You're a Rails shop — why should I trust you with Shopify?

Because we build where the job is, and for a lot of retail and DTC commerce that's Shopify — a supported platform with a checkout that converts and an admin your team already knows. We bring the same engineering standard we put into our Rails products: product data modeled with metafields, the commerce flows you actually run built as maintainable components, and a real CI quality gate. Mountain Gap Coffee is exactly this work, live in production.

Why not just buy something off the shelf?

An off-the-shelf store fits until it doesn't — until your products have detail it can't show, or you sell to a buyer type it doesn't understand, and every fix means overriding code you didn't write. We build the parts that matter as purpose-built components on Shopify's supported upgrade path, so the store fits how you sell instead of drifting off the path Shopify supports.

Will my team be able to run the store, or do we call a developer for every change?

You run it. We model products with metafields so the storefront reads your data — your team edits products in the Shopify admin and the pages update themselves. It's built to be maintained, not to trap you.

Can you handle wholesale, subscriptions, or made-to-order?

Yes. Mountain Gap sells both retail and wholesale and ships roast-to-order — we built a wholesale acquisition path and a reversible store-pause flow for fresh-roast fulfillment, without paying up to a higher Shopify plan. Retail, B2B routing, subscriptions, and pre-order / made-to-order patterns are all in scope; we shape the exact set during Discovery.

What if I actually need custom software, not a store?

Then we'd tell you — and build it on Rails. Shopify is the right tool for storefront commerce; when the job is a multi-tenant platform, an internal tool, or a product with real accounts and integrations behind it, that's Custom Rails Platforms or a Launch Sprint. The Diagnostic is the low-risk way to figure out which one you actually need.

Custom Shopify Development

Custom Shopify development by the engineers who build our own products — a storefront shaped around what you actually sell, run by the people who sell it.

Custom Shopify Development is engineered e-commerce on Shopify: product data modeled to fit what you actually sell, the commerce flows your business runs on — retail, wholesale/B2B, subscriptions, made-to-order — and the integrations behind them, built by the same engineers who ship our own products. It's for merchants who've outgrown a store that half-fits and the fight that comes with it, and who want commerce built to be run by the people selling, not by a developer every time a detail changes. Rails is our default for software that has to run for years; when the right tool for the job is Shopify, we build there too — same team, same engineering standard, and a real CI quality gate on the storefront.

What problem does this solve?

An off-the-shelf Shopify store fits the way an off-the-rack suit fits a specific body: close enough until it isn't. Your products have detail the store has nowhere to put. You sell to two kinds of buyer — retail and wholesale — and the store only understands one. Every change means overriding code you didn't write until upgrades break and nobody's sure what's safe to touch. The usual answers make it worse: stack on apps until the store is slow and rented, or go fully headless and take on a whole engineering project you didn't want. What you need is commerce shaped around how you actually sell — one your team runs by editing products, not code — without leaving the platform Shopify supports.

How we approach it

1. Start from what you sell and who you sell to — the product detail, the buyer types, the fulfillment reality — not a template's assumptions. 2. Model your products with metafields, so the storefront reads your data and your team edits products, never the code. 3. Build the commerce that matters — merchandising, collections, wholesale/B2B, subscriptions, made-to-order — as maintainable, purpose-built storefront components, on Shopify's supported Online Store 2.0 upgrade path rather than a pile of overrides or a headless rebuild. 4. Wire the integrations the business actually needs, kept scoped instead of stacked. 5. Keep structured data (JSON-LD) synced to the on-page copy, for search and AI-answer visibility. 6. Hold the storefront to real engineering discipline — code checks, formatting, and an automated quality gate in CI on every push.

What you get

- Metafield-driven product pages that fit what you sell — spec detail rendered from your data, every row guarded so unlike products degrade cleanly - The commerce flows your business runs on — retail, wholesale/B2B routing, subscriptions, pre-order and made-to-order patterns as needed - Collection and filtering experiences built for how buyers actually shop - Purpose-built storefront components — merchandising, brand, and content — engineered on Shopify's supported upgrade path, not bolted on - The integrations your commerce depends on, scoped to what the business needs - Structured data across the store (Product, FAQPage, HowTo, Organization, BreadcrumbList JSON-LD) kept verbatim-synced to on-page copy - Content architecture — story, education, and FAQ pages on real, editable sections - An automated quality gate in CI on every push — code checks and formatting, no build step to rot, vanilla JS loaded only where a component needs it - A store your team runs by editing products, and that stays on Shopify's supported upgrade path

How long does it take?

