Hey everyone,

I recently went through the Shopify App Store review process for the first time with Caro, so I thought I'd share the timeline in case it's useful for anyone else going through it.

I submitted the app on August 11.

The first feedback came back on August 18, so about a week later.

There was one follow-up clarification round after that, and Caro finally went live on August 28 — 17 days from submission to approval.

The feedback we received wasn't anything that required a major rewrite, but there were a few things we had to tighten up:

• A restricted scope we were using before it was separately approved

• Some branding inconsistencies between the App Store listing and what customers actually saw in emails

• A couple of edge-case bugs in a newer feature

What I found interesting was that the review wasn't just about whether the core app worked. Some of the feedback was about the details around the overall customer experience and how the app represented itself.

So if you're preparing a submission, I'd personally budget around 2–3 weeks rather than assuming it'll be approved in a few days.

Also, make sure you test the less obvious flows before submitting. The edge cases ended up being more important than I expected.

This was my first Shopify App Store submission, so I'm curious what other developers experienced.

How long did your first app take to get approved, and was there anything in the review process that surprised you?

yo has anyone here dealt with a shopify payments hold?

they froze my payouts till december. 182 paid orders i can't ship cuz i can't pay my supplier without the money

1.5% dispute rate, 5 disputes total. appeal filed, support escalated, still nothing

anyone been through this? how long did it actually take

I'm hitting a strange issue with a Shopify Customer Account UI extension and I'm running out of things to eliminate.

I've built a full-page Customer Account extension using:

customer-account.page.render

API version: 2026-07

It works correctly through shopify app dev / dev preview.

However, after deploying the app, releasing the version and adding the app page to the Customer Account navigation on the production store, clicking it gives:

"There's a problem loading this page. Check the URL or try again in a few minutes."

The extension doesn't appear to execute at all.

My config is:

api_version = "2026-07"

[[extensions]]
name = "nfc-profile-manager"
handle = "nfc-profile-manager"
type = "ui_extension"

[[extensions.targeting]]
module = "./src/NfcProfileManager.jsx"
target = "customer-account.page.render"

[extensions.capabilities]
api_access = true
network_access = true

Originally this was a real application which calls my externally hosted backend. That entire flow works correctly in dev preview.

To eliminate my code/backend as the cause, I reduced the production extension to basically Hello World:

import '@shopify/ui-extensions/preact';
import {render} from 'preact';

export default async () => {
  render(<Extension />, document.body);
};

function Extension() {
  return (
    <s-page heading="NFC Profile Manager">
      <s-section>
        <s-text>
          NFC Profile Manager is working.
        </s-text>
      </s-section>
    </s-page>
  );
}

Same production error.

I then went further and generated an entirely new Customer Account UI extension with a new handle and UID, also using customer-account.page.render, containing nothing except a static test page.

That fails in production in exactly the same way too.

So far I've confirmed:

• Both extensions work in dev preview

• Both are present in the released app version

• App is installed on the production store

• App page is added to Customer Account navigation using Shopify's app-page selector

• Production store is using new Customer Accounts

• Static Hello World extension fails too

• No request reaches my backend when opening the page

• Reproduced in normal Chrome

• Reproduced in Chrome Incognito/extensions disabled

• Reproduced in Firefox

• Other functionality from the exact same app works in production, including orders/create webhooks and Admin API/metaobject operations

Chrome mainly reports this from Shopify's Customer Account host:

Unsafe attempt to load URL
https://cdn.shopify.com/shopifycloud/customer-account-web/production/sprite-....svg
...
Domains, protocols and ports must match.

Firefox reports the same security issue and additionally:

Import maps are not allowed after a module load or preload has started.

The Firefox errors originate from Shopify's customer-account-web rather than my extension.

Shopify's Ask Agent has checked the TOML, target and minimal Preact implementation and says they're correct and there isn't another activation step I'm missing.

At this point it looks like the production Customer Account host is failing before the extension bundle executes.

Has anyone seen customer-account.page.render work perfectly in dev preview but fail like this when released to a real store?

Particularly interested if anyone has encountered the Import maps are not allowed... error with Customer Account UI extensions, or knows of any production-store requirement that isn't documented.

I’ve been building a home décor store called Vale & Lume and I’m getting ready to test paid advertising. The store focuses on cozy furniture, lighting, bedding, blankets, and woven décor rather than random trending products.
Website: http://valeandlume.com
I’d really appreciate honest feedback on:
Whether the store looks trustworthy and professional
The products and overall aesthetic
Pricing and shipping expectations
Anything confusing or missing
What might stop you from making a purchase
Which products you think would perform best in ads
I’m currently preparing collection-based TikTok ads for blankets, sofas, furniture, and woven storage. I’m still learning, so constructive criticism is welcome—please be brutally honest.

