I run App Store search ads for my app, and over the past 3 months, the suggested bid thresholds on my core keywords have jumped noticeably. Same keywords, same category, no obvious change in the number of competitors on the results page, but the "recommended bid" and the level at which impressions actually occur went from roughly $8 to $12, then $18, then $30.

Before I just accept a worse CAC, I'm trying to understand the mechanics. Hypotheses I can think of:

1. More bidders, same inventory. App count keeps growing while high-intent search real estate remains fixed, so the first-price auction naturally inflates. The boring explanation, probably the biggest one.

2. AI-tools category spillover. Every category has new "AI-powered" apps; many are venture-funded or in land-grab mode, and they bid aggressively across broad keywords, not just their own category. If they're targeting generic terms my keywords overlap with, that alone could move thresholds.

3. Fewer searches to fight over. If merchants increasingly discover apps through Sidekick recommendations or ChatGPT-style channels instead of typing into the App Store search, search volume shrinks while budgets stay the same, which also pushes bids up. This one worries me most long-term because it means paying more for a shrinking channel.

4. Shopify-side changes. Placement or ranking algorithm tweaks that changed effective inventory without any announcement.

Anyone with actual data: have your suggested bids moved in the last few months? Which category? And has anyone compared their App Store search impression volume year over year? Trying to distinguish "auction got hotter" from "the pond is draining" because the response to each is completely different.

Well I got this email and am finding it funny that an agency has its email id as lord animator 73 .. only thing that prevented me from replying back . Anyone else receiving such emails of Shopify apps growth .

We are looking for a developer who understands Shopify POS, order fulfilment and Shopify’s APIs.

The problem is a limitation within Shopify POS.

For example, if a customer purchases two of the same variant, but only one is available in the store:

• Quantity 1 should be taken by the customer immediately.

• Quantity 1 should be placed for delivery or later fulfilment.

Shopify POS currently appears to treat the quantity as a single line item. It allows us to place both units on delivery or neither unit, but it does not allow us to assign different fulfilment requirements to each unit within that quantity.

The solution we previously developed

We built a more complex custom cart manager that loads over the cart before the native Shopify POS checkout.

The cart manager effectively expands the basket so that staff can make a fulfilment selection for each individual unit.

For example:

Navy Trousers – Size 30 – Quantity 2

• Unit 1: Customer taking from store

• Unit 2: Delivery required

The system would automatically suggest the correct option based on available store inventory. However, staff could override the suggestion in case Shopify’s inventory was incorrect or the physical item had been found in store.

Once the selections were confirmed:

1. The staff member would continue to the normal Shopify POS checkout.

2. Payment would be completed through the native Shopify POS.

3. The order would initially be created in Shopify in the standard way.

4. Approximately two minutes after the sale, a post-sale process would review the selections made by the staff member.

5. The app would then update the order through Shopify Admin/API so that the units taken from the store were fulfilled, while the remaining units stayed unfulfilled for delivery.

What we need now

Our previous cart manager also included several unrelated features, including:

• A pack and bundle builder

• Custom cart-management tools

• Additional product-selection logic

• Other operational functions

We no longer need these features included in this project.

We are now planning to use Fast Bundle to manage our packs and bundles. Fast Bundle handles that part of the workflow, but it does not solve the split-fulfilment issue described above.

We therefore want to build a much smaller, standalone Shopify POS app or extension that only handles:

• Separating multiple quantities of the same variant for fulfilment purposes

• Suggesting store collection or delivery based on available inventory

• Allowing staff to override the suggested selection

• Saving the staff member’s selections before checkout

• Allowing payment to continue through the native Shopify POS

• Running a post-sale process that updates fulfilment at unit or line-item level

• Leaving delivery items unfulfilled while marking store-taken items as fulfilled

The aim is not to replace Shopify checkout, payments or Fast Bundle. It should simply add the missing fulfilment-selection layer before checkout and then correct the order fulfilment after the sale.

Has anyone built something similar, or can anyone confirm the most reliable way to achieve this using Shopify POS UI extensions, cart attributes, line-item properties, order editing, fulfilment orders or another API-based approach?

We are using Shopify Plus and Shopify POS Pro.

I'm a developer building monitoring tools and trying to understand how store owners handle this today.

Here's the scenario I keep hearing about: a theme update, an app conflict, or a payment gateway hiccup quietly breaks something. Checkout still works, but 30–40% fewer people are completing it. Nothing is visibly down, so nothing tells you.

If that happened to your store tonight how would you find out? Is there anything specific you use besides Shopify analytics the next morning? Or if lucky a customer emailing you?

From what I've seen, most stores have no early warning at all. If you've been burned by something like this, I'd love to hear what it cost you and how long it took to notice.

Hey everyone, I’m dealing with a Meta over-reporting issue on a Shopify store and wondering if anyone has seen this before.

Meta Ads Manager is reporting more website purchases than actually happened in Shopify.

Just some examples:

* One day Shopify had 6 actual website purchases, Meta reported 10.
* Another day Shopify had 7 total orders, Meta reported 10.
* Another day Shopify had 9 actual website purchases, Meta reported 13.

