Express the brand
Translate Glossier’s editorial, community-led identity into a custom storefront without turning minimalism into sameness.
Inaugural Shopify Build Award · 2024
Shopify Build Award Winner for Glossier
Shopify named Glossier by SDG the Best Custom Liquid Storefront at its first-ever Build Awards. The recognition honored a flagship beauty experience that makes sophisticated product bundling feel as simple and considered as the Glossier brand itself.
The official result
Best Custom Liquid Storefront
- Winning storefront
- Glossier
- Shopify partner
- SDG
- Award year
- 2024
- Announced at
- Shopify Editions.dev
Shopify published the winners on June 28, 2024. Read Shopify’s announcement.
Why Shopify selected it
Iconic restraint, serious commerce engineering
Shopify highlighted two qualities in the winning Glossier storefront: the way SDG preserved the brand’s minimalist aesthetic while making the shopping experience engaging, and the innovative product bundling that lets customers customize selections directly in the cart.
That combination is the work. Glossier’s visual language leaves nowhere for rough edges to hide, while its commerce model has real depth: shades, routines, curated kits, duos and trios, subscriptions, international markets, and high-intensity product launches. The storefront makes that complexity feel effortless.
Read the full Glossier Shopify case study →What the Glossier storefront had to do
Simplify bundles
Let shoppers configure sets, select variants, understand savings, and add a complete routine to bag in one coherent flow.
Stay fast on mobile
Deliver rich imagery and custom buying interactions with the responsiveness expected by a mobile-first beauty audience.
Stay operable
Give Glossier a bespoke experience on Shopify’s native online-store foundation without the overhead of a separate headless stack.
What is the Shopify Build Award?
Shopify introduced the Build Awards in 2024 to recognize exceptional work across app, theme, and storefront development. The inaugural winners were announced at Editions.dev during Shopify’s twentieth-anniversary year. Glossier by SDG was the winner in the Best Custom Liquid Storefront category.
It was one of only three storefront awards in the inaugural program, alongside Best Custom Hydrogen Storefront and Most Creative Storefront. The result is independently documented by Shopify, not a self-issued agency accolade.
Why a custom Liquid storefront?
Liquid was an architectural decision, not a creative constraint. SDG paired Shopify’s proven native storefront and commerce foundation with a fully custom experience shaped around Glossier’s design system and shopping journeys. That kept day-to-day operation close to Shopify while preserving the control needed for a category-defining brand.
SDG builds both custom Liquid and Hydrogen storefronts. The point is not to force every brand into the same architecture; it is to choose the simplest foundation that can deliver the required customer experience, performance, merchandising freedom, and total cost of ownership.
One award, two complete Glossier builds
SDG built Glossier.com on Shopify and later rebuilt it from the ground up, delivering two full generations of the brand’s flagship storefront. The work spans custom Liquid engineering, mobile-first product discovery, build-your-own sets, subscriptions, Checkout Extensibility, and international commerce.
The Build Award recognizes the visible result. The deeper proof is a long-running engineering partnership and a storefront foundation capable of evolving with the brand. See the architecture and experience in the Glossier case study.
Shopify Build Award: frequently asked questions
Who won the Shopify Build Award for Best Custom Liquid Storefront?
Glossier by SDG won Best Custom Liquid Storefront at the inaugural Shopify Build Awards in 2024.
What did Shopify say about the Glossier storefront?
Shopify praised how SDG celebrated Glossier’s minimalist brand aesthetic while creating an engaging shopping environment. Shopify also highlighted the innovative bundling experience, which lets shoppers customize selections directly in the cart.
Was this the first Shopify Build Award?
Yes. Shopify introduced the Build Awards in 2024 and announced the inaugural winners at Editions.dev during its twentieth-anniversary year.
Was the winning Glossier storefront headless?
No. Glossier won the Best Custom Liquid Storefront category. SDG built the experience on Shopify’s native online-store architecture with a fully custom Liquid front end.
Does SDG build Hydrogen storefronts too?
Yes. SDG engineers both custom Liquid and headless Shopify storefronts, including Hydrogen and Oxygen. Architecture is chosen around the brand’s customer experience, operating model, performance requirements, and total cost of ownership.