How to Write a Better Shopify Project Brief

A Shopify project brief is not a wishlist or a finished design specification. It is the shared context from which useful questions, responsible recommendations and comparable proposals can emerge.

Without that context, one supplier may include customer research, content restructuring and integration work while another prices only the visible storefront. Both can respond accurately while proposing fundamentally different projects.

A better brief makes discovery productive by showing what is known, assumed and unresolved.

Start with a clear project summary

Open with one or two paragraphs covering:

What the company sells and how the commerce business operates.
What is changing or not working.
Why the project is happening now.
What outcome the project should create.
What kind of engagement you currently expect.

“We need a new Shopify site” describes a deliverable, not whether the problem is slow merchandising, weak discovery, market expansion, inconsistent brand presentation or an unstable theme. Give potential partners the reason behind the work before asking them to define its shape.

Explain the business context

Give readers enough commercial and operational context to understand the decisions the storefront must support:

Business model, product category and stage of growth.
Direct-to-consumer, retail, wholesale or other relevant channels.
Important revenue patterns, channels and seasonal periods.
Fulfilment, service and merchandising realities.
Important strategic changes expected during the project.
Internal capabilities and the way the store is managed today.

Ranges, proportions and directional priorities can explain what matters commercially without disclosing confidential financial information.

Define the problem before describing the solution

Separate four things that are often mixed together:

Observation: what is currently happening.
Evidence: how the organization knows.
Requirement: what must become possible or remain true.
Proposed solution: one possible way to meet the requirement.

Consider this request:

Proposed solution: “Install a new filtering app.”

The underlying requirement may be: “Mobile customers must be able to narrow a catalogue of 4,000 products by compatible model, availability and price without reaching empty result states.”

Once the requirement is visible, the team can assess native capabilities, data, theme implementation, apps and custom approaches. The original app may remain correct, but it becomes a considered decision.

Use this test throughout the brief: If the named feature or tool disappeared tomorrow, what customer or business need would still exist? Write that need first.

Set goals and priorities

Projects become difficult when every desirable outcome is presented as equally urgent.

List a small number of goals, explain why each matters and put them in priority order.

Then document:

Baseline, desired direction and measurement period.
Data source and metric definition.
Guardrails that must not deteriorate.
External factors affecting interpretation.

“Increase conversion” is rarely enough because traffic, pricing, inventory and promotion also affect it. Pair commercial measures with signals such as discovery success, publishing time, error rates, support contacts or performance by device. Ask suppliers to explain contribution and measurement—not guarantee outcomes they cannot control.

Describe audiences, markets and contexts

Describe the situations that change what people need from the store, not only broad demographics.

For each important audience, record:

Their objective and purchase context.
What they need to understand before deciding.
Common questions, concerns and barriers.
Device, accessibility or service considerations.
Relevant customer type, such as new, returning or trade.
Evidence supporting the description.

List markets explicitly, including relevant language, currency, availability, pricing, tax, duties, shipping and content differences.

Shopify Markets can tailor experiences using settings such as currency, language, pricing, product availability, theme content, domains and taxes. A brief that says only “international” leaves too many implementation and content decisions undefined.

Map the required customer journeys

Pages are not journeys.

A page list does not explain how customers find the right product, resolve questions, select a variant, recover from unavailable items and purchase.

For every important journey, include:

Entry point and customer intent.
Information and decisions required.
Important products, content and interfaces involved.
Variations by audience, market, device or state.
Failure, empty, loading and recovery conditions.
Desired outcome and evidence of success.

Cover discovery, search, product evaluation, cart and checkout handoff. Add account, subscription, bundle, post-purchase or support journeys only when required. Journey mapping exposes shared components and hidden states that page lists miss.

Explain the catalogue and merchandising model

Catalogue complexity changes design, data and implementation effort.

