits your catalog and team, along with a fixed project scope.

02

Storefront Foundation and Design System

2 weeks

We build the Next.js project structure, configure the commerce API layer, establish the component library in code, and wire up the CMS schema. You review a working staging environment with real product data before any visual design is locked, so structural decisions get validated against your actual catalog early.

03

Feature Build and Integration

2 weeks

Cart logic, search, filtering, account flows, checkout handoff, and any catalog-specific features defined in scope are built and tested against your staging backend. We run Playwright end-to-end tests across critical purchase paths and instrument Core Web Vitals monitoring before this phase closes.

04

Launch, Handoff, and Documentation

1 week

We manage the production cutover, configure edge caching, and monitor error rates and performance metrics for the first week post-launch. You receive a handoff package that includes architecture documentation, a component reference, deployment runbooks, and a recorded walkthrough of the codebase for your engineering team.

Social Animal

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Related resources — 07

Solution WooCommerce to Headless Commerce Solution WordPress vs Headless CMS 2026 Solution Headless CMS Development Tokyo Solution Headless CMS Development Toronto Solution Headless CMS Development Los Angeles Solution Shopify Hydrogen vs Nextjs Commerce

Questions — 08

Frequently asked questions

Fixed-fee pricing for a custom storefront typically runs between five and thirty thousand pounds, depending on catalog size, chosen backend (Shopify Hydrogen, Medusa, or Saleor), and integration scope. You get a written number after a scoping call, not an hourly estimate that grows as the project runs.
Most headless commerce builds go live in eight to sixteen weeks, covering discovery, backend integration, and testing, with a working staging environment visible around the two-week mark. Larger catalogs or custom B2B pricing rules add time, but the delivery date is fixed in the contract.
Shopify Hydrogen suits merchants staying inside the Shopify ecosystem who want a faster front end without a replatform; Medusa fits teams needing a self-hosted, open-source backend with no per-transaction fees; Saleor works best for complex B2B or multi-channel catalogs. We recommend one based on your data model, not habit.
Headless commerce means your storefront -- the part shoppers see -- runs as a separate application from your commerce backend, the part that manages inventory, orders, and pricing, connected by an API instead of a theme's templating system. That separation is what lets a Next.js storefront hit sub-second load times regardless of catalog size.
Yes -- we replatform active Shopify stores to Next.js storefronts with a redirect plan that preserves your URL structure and search rankings, so the site stays live and indexable throughout the switch. Existing orders, customer accounts, and inventory sync continue on Shopify's backend during and after the move.
Yes -- you get full source code and every data export at project close, with no license fee, no template vendor, and no dependency on us for future changes. Any developer can pick up the codebase after handover.

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Get started — 10

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