Shopify Development · Gravesend, Kent · Shopify Select Partner
Most Shopify problems aren't Shopify problems
They turn up when a shop gets built once, quickly, and the business grows past it. The stock goes wrong. Someone re-types orders into the accounts system. That's the bit we fix.
Stores we look after:
Sound familiar?
Almost everyone who finds this page arrives with one of these. Pick whichever sounds most like your Monday morning.
Nearly always means Shopify and whatever runs your warehouse are talking once a night, or not at all. Oversells, phantom stock, and somebody manually correcting numbers. It's fixable, and it's most of what we do.
Getting Shopify and your stock system to agree “Someone here re-types every order into our accounts system.”Vincent & Barn were re-creating every single Shopify order by hand as an invoice in FreeAgent. Now they're not, and the figures reconcile to the penny. Same story, different software, most weeks.
How we killed the double-entry “The site's slow and nobody can tell us why.”Slow Shopify stores are usually slow for the same handful of reasons, and a couple of them are apps you stopped using eighteen months ago and never uninstalled. We'll tell you which, for nothing.
Get a free speed audit “We're stuck on Visualsoft or Magento and moving sounds terrifying.”What people actually mean is “I'm frightened of losing my Google rankings and my order history”. Fair enough — both are the bits that go wrong when a migration is done badly. Both are solvable, and you keep trading throughout.
How a migration actually works “Our ERP costs a fortune and we use a tenth of it.”A lot of retailers are paying enterprise money for stock, orders, returns and fulfilment. We got fed up with it and built our own. It does the parts you use, without the parts you don't.
ShopFlow, our stock and orders tool “We pay for eleven apps and I don't know what half of them do.”Often the core of what those apps are doing can be built into the theme itself, and the monthly bill leaves with them. It also makes the site quicker, because every app is more code on every page.
Ask us to look at your app stack “We need Shopify to do something it flatly won't do.”Custom checkout logic, wholesale and trade pricing, awkward variant rules, tools your warehouse team will use. This is most of what people ring us about.
Tell us what it needs to do “The theme looks fine, but it wasn't built for how we sell.”Most themes are built to look good in a demo. Fashion in particular breaks them: size and colour variants, returns rates, huge image weight, and most of your customers on a phone on the train.
Themes built for fashion brandsWhat we built for Motel Rocks
A fashion brand with several Shopify stores and Oracle NetSuite behind them. Here is the whole job, start to finish.
Motel Rocks sell fashion internationally across several Shopify storefronts. Oracle NetSuite ran the money and the operation. Shopify ran the shops. In between sat a growing pile of people doing things by hand, because the two barely spoke to each other.
That's a normal sort of mess and it's survivable at low volume. What makes it expensive is growth. Orders, stock, pricing and inventory existed in both systems, and the bridge between them was somebody re-keying it. US returns came in through Loop. UK returns came in through Swap. Neither fed into NetSuite, so every return got processed twice, once properly and once into a system. Wholesale pack pricing and trade collections were a manual job with no tooling. Purchase orders to their 3PLs, Alaiko and Rydership, were tracked by hoping. TikTok was a real sales channel with no stock integration at all.
We could have patched each of those in turn. We didn't, because you end up with nine brittle connections and no idea which one broke at 4am. Instead we built one integration layer between Shopify and NetSuite and hung everything off it: a real-time two-way sync of orders, inventory, pricing and stock, then the modules the business needed — both returns platforms wired into NetSuite, a proper wholesale and B2B pricing module, the two 3PLs with automated status tracking and exception alerts, TikTok as a real channel, bulk editing tools for multi-market catalogues, and custom staff apps built around what the warehouse and returns teams do all day rather than what a generic interface offers them.
New channels can now be added to that layer without rebuilding everything, and nobody has to watch it to make sure it is working. That was the point of the job.
Custom ERP integration for a high-volume fashion brand
Thousands of orders processed automatically, with stock and fulfilment data that stays accurate all the way through.
Read itShopify to FreeAgent, with no double-entry left
The hard part wasn't syncing orders. It was making the totals match FreeAgent's own rules exactly, down to the penny.
