A custom Dawn-based theme for a brand that sells wheel-thrown stoneware and gift hampers pan-India, plus the inventory system behind it: pieces are packed at the Auroville workshops, received at the Morbi warehouse, and only the difference syncs to Shopify each night, so the store never sells a piece that is not on a shelf.
Shopify Partner · Kokapet, Hyderabad · Updated for 2026
Shopify agency in Hyderabad,
building stores for brands across India.
BotBrained is a Shopify Partner agency in Hyderabad that designs and builds Shopify stores for D2C brands across India: custom Liquid themes, clean migrations, Razorpay and cash-on-delivery checkout, GST invoicing and WhatsApp order updates. Theme customisation starts at ₹25,000, a custom theme at ₹50,000, and a full build with integrations at ₹1,00,000.
- Shopify Partner
- Merme.in and Bhaat.in built here
- Custom Liquid themes, not templates
- Based in Hyderabad, work across India
What should a Shopify agency in Hyderabad actually do for you?
A Shopify agency is only worth hiring for the parts a template cannot do: a theme that fits the brand instead of fighting it, a checkout tuned for how Indians actually pay, a catalogue that stays in sync with real stock, and a launch that does not break the SEO you already have. Everything else, Shopify does for free.
The stakes are Indian, not generic. According to Mordor Intelligence, smartphones delivered 76.42% of India’s e-commerce market in 2025, and according to ET Prime Research as cited by Razorpay, 60 to 65% of Indian e-commerce orders are placed as cash on delivery. A store designed for a US desktop checkout fails on both counts before the first ad runs.
What is a Shopify agency, exactly?
A Shopify agency is a team that designs, builds and integrates Shopify stores for merchants, as opposed to a freelancer who customises a theme or an app vendor who sells one feature. BotBrained is a Hyderabad software studio and Shopify Partner that builds the storefront and the systems around it, so the store you launch is the store you can run at 500 orders a month without a developer on call.
What we build · pricing and timelines
How much does a Shopify agency in Hyderabad cost?
Three ways to hire us, each priced up front. The starting figures below are what a small, well-prepared project costs; the section after them explains what moves the number.
Theme customisation
You have a store on Dawn, Horizon or a paid theme and it looks like everyone else’s.
- Brand system applied across every template: type, colour, spacing, buttons
- Custom sections and blocks you can edit from the theme editor
- Product, collection and cart pages rebuilt for conversion
- Speed pass: image sizing, script cleanup, Core Web Vitals check
- Timeline
- 2 to 4 weeks
- Starting from
- ₹25,000
Custom theme build
A brand with a real identity that needs a storefront designed around it.
- Design in the browser on your products, not a Figma mock that dies in translation
- Hand-written Liquid theme on Online Store 2.0, every section editable
- Filters, search, size guides, bundles and gifting flows built natively
- Accessibility and mobile-first as defaults, not a checklist at the end
- Timeline
- 4 weeks and up
- Starting from
- ₹50,000
Full build with integrations and migration
Moving from WooCommerce, Wix, Dukaan or a marketplace, or launching with real operations behind the store.
- Catalogue, customer and order migration with URL redirects that keep your rankings
- Payments the Indian way: Razorpay or Cashfree, UPI, COD with verification, EMI where it fits
- GST-compliant invoicing, Shiprocket or courier integration, WhatsApp order and delivery updates
- Inventory sync from your warehouse or ERP, so the store never oversells
- Timeline
- Depends on scope
- Starting from
- ₹1,00,000
What moves the price?
- Catalogue size and variants
- Fifty products with two options is a different build from two thousand SKUs with size, colour and finish.
- Custom logic
- Bundles, subscriptions, B2B pricing, gifting flows and made-to-order products each add design and testing time.
- Integrations
- Payments and shipping are standard. ERP, warehouse, marketplace and accounting syncs are scoped separately.
