What Questions Should You Ask Before Approving a Shopify Store Build?

Approving a Shopify store build is one of the most critical checkpoints in your ecommerce journey. As a CTO, CIO, Product Manager, Startup Founder, or Digital Leader in the United States, you are responsible for ensuring that what your team or agency delivers is not just visually polished but technically sound, scalable, and aligned with business goals. Before you sign off, you must validate the structure, performance, integrations, and long term maintainability of the build. This guide shows you the exact questions to ask, why they matter, and how you can ensure the build you approve is ready for growth.

Why do the right questions determine the quality of a Shopify store build?

They determine quality because they help you uncover hidden issues, validate decisions, and ensure the build is engineered for performance, flexibility, and scalability. Many brands approve a visually appealing store only to discover slow load times, broken integrations, or fragile templates months later.

When you understand what to ask, you avoid costly rebuilds and ensure your store is technically reliable on day one. This is especially important for fast growing brands where every feature, integration, and performance choice impacts revenue and customer experience.

Have you verified whether the theme is custom built or adapted properly?

You must verify whether the theme is custom built, customized responsibly, or simply modified from a base theme. This directly influences performance, scalability, and long term maintainability.

A custom theme is not automatically better. The real question is whether the codebase follows best practices, uses modular components, and avoids unnecessary scripts. If the build relies heavily on hacks or unstructured code, future changes become riskier and more expensive.

Ask your agency to show:

• The theme’s folder structure

• Reusable section components

• Code standards followed

• How they minimized Liquid loops and scripts

These details reveal how well your store will hold up as you grow.

Did the build follow Shopify Online Store 2.0 best practices?

You confirm this by checking if the store uses flexible sections, JSON templates, and modern Shopify architecture. Shopify Online Store 2.0 provides better performance, easier customization, and lower dependency on apps.

A compliant build ensures:

• All templates support sections

• Metafields and metaobjects are used for dynamic content

• The theme can be edited by non technical teams

• You avoid rigid templates that require expensive changes later

If these best practices are not followed, your store will be harder to grow and maintain.

Is the storefront optimized for speed and performance?

You determine this by reviewing speed scores, checking script usage, and evaluating how assets load. A store might look beautiful but load slowly, and that directly affects conversions.

A well optimized build includes:

• Lazy loaded images

• Minified CSS and JavaScript

• Deferred non essential scripts

• Compressed assets

• Minimal third party scripts

Real world case studies show that reducing page load time by one second can increase conversions by 7 percent, which is why performance validation is essential.

Are apps used responsibly or excessively?

You evaluate this by checking whether your store relies on too many apps for simple functions. Too many apps slow down your store and create fragile dependencies.

Ask for:

• A list of installed apps

• What each app does

• Whether any can be replaced with native Shopify features

• Whether custom code or Shopify Functions could replace heavy apps

Many stores carry 20 to 40 apps, but a well architected build keeps only what is necessary.

Are all integrations implemented correctly and tested?

You confirm this by reviewing how your ERP, CRM, PIM, OMS, or marketing tools connect to Shopify. Poor integrations lead to mismatched inventory, wrong orders, or broken customer journeys.

Ask your team to demonstrate:

• Real time or batch sync timing

• Error handling flows

• API usage and limits

• Mapping for orders, customers, and product data

Brands often discover integration failures only after launch. Reviewing them before approval saves significant operational headaches.

Does the store have a scalable content and product structure?

You ensure scalability by reviewing how collections, tags, metafields, filters, and templates are structured. If your brand plans to grow into new product lines, regions, or merchandising strategies, your architecture must be ready.

Ask your agency:

• How they structured product types and tags

• Which metafields and metaobjects power content

• Whether collections can scale

• How filters are generated and maintained

A scalable structure helps teams manage the store without manual patchwork.

Is the UX aligned with conversion and accessibility standards?

You evaluate this by checking if the build uses standard UX patterns, easy navigation, clear CTAs, and accessibility compliance. A beautiful interface is not enough if the experience does not convert.

Confirm the following:

• ADA compliant color contrasts

• Keyboard navigability

• Mobile first design

• Clear product detail page blocks

• Streamlined checkout routes

High growth brands invest heavily in UX because it directly impacts revenue.

Has QA been performed thoroughly across devices and browsers?

You validate this by reviewing QA reports. A build might look perfect on one device and break on others.

Ask for testing results on:

• iOS and Android devices

• Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge

• Desktop breakpoints

• Checkout flows

• Forms, search, and navigation

A rigorous QA process prevents friction that could cost conversions.

Were SEO fundamentals implemented correctly in the build?

You confirm this by checking whether the store follows technical SEO best practices. Even the best designed store underperforms if search engines cannot crawl it properly.

Ask for validation of:

• H1, H2, and structured headings

• Clean URL structures

• Schema markup

• Alt tags on images

• Proper redirects and linking

• Lightweight scripts that do not interfere with indexing

Technical SEO implemented at launch saves you months of fixes later.

Are documentation and handover materials provided?

You need documentation so your internal teams can manage and scale the store without relying on your agency for every small change.

Ask for:

• Theme documentation

• Integration and workflow documentation

• Admin instructions for metafields and templates

• Version control access

• Deployment processes

A strong handover ensures your store remains operational, editable, and scalable.

What are the best practices before approving a Shopify store build?

• Request a detailed walkthrough of the theme and code

• Review speed optimization results

• Validate app usage and necessity

• Test all integrations thoroughly

• Confirm content and product scalability

• Ensure accessibility and conversion optimized UX

• Check QA reports across devices

• Validate technical SEO setup

• Demand complete documentation and version control access

What does the future of approving Shopify builds look like?

You will see increasing reliance on structured data, Shopify Functions, native automation, and AI driven performance optimization. As Shopify evolves, build quality becomes more dependent on architecture and less on visual design alone.

Expect future approvals to focus on:

• API stability

• Structured data frameworks

• Composable content blocks

• Zero script heavy apps

• Predictive UX analysis through AI

Founders who evaluate builds through a technical and strategic lens will outperform those who focus solely on aesthetics.

Key Takeaways

• Asking the right questions ensures your Shopify build is scalable and technically reliable.

• Theme quality, performance, integrations, and data structures are critical review areas.

• Lean app usage and strong QA prevent future risks.

• Documentation and process clarity ensure long term maintainability.

• A strategic approval process protects your investment and improves operational efficiency.

Conclusion

Approving a Shopify store build requires more than visual validation. You must evaluate architecture, performance, integrations, and long term readiness. When you ask the right questions, you ensure your brand launches with a strong, scalable foundation. Qodequay brings a design first and technology empowered approach, helping you build Shopify experiences that solve human challenges with technology acting as the enabler.