Describe:

Number and type of products, variants and collections.
Product families requiring different templates or information.
Bundles, subscriptions, personalization or compatibility logic.
Product data quality and the systems that own it.
Search, filtering, recommendation and comparison needs.
Inventory, pricing, discount and availability rules.
Merchandising workflows, campaign frequency and approval requirements.
Planned catalogue changes during the project.

Include representative examples: ten configurable products can create more interaction complexity than thousands of simple items. Explain the editing control merchants need. Shopify’s current sections-and-blocks guidance supports modular content merchants can arrange; describe the required editing outcomes rather than demanding a setting for every visual choice.

Document the current Shopify ecosystem

A project brief should show what already exists before asking someone to change it.

Record:

Shopify plan, storefront setup and relevant sales channels.
Current theme, version, customization level and source-control status.
Custom sections, templates and business logic.
Apps, their purpose, cost, theme presence and business owner.
Integrations such as ERP, PIM, CRM, WMS, fulfilment, search or loyalty systems.
Data flows and sources of truth.
Customer accounts, checkout customizations and payment requirements.
Analytics, advertising pixels, consent tools and reporting ownership.
Known defects, technical debt and previous project documentation.

For integrations, identify direction, trigger, owner and failure behaviour. Never put credentials or customer data in the brief; list required access and share it securely after appointment.

Make content and migration visible

Content is often treated as something that will “be provided” even when nobody has defined what exists, what must change or who will produce it.

Document:

Content types and approximate volume.
Product data, imagery and media readiness.
Brand, editorial and product-copy responsibilities.
New content required and the owner of each type.
Review, legal and translation workflows.
Existing URLs, redirects and organic-search considerations.
Data migration, cleansing, mapping and validation responsibility.
Content freeze, entry and quality-assurance expectations.

Be specific about readiness. “Content will be ready” is an assumption; a named owner, deliverable and date create a dependency that can be planned.

Define design and quality expectations

Supply brand guidelines, research and reference sites, explaining what each reference demonstrates.

Clarify expectations for:

Brand expression and visual-system evolution.
Responsive behaviour and supported environments.
Accessibility method and acceptance.
Performance baseline, target conditions and regression control.
SEO preservation and planned improvement.
Analytics and consent validation.
Journey, integration and device testing.
Merchant usability, documentation and training.

Avoid adjectives such as “fast,” “accessible” and “SEO-friendly” without evidence. Shopify publishes guidance for theme accessibility and performance testing; state the required scope and proof.

Mark requirements, preferences and open questions

For every major request, label its status:

Must: necessary for launch or a fixed business, legal or technical constraint.
Should: important, but timing or method can be negotiated.
Could: valuable if evidence, budget and schedule support it.
Preference: a favored direction that suppliers may challenge.
Open question: requires discovery or technical validation.
Out of scope: explicitly excluded from this engagement.

This prevents an early idea from silently becoming a contractual requirement. Also record the request’s source and evidence: policy, customer research, operational need and stakeholder preference are not equivalent inputs.

State scope, constraints and ownership

Define the delivery boundary without pretending every implementation detail is known:

Discovery, research and strategy expectations.
Design, theme development and integration boundaries.
Templates, components, journeys and states in scope.
Content, data and migration responsibilities.
Testing, launch, stabilization and support expectations.
Deliverables, source files, documentation and known exclusions.
Budget range or commercial constraints.

List fixed platform decisions, licences, policies, procurement, security review, trading events, vendors and team availability. A budget range helps partners propose proportionate approaches; hiding it increases the chance of incomparable projects.

Give the timeline a reason

Distinguish among:

A fixed deadline with a real external dependency.
A target date the business prefers.
A planning assumption that can move.

Record trading peaks, content dates, freezes and third-party milestones. For a fixed deadline, invite scope, sequencing or release options instead of compressing every activity invisibly.

Define stakeholders and decisions

Identify these roles and their availability:

Project owner.
Business sponsor.
Day-to-day lead.
Brand, content, merchandising and customer representatives.
Technical and integration owners.
Legal, security or procurement reviewers.
Final approvers for scope, design, content, technical delivery and launch.