- Migration complexity
- Clean CSV exports are quick. Years of WooCommerce plugins, redirects and customer accounts are not.
- Content readiness
- In our experience, photography, copy and product data arriving on time is the single biggest factor in hitting the timeline, more than any technical choice.
Built for India
What does a Shopify agency in India set up that global agencies skip?
Most Shopify agencies build for a US checkout. Indian stores fail on the details: COD orders that never get confirmed, UPI failures with no retry, invoices that are not GST-compliant, and a customer who expects a WhatsApp update rather than an email.
The cost of getting this wrong is measurable. According to Razorpay, 25 to 30% of COD orders in India end in return-to-origin, against 2 to 3% for prepaid orders. That gap is why COD confirmation over WhatsApp or OTP is built into every full build rather than bolted on after the first month of losses.
What we set up for Indian checkout, GST and shipping
Payments
Razorpay or Cashfree with UPI, cards, netbanking and EMI. COD with WhatsApp or OTP confirmation so fake orders stop before they ship.
Invoicing and tax
GST invoice generation with HSN codes, state-wise tax rules, and B2B invoices with GSTIN capture at checkout.
Shipping
Shiprocket, Delhivery or your own courier accounts; pincode serviceability checks on the product page; returns flows that do not need a developer.
Order confirmation, shipping and delivery updates, abandoned-cart nudges, and support that lands in one inbox. We build WhatsApp software for a living.
Working across India
Discovery, design reviews and training happen on video. Clients in Hyderabad get us in the room; clients elsewhere get the same team on the same timeline.
Why choose a Shopify Partner in Hyderabad for a store that sells across India?
Because the build is remote anyway and the accountability is not. A Hyderabad team on Indian hours answers on WhatsApp during your business day, understands GST and COD without a briefing, and can sit in the room for the two meetings that matter: discovery and launch. According to Mordor Intelligence, India’s e-commerce market stood at USD 159.25 billion in 2026 and is growing at 15.89% a year to 2031; the brands that win it are the ones whose stores are built for how India buys.
Top reasons Indian Shopify stores fail after launch
- 01COD without confirmation, so a third of orders come back as RTO and the margin goes with them.
- 02A theme customised for desktop when three in four Indian buyers are on a phone.
- 03Inventory that lives in a spreadsheet, so the store sells pieces that are not on a shelf.
- 04Nobody on the team can edit the store, so every banner change waits for a developer.
Shopify stores we have built
Which Shopify stores has BotBrained built?
A custom Liquid theme for a ready-to-eat food brand shipping pan-India, built for people ordering from their phone: quick product pages, clear pricing, and the brand carried through every template instead of a food template with a logo swapped in.
“We build the storefront and the plumbing behind it. In our experience the store that survives month two is the one where inventory, COD and WhatsApp were designed together, not added later.”
More builds, including the SaaS and app work behind some of these stores, on the client work page.
Choosing
Freelancer vs agency vs BotBrained: which should you hire?
| Shopify freelancer | Typical agency | BotBrained | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who does the work | One person, one skill set | A project manager and a rotating bench | The engineers you meet on the first call |
| Theme approach | Paid theme plus tweaks | Paid theme plus tweaks, at agency rates | Hand-written Liquid theme, every section editable |
| Indian checkout, COD, GST | If they have done it before | Often a US-first build adapted later | Built in from day one |
| Inventory and WhatsApp systems | Out of scope | Third-party apps, stacked | Built in-house; we ship WhatsApp and inventory software |
| After launch | Best effort | Retainer required | 30 days of fixes included, then hourly or retainer, your choice |
| Where | Anywhere | Anywhere | Hyderabad office, clients across India |
Process
How does a Shopify build run?
- 01
Discovery
A working session on your catalogue, margins, order volume and the platform you are leaving. You get a written scope with a fixed price and a date.
- 02
Design in the browser
We design directly on Shopify with your products and copy. You review real pages on your phone, not mockups.