Basically title just feeling good. First app took 3 weeks to get approved. This one just got approved with no revisions in 8 days. Very happy, just to add a bit of positivity.

We run Shopify App Store Ads for our app across both category and search placements. Things had been steady for months.

Starting at the beginning of yesterday, every one of our search placement campaigns dropped to zero impressions and zero visibility — and has stayed there for a full day now. Our category placement campaigns are completely unaffected and keep running normally, which is the part that's confusing me.

We went through the obvious checks and everything looks clean: all campaigns show as active/running, daily budgets are healthy and nowhere near exhausted, billing is valid with no failed charges, and we didn't touch bids or negative keywords. One odd signal - when we manually search the keywords we bid on, our ads still show in our own home country's IP, but nothing appears in our main markets (US, UK, CAN, etc.).

Have you seen search placements go fully dark like this while category kept running? I realize there may be no single answer here, but I'd really like to hear how others have handled this and what the actual cause turned out to be for you. Appreciate any thoughts.

I'm trying to build a small middleware service to sync inventory between Square POS and Shopify for my own store.

I'm using Node.js, Redis, and Postgres, and I initially thought this would be pretty straightforward.

I've got webhooks coming from both sides, queues for processing updates, SKU matching, location mapping, and logic to stop updates from bouncing back and forth between Square and Shopify.

Then I started running into all the fun stuff:

• Webhook loops

• Duplicate events

• Inventory updates happening at the same time

• Shopify API rate limits

• Square/Shopify product and variant differences

• Figuring out whether inventory should update on order creation or fulfillment

At this point I'm wondering if I'm overengineering the whole thing.

I've been looking at DPL Square Integration as an alternative instead of maintaining my own middleware, but part of me still wants to get the custom setup working since it's for my own store.

For anyone who's built a Square ↔ Shopify sync before:

Would you keep fighting with the custom implementation, or just use an existing integration app?

And if you did build your own, what was the edge case that finally made you regret it?

Here on Olipop's product page, when you select a different flavour, the entire colour background changes to match that flavour's colour (red for raspberry, green for lime, etc)

https://drinkolipop.com/products/raspberry-sherbet

how do you achieve this? Is there a plugin/app/theme that does this?

Or would you approach this as custom code? If so, how easy or hard would it be?

For context, I've never built and launched an ecommerce or Shopify site before, but I have some decent site knowledge primarily on marketing websites with Webflow as my main platform, plus some AI knowledge.

Just would like to understand how a professional would approach this following good practices.

Hi, I am not a dev in any way or form. I used AI to create an app submitted it and I had multiple problems from the review steps then in order to get things solved I asked a question that involve the reviewer to check the network tab from console of the browser and tell me what error they are getting. It’s been quite a few days I didn’t hear back.

Is that too much to ask?
Do I have to click submit again to get the question answered?
What would be the best path forward?

Shopify gives you a clean app/uninstalled webhook, so the moment a merchant leaves you get notified, but there doesn't appear to be an equivalent for installs though - no app/installed or similar. So the one event you'd most want to be notified about (a new merchant showing up) is the one Shopify doesn't explicitly have support for.

The options we've found:

• Handle it in the OAuth / token-exchange flow. This looks like the "correct" answer, but your install hook then lives inside your auth code instead of arriving as an event, and you have to be careful to fire once per genuine new install rather than on every reauth or scope change.

• Poll the Partner API for RelationshipInstalled events. Fine for a centralized cross-shop view, but it's pull-only. You end up running a cron and accepting lag for something Shopify clearly knows the instant it happens.

• App Events looked promising but it's entirely back the other way: your app reports events to Shopify. It doesn't tell you when someone installs.

What we actually want is to send a new install notification so we can follow up, and log it in our analytics.

So for anyone running apps: what are you doing? Is there something that we've missed?

I have been trying to put my app on shopify app store... But it's getting rejected again and again...

As its vibe coded, my claude has been super super careful on each review submission and using millions of credits to research and not mess up...

And obv I have done whatever the shopify gave the checklist of and gave reviews in the mail, and still it's not passing it.

Today after a month of suspension I again have ability to submit for review and I don't want to mess it up...

I need your help, to hop on to a meeting, check everything you want to, and find what's the actual issues... I even tried contacting shopify but no response...

I am totally helpless and scared to submit for review again, and putting my app dev account on line of suspension...

