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Fashion ecommerce

Shopify and back-office systems for fashion brands

Fashion isn't like other retail. High SKU counts, size and colour variants, seasonal stock, returns pushing 30 percent, 3PLs and influencer spikes. Generic setups buckle under it. Over the years we've worked with AX Paris, Motel Rocks and Chi Chi London, and it's where a lot of our deepest work sits.

Talk to Rob and Jaseor ring 01474 639 089

You'll be talking to one of us, not a salesperson.

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Where fashion operations break

  • Stock chaos

    Overselling, underselling, and figures that don't match across warehouse, store and back office. Size and colour variants make it worse.

  • Returns eating your margin

    At 30 to 40 percent returns, the customer contact, restocking and credits swamp the team.

  • A 3PL that's disconnected

    Your 3PL processes orders, but the data stays in their system.

  • Traffic spikes

    One influencer post can send thousands of people to a product in minutes, and slow stock sync means overselling.

  • ERP and Shopify not talking

    Orders, stock and financial data re-entered or reconciled by spreadsheet.

  • Things Shopify wasn't built for

    Pre-orders, wholesale alongside retail, bundles with component stock. Apps get you most of the way.

What we've built

Motel Rocks

Shopify and Oracle NetSuite, with Alaiko and Rydership, TikTok Shop and custom staff tools.

AX Paris

A custom back office handling thousands of orders, with picking and despatch built for their warehouse.

Shirtsleeves

From Visualsoft to Shopify: 9,600 sizes and colours, about 28,000 customers and their store credit moved safely.

Three jobs that show what we mean

Motel Rocks sell across the UK, the US and beyond from several Shopify stores, with Oracle NetSuite running finance and operations. US returns came through Loop, UK returns through Swap, and neither reached NetSuite by itself. We built one layer between Shopify and NetSuite and hung everything else off it, rather than a dozen fragile connectors.

AX Paris looked at off-the-shelf ERP and dismissed it. Picklists were written by hand and buying decisions were being made on old stock data. We spent time with the team going through every workflow, then built the system to follow how they work. It had to stay quick during flash sales and seasonal peaks, because those don't come with a warning.

Shirtsleeves is an independent boutique that wanted to leave Visualsoft. The risk was in the detail: thousands of size and colour variations, each needing a SKU their TRIMS system recognised, and customers who expected their accounts and store credit to still be there. The website and the physical shop both carried on trading.

Returns are half the job

Most software treats a return as an exception. In fashion it's a daily flow, and at 30 percent or more it can take as much work as sending things out. So we build that path with the same care as the outbound one: customer portal, authorisation, carrier label, goods-in, a decision on condition, then back on sale or into quarantine, and the credit or refund.

The sooner returned stock is back on sale, the sooner you can sell it again. That's real money in a seasonal range, and it's why stock should update as things happen rather than at the end of the day.

What we do for fashion brands

  • ERP integration

    Shopify with NetSuite, Sage or your existing back office.

  • 3PL and fulfilment

    Despatch, stock movement, returns and tracking in step with your logistics partner.

  • Returns automation

    Customer portal, authorisation, labels, restocking and credits, built around your policy.

  • Warehouse tools

    Pick lists, despatch notes, barcode scanning and courier handoff, or Peoplevox if you run it.

  • Custom Shopify work

    Size guides, variant display, colour swatches, bundles and anything a theme can't do. We build shops too.

  • Wholesale and B2B

    Trade pricing, minimum orders and account access running beside your consumer store.

  • Multi-channel

    TikTok Shop, Instagram, Amazon, eBay and others, with stock and orders in one place.

  • Platform migrations

    From Magento, Visualsoft or WooCommerce, with variants and redirects handled and you trading throughout.

  • Performance

    Fast stores that cope with heavy photography and sudden traffic.

When the 3PL sits in the middle

A lot of fashion brands hand fulfilment to a 3PL and then lose sight of the data. A proper integration covers outbound orders, inbound stock updates, fulfilment status, returns receipt and carrier tracking back into Shopify. Exactly how much depends on what your 3PL's system can expose and what your operation needs.

Designed for the edges.

Fashion breaks generic ecommerce software faster than almost anything: variants, returns, drops, seasonal spikes. We've built for fashion brands long enough to know where the edges are, so we design for them up front rather than patching after the first big sale day.

Questions fashion brands ask us

  • We're already on Shopify. Do we have to start again?

    Almost never, and improving what you have is the most common starting point. We look at your setup first and work out what's worth keeping. There's rarely a good reason to throw away a working store.

  • We have huge size and colour ranges. Can you handle them?

    Yes. Depending on the range, we restructure the catalogue, extend variant data with metafields, or build custom product display and add-to-cart logic on top, so the customer sees something simple and your team can still manage it.

  • Our 3PL has no Shopify integration. Can you build one?

    If they have an API, yes. If they use flat files or SFTP, we can build around that too. We've worked with Alaiko and Rydership among others, and the job is the same: map the data flows, handle the error states, and keep it working when either side updates.

  • What does a NetSuite integration involve for a fashion brand?

    Orders, stock, customers, financial data and returns, as we did for Motel Rocks. The complexity comes from variants, because NetSuite handles SKUs differently from Shopify, from return volumes, and from holding warehouse stock alongside 3PL stock.

  • We're leaving Visualsoft. Where do we start?

    With our Visualsoft to Shopify guide, which covers what moves, what doesn't and how to keep your rankings.

  • Do you only work with big brands?

    No. AX Paris and Motel Rocks are big operations, and Shirtsleeves is an independent boutique. What matters is whether your setup has outgrown what you're doing now.

We have worked with Jason and his team to develop our Shopify store, and the experience was outstanding from start to finish.
AX Paris
Photos of Rob and Jason, who run Dev Partners

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Rob on the left, Jase on the right. No sales team and no account managers. One of us is on every job, from the first chat to long after it goes live, and the people writing your code sit in the same small team.

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