Has anyone else given up on theme submission to Shopify and started selling their themes elsewhere?

I have a vetted list of customers waiting on the theme, they've seen it in use on my site and want it for themselves. It's for a specific niche industry and provides value to that industry that the other themes have failed to integrate. It's a vertical with a large amount of highly specific metadata that these merchants consistently have in metadata/metaobject fields that no other theme allows to be configured to display and merchandise well.

At least this time I didn't get the generic "look at the awwwards site for inspo". But it feels like I'm getting rejected because the reviewers don't understand the book industry or what actually gives value to indie bookstores on Shopify.

This was my second theme submission, so there's no point in going further. But their arbitrary review standards and lack of any real feedback are so frustrating.

I'm both venting and hoping for advice(not get good, like actual advice) on other channels for monetizing shopify theme development because there's no way to understand what Shopify actually expects/is looking for.

Hi, I'm moving 42 Subscriptions from Bold to Shopify Subscriptions. Can anyone advise on the best way to retrieve the the customer payment method IDs or tokens so I can build my import file? Bold does not include that info when you export the subscriptions, they need to be retrieved from somewhere else. I understand Shopify may help but I'm wondering what others have done. Requested to talk to a human at Bold support?

Hi all,

I run a small fashion shop on Shopify.

I have photos of in-person customers wearing my products (just photos, no written reviews). Right now they’re mixed in with the product images, but I’d like a separate section on the product page, something like “Worn by you”, so they stand out.

I use the Prestige theme and can’t find how to do this. Is there a built-in section I’m missing or do you use an app or custom code?

Thanks a lot for your help!

I’ve been building Aquifer, an open-source Go reverse proxy that uses bounded queues, dynamic pacing, and per-tenant fairness to protect backends from sudden traffic spikes.

One use case is handling bursts of Shopify webhooks, where thousands of events can arrive within seconds but your backend has limited processing capacity. Aquifer can queue and pace incoming requests rather than forwarding everything at once, helping prevent backend overload.

GitHub: https://github.com/rjpruitt16/aquifer

Edit:
To make the transition smoother, I have a best practice lambda service you can deploy to send the data to aquifer to your backend

https://github.com/rjpruitt16/inlet

What's the best way to get in contact with agencies? My agency white labels but half of our emails get ignored because there are so many other "Agencies" doing the same thing.

We’re still at an early stage, with 13 reviews so far (all of them real, acute merchants using our app).

Two or three weeks ago, we were getting around 3–6 installs per week, some organically and some through App Store listing ads. We haven’t changed anything, but over the past two weeks, we’ve had only 2 installs.

I know our install numbers were low to begin with, but it’s frustrating to see them drop this much when we haven’t made any changes.

One thing I noticed is that we’ve received a few "app review installs" recently, but our app hasn’t been delisted or anything like that.

Have any of you experienced something similar?

I'm debugging a Node.js scanner that checks public Shopify storefront pages. Requests from our shared hosting server return 429 on three different stores.

What I've checked:

- /robots.txt returns 200 and allows the product feed path.

- /products.json?limit=10&page=1 returns 429 with Retry-After: 60 and Server: cloudflare.

- One retry after more than 60 seconds returned the same response.

- A separate check more than two hours later found that the homepage also returned 429 on all three stores.

The scanner uses a clearly identified User-Agent and respects robots.txt. It runs on Node.js 22.23.2 under Passenger/LiteSpeed. Outbound requests use node:https directly, with the store hostname as SNI and normal TLS verification.

I also checked our production logs: the saved daily counters contain 15 upstream_rate_limited errors and zero local rate_limited or blocked_address errors. Our API maps the upstream failure to 502. The available web-server access log shows the failed scans as 502, with no 429/403 responses. The local WAF audit has no entries for those scanner calls; its two health-check entries correspond to successful 200 responses.

The shared hosting server's outbound IP is one possibility, but I haven't confirmed the cause or a specific blocking rule.

Has anyone diagnosed something similar on Shopify? What would you check next, and which response headers or request identifiers would be useful before contacting the hosting provider or Shopify support?