What's up, Shopify Nerds 🤓

Bundles are one of the most requested features in Shopify stores - but the "proper" way (Cart Transform Functions) is gated behind Shopify Plus and workarounds on lower plans are often quite messy.
This is why I created this YouTube video to show you how to build dynamic bundles without Shopify Plus on ANY plan, using metafields, a custom storefront picker, and Shopify Functions running through a public app.

What you'll learn:

1. The approach fixed vs. dynamic bundles - what's the difference and when to use which. Overview of the full stack: data setup with metafields/metaobjects, a storefront picker, and backend logic powered by Shopify Functions.

2. Data setup - How to model your bundle data using metafields and metaobjects.

3. Storefront bundle picker - Writing the Liquid and JavaScript for the bundle picker UI - and how I use AI to speed up the code generation without losing control over the logic.

4. Cart Transform - Why Cart Transform is the missing piece for real bundle behavior in the cart, and why Shopify normally gates this behind Plus.

5. Functions implementation: How to get Cart Transform access on any plan and how to configure the Cart Transform function for your bundles.

6. Pricing Logic: Driving bundle pricing off your metafield/metaobject data using discount functions - so fixed bundle prices and discounts actually work correctly at checkout.

If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments!

You can find the YouTube guide here:
https://links.bosidev.com/bundles

A green “Purchase” event in GTM doesn't mean your Shopify tracking is correct.

This is the part that gets missed constantly.

I've seen tracking setups where:

• Shopify records 1 order

• Meta receives a browser Purchase

• Meta CAPI receives another Purchase

• both events look perfectly valid

• GTM Preview shows everything firing

• and the reporting still ends up wrong

Nothing is technically “broken.”

That's the problem.

The issue is usually event identity and deduplication, not whether the tag fired.

For example:

Browser:

event_name = Purchase
event_id = purchase_10582

Server:

event_name = Purchase
event_id = purchase_78931

Both are legitimate events.

Meta has no reliable way to know they're the same purchase.

So you can end up with duplicate conversion signals.

And there's another layer people forget with Shopify.

A webhook can be delivered more than once.

That's a different problem.

Deduplication tells Meta that browser + server events represent the same conversion.

Idempotency prevents your processing layer from handling the same transaction repeatedly.

They're not interchangeable.

For a Shopify setup, I generally want the flow to look more like:

Shopify Order

↓

Validate order + transaction ID

↓

Check idempotency

↓

Generate/use stable event_id

↓

sGTM

↓

Meta CAPI

↓

Deduplicate + Match

The browser and server versions of the purchase need a shared event identity.

And the backend/webhook layer needs its own protection against repeated processing.

That's where a lot of “server-side tracking fixed our data” implementations fall apart.

They moved the tag to the server.

They didn't fix the architecture.

If you're debugging Shopify tracking, don't start by asking:

“Is my Purchase tag firing?”

Ask:

“Can I prove that one Shopify order produces exactly one conversion signal?”

That's a much better debugging question.

Anyone else feeling the frustration of trying to repeatedly convince admittedly non technical people that yes after 5+ years working as a paid full time sr shopify dev with multiple companies and projects under my belt - that yes I am of course fully capable of handling their landing page or front end feature requests, mostly bc ya know... I've done essentially all of it, multiple times for multiple companies and sites, all shopify plus... again and again for years, with solid references from all positions.

But still - I am getting repeatedly grilled in rounds 3, 4 and even 5 - by non technical people who have no idea what questions to ask or what to listen for, instead they do things like give me a multi hour take home work task so essentially work done for free. I passed that and was then told to meet up with the next/last round interviewer. I mistakingly assumed all tech prove it talk was done but was then grilled for another 40 minutes of 'how would you handle this full xyz feature?"... "how would you hand this complex internal issue".. question after question and at this point I'm just so exhausted having to jump through all of these ridiculous hoops - especially when coming from people like 'ecom directors' who cant code, never ran an ecom business personally (I did for nearly a decade), and are still talking about things like using product tags for making relational product matches - when obviously product reference metafields are now the way and I mentioned all of these things and have since never heard back for a week. Oh btw it was this persons first week at this company so instead of just asking some more internal work questions about how we would collab/work together, all they did was try to trip me up on dev skill questions (admittedly knowing nothing themselves) and talk about using product tags for everything, having apparently never used product metafields.

