Friction Studio — Conversion-Led Shopify Development for Ambitious Brands Friction Studio is not just a Shopify agency — we are strategic partners for DTC and eCommerce brands that want stores built to perform, scale, and convert. We don’t simply deliver a website; we engineer Shopify systems that elevate revenue, reduce friction, and strengthen customer experience. We help established and scaling brands unlock higher growth by combining conversion-driven design with robust Shopify engineering. Our focus is simple: high-impact UX, scalable development, and business outcomes that matter. How We Help You Grow: Custom Shopify & Shopify Plus Builds — Premium, performance-focused stores designed for long-term scalability. Conversion-Focused Redesigns — Strategic UX and merchandising upgrades that increase conversion rates and AOV. Platform Migrations to Shopify — Seamless transitions from legacy systems without data loss or SEO setbacks. Performance & Speed Optimization — Technical tuning to improve user experience and search performance. Landing Page & CRO Systems — Revenue-driven landing pages and CRO experimentation for paid acquisition and retention. We take a systems-first approach, aligning design, development, analytics, and conversion strategy so every touchpoint drives measurable results. Why Brands Choose Friction Studio: We operate as long-term growth partners, never one-off vendors. We’re obsessed with clean code, fast experiences, and friction-less buying journeys that turn visitors into loyal customers. Our work isn’t just technically sound, it’s commercially intelligent. From advanced integrations to retention-driven experiences, we build Shopify solutions that strengthen both brand perception and bottom-line performance.
Find the Best Shopify Experts in Canada
Selling on Shopify from Canada often means two checkout languages and a sales tax that goes by different names from one province to the next. Neither is exotic. Both are easy to get wrong if your expert has never configured a Canadian store.
As of October 2026, 89 Shopify experts in Canada list a profile on shopexperts: 78 agencies and 11 freelancers. Most offer store setup and Shopify development, and many add marketing, consulting and content work. French appears on 23 of those profiles.
If your customers buy in French, start with those 23. If they don't, start from the job you need done and the provinces you sell into.
Request quotes from your top three Canadian profiles below, and tell each one which provinces you're registered in.
Top-rated Shopify experts in Canada
Revenue is easy to see. Real profit? Not always. Acuity delivers ecommerce accounting built for founders managing multiple sales channels, with accurate books and clear visibility into margins, cash flow, and inventory performance. We support 2,700+ entrepreneurs and help ecommerce sellers scale with confidence – without spending their nights reconciling Stripe payouts. Learn more about how we support growing brands: acuity.co/ecommerce-accounting/
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Always Open Commerce (AOC) is a Shopify focused Free-Agency and BigCommerce for established brands that need reliable execution and measurable growth. We handle end-to-end builds, redesigns, and platform migrations, plus ongoing optimization and support. Our team is structured by specialty, not generalists: Shopify developers, UX/UI designers, CRO specialists, technical SEO, paid media, content, and data/catalog specialists. This allows us to diagnose issues quickly and actually implement fixes, not just provide recommendations. Core services: Shopify theme builds, redesigns, and performance improvements Migrations from Magento, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and legacy platforms with SEO-safe redirects and data validation CRO and UX optimization (navigation, collection architecture, PDP systems, cart/checkout improvements) Technical SEO and analytics setup (GA4, Search Console, tracking) Product data management and catalog scaling (attributes, filters, rules, feeds) Tech stack and tools: Shopify (Online Store 2.0, Liquid), GA4, Google Tag Manager, Search Console, Hotjar, Figma, and common eCommerce apps and integrations depending on the project. We work best with teams that want a long-term partner, clear communication, and disciplined delivery, especially for technically complex catalogs, B2B and industrial eCommerce, and brands that care about UX and conversion performance. Built like an agency, priced like a freelancer.
Barrel is a globally distributed team driven by a shared mission: to help our clients succeed through thoughtful, customer-centric solutions. We are a CPG-focused agency helping brands scale across channels through strategy, design and development on Shopify Plus. We believe in the positive impact a brand can have on people’s lives, and approach every project from the perspective of the customer. Lucky for us—our clients are often are favorite brands. Our goal is to create experiences that resonate, add value, and help brands build lasting connections with their communities. Past and current clients include: McCormick, Sweet Loren's, L'Oreal Paris, KIND Snacks, Khloud, Stiller's Soda, Cabot Creamery, Bobo's and Sakara.
