This section covers the core concepts every Shopify developer should understand before going deeper into themes, apps, or specialization.
These topics come up early and repeatedly when working with real stores and real merchants, even before writing much code.
The goal here is orientation and confidence:
understanding how Shopify works as a platform, how developers typically set up their workflow, and which features are a must-know.
Before writing much code, many Shopify developers already earn money working directly inside Shopify’s admin.
A lot of real client work is no-code or low-code: setting up stores, configuring themes, markets, payments, shipping, and automations.
These features impact internationalization, operations, and conversions. Merchants actively pay for this kind of setup and guidance.
Mastering these early lets you deliver value fast, take on real projects, and get paid even before going deep into theme or app development.
Themes are one of the first things you'll work with as a Shopify developer.
Early on, most of your work happens inside existing themes:
configuring them, extending sections, and making small but high-impact adjustments.
As a developer, it’s important to understand:
- Which Themes are the best.
- When free themes like Dawn are more than enough
- When premium themes actually save money by reducing custom development
- Why poorly coded third-party themes cause problems later
Knowing how to evaluate themes is a practical skill clients pay for.
→ Learn more: How to Pick the Best Shopify Theme (Free & Paid)
Markets allows you to manage international selling from a single store:
Currencies, languages, domains, pricing, taxes, and shipping rules per region.
As a developer, you're often involved in:
- Setting up markets correctly
- Avoiding duplicate stores for different countries
- Helping merchants expand internationally without breaking SEO or operations
- Debugging pricing, currency, or shipping related issues caused by misconfigured markets
All this directly impacts revenue and customer experience.
→ Learn more: Shopify Markets Full Guide (Multi-Currency & Multi-Language)
Shopify Flow lets you automate repetitive tasks and internal workflows — without writing any code. (Kind of like Zapier or N8N)
It’s commonly used to:
- Tag customers or orders automatically
- Trigger internal processes based on order behavior
- Reduce manual work for operations, support, and marketing teams
- Enforce business rules consistently at scale
As a developer or consultant, Flow is often where you can deliver quick wins.
Simple automations can save merchants hours every week, which makes this an easy service to sell early on.
While Flow looks simple on the surface, understanding when to use it, and how it interacts with data is what separates good setups from bad ones.
→ Learn more: Shopify Flow Automations Explained
Before writing custom code, most Shopify developers spend a lot of time configuring existing apps.
This is often enough to solve real business problems, and it’s where many developers get their first paid projects.
Shopify’s app ecosystem lets you ship real features fast: personalization, automations, digital products, and marketing workflows.
Knowing what’s possible with apps, how to configure them cleanly, and where their limits are is a core developer skill, even if you later move into themes or apps.
Below are three common examples you’ll encounter early when working with real stores.
When it comes to "Product personalizations" it depends a lot on complexity.
Simple use cases, like engraving text or adding a short custom note, can often be implemented with simple text inputs and minimal configuration. (Set up custom product inputs on Shopify without using Apps)
More advanced setups, such as:
- Live previews
- Image uploads
- Complex pricing logic
- Multi-step product builders
Require dedicated apps that handle these workflows properly.
As a developer, your job is not to “build everything yourself,” but to choose the right level of complexity for the merchant’s needs.
→ Learn more: See an example of setting up a full product configurator.
Not all merchants want to sell physical products.
Many sell digital products instead, like guides, PDFs, licenses, or memberships.
While the storefront setup looks simple, digital products come with a few technical considerations:
- Secure file delivery
- Access control after purchase
- Customer accounts and re-downloads
- Email delivery and post-purchase flows
Most merchants rely on apps to handle this properly.
As a developer, your role is to configure these tools correctly.
This is a common early project type, especially for creators and small businesses, and a good way to add value without writing much custom code.
→ Learn more: See how to sell and deliver digital products securely on Shopify.
Email marketing is tightly integrated into Shopify’s ecosystem and often combined with automations.
As a developer, you’re not writing the emails, but you’re responsible for:
- Setting up forms and triggers
- Connecting apps correctly
- Making sure data flows cleanly between Shopify and marketing tools
This comes up constantly in real projects and is often part of store setups and migrations.
→ Learn more: See how apps help you set up email flows and automations.
Working directly in the live Shopify admin is fine for config tasks — but not for development.
A proper local development setup lets you work faster, safer, and more professionally.
(For example, by using your own code editor and extensions)
Most professional Shopify developers rely on a small set of tools that cover local development, version control, and modern coding workflows.
The Shopify CLI is the foundation of local theme (and app) development.
It allows you to:
- Download and work on themes locally
- Preview changes in real time without publishing them
- Push updates in a controlled way
- Connect development workflows to GitHub and CI pipelines
→ Learn more: Shopify CLI Setup
Git is what keeps Shopify projects safe and maintainable over time.
It helps you:
- Track every change with a full history
- Work on new features without touching the live version
- Collaborate with other developers through branches and pull requests
- Roll back mistakes and reduce liability
Understanding a clean Git workflow is essential when working with agencies or larger brands.
→ Learn more: Git & GitHub for Shopify Developers
Modern Shopify development is increasingly supported by AI tools.
Using Cursor together with Shopify’s MCP server allows you to:
- Get more accurate code suggestions
- Reduce hallucinations in AI-generated code
- Reference live Shopify documentation and schemas while coding
This can significantly speed up development once you're comfortable with the fundamentals.
→ Learn more: Set up Cursor and Shopify's Dev MCP
At this point, you understand how Shopify works as a platform, how developers set up their workflow, and how much value you can already deliver with configuration and apps.
The next step is learning how to customize the storefront itself. Theme development is where you start:
- Writing real code that affects the storefront
- Building custom sections and blocks
- Extending existing themes safely
This is usually where developers move from configuration work to true development work, and where technical skills start compounding quickly.