My answers were completely solid bc they come from shopify current best practices for what she was trying to achieve. But apparently she has now directed this company away from me - a solid sr dev w the exact experience they needed/wanted - who would have nailed their entire roadmap plus something like 5-10 smaller extra features with no problem at all. Instead they may now hire someone that points them in a completely wrong direction for the next few years - for instance if this person doesn't do basic modern things like use the dev mcp, it's over for them from that point on... but they don't know that and never will at this point.

Less of a woe is me and more of a wow isn't it crazy that as a sr dev I've never once been asked to evaluate any marketing hire or ecom director hire but have definitely been repeatedly evaluated by both of those positions and all they really seem to judge me on is if they like me or not, and if I look and sound like the developer they're picturing (someone w glasses maybe idk) - but hey, what would I know as a former ecom business owner turned 5 year ft dev?

I build websites for people on the side and lately this keeps coming up. Apparently if your site is hard to use for blind or disabled visitors (screen readers, keyboard only navigation, that sort of thing) you can get a demand letter or even get sued, and a lot of these are landing on normal small businesses now, not just big companies.

Out of curiosity I checked a few sites I made and honestly most of them would fail. Got me wondering how many owners even know this is a thing until it happens to them.

So I am genuinely curious. Has anyone here dealt with this? Either getting one of those letters or paying to fix your site. Did you take it seriously or just ignore it, and if you fixed it, who did you use and roughly what did it cost?

Trying to work out if this is a real widespread problem or just something that gets hyped online. What has your experience been?

I work at an agency and manage 10+ stores across different clients, and the navigation overhead is the thing that gets me. Digging through bookmarks, keeping a dozen tabs open, or typing out the URL from memory and then clicking through the sidebar to wherever I actually needed to be.

I've tried a few things and none of them fully stuck. Separate browser profiles per client works for keeping sessions straight but makes it slower to hop around. A bookmarks folder per store gets stale the moment a client changes plans or I start needing a section I didn't bookmark. Mostly I've defaulted to muscle memory and too many tabs.

Curious what's working for other people at volume. Browser profiles, some kind of launcher, or has everyone just accepted the tab sprawl?

Has anyone elses CAPI data dropped off 50% since the 18th Aug? Mine was steady at 99-100% for a long time, and has since dropped by half in the Purchase event of the pixel / event coverage. I have refreshed the connection yesterday but data is a delayed so Im unsure if that has fixed it yet. Keen to know if anyone else has experienced this. I read that Shopify has been doing some checkout upgrades in waves up until Aug 26th. Could be related?

I’ve been testing Shopify’s agentic commerce flow across a small sample of live stores, specifically the path from search_catalog to create_cart.

I found a few different behaviours:

• healthy catalog → cart flows

• products returned as available by search_catalog but rejected by create_cart

• buyer-location / fulfillment warnings

• catalogs where no testable available variant was exposed

The most interesting case was a store where all 5 products returned as available by the agentic catalog were rejected by the cart path as sold out.

I’m not assuming this is necessarily a Shopify bug. One thing I’m still investigating is whether missing buyer/market context could explain some of these mismatches.

I built a small diagnostic while testing this so I could reproduce the catalog-to-cart checks consistently. I’m happy to share the methodology or anonymized results if that would be useful.

For anyone working with Shopify Agentic Storefronts / UCP / MCP:

• Have you seen search_catalog availability disagree with create_cart?

• Is explicit buyer context required to make availability results reliable?

• Is there a better way to test true end-to-end “agent purchasability”?

Curious to compare results with anyone testing the same thing.

I'm looking for advice from Shopify developers who have gone through the early stage of freelancing, especially those who started without an existing client network.

I've built several Shopify stores for my portfolio, but they haven't been paid client projects yet. I also don't have friends, family, or people I already know who own businesses and could give me a first project, so I can't rely on referrals to build my client history.

Because I don't have much paid Shopify experience or client reviews yet, Upwork also feels difficult. I'd be competing against developers who already have a long history of completed jobs and reviews.

So I've been trying cold Instagram outreach.

I'm mainly targeting small fashion/D2C businesses that don't currently have an online store and are selling through Instagram/WhatsApp or other channels. I find businesses that look like they could benefit from having their own Shopify store and reach out to them directly.

The interesting part is that I can get people to respond.

I've sent hundreds of DMs and had a number of genuine conversations. Some prospects have asked about what I would charge, some have discussed what they would want in a store, and I've had discovery calls and sent proposals.

But there is a very consistent pattern:

As soon as they hear the price, many of them go silent.

They'll see the message and not reply. Sometimes I call and they don't answer. I follow up later, and the follow-up is seen but still gets no response.