State how feedback is consolidated, expected decision speed and who resolves disagreement. Five reviewers without one accountable approver are a delivery dependency.

Make proposal responses comparable

Require every proposal to cover:

Understanding of the problem and intended outcomes.
Recommended approach and alternatives considered.
Discovery assumptions and unresolved questions.
Included deliverables and coverage.
Client responsibilities and required access.
Team roles, governance and communication.
Timeline, dependencies and decision points.
Price, options, recurring cost and change control.
Quality, launch, handover and support approach.
Relevant evidence of capability.

Share the evaluation criteria. If strategy, architecture, content capability or ongoing support matters more than price, say so.

Copyable Shopify project brief template

Copy the outline below and remove anything that does not apply.

1. Document control

Brief owner:
Version and date:
Status: Draft / Approved for proposal
Confidentiality and questions contact:
Proposal deadline and selection date:

2. Project summary

Company and commerce model:
What is changing or not working:
Why the project is happening now:
Desired outcome:
Expected engagement: Audit / Optimization / Redesign / Rebuild / Other

3. Business context

Products and categories:
Sales channels and operating model:
Commercial priorities, channels and seasonal periods:
Merchant, fulfilment and support workflows:
Relevant strategic changes:

4. Problems, goals and evidence

Problem or opportunity:
Supporting evidence and source:
Current baseline and prioritized goals:
Guardrails:
Assumptions and evidence gaps:

5. Audiences and markets

Priority audiences and their needs:
Important barriers, questions and contexts:
Markets in scope:
Market-specific language, currency, products, pricing, content, tax or shipping:

6. Required journeys

For each journey, provide:

Audience and objective:
Entry point:
Information and decisions required:
Important variations, states and desired outcome:

7. Catalogue and merchandising

Product, variant and collection scale:
Important product types and data:
Bundles, subscriptions, search, filtering or comparison needs:
Pricing, inventory and availability rules:
Merchant editing and campaign workflow:

8. Current technology

Shopify plan and storefront setup:
Theme, version and customization:
Apps, purpose, cost and owner:
Integrations, data flow, checkout, accounts and payments:
Analytics, pixels, consent and reporting:
Known technical issues and documentation:

9. Content and migration

Content types, volume and readiness:
Product data and media readiness:
Content production, approval and translation owners:
Data migration, URLs, redirects and SEO preservation:
Delivery dates and dependencies:

10. Requirements and quality

Must requirements:
Should requirements:
Could requirements and preferences open to challenge:
Open questions for discovery:
Quality evidence, testing and acceptance expectations:

11. Scope and ownership

Work and deliverables in scope:
Out-of-scope work:
Client and third-party responsibilities:
Ownership, launch, stabilization and support expectations:

12. Constraints and dependencies

Fixed technical or platform constraints:
Security, legal, procurement and external dependencies:
Known risks:
Budget range:

13. Timeline and governance

Target and fixed dates, with reasons:
Campaigns, freezes and unavailable periods:
Project owner and business sponsor:
Contributors, approvers and decision process:
Expected working cadence:

14. Success and proposal evaluation

Success measures, sources and review period:
Proposal response requirements:
Evaluation criteria and weighting:
Selection process:

15. Supporting material

Analytics and research:
Brand and design resources:
System and data-flow documentation:
Catalogue and content samples:
Existing audits, roadmaps and technical notes:
Secure access required after appointment:

A brief should create alignment, not false certainty

The best project brief is not the one with the most pages.

It is the one that helps everyone distinguish evidence from assumption, business need from preferred solution and a fixed constraint from an open design decision.

Digiff helps ecommerce teams define and deliver Shopify projects around clear outcomes, customer journeys, responsible technical choices and long-term ownership.

If your team is preparing a Shopify optimization, redesign or rebuild, use this template to expose the important decisions before asking partners to price the work—and start a conversation at digiff.com/contact.