Shopify for founders, designed not assembled.

1. The default-theme trap

Dawn, Sense, Refresh — they are good engineering and bad branding. They make every store look like the same store. The fix is not a paid theme; it is a custom section library on top of Online Store 2.0 that follows your type system, your grid, your accent.

Practical move: ship five custom sections — hero, editorial split, product feature, lookbook grid, FAQ — and refuse the rest. Five well-set sections beat fifty generic ones.

2. Treat the product page as a spread

The product page is the only page that has to sell. Design it as a magazine spread: one decisive image, one decisive headline, one decisive CTA. Push specs, shipping, returns into accordions and let the photography breathe.

Reserve a single accent color for Add to Bag. If everything is loud, nothing is.

3. The cart is the closing argument

A drawer cart is the last chance to feel premium. Set the type at the same scale as the rest of the site, keep the upsell honest, and remove the badges, timers and stickers. A calm cart converts; a noisy cart abandons.

4. Performance is design

On Shopify, every app is a script. Audit the third-party stack monthly and drop anything that does not justify its weight. A storefront that loads in under one second on a real phone outperforms any redesign.