Expert Shopify Developer
Build High-Growth E-commerce Stores
We build and optimise powerful Shopify and Shopify Plus websites that convert. As your local Shopify developer in New Zealand, Spiral Compute delivers custom e-commerce solutions that drive sales and scale with your business.
Why Build with Shopify?
Our Custom Shopify Development Services
We provide end-to-end Shopify solutions, from initial strategy and design to custom development, migration, and ongoing technical support.
Custom Shopify Themes & UX Design
Your Shopify store is your digital flagship, and an off-the-shelf theme can often feel generic and restrictive. A custom-built theme is the key to differentiating your brand, creating a unique shopping experience, and gaining a significant competitive advantage. We move beyond templates to build a digital presence that is exclusively yours. Our design philosophy is mobile-first, ensuring that the 70%+ of customers who browse on their phones have a flawless, intuitive, and engaging experience that encourages them to purchase.
Our process is collaborative and user-centric, beginning with a deep dive into your brand, goals, and target audience. We then move to wireframing and high-fidelity mockups, mapping out every user journey and optimising each touchpoint for conversion. Once the design is perfected, our developers translate it into clean, fast, and scalable code using Shopify's Liquid templating language and modern development practices. The final result is a beautiful, high-performance shopfront that not only captures your brand's essence but is also engineered to maximise sales and customer loyalty.
Shopify App Integration & Development
The Shopify App Store offers powerful tools, but your business has unique processes and workflows that standard solutions can't always accommodate. This is where you might hit a wall with pre-built apps, leading to manual workarounds and inefficiencies. We specialise in breaking through that wall by building private Shopify apps designed exclusively for your business needs. Whether you require a sophisticated product customiser, unique subscription logic, or an internal dashboard for managing complex orders, we can build it.
Our development process begins with a thorough analysis of the challenge you're trying to solve. We then architect a robust, secure, and scalable application to meet that need. Beyond building apps from scratch, we are experts in complex API integrations. We can create a seamless, automated ecosystem for your business by connecting your Shopify store to essential platforms like CRM systems (Salesforce), accounting software (Xero), inventory management systems, and local New Zealand shipping providers. This ensures your data is always in sync, reduces manual data entry, and frees up your team to focus on growth.
Migration to Shopify
Moving your online store to a new platform can feel like a daunting task, but staying on a platform that is slow, outdated, or ill-suited to your business can be far more costly in the long run. We specialise in seamless, stress-free migrations to Shopify from other platforms like WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, or Squarespace. We view a migration as a strategic opportunity to not only transfer your data but also to enhance your store's functionality, improve the user experience, and set a new foundation for growth.
Our team handles the entire migration process with a meticulous, proven methodology designed for zero downtime. We begin by mapping out your entire data structure to ensure every critical piece of information—including products, variants, customer profiles, and order histories—is accounted for. We then perform the secure transfer and, most importantly, implement a comprehensive URL redirect strategy to preserve your hard-earned SEO rankings. You can be confident that your business will continue operating without interruption, and you'll launch on Shopify, ready for a new era of e-commerce success.
Shopify Performance & SEO
In e-commerce, speed directly translates to sales. Even a one-second delay in page load time can significantly decrease conversion rates. We conduct in-depth performance audits that go far beyond basic checks, analysing everything from theme code efficiency and image compression to app performance and server response times. Our goal is to ensure your store is lightning-fast, providing an exceptional user experience that meets and exceeds Google's Core Web Vitals standards.
A fast store is only effective if customers can find it. Technical SEO provides the essential foundation for all your digital marketing efforts, ensuring that search engines can effectively crawl, index, and understand your content. We implement a full suite of technical SEO best practices, including optimising your site structure, implementing rich snippets (structured data), fixing broken links, and refining your URL hierarchy. As your Shopify e-commerce NZ specialists, we ensure your store is technically perfect to achieve high visibility and top rankings in Google.
Ongoing Support & Maintenance
Launching your Shopify store is just the beginning of your e-commerce journey. An online store is a dynamic asset that requires continuous attention to remain secure, efficient, and competitive. As a business owner, you need a technical partner you can rely on to handle the complexities of the platform while you focus on your customers and products. We offer ongoing support and maintenance retainers to provide exactly that: proactive, expert care for your most important digital asset.
Our retainer packages are designed to give you complete peace of mind. They provide you with a dedicated block of our team's time each month for critical tasks like Shopify updates, security monitoring, bug fixes, performance checks, and implementing new feature enhancements. More than just a helpdesk, we act as your strategic partner, offering proactive advice on new Shopify features and industry trends. With our expert Wellington-based team on call, you can rest assured that your store is always in safe hands and positioned for future growth.
