When it comes to building high-performing Shopify stores, experience and expertise make all the difference.
In the first installment of our Staff Spotlight series we sat down with Liam Cottrell, one of our senior Shopify developers, to get an inside look at what it takes to create seamless, scalable, and conversion-driven ecommerce experiences.
With years of hands-on experience in custom theme development, website migrations and performance optimisation, Liam shares first-hand insights on his role at Venture Stream, common challenges merchants face, and his top three tips for brands considering making the move to Shopify.
1. Can you explain what your role as Senior Developer entails?
As a Senior Developer, my primary role is building simple solutions to difficult problems. Often this means leveraging native functionality or creating bespoke features. I also look to push the boundaries of our technical ability, using new technologies or frameworks to help us provide benefits to clients. This could be solely performance-driven or aimed at future-proofing codebases to keep them current.
2. What do you consider to be the most rewarding aspect of your role?
Without a doubt, the most rewarding part of my job is seeing clients thrive after a new release or feature has been developed for them. I also find great satisfaction in solving a client’s problem by delivering a clean and effective solution for that specific scenario.
3. Any standout moments or projects?
I think for any developer your stand-out moments are always going to be your first project and your biggest project. I’m coming up to five years with Venture Stream now and there have been so many moments and projects delivered I don’t think I could choose a favourite as there’s been such a variety in the clients I have worked with that have all been fantastic.
4. Three tips for brands thinking of making the move to Shopify?
1. Embrace change
When moving to Shopify the most important thing to remember is that it is a different platform to your current provider. Not only will you get a shiny new front end, your admin will also change. Shopify is really streamlined and comes with so many admin processes out of the box, allowing you to focus more on the customer-facing side of your system.
It’s important to really understand where the differences are in the platform and what the main benefits of Shopify will be for your business.
For processes you deem as core principles to your business that you aren’t sure can be replicated in Shopify, I would always advise working with a Shopify Agency to address how these will be solutioned technically in any re-platforming project.
2. Clear out and clean up!
When moving to Shopify from any platform, there’s going to be a conversation around data at some point. It’s all too easy to just dump everything into your new platform ‘just in case’ but I would recommend having a thorough review of what’s being migrated.
Depending on how long you have been with your current platform, often there will be legacy data lying around that really serves no purpose and just bloats your view of what’s pivotal to your business. This can come from services you no longer provide, products that you haven’t sold for years that wont be returning or other ecommerce functions that have since become obsolete.
It’s a bit like that kitchen drawer that’s full of old batteries, stained tea towels and takeaway menus. You have them but you wouldn’t miss them if they were gone.
Treat your migration to Shopify as a really strong opportunity to clean everything up so that you are only left with valuable and complete data that you can really utilise in your roadmap. It really will make a difference long term and it will help you make the most out of Shopify.
3. Understand themes
Shopify has tons of documentation that’s free to read online, you don’t even need to have an account to view them. Understanding all the ins and outs of Shopify themes will give you a good picture of what you can achieve with the platform.
Depending on which platform you are leaving you might have struggled with being able to amend pages or content on the fly. Themes are Shopify’s response to this issue.
Themes offer a very simple drag-and-drop configurator that gives you the ability to be flexible and responsive with content and components on your site with a quick turnaround.
If you’re interested in learning more about this you can visit Shopify themes.
Or if you want to read in more technical depth about the structure of Shopify you can visit Shopify.dev
Bonus point – refresh your content
When re-platforming, there’s so much to focus on that sometimes content and imagery gets left to the wayside because you are so focused on making sure that all the ecommerce pieces fit together.
However, there’s nothing more frustrating than ending a project with a brand new storefront with a design exactly how you envisioned it, but all the imagery and content is from your old site. Which takes away from the overall satisfaction and UX of your new online store.
Got a question for Liam? Thinking about making the move to Shopify but not sure where to start? Send us a message and we’ll be in touch.
