Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Shopify Web Designer
Shopify specific questions only. Each one is answerable in a sentence by somebody who works on the platform and difficult for somebody who has watched a tutorial, which is what makes the list worth using.
Why Shopify Needs Its Own List
The general questions still apply. Who owns the work, what is excluded, what happens after launch and how changes are priced all matter here as much as anywhere. They are covered in how to choose an ecommerce web design agency.
What makes Shopify different is that the platform decides a great deal of what is possible and almost everything about what is maintainable. A supplier can be perfectly competent at web design and still leave you with a store you cannot change, cannot update and did not know you were buying.
So the questions that separate a good Shopify supplier from a poor one are not about design ability. They are about how somebody works within the platform's constraints, plus whether they can describe those constraints accurately.
The test applied to every question below. Somebody who works on Shopify regularly answers it in a sentence, without hedging, usually adding a detail you did not ask for. Somebody who has learned Shopify from a tutorial gives a general answer about it depending on the setup.
Which Theme, And Why That One
If you ask one question from this page, ask this.
What a good answer contains. Your catalogue. How many products you have, what kind of variants, which section types you will need, whether the theme suits the imagery you actually own. The reasoning runs from your store to the theme.
What a poor answer sounds like. The name of a theme, with no connection to anything about you. Frequently it is the theme they use for everybody, which is not automatically wrong and is certainly not a decision made about your business.
This carries weight because on Shopify the theme determines what the store can do afterwards, as set out in how Shopify themes work. Somebody who chose it before understanding your catalogue made the largest decision in the project on no information.
The follow up that does the real work. What would make you choose a different one? An answer containing no conditions is not a decision. Somebody who genuinely evaluated will name the thing about your store that pointed them towards this theme rather than another.
Will You Be Editing The Theme Code
This question catches more future cost than any other on the list. Almost nobody asks it.
Why it matters. Where a theme's own files are edited, updates from the theme developer conflict with that work. The store then either pays to have customisations reapplied each time or quietly stops updating, which is what usually happens.
What a good answer distinguishes. Adding sections alongside the theme, which leaves its files untouched and lets updates continue, against modifying the theme's existing files, which does not. Somebody who knows the platform makes that distinction without prompting, because it is the distinction their own working life turns on.
The two follow ups. Which files specifically will be modified? And at the next theme update, who reapplies the work and who pays for it?
A supplier treating this as technical trivia has not thought about your store in two years. One who answers precisely intends to be around then, which is worth knowing on its own.
Who Can Change It Afterwards
Ask what you will be able to change yourself after handover, plus what will need them. Then refuse to accept a general answer, because full control is what everybody says and it means nothing.
Name the changes and get an answer on each. Changing the home page banner. Reordering sections on a page. Editing the text inside a section. Adding a product to a collection. Publishing a new page. Swapping a collection image.
Six things, each answered yes or no. A supplier who knows how they build answers all six immediately. One who hesitates is telling you the approach has not been decided, which means it will be decided by whatever is quickest.
Why this is worth more than it looks. A store that needs its designer for every change costs more to own than it cost to build. The cost arrives as delay rather than as an invoice. Seasonal updates do not happen. Prices stay wrong for a fortnight. The business stops responding to its own trading.
Get the answers in writing before work starts. Asking once the approach is settled is asking for a rebuild.
How Many Apps Will This Need
Ask for the list before agreeing anything. Not a number. The list, with what each app does, what each costs monthly and the total.
Why it belongs in the quote conversation. A build requiring eight apps carries a monthly cost continuing for as long as the store trades, which was never part of the figure you approved. Over three years that total regularly exceeds the difference between two build quotes.
The follow up that saves money immediately. Which of these does the theme already do? Apps duplicating theme capability are common. The answer has ended more than one proposal early.
What a good answer includes without being asked. Some note of the effect on speed, since each app loads its own code, frequently on every page. A supplier who mentions that before you raise it has thought about the store rather than the build.
The wider position on apps, including why removing one does not always remove its code, is in what makes a good Shopify store design.
Who Sets Up The Collections And Navigation
Two questions in one. Who does it, then when.
