Marketing stops waiting
A campaign page ships without a deploy, which is the outcome most teams thought headless would give them by itself.
WHAT REPLACES THE THEME EDITOR
Headless Shopify with a dedicated CMS
Going headless removes the Shopify theme editor, so editorial content needs somewhere else to live. A headless CMS such as Sanity or Contentful holds the campaign pages, editorial and brand content, Shopify holds products, inventory and orders, and the front end composes both. The point is that your content team and your catalogue stop blocking each other.
IN SHORT
- Leaving Liquid removes the Shopify theme editor, so editorial content needs a home before launch rather than after.
- Products stay in Shopify and are referenced by handle; copying them into the CMS creates a reconciliation problem that never ends.
- Preview has to render the real front end with draft content, or editors will not trust the tool and will route around it.
- Sanity suits teams with a developer nearby; Contentful suits large content teams who want guardrails.
- The content model should follow how your team actually publishes, not the vendor’s starter schema.
The problem this solves
Headless CMS
A content system with no front end of its own. It stores structured content and serves it over an API, so the same campaign can render on a web storefront, a native app or an in-store screen. In a headless Shopify build it holds everything that is not a product, and the front end composes the two.
Sanity or Contentful
| Sanity | Contentful | |
|---|---|---|
| Editing interface | Studio is code in your repo | Hosted app, configured not coded |
| Content modelling | Very flexible, easy to over-model | More prescriptive, harder to get wrong |
| Suits | Teams with a developer close by | Large content teams wanting guardrails |
| Preview | Built by you, integrates deeply | Built in, less customisable |
| Localisation | Field-level, flexible | Locale-level, structured |
| Cost shape | Usage-based, cheap at low volume | Seat and space based |
How we integrate it
- 01
Watch how content gets published today
Who writes, who approves, who schedules, and what they currently work around. A content model built from an org chart rather than the real workflow is the one that gets abandoned.
- 02
Draw the line with Shopify
Products, variants, prices and inventory stay in Shopify. Campaigns, editorial, guides and landing pages live in the CMS. Anything ambiguous gets assigned deliberately rather than ending up in both.
- 03
Model the content
Reusable blocks rather than page-shaped documents, so a campaign built this quarter can be recomposed next quarter without a developer.
- 04
Reference products, never copy them
The CMS stores a product handle; the front end resolves it at render time. Prices and availability therefore cannot go stale, because they were never duplicated.
- 05
Build real preview
Draft content rendered through the actual front end at a shareable URL. This is the single feature that decides whether a CMS is adopted or worked around.
- 06
Set roles and publishing workflow
Who can publish, what needs review, and how a scheduled campaign goes live at 9am without a developer awake. Configured before launch, not retrofitted after the first mistake.
What good looks like
One price, one source
Products referenced rather than copied, so the CMS can never show a price Shopify disagrees with.
Content reused across surfaces
The same structured content renders on web, app and screens without being rewritten for each.
Preview people trust
Drafts render through the real front end, so an editor can see the page before anyone else does.
Signs the model is wrong
- Documents shaped like pages, so nothing can be reused in a different layout.
- Product titles and prices pasted into the CMS “just for this campaign”.
- Preview that shows a CMS-rendered approximation rather than the real front end.
- A field called “custom HTML” doing the work the model should have done.
- Editors keeping a spreadsheet of what is published where.
Content systems we have built
We have built the Shopify-side version of this repeatedly — section libraries that let merchandisers compose pages without a developer, and full store and content management for brands like Mighty Jaxx, where the publishing workflow matters as much as the storefront. A headless CMS is the same problem with the theme editor removed.
Who we have done this for
Clients from the roster whose work this page describes. Each links to what we actually built.
Moonglow
Moonglow sells jewellery set to the moon phase of a date that matters to you. We built Find Your Moon: the customer enters a date of birth or other significant date, the store renders that moon phase, and it drives the personalised product.
Mighty Jaxx
Headless CMS questions
Do we need a CMS to go headless?
Effectively yes, unless your site is purely catalogue with no editorial. The moment you leave Liquid you lose the theme editor, and asking marketers to file a ticket for every landing page is how a headless project quietly fails six months after launch.
Sanity or Contentful?
Sanity is more flexible and its studio is code you own, which suits teams with a developer close by. Contentful is more prescriptive and easier to hand to a large content team. Both work; the wrong answer is picking one before modelling your content.
Where do product descriptions live?
In Shopify. Splitting product data across two systems creates a reconciliation problem that never goes away. The CMS holds what sits around the product — stories, guides, campaign pages — and references products rather than duplicating them.
What replaces the Shopify theme editor when we go headless?
A headless CMS, and nothing else does the job. The theme editor is the tool merchandisers use to compose pages, and it only exists for Liquid themes. Without a replacement, every landing page becomes a developer ticket, which is how headless projects lose their internal support.
Can we use Shopify metaobjects instead of a CMS?
For modest editorial needs, yes, and it is worth considering — metaobjects keep everything in one admin and cost nothing extra. They run out when you need rich editorial layout, scheduled campaigns, multi-locale content or a review workflow, which is where a dedicated CMS earns its licence.
How do we keep prices accurate in the CMS?
By never putting them there. The CMS holds a product reference; the front end fetches price and availability from Shopify at render time. If a price appears in two systems, one of them is eventually wrong, and it is always the one nobody is watching.
Related
Hydrogen & Oxygen Builds
Shopify’s own React framework and hosting — the shortest path to headless that keeps you inside supported territory.
Storefront API Front Ends
A custom front end on Next.js or your existing stack, reading catalogue and cart from the Storefront API.
Liquid to Headless Migration
Moving an existing theme to a headless front end without losing URLs, SEO or the merchandising your team relies on.
NEXT STEP
Free store audit
Most stores that ask about headless have a theme or app problem instead. A senior engineer will tell you which one you have, at no cost.