Read itMoving off a platform without losing the things that matter
Rankings, redirects and order history are what go wrong when a migration is done badly. Here's how we keep you trading through it.
How it worksWhat our clients say
19 clients. A few of their words.
A well-rounded team, ensuring a full suite of expertise & resource is always available. CDS Global have seen the successful completion of major projects over the years where Dev Partners' ability to grasp the underlying business needs to provide a future-proof solution has been invaluable.
We have worked with Jason & his team to develop our Shopify store, and the experience was outstanding from start to finish. The design is clean, modern, and perfectly aligned with our brand identity, while the build is fast, responsive, and easy to manage on the backend. They clearly understood our vision and delivered a store we're genuinely proud of. Highly recommend to any brand looking for a top-quality Shopify partner.
After ongoing issues and delays with our previous developers, we brought in Rob & Jason at Dev Partners to take over all our websites and bespoke software. What a breath of fresh air, fully focused, excellent pre-launch designs and clear communication throughout. Highly recommended.
BPC Energy Ltd turned to Dev Partners for a complete turnkey solution, and they exceeded our expectations. The team handled everything from project management to development and support with real care and attention. They understood what we were aiming for, stayed on top of every detail, and always delivered on schedule with excellent quality.
Working with Dev Partners to redesign and modernise our WMS system: the whole process has been thoroughly professional from the outset and a delight to work with. Cannot recommend enough.
Great agency. Have used Dev Partners for several years and they have built 20+ sites for us, in addition to taking on our legacy websites, upgrading and maintaining. Easy to work with and some great practical ideas to improve our digital offerings.
Jones Hire have been working with Dev Partners on several projects, which have been very successful. They linked our catering database to a new improved website so clients can easily place and update orders, created a custom warehouse picking app to fulfil all our challenging requirements, and are currently developing a custom transport app to streamline our loading and delivery process.
We have been trying to reinvent our website for over 5 years, trying to make it convert and failing each time. Spoke to Rob at Dev Partners, the team helped create our new site and the improvement was instant.
We have been working with Rob and the team for about 10 years now. Dev Partners helped us build a completely bespoke CRM from scratch which manages our daily business and is always well maintained. We have been able to use the system and roll it out in our new franchise branches.
We collaborated with Dev Partners on the front end of a fairly complex telemarketing platform. Rob and Jason took the time to properly understand the moving parts, asked the right questions, and delivered a clean, intuitive interface that's made the system far easier for our team to use.
I have been working with the team at Dev Partners for the last 3 years and we have always been impressed with the speed in which they act on things for us, along with the honest open communication. The team are a valuable and vital part of our supply chain.
We've had a program for our business in the electronic security sector that Dev Partners developed and keep up to date. They've never let us down, always there when needed. Thanks Rob and the team.
Dev Partners have been working with us for just over 2 years. They have significantly upgraded and redesigned our existing web platforms, and always deliver a first class service.
Dev Partners helped us build an event website. The team were very knowledgeable, easy to work with and quick to deliver a high quality product.
Working with Dev Partners has been an exceptional experience. Their team is highly skilled, professional, and committed to delivering results. What truly sets them apart is their communication and transparency; we always felt informed, supported, and confident.
We've worked with Dev Partners a few times to support us on bespoke web build tasks. They're very easy to work with, approachable, and explain the detail in a way that's understandable. A great partner for technical issues at sensible prices.
Excellent customer service backed up with solid experience. As a media business we have had five websites built by Dev Partners. I would certainly recommend them.
Found Dev Partners and they were great, nothing too much trouble. They managed to help us with integrating our old existing system with Shopify.
I've worked with Rob and his team off and on for many years and have always found them to be professional, knowledgeable, and best of all, they listen to their clients and deliver what is required.
We have worked with Dev Partners for 7 years and can highly recommend them for their expertise and excellent customer service.
Most of our work is one of these four things
Roughly in order of how often people ask. We do other things as well, but this is where most of the work is.
1. Getting Shopify talking to everything else
Your stock system, your ERP, your accounts package, your 3PL, your marketplaces. This is the majority of our work and the thing we're best at. NetSuite, Peoplevox, Unleashed, Brightpearl, Xero, FreeAgent, and a fair few you won't have heard of.