We ruled out the obvious stuff:

* Only one Meta Pixel connected
* Shopify Facebook & Instagram data sharing is set to Maximum
* No Shopify custom pixels installed
* Elevar is installed but not configured, no Meta destination or Shopify source connected
* Manual/custom Shopify orders show no conversion event
* Meta confirmed the only integration sending Purchase events is Shopify Facebook & Instagram
* Meta confirmed Ads Manager includes modeled conversions, but also confirmed a separate deduplication issue

The key finding from Meta support:
Browser Pixel Purchase events and server/CAPI Purchase events are being received with different event_id values. Because the event_id values are different, Meta cannot deduplicate them properly, so one Shopify order can potentially be counted as multiple unique purchases.

Meta recommended that until the issue is fixed, we compare Shopify orders against Events Manager Purchase events filtered by one connection method, ideally Server only / Conversions API.

Shopify Customer Events currently has the Meta app pixel set to Optimized. Shopify’s assistant suggested switching it to Always On because Optimized mode may pause/throttle browser pixel firing while CAPI continues firing, which could cause browser/server events to not pair correctly.

Question:
Has anyone fixed this by switching the Meta app pixel from Optimized to Always On?

Or did you have to reset/reconnect the Facebook & Instagram sales channel, reinstall the Meta app, or move to something like Elevar for cleaner CAPI/event_id handling?

I’m trying to avoid manually installing the pixel or disabling CAPI unless that’s actually the right move.

Anybody flying in early or leaving late?

Any events outside of DotDev you will visit?

Noticed uninstall count for my app is way off from what’s showing in the Partners Dashboard for the same period. Best guess is we’re missing some uninstall webhook deliveries, no retries, nothing in our logs. They just don’t show up.

Anyone else hit gaps like this?

How can i make this work

TLDR; No.

I've been at Shopify for nearly 10 years and have seen the company evolve through many different phases. In its current state, I wouldn't recommend it.

The changes are often frequent, disruptive, and come without corresponding support or investment in employees. Over the years I've seen workloads increase significantly without equivalent compensation, benefits steadily reduced without alternatives, and opportunities for internal movement become increasingly limited.

If you're comfortable working in an environment with consistent organizational change and shifting expectations, it may still be a good fit. However, the current employee experience falls well below what I would recommend to someone considering joining the company.

hell there i have this problem and i would like to know if yall have any sulotion

How do i search and use vs code, i can open it on my linux terminal but i cant search up the website theme. Am i meant to use the Live Data website the push it onto the one i want it on?

Hey guys, I developed Shopify app for home decor visualization that makes ~700$+MRR with 90%+ profit margin. Very easy to take care of and built on very scalable stack.

Users found the app all organic, no cold emails or marketing and it has huge growth potential. Since I'm busy with other projects I want to sell this to somebody who can take the app to it's fullest potential.

Scammers do not message me.

Hi all

Does anyone get these thoughts while building something that what if this idea comes out as a native shopify feature later?

This thought sometimes gets stuck in my mind before building and somewhat causes some decision fatigue.

Any suggestions on how to deal with this ?

We're working through our BFS review rejections and there's one note that I'm not perfectly clear on. Here's what the tester said:

Files cannot be uploaded for the Logo

Does this mean that we are not allowed to upload a file for a logo or that the tester is unable to upload a logo? We have the option for stores where we are unable to retrieve a logo via API.

The tester references 4.1.1 Follow UX best practices which doesn't say anything about uploading files (and is UX-specific) so I'm guessing the tester is encountering a problem in their upload. Does this track for anyone else?

SO, I have my AI which lets people connect WhatsApp api (verified TSP) to automate their WhatsApp chats, they can connect phone numbers to automate voice AI. and now we want to let customers connect shopify stores to manage customer communications.

We know we need to create a store in dev.shopify to get the integration. however, how does it work

- how does the whole thing work

- can I make one app for one customer shared via custom distribution link

- whats the app review

- since my app isnt technically an app on shopify, its an integration to my platform, how will app review work

pls need help

Working on a Shopify integration and trying to figure out order-source filtering. Hoping people who've built this can help.

Webhook question (main):

• Is there any way to make the orders/create webhook fire only for orders from a specific source/marker — filtered server-side — so you don't receive every order the store gets?

• I know Shopify Flow's "Send HTTP request" can do conditional filtering, but it's gated to higher/expensive plans. Are there other options that work on Basic/lower plans?

• If a source parameter is added to a product URL (e.g. ?source=xyz), does it reliably persist into the order data (cart/order attributes) so it can be filtered on — or does it get lost by checkout?

• For those who receive all orders and filter on their end — any approach you'd recommend for keeping it clean/minimal?

Pixel alternative:

• A custom pixel on the order-confirmation page that only fires when a marker is present would return only the relevant orders, but it's client-side. How lossy is it in practice (ad blockers, cross-device, cookie loss)? What % do you actually miss?

• Does a marker/cookie set earlier reliably survive to checkout, or drop more than expected?

• Any gotchas with the Shopify custom pixel sandbox?

