3 Shopify stores built from scratch

The situation

Three brands. Three different products. Air purifiers, anti-vibration mounts, reading lights, and industrial lights. All sitting on a custom Ruby on Rails platform that was becoming a headache.

The old system worked. But it was slow to update. Expensive to maintain. And every small change needed developer time we didn't have.

We needed to move fast. The business couldn't afford a six-month migration project.

What I did

I built all three Shopify stores from scratch.

For some, I amended the Dawn theme to fit the brand. For others, I used off-the-shelf themes that did the job without overcomplicating things.

The migration from Ruby on Rails was the trickiest part. Products, customers, order history. It all needed to come across cleanly. I mapped out the data, planned the cutover, and executed it without losing a single order.

No Shopify Plus. No checkout customisation. Just solid, standard Shopify stores that the team could actually manage themselves.

What made it work

Speed was everything. Done is better than perfect.

Every decision came down to one question: does this help us launch faster?

Custom theme tweaks where they mattered. Off-the-shelf solutions where they didn't. No endless design debates. No feature creep.

The team could update products, change prices, and run promotions without waiting for a developer. That was the real win.

Results

Three functioning Shopify stores. All built from scratch. All migrated from a legacy platform that was holding the business back.

The team now has stores they can manage independently. Updates happen in minutes, not days. And when something needs to change, it actually changes.

Build it properly. Launch it quickly. Move on.