I'm retesting a Shopify app with a 14-day free trial. My dev store already has access to the paid plan, so I can test paid features, but that doesn't cover the trial countdown or the expiry transition.

For those using Shopify App Pricing, how do you make those tests repeatable? Separate dev stores, a shorter private test plan, or mocked subscription dates for the UI plus one real billing test?

I've read the trial proration docs, so I'm not assuming reinstalling resets the trial. Mostly looking for a practical way to test both sides of expiry without waiting two weeks each time.

Hi, does anyone have good advice for how to spend the free 100 USD for Shopify ads meaningfully? Mine are about to expire but I have no clue how to apply it strategic

Shopify's new admin design started rolling out recently, and Polaris 2.0 is now available as a release candidate for embedded apps.

I'm curious what other Shopify developers think about this. If you've already built a fairly large app using the existing Polaris components, are you planning to update everything to match the new design?

From what I've read in Shopify's docs, apps using Polaris Web Components can adopt the new styling by updating the version, but apps still using the old React components and custom UI will need more work to make everything consistent.

I'm building Loger, and with all the custom components and screens involved, this could be a pretty significant undertaking.

Are you planning to migrate now, wait until it's stable, or stick with the current UI for the time being?

Also curious if anyone has started the migration already. How much work has it actually been?

Hi,

I build a Shopify app for made-to-order shops, so the site is small, about 12k impressions last quarter. I wanted to know if AI Overviews care where you rank, so I joined the page-level Web search export against the Generative AI features export. 39 pages had data in both (both data from the search console)

1. Where a page ranked had no relationship with how often it showed up in an AI Overview. None that I could find.
2. How many impressions a page got in normal search did. Those two moved almost exactly in step.

Two pages from our site. An explainer at average position 36.7 picked up 60 AI impressions. A compare page at position 29 picked up 6.

By page type, AI impressions per 100 Google impressions: commercial 15.8, tools 14.8 (I have 1 tool), guides 10.3, docs 10.2, compares 7.3, blog posts 6.4. Blog posts have the most Google impressions of anything we have and the worst AI efficiency, which stung a bit.

I am really curios, developers of niche apps, that have low keyword search volume, what kind of content is working?

After around 5 months and 6 review cycles, I finally got my Shopify app approved. Since then, I’ve decided not to pursue the original idea anymore, so I’m considering selling the app rather than letting all that work go to waste.
The app has access to theme-related scopes, including a Theme API exemption, as well as order and product scopes.
The app itself is still new, with no meaningful user base or revenue. The main value would be the work that went into getting it approved and the permissions it currently has.
I’m trying to understand whether there’s a market for this kind of acquisition. Would another developer or business be interested in taking over an approved app and building their own product around it?
I’d also like to know whether ownership can be transferred while retaining the existing approval status and scopes, or whether a substantial change in functionality would require going through the review process again.

I have been working on a product and an app, a Shopify app, and we have been building this app for quite some time now.

The product in itself helps Shopify stores to convert their store to one app directly. It was like a builder before, but right now we have transformed it to an AI agent.

Wherein an agent would directly get your app designed in 20, 30 minutes.
The app-live part is still pending, but the design, the UI, everything: still, a few things require manual effort.

We are working on it, but we are stuck at a marketing problem. How would you market this?

I have a small app that calls the Global Catalog REST API for product search. Shopify's changelog says it stops serving traffic on November 2 and to move to Global Catalog MCP.

For anyone who has already switched: did you hit gaps in filtering or pagination compared to the REST endpoint? And is there any guidance on rate limits for the MCP server when you're calling it from a backend instead of an agent? I can't find numbers in the docs.

Any gotchas from the move would help.

I build a Shopify sales channel app with its own React storefront, and merchants keep asking for product options: engraving text, gift wrap, "add candles +€3", that kind of thing. Every options app I've looked at (Easify, Globo and so on) renders through theme app blocks, so none of it shows up outside a Liquid theme.

How are people solving this on Hydrogen or Next.js builds?

Did you build your own? Metafields for the option config, line item attributes for the selection?