- 03
Build
Theme, sections, checkout, apps and integrations, with a staging store you can poke at every week.
- 04
Migration and QA
Products, customers, orders and redirects moved; every template and flow tested on real devices before anything goes live.
- 05
Launch and handover
DNS cutover, search-console checks, and a training session so your team can edit the store without us.
- 06
Thirty days after
Fixes and tuning included. After that, hourly or a retainer, your call.
Questions buyers ask
What do buyers ask a Shopify agency?
- How much does a Shopify store cost to build in India?
- Theme customisation starts at ₹25,000, a custom theme build at ₹50,000, and a full build with migration and integrations at ₹1,00,000. Catalogue size, custom logic and integrations move the number; Shopify’s own subscription is separate and paid to Shopify.
- How long does a Shopify build take?
- Theme customisation takes 2 to 4 weeks. A custom theme build takes 4 weeks and up. A full build with migration depends on scope. All three assume your product photography, copy and data arrive on time, which is the usual reason a launch slips.
- Do you work with brands outside Hyderabad?
- Yes. Most of our Shopify clients are not in Hyderabad. Discovery, design reviews and training happen on video, and the build process is identical.
- Are you a Shopify Partner?
- Yes. BotBrained is a Shopify Partner, which means we build on Shopify’s partner tooling and development stores, and you can transfer the store to your own account at launch.
- Can you migrate my store from WooCommerce, Wix or Dukaan?
- Yes. We move products, variants, customers and order history, and we set up URL redirects so the search rankings you have earned carry over instead of resetting.
- Will you set up Razorpay, Cashfree and cash on delivery?
- Yes. Payment gateway setup with UPI, cards, netbanking and EMI is part of every full build, and we add COD verification over WhatsApp or OTP so fake orders are stopped before they ship.
- Is the invoicing GST-compliant?
- Yes. We set up GST invoices with HSN codes and state-wise tax rules, and capture GSTIN at checkout for B2B customers.
- Do I own the theme and the code?
- Yes. The theme lives in your Shopify store and in a Git repository you own. There is no lock-in and no licence fee to us.
- Can my team edit the store after launch?
- Yes. Every section we build is editable from the theme editor, and handover includes a training session. You should not need a developer to change a banner or add a product.
- Do you build custom apps or use the App Store?
- Both, deliberately. Standard needs (reviews, email, loyalty) use proven apps. Anything that touches your money or your stock, like inventory sync or COD verification, we build so it does exactly what you need.
- Do you handle SEO during the build?
- Yes. Redirect mapping, page titles and descriptions, structured data for products, image sizing and speed are part of the build, not an add-on. Ongoing content and link work is a separate engagement.
- What happens after launch?
- Thirty days of fixes and tuning are included. After that you can pay hourly for changes or set up a small retainer. Many clients need nothing for months.
- Do you also build the systems behind the store?
- Yes, and it is what sets us apart. For Merme we built the inventory system that runs from the workshop to the warehouse to the storefront. If your operations do not fit an app, we build the tool.
- Can we meet in person in Hyderabad?
- Yes. We are in Kokapet, Hyderabad, and are happy to run discovery and design reviews in the room for local brands.
Tell us about
the store.
Send the current platform, roughly how many orders a month, and what is not working. You will get a straight answer on whether you need us, and a fixed-price scope if you do.
Smaran ChallapalliFounder & Lead Engineer, BotBrained · Shopify Partner · Kokapet, Hyderabad
Sources
- 1. Mordor Intelligence, India E-commerce Market report: Smartphones delivered 76.42% of India’s e-commerce market in 2025; market size USD 159.25 billion in 2026, growing 15.89% a year to 2031.
- 2. Razorpay, “Cash on Delivery in India: Benefits, Risks & RTO Tips”: 60 to 65% of Indian e-commerce orders are placed as COD (citing ET Prime Research, 2024); 25 to 30% of COD orders end in RTO versus 2 to 3% for prepaid.