Your Expert Shopify Partner in New Zealand
Beyond the Template: Software-Powered Solutions
Unlike typical designers, Spiral Compute is a software development company. This means we bring a deeper level of technical expertise to your project. We write clean, efficient code and can build truly custom functionality that other agencies can’t, future-proofing your investment.
As a New Zealand-based team, we have firsthand experience with the local e-commerce landscape. We seamlessly integrate NZ Post and other couriers and set up local payment gateways like POLi, Afterpay, and Laybuy to meet the expectations of Kiwi shoppers.
✓ Local Wellington-based Experts
✓ Focus on Conversion & ROI
✓ Clean, Scalable Liquid Code
✓ Transparent Project Management
✓ Post-Launch Growth Strategy
Shopify Development FAQs
If you are still considering Shopify as your e-commerce platform, you can review the frequently asked questions about our service and support.
The investment depends on the project’s complexity. A simple setup with a premium theme might start from a few thousand dollars, while fully custom Shopify themes and app integrations will be more. We provide a detailed, transparent quote after our initial consultation.
A standard project can take 4-8 weeks, while more complex builds can take 3 months or more. We establish a clear timeline at the start of every project.
It depends. Shopify offers an all-in-one, fully hosted solution with excellent ease of use. WooCommerce is more customisable but requires more technical maintenance. We can help you choose the right platform for your business goals.
Shopify Plus is Shopify’s enterprise-level solution, designed for high-volume merchants and rapidly growing businesses. It offers all the features of the standard Shopify plans, but with significant upgrades. Key benefits include much lower transaction fees, the ability to handle massive traffic surges (like during a flash sale), and access to advanced tools for customisation, such as the ability to modify the checkout process. You also get a dedicated Merchant Success Manager from Shopify and higher API limits for complex integrations.
You should consider moving to Shopify Plus if your business is processing a high volume of sales (typically over $1M NZD annually), if you need to manage multiple international storefronts, or if your growth is being limited by the features of your current plan. As part of our service, we can conduct a full analysis of your business operations and sales data to help you determine if the investment in Shopify Plus will deliver a strong return for you.
Yes. We offer a range of ongoing support and maintenance retainers to ensure your Shopify store remains secure, up-to-date, and continuously optimised for performance.
Yes, absolutely. You maintain 100% ownership of all your content, data, products, and customer information. When we build a custom theme for you, you own the complete rights to that specific design and code. It is your asset to use for your store as you see fit.
Our role is to provide the professional service to build and configure these assets on the Shopify platform. The only ongoing fee you will have is your monthly subscription directly to Shopify for use of their core platform, hosting, and security. All the custom creative and technical work we do for you is yours.
Shopify templates are an excellent starting point for many businesses. However, hiring a professional developer is the difference between having a standard shopfront and creating a high-performance, unique e-commerce machine. A developer allows you to move beyond the visual and functional constraints of a template. We can build a completely custom design that perfectly matches your brand, create unique features that solve your specific business challenges, and critically, optimise the theme’s code for lightning-fast speed and technical SEO—factors that are often compromised in multi-purpose, pre-built themes.
Working with a developer ensures your store is not only beautiful but also built on a solid, scalable, and secure foundation. We solve complex problems, integrate your store seamlessly with other business systems, and provide the strategic technical guidance needed to turn your website into a powerful tool for growth, rather than just an online catalogue.
Yes, this is one of the key advantages of working with a local NZ-based development team. We have extensive experience integrating the specific payment gateways that Kiwi customers know and trust, such as POLi, Afterpay, and Laybuy, ensuring a smooth and familiar checkout process that can significantly increase conversion rates.
Furthermore, we can seamlessly connect your Shopify store with local shipping carriers, including NZ Post, CourierPost, and other popular couriers. This allows for real-time shipping calculations, automated label printing, and streamlined fulfilment workflows, saving you time and money while providing a better delivery experience for your customers.
A successful project is a collaborative partnership. To get started, we typically need a few key things from you. The first is a clear understanding of your goals, target audience, and the specific challenges you’re facing. We will work through this with you in our initial discovery sessions.
From there, we will need your brand assets, such as your logo in high resolution and any brand style guides you may have. The most important contribution will be your content, including product photography, detailed product descriptions and pricing, and the copy for pages like “About Us” and your policies. Providing this content in a timely manner is crucial for keeping the project on schedule. Throughout the project, we rely on your active participation and feedback during key design and development review stages to ensure the final product perfectly aligns with your vision.
Ready to Build Your High-Performing Shopify Store?
Let's discuss your e-commerce goals. Contact our Shopify development team today for a free, no-obligation consultation, and let's build a store that delivers results.