Shopify Plus Developer for Growing & Global Brands I've spent the last 5+ years in the weeds of Shopify — not just writing Liquid, but figuring out how commerce actually scales. As a Shopify Select Partner, I've helped brands migrate messy legacy systems onto Shopify Plus, built custom middleware to connect ERPs with storefronts, and shipped apps and Functions that off-the-shelf solutions just can't handle. A few examples of what that's looked like in practice: cutting load times from 7-10 seconds down to under 2 for a jewellery brand doing a WooCommerce migration, and getting a Shark Tank India-featured ethnic wear brand to 65% faster load times with an 80% jump in mobile engagement. Where I can help: Complex migrations — moving high-volume stores to Shopify Plus without losing SEO rankings or data integrity along the way Custom app development — private apps built around your actual business logic, not whatever an app store happens to offer Performance engineering — getting heavy Plus stores down to sub-2-second loads, even under Black Friday-level traffic If your tech stack feels more like a bottleneck than an asset right now, that's usually a sign something in the architecture needs rethinking — happy to take a look.
I help smart DTC brands dramatically improve their bottom line through rigorous, data-driven experimentation across the customer journey. Helping 7, 8 and 9 figure brands scale profitably is what I excel at. I do this through 1) focusing on contribution margin as my north star metric, and 2) strategic A/B testing fueled by extensive customer research. Here's what one of my former clients had to say about me: Luka is a rare mix of strategic and hands-on — he doesn’t just talk about ideas, he executes them. During our time working together, he helped professionalise our marketing systems, improved conversion across key funnels, and consistently brought clarity to complex problems. What stood out most was his clarity of thought, detailed consumer and market analysis combined with a deep understanding of website performance. This translated into very significant performance gains on our website. We saw increased sales, conversion rates and customer retention. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Luka to any founder or leadership team looking for someone who delivers real results.
Clarify is a Shopify-focused CRO and experimentation team. We partner with growth-stage and established ecommerce brands to design, build and test high-impact revenue initiatives across the storefront. Our work combines strategy, UX thinking and technical execution to turn traffic into measurable growth. We focus on structured experimentation, data-backed prioritization and performance-driven implementation rather than general development retainers. Our stack includes Shopify Plus, A/B testing frameworks, analytics instrumentation and performance optimization. We work directly with founders and ecommerce teams who care about measurable outcomes and long-term growth.
The best part about our work is seeing the direct revenue we bring to our clients. That's what keeps email marketing exciting for us on a daily basis. Simple terms -- we help e-commerce brands grow revenue and retention (LTV) through email / retention marketing. We run the whole email channel end-to-end, meaning, you have to do nothing except continue your top-of-the-funnel and operational activities like you do. We will add 30-40% revenue within your current set up. Happy to talk if you're interested.
Get more sales from ChatGPT + AI Shopping -- backed by YC Wildcard helps brands see where their products show up (or don’t) in ChatGPT and AI shopping — and actually take action to rank higher. We're an AEO, GEO, AI SEO platform built specifically for e-commerce brands preparing for agentic commerce.
10xGEO is a Shopify app that generates revenue from AI search. When buyers ask ChatGPT or Perplexity what to buy, we make sure it's our brands that get recommended and we tag every resulting Shopify order with its AI source so brands can see the exact ROI.
Who's on the Canadian list, and where French fits in
French is what narrows it. English appears on 85 profiles and French on 23, with Spanish (9), Arabic (5) and Italian (3) behind. A store selling into Quebec is better served by French product pages, emails and support replies written by someone fluent than by machine translation. Ask any shortlisted expert for a bilingual Canadian store they set up, then ask who wrote the French.
A firm-heavy list. 78 of the 89 experts based in Canada are agencies and 11 are freelancers. Freelancers are worth seeking out for contained jobs, but expect most of your conversations to be with agencies.
Where they work from. Profiles name Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver, Ottawa and Mississauga. City rarely changes the quality of the work. It can change how easy an in-person kickoff is, which matters more for a POS rollout in a physical shop than for a theme job.
What they sell. Store Setup & Management (77) and Shopify Development (73) lead by a distance, and two in three list Marketing & Growth. Only 8 list Finance, Taxes & Compliance, which is thin for a country with several provincial sales taxes.
