Really depends on how detailed the shopfronts need to be (as in how close you get to them), however here 2 thoughts:
A. for historic shopfronts we have had good experiences with placing an elevation or corrected photo at approx. scale in the 2d window then modelling any detailed facade elements with slabs and walls - once complete save it from the 3d window (top view) as object and place it back in your model;
B. depending on your skills in 3DS (we either use Maxwell or C4D) you could presumably use texture maps of photos and map them over simple solids which you can either create in ArchiCAD or 3DS - we find that creating them in ArchiCAD is easier as you can place them more accurately;
Hope that helps.
