Most agencies look the same on the surface: clean portfolio, reasonable rates, confident pitch deck. The differences only show up later — in how they handle edge cases, how they think about UX, and whether they understand your business or just your brief.
If you’re already comparing agencies, you’re past the inspiration stage. This guide focuses on the questions that actually separate strong partners from average ones — using real project examples to show what good execution looks like.
Q1 — Does Their Portfolio Match Your Industry?
A relevant portfolio isn’t about aesthetics. It’s about whether the agency has solved problems similar to yours.
Different DTC categories have fundamentally different UX requirements. A fashion brand is built around visual storytelling. A subscription product needs a completely different purchasing flow. A high-consideration purchase (like custom furniture or bridal wear) requires a browsing and decision experience that standard eCommerce templates simply don’t support.
What to actually check:
- Is the project similar in complexity to yours?
- Does it reflect a comparable buying journey?
- Can you see specific UX decisions, not just visual polish?
From real Split Development projects:
Peta Jane — splitdev.com/projects/peta-jane/ — A fashion-focused Shopify store where product presentation and brand identity do the heavy lifting. The UX is built around imagery and discovery, not just conversion.
Bridal Gallery — splitdev.com/projects/shopify-bridal-gallery/ — A high-consideration purchase store with appointment-related flows. Standard browsing patterns don’t apply here. The experience had to be designed around how people actually shop for wedding dresses.
Jack & Friends Jerky — splitdev.com/projects/portfolio-jack-and-friends-jerky-shopify-development/ — Subscription-based purchasing with product bundles. The store structure had to support repeat orders, not just one-time transactions.
When reviewing any portfolio, focus on the decisions you can see: how products are surfaced, how navigation works, how frictionless the path to purchase is. That tells you more than the color palette.
Q2 — Do They Design First or Develop First?
This question reveals a lot about how an agency actually operates.
Some teams jump straight into development using existing themes. It’s faster and cheaper upfront, but it means UX decisions get made during build — not before it. Others start with structured design: defining layout, hierarchy, and user flow before a single line of code gets written.
Why design-first matters:
Design isn’t decoration. It defines what users see first, how they understand your product, and how easily they can take action. According to Nielsen Norman Group, users form an impression of a website in milliseconds — that impression directly affects trust and the likelihood of conversion.
A design-first approach:
- Structures the experience before development begins
- Reduces expensive revisions later in the project
- Makes UX decisions intentional rather than reactive
In practice, this shows up as clearly structured product pages, consistent layouts across the site, and a user flow that feels logical rather than accidental.
Q3 — Custom Build or Theme Customization?
This is one of the most misunderstood decisions when choosing a Shopify partner. The real question isn’t which option is better — it’s whether the agency can clearly explain why they’d choose one over the other for your specific project.
Here’s a straightforward breakdown:
- Themes: faster to launch, lower cost, works well for standard eCommerce flows
- Custom builds: more flexibility, better scalability, required when your UX goes beyond what themes can support
According to Shopify, themes are designed for general use cases. More complex projects — like Bridal Gallery, where user interaction goes beyond standard product browsing — need custom work to support specific flows and interactions.
A good agency will explain the trade-offs clearly, match the solution to your business model, and push back if you’re asking for custom work that a well-configured theme could handle just as well.
Q4 — How Do They Balance UX and Aesthetics?
It’s easy to be dazzled by beautiful visuals. But performance comes from usability.
The strongest Shopify agencies treat design and UX as inseparable. Visuals support the experience — they don’t replace it. Baymard Institute research consistently shows that usability issues are one of the leading causes of cart abandonment. A store can look stunning and still lose customers at checkout because the flow is confusing.
What to look for:
- Is navigation clear and intuitive?
- Are product pages structured for readability, not just beauty?
- Is the path from product discovery to checkout genuinely frictionless?
Looking at the Split Development portfolio:
Peta Jane: Strong visuals are supported by a structured layout. The aesthetics serve the UX, not the other way around.
Jack & Friends Jerky: Product and bundle presentation is aligned with how repeat customers think about purchasing. The design reflects the buying behavior.
Q5 — What Does the Handoff Process Look Like?
Even strong design can fall apart without a structured handoff. This is where a lot of projects quietly go wrong.
Ask specifically:
- How is design documented before development begins?
- How do developers receive and interpret specifications?
- How is QA handled before delivery?
Google Web best practices consistently highlight that structured workflows reduce the gap between design intent and final build. In practice, this means fewer bugs, more accurate execution, and a more predictable delivery timeline.
If an agency can’t clearly answer these questions, that’s a signal that their process is less structured than you need it to be.
Q6 — Do They Have Relevant Niche Experience?
General Shopify expertise is a baseline, not a differentiator. The question is whether the agency has worked in contexts similar to yours.
A team that has built subscription-based stores thinks about product presentation differently. A team experienced in high-consideration purchases knows that the browsing and decision flow matters as much as the cart. A team that has built fashion-forward brands understands when visuals need to carry the experience.
From the Split Development portfolio, these differences are visible in the work:
- Jack & Friends Jerky: subscription logic shapes how products and bundles are structured
- Bridal Gallery: the decision flow is built around how people shop for a wedding, not how they shop for a t-shirt
- Peta Jane: branding and visual consistency are load-bearing parts of the UX, not afterthoughts
These are meaningful differences. They affect layout decisions, product hierarchy, and ultimately conversion performance.
A Practical Checklist Before You Sign
Before committing to a Shopify agency, make sure you can answer yes to all of these:
- Does their portfolio include projects similar in complexity or buying journey to mine?
- Can they clearly articulate their design-to-development process?
- Do they justify technical decisions, or just present options?
- Do their projects show strong UX, not just strong visuals?
- Is their handoff and QA workflow structured and transparent?
If the answer to any of these is unclear, keep asking. The right agency will have clear answers.
Working with a Shopify Agency That Treats the Platform as a System
The difference between an average build and a high-performing store usually comes down to process: how an agency thinks about UX, structures their workflow, and makes decisions under constraints.If you’re evaluating partners and want to understand how Split Development approaches Shopify projects, explore our Shopify agency services built specifically for DTC brands.