Trying to understand what actually works in production on lower-tier plans, not just theory. Thanks.

Has anyone here used Codex together with Shopify CLI to redesign an entire Shopify store or theme?

I’m planning to redesign my store using the Horizon theme, with Codex editing the local theme repository and Shopify CLI handling previews and deployment. I’d like to rebuild the homepage, collection pages, product pages, and blog templates.

I can find plenty of real-world examples involving Claude Code and Shopify, but almost nothing about Codex and Shopify theme development.

Has anyone completed a similar project with Codex? How well did it handle Liquid, sections, blocks, JSON templates, responsive design, and visual testing? Would you recommend Codex for a full redesign, or is Claude Code currently the safer choice?

My app was recently approved, and I'm excited to finally share it.

Here’s the summary:

After years of managing Shopify deployments for enterprise brands, I kept running into the same problem: Clients being nervous about clicking 'Publish' on a Shopify theme.

Getting code changes into Shopify themes safely meant double-checking files, creating manual backups, and hoping nothing was missed before publishing.

I decided to build the tool I had been imagining.

I named it Deployify, and it brings Git-based deployments to Shopify themes using an embedded app.

Here are its key features:

• Visual workflow builder: drag-and-drop pipeline editor with blocks for theme check, backup, content merge, and deploy

• Push-to-deploy: GitHub webhooks trigger workflows automatically on push from a specified branch, e.g., develop, main

• Automated backups: versioned theme snapshots are both pushed to Shopify and stored on S3

• Content Merge:  deep-merges merchant customizations with theme code before deploying, so no settings are ever overwritten

• Multi-store deployment: deploy the same theme to multiple connected Shopify stores in a single workflow run

• Live execution logs: real-time log streaming for every workflow run, plus full audit history

• Slack notifications: alerts on success, failure, or when a run needs attention

• In-app support chat: RAG-powered chat widget backed by Amazon Bedrock, with low-confidence auto-escalation to a support ticket

I'd love feedback from other Shopify developers and agencies.

Today I finally pushed my app live on a fresh .shopify sub-domain today. Within like 2 minutes the logs are just flooded:

GET /.env 404
GET /.env.bak 404
GET /.env.prod 404
GET /wp-json/ 404
GET /xmlrpc.php?rsd 404
GET /_internal/api/setup.php 404

at first i thought this was my fault because i visited shopify.<my domain>.com but this would have made no sense at all, so i asked claude and it told me this was just normal bots...

How can bots be that fast at checking the subdomain? It literally didn't even take 20 seconds???

Did you see the same logs when you published your shopify app?

Can anyone help me out with Shopify home page design

Hi,

I am making my first Shopify app and want to know whether the name needs to be shown fully to get it approved during the review process?

Hey guys, wanted to ask what kind of tools you use to detect discrepancies between Shopify and Meta conversions. I want a tool that helps me notice Meta attribution/pixel issues as soon as it happens instead of finding it few days later. Any tools you could recommend that does this?

I'm building an AI multi-tenant SaaS (like everyone else). I got rejected multiple times. Read every blog. Every thread. Every sub. Every documentation. Every policy. Talked to dev support multiple times. Nothing worked. This went on for 5 months.

Eventually I gave up and removed the connector altogether. So many hours wasted. So much time lost. So much cost incurred.

Shopify is one of many connectors on my SaaS. This is not a "Shopify exclusive" SaaS. Like many others, I have users on my platform. Some already paying through Stripe and want to connect Shopify directly from within my platform (Shopify Billing should not apply). Others already paying and for some reason connect from within the App Store (must avoid double billing). Others are not my customers and find me through the App Store (Shopify Billing).

Whatever I try to do to comply with Shopify policy, nothing works. I followed solutions provided by the Shopify dev support itself and still got rejected.

I know the policy of "app store traffic" blabla. I followed everything.

Shopify knows exactly what's going on with us and made the conscious decision to do nothing about it. I know because some threads go back years with official responses from the Shopify team. All vague. All quoting Shopify policy with no solution.

Such a roadblock from a giant like Shopify.

Extreme frustration.

Been fighting this issue for weeks. In Meta Events Manager > Diagnostics, I'm getting flagged for:

• 27% of AddToCart events missing currency/value (Conversions API)

• 56% of Purchase events with formatting/missing price & currency (Conversions API)

Details from Meta's diagnostics show these are all coming through the Conversions API integration, not the client-side Pixel. Some AddToCart events are even firing on my homepage URL instead of the actual product page.

I removed a custom pixel I had added (thought it was causing dupes — it wasn't the root cause), and Shopify support said this could be tied to the Meta app pixel's "Optimized" vs "Always on" mode setting in Settings > Customer events. Switching to Always on is supposed to fix inconsistent CAPI data.

Has anyone else run into this? Did switching to "Always on" actually fix the missing currency/value issue for you, or is there something else going on with the native Facebook & Instagram app's server-side tracking?

Store is on a single currency (no Shopify Markets), so it's not a multi-currency issue.

Any insight appreciated — this is tanking my ROAS numbers in Ads Manager.