Your Shopify store converts in English and loses the Montreal shopper who wanted French
Custom Shopify development in Montreal runs $25k to $90k over 2 to 5 months. Shopify themes and template stores get you selling fast, but they default to English with French as a secondary locale, and in Quebec the Charter of the French Language expects French to be the default storefront experience, from product pages to checkout to the post-purchase emails.
Shopify supports multiple locales, but a typical theme treats English as primary and French as a translation layer, with apps and custom sections often left untranslated. For a Montreal fashion or textiles brand selling into Quebec, that means product descriptions, size guides, return policies, and order-confirmation emails slipping out in English to French-default shoppers, which is both a conversion leak and a Bill 96 exposure.
Past language, fashion brands hit theme limits fast: complex size and fit logic, made-to-measure flows, lookbook-grade visual merchandising, wholesale line sheets alongside DTC. Templates make those awkward, and the bilingual requirement compounds every workaround.
Budgeting a shopify build in Montreal
| Project scope | Typical cost | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Custom bilingual theme with full app translation coverage | $25k to $45k | 2 to 3 months |
| Storefront with apparel configurators and wholesale | $55k to $90k | 4 to 5 months |
| Theme plus custom Shopify app and integrations | $40k to $70k | 3 to 4 months |
The case for owning your shopify
You build custom Shopify when French has to be the default storefront and email language, and when your fashion catalog logic exceeds a theme. Custom theme and app work makes French primary end to end, including every app surface and transactional email, and models the size, fit, and wholesale flows a Montreal apparel brand actually sells through. That's the gap between a template store and a storefront that converts the Quebec shopper.
- French must be the default storefront and email language, not a secondary locale
- Your apparel logic exceeds what a theme can express
- You run wholesale and DTC and want one backend
- App and section translations keep falling through the cracks
- A premium theme plus a solid translation app covers your bilingual catalog
- Your product logic is straightforward
- You're validating a new line and want speed
- You lack budget for custom theme maintenance
What your build should include
Montreal shopify: the full scope
Everything a shopify build here can cover: ecommerce development, payment gateway integration, Shopify Plus development, custom Shopify themes, Shopify app development, headless Shopify and Shopify migration.
Delivery, week by week
Exactly what you get
A Shopify storefront where French is the default a Montreal shopper lands in, all the way through checkout and the order-confirmation email, with full translation coverage across theme sections and apps so nothing slips out in English. Apparel size, fit, and made-to-measure logic works the way you actually sell, wholesale and DTC run from one backend, and everything ties to your inventory management and accounting software. You also get performance and accessibility tuning on the bilingual pages.
How to choose a developer in Montreal
Find a team that guarantees translation coverage across apps and emails, not just the theme, because that's where bilingual Shopify stores leak. Ask to see an apparel size-and-fit configurator they built, how transactional emails localize, and how they keep the theme upgradeable. A good Montreal partner treats French as the default storefront language and knows fashion and textiles selling logic, which is where the templates fall short here.
- French as the default storefront and email language end to end, including app surfaces
- Size, fit, and made-to-measure logic modeled properly for apparel
- Wholesale line sheets and DTC running from one Shopify backend
- Transactional emails localized to each shopper's language
- Clean ties to your inventory management and accounting software
- Custom theme and app work costs well above buying a premium theme
- You take on maintenance through Shopify's platform update cycles
- Over-customizing can complicate future Shopify upgrades
- A simple bilingual catalog may be fine on a good theme plus a translation app
- !They translate the theme but not the apps, ask how full coverage is guaranteed
- !Emails stay English, ask how transactional mail localizes per shopper
- !They can't model fit logic, ask for an apparel configurator they built
- !No inventory or accounting tie-in, ask how stock and orders stay in sync
- !They over-customize the theme, ask how upgrades stay safe
If shopify is on the roadmap, wordpress, pos, project management usually follow within the year. Budget them as one conversation.
Rohan advises mid-market and enterprise teams on ERP, CRM and custom software, and has led delivery on dozens of business-software builds.
Writes for Digital Heroes, shipping business software for 2,000+ brands across 55+ countries since 2017.
Frequently asked questions
Doesn't Shopify already support French for Quebec?
It supports multiple locales, but themes treat English as primary and apps often ship untranslated, so French-default shoppers still hit English content and emails. Custom work makes French the default end to end, which is what Bill 96 expects.
What does custom Shopify cost in Montreal?
A custom bilingual theme with full app translation runs $25k to $45k. A storefront with apparel configurators and wholesale runs $55k to $90k over four to five months.
Can we keep our theme and just fix the bilingual gaps?
Sometimes. If the theme is solid, a custom bilingual layer plus full app-translation coverage can close the gaps for $25k to $45k without a full rebuild.
Do order emails really need to be in French?
Yes. Transactional emails to a French-default shopper should be in French, and a confirmation in English is exactly the kind of touch Bill 96 makes an exposure, plus it reads as out-of-market.
Can custom Shopify handle wholesale and DTC together?
Yes, both can run from one Shopify backend with role-based pricing, which is common for Montreal apparel brands selling line sheets to wholesale and direct to consumers at once.