2. Moving you off a platform you've outgrown
Visualsoft, Magento, WooCommerce, or something bespoke that somebody built in 2014 and left. Products, customers and order history come across, redirects are done properly, and you keep trading while we do it.
3. Building the thing Shopify won't do
Custom themes, custom checkout, wholesale and trade pricing, private apps, staff tools. Built into the store rather than bolted on, which is usually cheaper to run and always quicker to load.
4. Making a slow shop fast
Diagnosis first, because guessing at performance is expensive. Then we take out what shouldn't be there, and rebuild the parts that should. Speed is a ranking factor and a conversion factor, so it pays for itself twice.
What actually happens if you get in touch
Four stages, no account managers in any of them, and what each one costs you in time.
A proper conversation
Usually about an hour, on the phone or in person if you're nearby. We ask a lot of questions about how orders get out of the door, because that is where the problems live. We don't write proposals before we understand the job, and we'll say so if we think you don't need us.
What we need from you: an hour, and somebody who knows how the business runs day to day, not just how it is supposed to.
A written plan and a fixed price
What we'd build, in what order, what it costs and how long it takes. In writing, before anybody starts. If the honest answer is “do this cheaper thing first and call us in a year”, that's what it'll say.
What we need from you: access to have a look at what you've got, and a straight answer on budget so we're not designing something you can't buy.
The build
Written here in the UK, by us. Nothing subcontracted, nothing offshore, nobody junior handed a brief they weren't in the room for. You'll see it as it goes, not at the end.
What we need from you: one person who can make decisions, and a bit of their time each week. Projects slow down for one reason, and it's usually waiting on an answer.
Launch, and after
We handle the rollout and train your team on anything new. Then we're still here. Most of our clients are still our clients, some since 2008. It does mean the person who fixes it in 2029 is the person who built it.
What we need from you: nothing, until something changes. Then a phone call.
What it costs
We used to put a price on this page. We took it down, because every number we wrote was wrong for somebody. A migration with four hundred products and no integrations is a different animal to one with forty thousand and a NetSuite on the end, and pretending otherwise just wastes an afternoon for both of us.
What we can tell you is what moves the number: how big and how messy your catalogue is, how many other systems have to be involved, how much of the design is genuinely custom versus close enough to something that exists, and whether your current data is in a fit state to move. That last one catches people out more than anything else.
What we won't do is quote you before we understand the job, or start work on a “rough idea” and send you a bigger bill later. You get a fixed price in writing first. If it's more than you wanted to spend, say so and we'll tell you honestly whether there's a smaller version worth doing.
You probably don't need us if…
- You want the cheapest quote. We won't be it, and we'd rather tell you now than in week three.
- You need it live in a fortnight. We'd have to rush it, and rushed is how stores end up in the state yours might be in.
- You want a small theme tweak or a bit of CSS moved. Genuinely, find a good freelancer. It'll cost you a tenth of what we'd have to charge.
- You're after someone to take it away and never mention it again. We ask a lot of questions. Some people find that annoying.
We're probably a good fit if…
- Shopify is doing the shop bit fine, and everything behind it is held together by a person and a spreadsheet.
- You've outgrown what themes and apps can do, and the app bill has started to look silly.
- You're moving off a platform you're stuck on and you're mostly worried about rankings and order history.
- You'd rather deal with the two people building it than an account manager who relays your questions to someone else.
- You want this to still be working, and still be supported, in five years.
Common questions
What comes up on the first phone call, roughly in the order it comes up.
So what's going wrong?
Tell us what's not working. We'll tell you straight whether we can help, and whether it's worth doing.
You don't need a spec. You don't need to know what the solution is — that's our job. “Our stock is always wrong and I don't know why” is a perfectly good place to start, and it's how most of our projects begin.
If we're not the right people, we'll say so, and we'll usually know somebody who is.
Rather talk than type?
Mon to Fri, 9am to 5:30pm. One of us picks it up.
Email gets answered within a working day, usually the same one.
Tell us what's going wrong
No pitch, no pressure, no follow-up nagging.