What you are listening for. Whether collection structure is planned as a step before design begins, else assembled afterwards to fit whatever was drawn. The second is common and it is the wrong way round.
Why it matters more on Shopify than elsewhere. A collection is not a folder. It is what your navigation points at, the page a shopper browses, the page that answers a search for a type of product, plus the mechanism for merchandising. Deciding all of that after a design exists means the design has quietly constrained the structure.
The follow up. Will you plan the collections with us before anything is designed? A supplier who says yes is describing an extra conversation they are not being paid more for, which tells you something.
Why this decision sets a ceiling on everything afterwards, on any platform, is the argument in how web design affects ecommerce SEO.
What Cannot Be Changed
This one is a test rather than a question you need the answer to. Ask which parts of a Shopify store nobody can change, then listen.
What a knowledgeable answer contains. The checkout, plus the way addresses are formed. Both named immediately, without hedging.
On the checkout. A good answer states that the theme does not control it at all. On standard plans, Shopify's documentation as of 2026 limits customisation to branding through the checkout editor, meaning logo, colours and typography, along with configuring which form fields appear and whether each is required. Content blocks, upsells and conditional logic sit within Checkout Extensibility and require the Plus plan. Somebody current will also mention that the old checkout.liquid file was retired between 2024 and 2026, which is the detail that separates working knowledge from something read once.
On addresses. Shopify's routing fixes the collections and products segments and nobody can remove them. A good answer adds the thing that can be changed, which is whether product links carry collection context.
What the wrong answers tell you. A promise to remove the collections segment from your addresses, perhaps to redesign your checkout on a standard plan, is not ambition. It is somebody describing work the platform will not permit. You have learned that before paying rather than afterwards.
Who Owns The Store And The Work
Four questions with answers that should be immediate and uncomplicated.
Whose name is the Shopify account in? Yours, from the beginning. A store created under a supplier's account is a different position from one you own. Moving it later is avoidable work.
Will we hold the owner account rather than staff access? There is a difference. It matters at exactly the moment a relationship ends.
Who holds the domain? You, registered in your own name rather than the supplier's.
What happens to any custom sections or code if we part company? This is the Shopify specific one. Custom work built into your theme should stay with your store. The answer should be plain rather than qualified.
None should require thinking about. A supplier who has to check, perhaps explaining why theirs differs, has told you what their standard arrangement is.
What Happens After Launch
Buyers ask this last and regret it, because it describes the arrangement you live inside for years.
What support is included, for how long, at what cost afterwards. Stated in weeks rather than described as ongoing help.
Who is reachable when checkout stops taking payments on a Saturday. Not whether somebody is reachable. Who, by what route, within what time.
Will somebody in our business be trained? Adding a product, changing a price, processing a refund and editing a section, shown to a named person rather than left as documentation nobody opens.
What happens when the theme releases an update? The Shopify specific question. It connects directly to block three. A supplier who answered that one well will answer this one consistently. A supplier who did not will contradict themselves here, which is useful.
And One For Yourself
Do you need to hire anybody yet?
It belongs at the end rather than the start, because you can only answer it having read the rest. A fair number who reach this point discover the real answer is not yet, which is a good outcome rather than a wasted afternoon.
You may not need anybody if your catalogue is small and uncomplicated, your theme is current rather than predating the section system, plus the changes you want turn out to sit in settings. The theme editor removed a great deal of what used to require hiring somebody. A patient owner with a free afternoon gets further than most expect.
You probably do if you keep meeting the code line, if your theme is old enough that replacing it is the actual job, if collections grew without a plan, else if the store is trading and you cannot risk learning on it.
Which of those describes you is worked through in what a Shopify web designer is. If the answer is not yet, the money is better spent on photography, product information and collection structure, all of which move more product than a designer will.
Ask us all ten.
Please.
This list was written to be used on anybody, including us. We will name the theme and why, tell you which files we would touch, list every app with its monthly cost, then answer the checkout question without hedging.
What Shopify work covers:
Ongoing management afterwards sits inside our fixed monthly fee. Build work is quoted per project.
Six guides.
One platform.
This page covers hiring. The rest of the series covers the role, who does what, how themes work and when custom is justified, free themes against paid, plus what good looks like on Shopify.