Experts based in Canada appear first in the listing. After them come experts based outside the country who also take on North American merchants, a useful pool if no Canadian profile fits your budget or your stack.
What do Shopify experts in Canada charge to start?
69 of the 89 Canadian profiles show a starting price. Prices are in USD, pulled in October 2026, and any profile listing zero is excluded. Treat each one as an entry ticket: it marks where an expert's pricing begins and says nothing firm about your build.
Middle half of Canadian starting prices
$100 – $1,500
Half of the 69 listed prices land in this band
Median starting price
$500
Half of Canadian experts start below this, half above
Top quarter of listed prices
$1,500 – $25,000
Where the highest quarter of Canadian prices sit
Mind the currency. These starting prices are in USD, while your Shopify payouts arrive in Canadian dollars. Ask each expert to quote in CAD, or to name the exchange rate they invoice at, before you put numbers side by side.
What raises a Canadian quote. A French version of the store, tax set-up across several provinces, POS for a physical shop, and a migration from another platform. Each is scope worth pricing as its own line.
What to send. A link to your store or the name of the platform you're leaving, SKU count, whether you need French, which provinces you're registered in, and a budget range. Three experts working from the same brief give you numbers you can actually line up.
Canadian set-up: CAD payouts, provincial tax and a French checkout
Payments in CAD. Shopify Payments is open to Canada-based stores, and the money lands in Canadian dollars. Shop Pay Installments is available here too, and Shopify Capital is offered to eligible Canadian businesses. Get Shopify Payments active early, because Tap to Pay at the counter depends on it.
Provincial sales tax. Canadian orders can carry GST, HST or PST, and the provincial tax is called RST in Manitoba and QST in Quebec. Shopify Tax is available, with automatic rates by product category and tax liability insights; Manual Tax is the alternative. A good expert asks which provinces you're registered in before touching tax settings, and leaves the final check to your accountant.
French, end to end. The Shopify admin supports French as well as English, so a Montréal team can run the store in its own language, and customers can check out in French. The product pages, order emails and policies still need a fluent writer, and someone has to keep both versions in step after launch.
In-person selling. For a physical shop, Canadian merchants can order POS kit from Shopify itself through its hardware store, and phones can take cards through Tap to Pay on iPhone and Android in Shopify POS.
Selling abroad. Managed Markets is available to certain stores based in Canada. If exporting is on the plan, have your expert confirm eligibility before anyone designs market settings around it.
What Canadian Shopify experts list on their profiles
The top two categories sit four profiles apart, and the bottom one has just 8 of 89.
Store Setup & Management
On 77 of the 89 profiles based in Canada
Shopify Development
73 Canadian experts, almost as common as set-up
Marketing & Growth
Listed by 60, about two in three Canadian profiles
Consulting & Strategy
41 take on audits, planning and platform choices
Design and content
28 list Design, UX & Branding; 29 list Copywriting & Content
Finance, Taxes & Compliance
Just 8 of 89, so raise provincial tax in the first call
French, provinces and POS: questions Canadian merchants ask
With 11 freelancers among 89 Canadian profiles, you'll mostly be choosing between agencies. A freelancer suits contained work: a theme fix, a product import, French copy for a set of pages. An agency earns its fee on a bilingual launch, where design, development and translation have to land together, or when online and in-store selling go live at the same time.
Yes, if they've done Canadian stores before. The listing includes experts based elsewhere who work with North American merchants. Ask them to explain how they'd handle provincial tax, CAD payouts and a French checkout on your store. Vague answers about "localisation" usually mean they haven't done it.
It does when the store runs in English and French. Every template string, order email, policy page and banner exists twice, and someone has to review the French version on mobile before launch. Ask designers whether translation is included or expected from you, and whether their price covers both language versions of every page or only the English one. To compare portfolios, start with Shopify designers in Canada.
No, that's a question for your accountant. What an expert does is configure Shopify to charge correctly once you know your registrations, test orders to addresses in different provinces, and, if you use Shopify Tax, show you where its tax liability insights live. Keep the accountant and the expert talking to each other.
Often, but ask specifically. A good POS set-up for a Canadian shop covers ordering hardware from Shopify's hardware store, getting Tap to Pay working, syncing inventory between the shop and the website, staff permissions, and checking the provincial tax charged at the till. Run a test sale, a refund and an exchange at the counter before opening day, with the expert on the call.