Shopify · Melbourne & Sydney

Themes, checkout, Functions. Apps. Built properly.

Al Martin is a freelance Shopify developer in Melbourne and Sydney. Themes, checkout extensions, Shopify Functions, Hydrogen and custom apps for Australia, UK, EU and US brands, built end to end by one developer.

Clients

Clients I have worked with. From B2B to B2C.

What I build

Services

Design to deployment, one pair of hands. Every engagement is direct - you brief the person writing the code. Click a service for the detail.

What I build

How it runs

Process

No account managers, no handoffs. You brief the person writing the code, and the same person deploys it.

  1. Brief

    A call, a look at the store and a written scope with a fixed price. If it should be an app-store app instead, I will say so.

    Week 1
  2. Build

    Work happens on an unpublished theme or a development store. You see it as it is built, not at the end.

    Weeks 2 to 6
  3. Deploy

    Pushed with the Shopify CLI, checked on the live store, and rolled out to every regional storefront in one pass.

    Launch day
  4. Support

    Thirty days of fixes are included. After that, a retainer or ad hoc hours, whichever suits the store.

    Ongoing

Questions

FAQ

Straight answers to the questions that come up on most first calls.

Who is Al Martin Dev?

Al Martin Dev (full name Alistair) is a one-person Shopify developer in Melbourne, Australia, with over 11 years of Shopify web development experience. AMD builds Shopify themes, checkout UI extensions, Shopify Functions, Hydrogen storefronts and custom embedded apps for brands. Every project is briefed, scoped, built and deployed by the same developer, either solo or working alongside client teams and other developers.

Do you work on Shopify Plus stores?

Yes. Most of the checkout work is Plus-only: checkout UI extensions, the Branding API, Shopify Functions for delivery, payment and cart transform, plus Flow, Launchpad and B2B setup. Multi-store brands get one codebase deployed across every regional storefront in a single pass.

Can you fix or rebuild a checkout that was migrated to Checkout Extensibility?

Yes. A lot of stores migrated off checkout.liquid and Shopify Scripts under deadline pressure and lost features on the way. I audit the current checkout against what the old one did, then rebuild the gaps as checkout UI extensions, Branding API settings and Shopify Functions. Work ships to an unpublished checkout profile first, so nothing changes live until you have signed off.

How long does a Shopify theme build take?

Most theme builds take four to six weeks from brief to launch. Week one is the brief and a written scope with a fixed price. Weeks two to six are the build on an unpublished theme, which you can watch as it progresses. Smaller jobs such as a new section, a checkout extension or a single Shopify Function usually ship within one to two weeks.

How are projects priced?

Every project is quoted as a fixed price after a call and a look at the store, so there is no hourly meter running during the build. Thirty days of fixes are included after launch. Ongoing work runs on a monthly retainer with a fixed block of hours, or ad hoc hours for stores that only need occasional changes.

Do you do UX and UI design as well as development?

Yes. Design and build come from the same person, so the Figma file maps directly to the theme's sections, blocks and settings, and what the merchant sees in the editor matches the mockup. That covers full storefront and checkout designs in Figma, design system tokens carried into the theme's CSS, and UX reviews of existing stores with a prioritised list of fixes. If you already have a designer, I work from their files and flag anything that will not translate cleanly to Shopify before the build starts.

Do you build headless Shopify stores?

Yes, when a brand has genuinely outgrown a theme. Headless builds use Hydrogen deployed to Oxygen, with cart, customer accounts, search and Markets wired to the Storefront API. For most stores a well-built Online Store 2.0 theme is faster to ship and cheaper to maintain, and that recommendation is made honestly during the brief.

Do you help businesses adopt AI and automate operations?

Yes. Alongside Shopify development, Al Martin Dev works as an AI specialist for e-commerce businesses. That covers training staff and founders to use AI tools day to day, and building custom Shopify apps that put AI and automation into the business itself: custom dashboards, custom business logic, and workflows for logistics, production (embroidery and personalisation runs, for example), sales reporting and customer service. Everything runs on your own Shopify data through the Admin API, so it fits the way the business already operates.

Do you build custom Shopify apps?

Yes. Custom apps are for the parts of a business that off-the-shelf apps do not cover: bespoke pricing and business logic, internal dashboards, integrations with your ERP, 3PL or production systems, and automations that run on your own order and customer data. Apps are built with Shopify's Remix app template and the Admin GraphQL API, embedded in the admin with Polaris so staff use them like any other Shopify screen, and hosted on your own infrastructure so there is no per-seat app fee. Where a merchant-facing feature is needed, the app ships with admin, checkout or customer account UI extensions and Shopify Functions in the same codebase.

Do you work with Shopify POS?

Yes. For brands selling in store as well as online, that covers setting up Shopify POS locations, staff roles, inventory and fulfilment so retail and e-commerce share one stock pool, plus POS UI extensions that add custom tiles and workflows to the POS app itself. Common builds are custom discount and loyalty flows at the counter, made-to-order and personalisation capture, and click-and-collect or ship-from-store setups tied to Shopify Functions and order routing rules.

Where are you based and do you work with brands outside Melbourne?

Al Martin Dev is based in Melbourne + Sydney, and works remotely with brands all over the world, including Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, South Africa and across the EU (France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden among them). Briefs, reviews and deploys all run online across time zones, with in-person meetings available in Melbourne and Sydney.

Connect

Get in contact

Send a message and we'll start the process with an introduction over a video call to get your requirements, or a quick phone call.