Shopify development agency for Canada

Where Canadian Shopify stores go wrong

Setup mistakes are rarely about design. They are about tax that is wrong for one province, shipping rates that lose money on a remote postal code, or a French storefront that is half translated. Each of these shows up as a support email or a lost order.

A merchant who sells to the US as well as Canada has a further issue: duties, currency and two sets of expectations. We map these before touching the theme.

Cross-border shoppers add one more wrinkle. A Canadian customer who buys from a US-based store often meets duties and brokerage fees on delivery, which makes a local Canadian store with clear delivered prices attractive. If you already ship from Canada, say so on the product page, because it answers a question buyers would otherwise leave to ask.

Our Canadian setup checklist

Interac support depends on the payment provider and your store's setup. We check what is available to you, and tell you plainly if a method is not.

English and French on Shopify

Shopify can publish a store in several languages, with language-specific URLs and hreflang added by the platform. The work is in the content: product titles, descriptions, policy pages, notification emails and size guides all need French that reads naturally for Quebec. Missing strings fall back to English, which looks careless to a Quebec shopper and may also fall short of Quebec's French-language rules for commercial sites. Check your obligations with your lawyer. For search, see Shopify SEO in Canada.

Theme, apps and speed

We start from a maintained theme and keep custom code small. Every app adds script weight, so each one has to earn its place. A typical project covers a theme customization, product and collection templates, a cart that shows shipping and tax clearly, and a handful of well-chosen apps for reviews, subscriptions or bundles. Our Shopify launch checklist lists the pre-launch tests.

Migrating or replacing a store

Many Canadian merchants arrive with a store on another platform, or with a Shopify theme that has been patched for years. A migration begins with an inventory: products, variants, customers, orders, discount codes, blog posts and URLs. We decide what moves, what is rebuilt and what is retired.

The step that protects revenue is redirects. Every old product and category URL that has traffic or links gets a 301 to its new home, and we compare Search Console data before and after launch. Customer data moves only where your privacy policy allows it, and passwords are reset rather than copied. Our website migration checklist lists the full set of checks.

We also schedule launches away from peak sale days. For a retailer, that means avoiding the weeks around Black Friday and Boxing Day, and finishing theme work well before them.

Rules to remember

• Email and SMS sign-ups fall under CASL. The sign-up box stays unticked, and the wording says what the customer will receive.
• Your privacy policy must cover customer data under PIPEDA, and Quebec customers get extra protections under Law 25. Shopify's cookie and customer-privacy settings are configured with your lawyer's wording.
• Reviews and prices must be honest under the Competition Act, including shipping charges shown before the final step.

These are planning notes, not legal advice.

Timeline and pricing

A working rhythm: a kick-off call, a weekly demo, one lead developer. 10:00 in Toronto is 20:30 in India in winter, so calls are comfortable, while Pacific merchants get an early slot. Projects start at $1,500 and our rate is $30 an hour, in US dollars. See the Shopify store cost guide and the Shopify development service for scope.