Shopify Developer Canada
Canadian shoppers can tell when a store was built for another country. Prices in US dollars, a brokerage fee at the door, a French page that reads like a machine wrote it: each one costs you orders. Skill Align works as a Shopify developer for Canadian brands, handling the parts that are specific to selling here, from provincial sales tax to Quebec's language rules and CASL-compliant email capture.
Our team is fully remote and serves brands in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary and everywhere in between. Book a free Shopify strategy call to see what your store needs.
Shopify brands we've worked with
Many Canadian stores start on a theme and app stack designed with American merchants in mind. It works, mostly. These are the gaps we check first:
Shopify Markets can convert prices automatically, but a figure like $47.83 looks careless. We set rounding rules or fixed CAD price lists so every product lands on a price you actually chose.
Delivering to rural, northern and remote addresses can cost far more than shipping across Toronto. Rates by province, or by postal code through a shipping app, stop those orders from losing money.
Canadians expect metric measurements, and federal labelling rules generally require English and French on consumer product packaging. Storing both in metafields keeps product pages consistent with the box.
If returns travel back to a US warehouse, Canadian customers pay for it in time or money. A Canadian returns address or local 3PL often removes that objection before checkout.
Canada layers federal and provincial taxes. The 5% GST applies nationally; several provinces combine it with their provincial portion as a single HST; British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba charge a separate PST; and Quebec charges QST alongside GST. Each has its own registration rules, and your accountant should confirm which ones apply to you.
Once your registrations are entered, Shopify charges the right combination for the customer's shipping province. Our setup covers:
Quebec's Charter of the French Language, strengthened by Bill 96, generally expects commercial content aimed at Quebec consumers, including websites, product information and standard terms of sale, to be available in French. There are exceptions, so confirm the details with Quebec counsel, but the practical takeaway is simple: French should be a full version of your store, not a handful of translated banners.
We set up French through Shopify Markets with its own URL path and hreflang tags, use Translate & Adapt for structure, and leave product copy to a human translator. Checkout labels, order notification emails and Klaviyo flows need French versions as well; they're the pieces most often forgotten.
Quebec's Law 25 adds privacy duties, including a designated person in charge of personal information and, as it is widely read, tracking that stays off until visitors agree to it. We configure your consent banner for Quebec visitors accordingly, while the rest of the country falls under PIPEDA.
Yes. Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation is stricter than US email rules: commercial emails and texts need consent, and you need to be able to show how you got it. Implied consent from a purchase or inquiry exists but expires, so a list built on it has to be re-permissioned or pruned over time. In practice, that means:
Canada Post, Purolator, UPS, FedEx and regional couriers each have their strengths, and the Canada Post labour disruptions of recent years taught many merchants to keep a second carrier ready to switch on. We set up rates, delivery estimates and tracking so that changing carriers never means rebuilding the store.
Cross-border orders need a plan of their own. The United States suspended its de minimis exemption for low-value imports in 2025, so even small parcels from Canada can now face duties and customs processing, and tariff rules have shifted repeatedly. In the other direction, Canadian shoppers buying from US brands dislike surprise brokerage fees. Depending on your plan and payment setup, Shopify can collect duties and import taxes at checkout, which removes the surprise for both sides. If the US is a big market for you, our page on Shopify development for US brands covers sales tax there.
A Shopify store setup with CAD pricing, provincial tax, carriers and a bilingual-ready theme from the first day.
A migration to Shopify from WooCommerce, Wix or BigCommerce, with 301 redirects so your search rankings carry over.
A Canadian market inside your existing store, with CAD price lists, French content and duties settings, without running a second shop.
A free audit of speed, tax setup and consent, then prioritized fixes. Small theme fixes are usually done within 48-72 hours.
Got Questions?
Every project is scoped individually rather than sold as a package. Landing pages start from about CA$400, and full custom Shopify stores from US$960+. You get an itemized proposal within 24 hours of a free 30-minute discovery call, so you can see where the budget goes, including French setup and tax configuration.
If you sell to consumers in Quebec, you should plan for a French version. The Charter of the French Language, as amended by Bill 96, generally expects commercial websites and product information aimed at Quebec to be available in French. There are nuances, so check with a Quebec lawyer, but building French in from the start costs far less than retrofitting it.
Yes, once it's configured. You add the registrations you hold, and Shopify applies the correct combination based on the customer's shipping province. The usual mistakes are missing registrations, products with the wrong tax settings and invoices without registration numbers. We set all of that up and place sample orders to each province before launch.
We're a Shopify Partner working fully remotely, not a company with a Canadian office. We serve brands in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and beyond, and schedule calls inside your working day whether you're on Atlantic, Eastern, Mountain or Pacific time. The Canada-specific work, such as provincial tax, French localization and CASL-ready forms, is part of every Canadian build.
Decide who pays before launch. Collecting duties and import taxes at checkout, where your plan and payment setup allow it, avoids refused parcels and unhappy customers. Shipping from stock held in the customer's country is another option. Because US de minimis rules and tariffs changed in 2025, we review the current position with you during discovery.
A simpler store can be live within 7-14 days, and a full custom build usually takes 3-4 weeks. Adding French mostly depends on how quickly translated copy is ready; the technical setup in Shopify Markets is quick once the theme is built for two languages. We plan translation alongside development so it doesn't delay launch.
Keep Exploring
Tell us about your provinces, languages and carriers, and we'll send an itemized proposal within 24 hours.
Book a Free Call