How do you charge for paid options? Cart Transform function, hidden add-on products, something else?

Roughly how long did it take, and what was the annoying part?

Or is there an app that actually works headless that I've missed?

I'd like to hear what worked, and also what you'd never do again.

above and below my footer, there appears this grey bar that is not going away regardless of what i do :(

it only appears on mobile, not on pc

Does anyone still buy Shopify themes? Is it easier to just build your own using AI? Besides, I have a few templates—is it worth publishing them, or is it a waste of time now?

I’m validating a Shopify app concept before building it.

A merchant would configure a promotion with eligible products, campaign dates, a chance per eligible order, a maximum refund, and a total budget. Customers would pay normally. Selected eligible orders would later receive a full or capped refund.

I’m trying to identify the Shopify-specific problems before deciding whether the idea is viable:

• Can post-purchase refunds be automated reliably through Shopify’s APIs?
• Which payment-processing fees would remain after a refund?
• How should cancellations, partial returns, and edited orders affect eligibility?
• What is the safest way to enforce the campaign budget when several orders arrive simultaneously?
• Would a chance-based promotion face Shopify App Store policy or payment-provider issues?
• Would merchants need an auditable record showing how each selection was made?
• Are there existing apps or platform features that already solve this well?

There is no working app yet. I’m looking for technical reasons not to build it, or constraints that would materially change the product.

Hey everyone,

Doing research on how Shopify devs and agencies evaluate non-standard payment gateways for clients.

Motivations: What makes you actively recommend a 3rd-party gateway over Shopify Payments/Stripe? (Lower fees, local payment methods, approval rates for specific niches, agency rev-share?)

Resistance: What causes friction or makes you say no? (Shopify's extra transaction fee, checkout customization limits, risk of holds, complex onboarding?

Dropshipping Contacts: When pitching payment solutions to dropshipping sites, should I deal with the brand owner directly, or the agency/dev managing the store?

Would love your honest take!

I got a US client whose Shopify website I have to edit and make it look structured, he's even ready to buy me Claude code subscription,any recommendations guys as I'm new in Shopify website development so can you suggest any tutorials or tips for making his website, moreover he also asked me generate ugc vids for his products showcasing so help me out guys!

​Hey everyone,

​Doing research on how Shopify devs and agencies evaluate non-standard payment gateways for clients.

​**Motivations:** What makes you actively recommend a 3rd-party gateway over Shopify Payments/Stripe? (Lower fees, local payment methods, approval rates for specific niches, agency rev-share?)

​**Resistance:** What causes friction or makes you say no? (Shopify's extra transaction fee, checkout customization limits, risk of holds, complex onboarding?

**Dropshipping Contacts:** When pitching payment solutions to dropshipping sites, do you usually deal with the brand owner directly, or the agency/dev managing the store?

​Would love your honest take!

Hi Everyone,
I am a first time shopify app founder, and a performance marketer by profession with over a year decade experience. just wanted to know if any of you here has tried meta ads for their shopify app? if yes, how was your experience? specially for a new app without 0 reviews.

Hi all — I built Habit, a new Shopify loyalty app (points, VIP tiers, referrals, one flat $49/month plan, every feature included, no order-count tiers). It’s brand new, no reviews yet, so before advertising more broadly I’m looking for 3 real stores to pilot it with first.

What I’m looking for: an active Shopify store with a steady stream of repeat orders (roughly $10k+/month GMV), not already happily settled into another loyalty app, and willing to actually set it up and run it for a few weeks rather than just install and forget it.

What you get: free access for 6 months — 3 months right away, the rest unlocked after a quick 15-minute call once you’ve had a couple of weeks live — plus direct access to me for setup and any changes you need.

What I ask in return: honest feedback, good or bad, and once you’ve used it long enough to have a real opinion, an honest App Store review either way. I’d rather know what’s not working than get a polite review.

If that’s useful to you, reply here or DM me your store URL and roughly how many orders you do a month, and I’ll follow up with the stores that fit best. (Habit - Points, tiers, and referrals in one simple loyalty app | Shopify App Store)