Bringing no-code to Shopify with Builder Theme Studio

By Brent Locks

We’re excited to officially launch our no-code application for Shopify, Builder Theme Studio, following a successful pilot program this year. Storefronts are the lifeblood of online merchants and we created Builder so that every team -- from marketing to design to product -- can feel empowered to create and optimize digital experiences. No developers required (though, from our experience, they love using Builder too!).

Our initial product was the first and only headless CMS with a uniquely powerful visual drag-and-drop editor that integrates with any tech stack. After the unveiling, we immediately had interest from many Shopify merchants that also wanted to leverage Builder for their own needs. We knew from our time at ShopStyle that custom sites needed a solution like ours, but we hadn’t anticipated this level of demand from Shopify merchants.

Shopify offers simple yet robust storefront solutions that satisfy a majority of needs for merchants, but things can get challenging after a certain level of growth, and in order to sustain that growth they need to frequently build and test new experiences. Merchants often leverage custom code, resulting in some mundane tasks for developers. This extra work can also be a bottleneck that prevents progress on other important business priorities. Additionally, merchants add dozens of third-party apps to extend storefront functionality, which can not only be costly but also be detrimental to page speed and site performance.

Builder enables merchants to address the critical storefront customizations they require to continue growing on Shopify while distinguishing the brand and optimizing for growth without any coding required. This eliminates low-value tasks from the engineering backlog and enables them to work on the highest value projects. And, unlike Shopify’s theme editor and third-party page builder apps, there aren’t any limitations with Builder. Merchants can create product pages, collection pages, landing pages, and more, with ease and without impacting site performance. Builder can also be used to modify any part of any page, including shopping carts, using dropzones, which adds new functionality to a storefront without changing the things you don’t want to. Everything automatically integrates into the store’s existing theme.

Combining the ability to drag-and-drop control a page, or any part of a page, with Builder’s powerful optimization and analysis capabilities, like segmentation and heat maps, means non-technical folks can not only move faster but also capture more opportunities to drive growth. Over the last several months, Shopify merchants of all sizes, like Alo Yoga, Chubbies, Caitlin Wilson and Pladra, have leveraged the product to get more out of their storefronts by building experiences like:

Creating dynamic landing pages based on whether a shopper has previously shopped men’s vs. women’s collections

Adding cross-sell recommendations within the cart based on the items in the cart

A/B testing different homepage placements to determine the best content to feature above the fold vs below the fold

Building out an entire ecommerce experience with plan to migrate to headless with Builder Visual CMS

We love seeing how Shopify merchants have leveraged Builder to grow their business with speed and flexibility, and this is only the beginning. We’re thrilled to bring no-code to Shopify and it’s millions of merchants through a one-click integration, so brands and agencies can grow faster and achieve more.

Get started today by checking out Builder in the Shopify App Store.