Starts with Discovery & Scoping to shape the store around how you sell, then a fixed-scope build. The exact timeline is set during Discovery — fixed scope, not an open-ended hourly meter.

A store built for what you sell

Most Shopify stores start with something off the shelf, and most of the work after that is fighting it — overriding code you didn't write to force in a product detail or a buyer type the store never planned for. It works until an upgrade breaks it, and then nobody's sure what's safe to touch.

Custom Shopify Development is the other approach: your product data modeled to fit what you actually sell, the commerce flows your business runs on built as real, maintainable components, and a storefront your team runs by editing products instead of calling a developer.

Rails is our default. This is us fitting the tool to the job.

Octane is a Rails-first shop — it's what we build our own products on and what we reach for first, because after years with it, it's usually the fastest path to software that lasts. But the starting point is your problem, not our framework. For a lot of retail and DTC commerce, Shopify is genuinely the right tool: a supported platform, a checkout that converts, an admin your team already knows. When that's the fit, we build there — and we bring the same engineering standard we put into the Rails work.

Proof we can point at

Mountain Gap Coffee is a specialty roaster that sells retail bags to drinkers and wholesale coffee to cafés and grocers — two jobs an off-the-shelf store handles badly. We built it a coffee-specific storefront: product pages driven entirely by metafields (origin, process, roast, tasting notes), rendered row by row and guarded so a rich single-origin shows a full spec table while a gift card shows nothing. Format chips derive from variant titles, not hand entry. A roast-to-order flow represents freshness honestly and pauses ordering around the roast schedule without breaking the store. Wholesale buyers get a real path in — a dedicated landing page and FAQ — without paying up to a higher Shopify plan for native B2B tooling.

And we held it to real engineering discipline: code checks, formatting, and an automated quality gate run on every push through CI, with no build step to rot and structured data kept synced to the visible copy. It's live at mountaingap.coffee — a store built for coffee, not stretched to fit it.

How the engagement runs

We start with Discovery & Scoping — a focused pass that shapes the store around how you actually sell and turns it into a scoped build, so nobody signs a blank check. From there it's a fixed-scope build on Shopify's supported upgrade path, shipped so your team can run it. Pricing is set against the scope we agree on in Discovery — not an open-ended hourly meter.

Frequently asked questions

You're a Rails shop — why should I trust you with Shopify?: Because we build where the job is, and for a lot of retail and DTC commerce that's Shopify — a supported platform with a checkout that converts and an admin your team already knows. We bring the same engineering standard we put into our Rails products: product data modeled with metafields, the commerce flows you actually run built as maintainable components, and a real CI quality gate. Mountain Gap Coffee is exactly this work, live in production.
Why not just buy something off the shelf?: An off-the-shelf store fits until it doesn't — until your products have detail it can't show, or you sell to a buyer type it doesn't understand, and every fix means overriding code you didn't write. We build the parts that matter as purpose-built components on Shopify's supported upgrade path, so the store fits how you sell instead of drifting off the path Shopify supports.
Will my team be able to run the store, or do we call a developer for every change?: You run it. We model products with metafields so the storefront reads your data — your team edits products in the Shopify admin and the pages update themselves. It's built to be maintained, not to trap you.
Can you handle wholesale, subscriptions, or made-to-order?: Yes. Mountain Gap sells both retail and wholesale and ships roast-to-order — we built a wholesale acquisition path and a reversible store-pause flow for fresh-roast fulfillment, without paying up to a higher Shopify plan. Retail, B2B routing, subscriptions, and pre-order / made-to-order patterns are all in scope; we shape the exact set during Discovery.
What if I actually need custom software, not a store?: Then we'd tell you — and build it on Rails. Shopify is the right tool for storefront commerce; when the job is a multi-tenant platform, an internal tool, or a product with real accounts and integrations behind it, that's Custom Rails Platforms or a Launch Sprint. The Diagnostic is the low-risk way to figure out which one you actually need.

Related work

Mountain Gap Coffee: A Hand-Built Shopify Theme for a Roast-to-Order Coffee Company

A custom-built Shopify storefront for a specialty coffee roaster — a heavily reworked Dawn theme with metafield-driven coffee product pages, a roast-to-order fulfillment flow, a wholesale acquisition funnel, and structured data throughout, shipped with zero build step and theme-quality checks enforced in CI.

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