When Shopify is the right platform for an Irish store
Shopify suits a business selling physical products to consumers. Hosting, security updates and the checkout come with the monthly plan, so there is less to maintain than on a self-hosted store.
Loco Digital redesigned the Field Queens Shopify store on the Mode theme in 2024, and its photography and film were produced with our partners. For ERP HEADtoHEAD we built one booking engine on WooCommerce and Stripe, set up to bill each event from its own company in its own currency. We were founded in 2021 and work from The Digital Hub in Dublin 8.
Other platforms fit other stores. WooCommerce suits a store inside a content-led WordPress site, or one with bookings or memberships beside the products. A custom build earns its cost when the workflow is the product. We set the three side by side in Shopify vs WooCommerce vs a custom build.
Shopify work sits within our ecommerce development in Dublin.
Shopify store design in Ireland, built on an established theme
We start from a theme on the Shopify Theme Store that already suits your catalogue, then design the pages around your products and brand. Updates to a Theme Store theme are free to stores that bought it, and settings made in the theme editor carry across to the new version (Shopify Help Center).
Where the theme lacks something, such as a size chart, a trade enquiry form or a comparison table, we write a custom section. Sections are Liquid modules that your team can add, remove and reorder in the theme editor (Shopify developer docs). Keeping our code in its own sections leaves fewer edits to reapply when the theme updates.
Product set-up and product photography
We plan collections, filters and variants with you before any product is entered. Shopify allows three options per product, such as size, colour and material, so a catalogue built around more has to be restructured first.
Photography and film are produced with our partners, and we manage the shoot from the brief to the final files. Each image is delivered at the same size and crop, then uploaded and named against its product before launch.
Shopify Payments and other payment options in Ireland
Shopify Payments is available to businesses in Ireland (Shopify Help Center). Stripe is its banking partner, so where Shopify Payments is supported, standalone Stripe cannot be added as a separate gateway (Shopify Help Center).
You can still use another provider. Shopify then adds a transaction fee on those orders, 2% on the Basic plan, and PayPal and manual payments are exempt while Shopify Payments is active (Shopify pricing for Ireland and third-party providers, both checked 30 Sep 2026). Our guide to payment gateways in Ireland compares the options and fees.
VAT and One Stop Shop settings on a Shopify store
Once an Irish business’s sales to consumers in other EU countries pass €10,000 in a calendar year, it charges VAT at each customer’s national rate and registers in each country or for the Union One Stop Shop (Revenue on distance sales). The One Stop Shop covers them all in a single electronic quarterly return (Revenue on the Union scheme).
Shopify has a setting to collect VAT under an OSS registration, which needs Shopify Tax or Basic Tax as the store’s tax service (Shopify Help Center). We configure rates, prices and invoices to the position your accountant sets. Confirm with your accountant which registrations apply to your business.
WooCommerce to Shopify migration
Search traffic is the part of a migration most at risk. Shopify fixes product and collection addresses under /products and /collections, so most old WooCommerce URLs change. On a migration we map every old address to its new one as a 301 redirect, imported in bulk before launch (Shopify Help Center), then resubmit the sitemap and watch Search Console in the weeks after.
The same checks apply to any replatform, and our page on website redesign in Dublin sets out the full process.
How we build a Shopify store
- Your accounts. You own the store and its data, and any Shopify, domain or payment account we set up for you transfers to you on request.
- Apps with a reason. We add an app only when it earns its monthly fee, and hand over a list of every app and what it costs.
- Accessible and fast. We check the theme and our sections against WCAG 2.1 AA and test the product pages on phones before launch.
- Senior people. Mark and Adam scope the store with you and lead the design and build.
Shopify work for Field Queens
Field Queens makes GAA gloves designed to fit the female hand, and sportswear designed by women players for women players. Its store opens on footage from the brand film, and the gloves are photographed front and back on white.
The redesign went live in spring 2024 and is still the store at fieldqueens.ie. Read the Field Queens case study.
