Professional Shopify store design: what to agree on before you hire
Professional Shopify store design starts before anyone opens Shopify. Most problems in store projects come from things nobody agreed on at the start. These are the points I would settle in writing before hiring anyone, including me.
What exactly is included?
Write down the pages that will be designed: the home page, category pages, the product page, the cart, the about and contact pages, and the policy pages. Agree on how many products the designer will add and how many you will add yourself, and whether product photos and descriptions are your job or theirs. A clear list now prevents long arguments later.
Will you approve a design before the build?
Ask to see the design of the main pages before anything is built, on both phone and desktop. Approving a design is far cheaper than changing a finished store. Make sure the approval step is part of the plan and that you know how many rounds of changes are included.
Which theme, and how much will be customised?
Ask whether the store will be built on an existing Shopify theme, a customised one or a custom design, and what each choice means for future updates. Customising a theme heavily can make later updates harder, so you should understand the trade-off before you agree, not after.
Which apps will be added?
Every app adds features, and often a monthly cost and some weight on the pages. Ask for the list of apps the designer plans to use and why each one is needed. Fewer, well chosen apps usually mean a faster store and fewer surprises on your bill.
Who owns the store and what happens after launch?
The Shopify account should be in your name, with the designer working as a collaborator or staff member, never the other way round. Agree on what support covers after launch, for how long, and how quickly questions get answered. Ask for a short walkthrough so you can add products and edit prices yourself from the first day.
How I handle it
I design every Shopify store in Figma first and build only after you approve it. You keep the store in your name, you get the dashboard and you add products and edit prices yourself. Support lasts 180 days from launch and covers anything that breaks or behaves differently from what we agreed, and for the first seven days you can stop the project and get your payment back in full. Tell me about your products and I will send you what I need to start.
New articles every day on our Facebook page: Learn with MK
Have a project in mind?
Tell me what you are building and I reply within 24 hours.
