# Headless Shopify agency > We build custom headless Shopify storefronts on Next.js. Configurators, custom buying journeys, sub-second product pages, and the conversion that comes with them. **Updated:** 2026-08-25 --- ## Commerce experiences worth building headless ### Configurators, build-your-own-bag flows, custom buying journeys, and editorial pages your marketers control. The things that make a brand feel premium and a store convert. We build the storefront on Next.js and let Shopify do what it's great at: products, inventory, cart, and checkout. You get a site that loads fast, ranks, and can do whatever the brief asks for. Companies of all sizes trust Roboto Studio What you can build headless Configurators, build-your-own-bag flows, made-to-order steps, lookbooks, and multi-step buying journeys. The kind of thing premium brands ship to make buying feel like part of the product. On a custom Next.js frontend that's just another component to build. Campaign pages, editorial, structured product narratives, and navigation all live in a CMS your marketers edit directly. They ship pages without a developer ticket, and Shopify keeps handling products and checkout. Server rendering, image optimisation, and a Vercel edge network in front of every page. Sub-second product pages and listings at scale, including catalogues in the thousands. The result is Core Web Vitals you actually pass. A theme hands every product the same buy button. Most premium catalogues need more than that: the same fireplace surround can be a made-to-order commission for one customer and an in-stock purchase for the next. On a headless storefront the click decides the journey. An enquiry lands in your CRM (Salesforce or whatever you run) with the configured spec attached, ready for your sales team to quote, and a purchase goes straight through Shopify checkout. The journeys themselves are where headless earns its keep. A product configurator that reprices as the customer picks materials and sizes. A bundle builder that nudges order value up as the box fills. Deposits and lead times for made-to-order pieces. On a theme, each of those is an app subscription and a compromise. On Next.js they're components we design around your products, with Shopify still running cart, payment, and fulfilment underneath. Moving off Magento, WooCommerce, or an ageing theme store takes more than a storefront redesign. We run the whole migration as a service: catalogue, customers, orders, and URLs all land on a new Shopify instance, with a purpose-built headless storefront on Next.js in front of it. The step most teams underestimate is the 301 redirect map. We build it before launch so every old URL re-points to its new home, and the rankings you've spent years earning hold through the cutover. Teams arrive in one of two lanes, and both feed the same roadmap. Some want a new build: a brand-led storefront from the ground up on Turbo Start Shopify, with the custom functionality your roadmap needs and a content setup your marketing team owns. Others are already on Shopify and need a storefront replatform: we rebuild the frontend on Next.js for Core Web Vitals and conversion while the commerce backend stays exactly where it is. The only real difference between the lanes is whether your commerce data moves with you. If you're comparing Shopify migration agencies, ask each one to walk you through their redirect plan before anything else. Ours ships on launch day, and we watch Search Console through the cutover until the numbers settle. And if it's your content platform that needs to move rather than your store, that's our [CMS migration service](/services/cms-migration). Most Shopify speed optimisation stops at compressing images and pruning apps, and the gains erode as soon as the next script lands. The theme itself sets the ceiling: app scripts, render-blocking assets, and a checkout you can't fully tune. A headless frontend on Next.js removes that ceiling. We server-render the pages that matter, defer the rest, and serve everything from the edge. Faster pages convert better and rank better. Before we start, we benchmark your Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, and CLS) alongside the key buying journeys, then measure the same numbers after launch, so the speed and conversion gains are something you can see rather than take on faith. If your current Shopify storefront feels slow, we'll tell you exactly what's dragging it down before you commit to anything. My best experience with a consulting company. The results were delivered faster than expected and with top quality. Jono ensured I understood the process and suggested a great approach. Both execution and communication were flawless. Shopify builds we've shipped Every build starts from Turbo Start Shopify, the open-source headless commerce starter we maintain. Next.js 16 for the frontend, the Shopify Storefront API for products, collections, cart, and checkout, and Sanity as the editorial layer for pages, blog, navigation, and SEO. Vercel handles hosting, edge caching, image optimisation, and observability. None of it is exotic. It's the same stack we run in production for clients, type-safe from the database to the page, and you can read every line of it [on GitHub](https://github.com/robotostudio/turbo-start-shopify?utm_source=roboto_studio_website) before you hire us. ## Thinking about headless Shopify? The ones we get asked the most ### What is headless Shopify? Shopify still runs the store: products, inventory, cart, checkout, customers, and fulfilment. Next.js renders the storefront, and the two talk over the Shopify Storefront API. Customers see a custom site backed by Shopify, and your team edits content in a CMS instead of theme code. Our [guide to headless Shopify](/blog/shopify-headless-guide) walks through the costs, the tradeoffs, and when a vanilla theme is the smarter call. ### Can you build custom functionality like a build-your-own-bag configurator? Yes, and it's the main reason to go headless. Configurators, made-to-order flows, product personalisation, lookbooks, and multi-step buying journeys are all just components in a Next.js app. If a premium brand has a storefront experience that feels genuinely bespoke, it's almost certainly headless. ### We're already on Shopify. Is replatforming the storefront worth it? A replatform earns its keep when page speed is hurting conversion, when the marketing team is stuck waiting on developers, or when the design you want won't fit the theme. If none of those apply yet, we'll say so. We benchmark your current Core Web Vitals first and give you an honest read before you commit to anything. ### Does this work on standard Shopify, or only Shopify Plus? Both. Headless works on standard Shopify. Plus adds checkout extensibility, multi-store, scripts, and higher API limits, which matter once volume or compliance demand them. Slingshot Bio runs on Plus, Jamb doesn't, and the build pattern is the same. ### What happens to SEO during a replatform? It's planned from day one. We map every URL before launch, ship redirects on launch day, wire internal links through CMS references rather than hardcoded slugs, and watch Search Console and Vercel through the cutover. Jamb's rebuild merged two legacy URL spaces and held its rankings. The [CMS migration service](/services/cms-migration) covers the mechanics in depth. ### What does a full Shopify migration service include? Everything that makes the store yours: the product catalogue, customer accounts, order history, and every URL. We move the data onto a new Shopify instance, build a purpose-built headless storefront on Next.js, ship a 301 redirect map so old URLs point at their new homes, and run the cutover with Search Console open. Your customers keep their accounts and your rankings hold. ### Can we keep our Shopify apps? Backend apps that touch inventory, orders, customers, fulfilment, or accounting stay. Frontend apps that inject scripts into a theme usually move into the Next.js codebase instead, which is faster and cheaper than paying for them every month. **Tell us what you're building.** A new headless storefront, the custom functionality your roadmap needs, or a Shopify store that's gone slow. We'll scope it honestly in a 20-minute call. If you'd rather look under the hood first, [Turbo Start Shopify](https://github.com/robotostudio/turbo-start-shopify?utm_source=roboto_studio_website) is the same starter we ship on production builds.