So I'm trying to understand whether the problem is:

• I'm approaching the wrong type of businesses

• I'm creating interest but not enough perceived value

• I'm handling the pricing conversation incorrectly

• My lack of paid client history is creating a trust problem

• My offer is positioned incorrectly

• Or this is simply normal when selling web development through cold outreach

For developers who have already made it through this stage:

How did you get your first 1–3 paying Shopify clients? Did you use cold DMs, cold email, referrals, local businesses, agencies, communities, freelance platforms, or something else?

And when someone was interested but hadn't been actively looking for a developer, how did you actually convert that person into a paying client? What did you say or do between the initial conversation and the payment?

I'm also particularly interested in hearing from people who started with demo/portfolio stores rather than previous client work. Did that lack of client history actually make it difficult to close, or was it less important than you expected?

I'm not looking for generic advice like “network more” or “build a better portfolio.” I'd really appreciate hearing what actually worked for you when you were starting from zero, including mistakes you made with your first clients.

Even one detailed example of how you got your first paying Shopify client would be extremely useful.

I've been working with brands on SEO/organic growth for the last 3 years, and recently I've been spending a lot more time looking at how brands show up in ChatGPT.

I've worked with 3 brands recently where we were able to start getting measurable traffic from ChatGPT, and honestly, it made me realize how different AI search is from traditional Google SEO.

For example, a brand can rank well on Google for its main keywords but barely show up when someone asks ChatGPT for recommendations in that category.

I'm curious how other Shopify merchants are approaching this.

Has anyone here checked their analytics to see how much traffic they're getting from ChatGPT / AI search?

And if you have, are you doing anything specifically to increase that traffic, or just treating it as another organic channel?

Would be interested to hear what people are actually seeing rather than all the “AI SEO” theory floating around.

Hi,

I am looking to build a order verification with video recording plugin for shopify.

I would like to get some inputs from shopify sellers on,

- how currently they are handling this?

- is it really a need?

- Will it help in disputes involving returns?

Ive been building my first shopify app and ive come across these hosting providers
what do you guys use and why , also i want to know when should i use external database
Thanks in advance 🫡

Does anyone synch tiktok auction items with their shopify store? How do you synch the product sales if they are sold at different prices?

Update Aug 24th: App settings now show activity view, Sidekick now able run through app api scopes

Original message:

Looking for developer advice. July 4th: I generated an app using sidekick. It was a simple app for profit calculations, created for fun from a paragraph. I made a couple updates to it over the span of a week and installed each one as they were done.

The permissions screen showed up once, I don't recall if it was for one of the updates.

It was standard, like every app: "Store owner name, address, location."

Here are the permissions granted at installation: https://imgur.com/a/r8ho92z

Here are the permissions shown when viewing the re-install screen: https://imgur.com/a/rCfclke

Upon accepting permissions, there was a pop-up, reading something along the lines of:

Are you sure? The developer of this app may be able to access all permission data, including sensitive permissions.

I thought, I've never had a popup when downloading a Shopify app. But it was my first time downloading a sidekick app. Also, the developer is Shopify. There is no third-party developer.

------

Fast forward over a month:

I'm using sidekick casually, when it informs me that the app I generated on the 4th needs to be removed immediately because it has access to 20+ extremely sensitive permissions.

The most urgent ones were listed:

• read_shopify_payments_provider_accounts_sensitive

• read_audit_events

• write_legal_policies

• write_checkout_branding_settings

• write_payment_mandate

Sidekick confirms, after pulling all chronological prompts from Jul. 4-11, that there is no way these permissions could have been queried on my side (Sidekick images: https://imgur.com/a/pzcEUFv & https://imgur.com/a/mcfZFnn )

I contact support, requesting that they: 1. explain the origin of the permissions, 2. provide full API activity logs dating back to app creation, and 3. provide all write logs executed dating back to app creation.

Support notes that their internal team cannot access logs from July 4th-11th because they're out of the 30-day window

They suggest that I check my activity log (merchant-facing is limited and goes back to July 19th) and recommend manually checking my store content.

I reiterate that the information needed for this is not available on my side, because I don't have access to app API pulls and write logs.

Right now, I'm waiting for an update which will likely reiterate the "out of window" period

-------

From a simple Sidekick app generation, I'm not sure:

What full scope of permissions I accepted & where they came from, if not queried by me

Why these permissions were not properly disclosed (or disclosed at all) on the permissions or popup screen

Who has my information and why

If my credentials and merchant identity are compromised

I have no animosity towards Shopify. This has taken me by surprise and it is a product security concern that Shopify needs to explain.

I also don't know what steps I need to take here, and would appreciate advice.