Headless Shopify Demo

Shopify is one of our favourite platforms. In terms of reliability, payment methods and overall simplicity, it’s up there with the platforms we recommend most to our eCommerce customers.

But for all the good it brings, it also has its limitations when pushed. Every time you add a new app, script or tool, the code on the front end can get bloated pretty quickly and page speed scores can suffer.

Page speed can be measured in lost revenue; a study by Potent estimated that a site that loads in 1 second has a 2.5x conversion rate compared to a site that loads in 5 seconds. That could be the difference between 100 or 250 sales a day.

When a user is browsing your products, we don’t want to give them time to think whilst pages are loading; we want them to land and convert with minimal disruption to their browsing experience.

By decoupling Shopify, we keep what it’s great at: managing products, processing orders, managing stock and providing a reliable platform for trading. But we substitute the weak point with a Next.js front end that delivers instant page transitions and frictionless browsing. If you just want a lightning-fast Shopify store that converts, this is for you.

Our demo uses the same architecture as Gymshark. Everybody knows Gymshark is one of the most successful brands on Shopify. But what not everyone will know is that it runs a Next.js front end, just like in our demo. They use Shopify as the backend, and a decoupled JS front end, so that is what you will experience using our demo.

One of the benefits of a JS front end is that it is highly customisable. We can build any functionality for the front end without needing to run apps on every page of the site even when they are not in use, as you experience in standard Shopify setups.

Our headless development work isn’t tied to Shopify, and we can connect a front end like this to most ecommerce platforms. But if you’re already on Shopify, there’s often no need to move. You keep Shopify for products, orders and payments, and just replace the front end. Every platform has its limits as a business grows, and this is a way past them without a full migration.

The demo storefront STRIVE is a fictional activewear brand we have built to show what a modern headless D2C store feels like.

Instant page loads and navigation. Moving between collections, product pages, and accessories happens with zero page refresh.

Frictionless filtering and colour switching. Swatch changes and size selections update immediately without layout shifts or reloading.

Shopify Storefront API integration. Cart management, live stock levels, and customer accounts communicate directly with Shopify via GraphQL.

Server-side rendered for SEO. Google crawls fully rendered HTML directly from the server, protecting your Shopify SEO and organic visibility.

The site also uses a native Shopify checkout. When a shopper hits “Checkout”, they transition seamlessly into Shopify’s tried-and-trusted checkout to finish the sale.

When you access the demo, check the page speed and you will notice a difference to most standard Shopify websites. Instead of waiting a couple of seconds for some pages to open, you should notice a difference.

If you are familiar with Shopify, you will notice the checkout page is exactly the same; this is because this website is set up on a basic Shopify package to keep costs low.

• Open the storefront on your phone and tap through product categories, notice the instant page loads.
• Select an activewear item, swap sizes and colour swatches, and check the variant price updates.
• Add a couple of items to the bag and slide open the cart drawer.
• Click checkout to see the smooth hand-off to Shopify’s native checkout.
• Inspect the site using Google Lighthouse or Wappalyzer to see the clean architecture in action.