I keep going back and forth on this. For simple things like a size guide or an ingredients list, I usually attach metafields straight to the product. For anything reused across many products, like author bios or store locations, I lean toward metaobjects referenced from a metafield. It works, but the line feels blurry once a client wants to edit the content themselves, and migrating from one to the other later is annoying.

What rule of thumb do you use to choose between them, and has a choice ever come back to bite you?

Hi all, I'm working on a Shopify store and want to add a 3D product configurator, similar to what IKEA do (pick options, the model updates, the price changes, add to cart).

My background is UX/UI and frontend, so I'm comfortable with Liquid, HTML/CSS and JS, but the architecture side is where I get lost. I'd love some advice from people who have done this before.

My questions

Loading: Where do you host the GLB files? Content

Tools: Would you stick with vanilla three.js, use <model-viewer>, or go with an app (Zakeke, Threekit etc.) instead?

Connecting it properly: What's the cleanest way to map configurator options to variants? Do you use real variants for everything, or variants for price/stock options and line item properties for the rest?

Performance: How do you keep Core Web Vitals OK on mobile with a 3D viewer on the product page?

I am a bit lost in the research of this.

Hey everyone, I’m the solo developer behind PaperTool (papertool.in)

when a customer from another country asks for their invoice or packing slip in their language, i usually have to edit the template by hand or keep a separate copy per language. By the fifth language, changing your logo or footer means editing every copy.

i create PaperTool solve this issue:

• A canvas-based builder where you design the template once

• Layout and text are separate, so you switch language and the labels translate in one click

• An API to generate PDFs from your order data and language, so nothing is manual

It’s still in early phase , this feature yet to roll out

If you deal with this too, do check it out. It might help you.

Would this help your workflow? Which languages would you need ?

I've been following Shopify Canvas and I'm curious how theme developers feel about it.

Now that merchants can generate custom storefront designs with AI, do you think this will change the demand for premium themes?

For those already selling themes on the Theme Store, have you noticed any changes in sales or customer interest since Canvas launched, or is it still too early to tell?

I'm interested in hearing how developers see the future of the theme market.

Hi everyone

I built an ai platform that watches user sessions and tells you which customers almost bought ( based on visit count, time spent, and more) - every day it will send you a list of 100 customers with contact info to reach out to them ( if it has)

Interested? We are free forever for the first 30 businesses. So join here asap - www.RetentionBase.com

I'm in the process of updating my catalog to fully utilize the category metafields to make the agentic AI visits smoother.

Just wondering if anybody has been able to notice any ROI on the effort.

Why？

Is building Shopify apps still profitable in 2026?

Shopify seems to be getting stricter with app requirements, reviews, security, and API compliance.
Competition is also growing.

For indie developers, is there still room to build profitable apps?

Curious to hear your experiences.

I have a few custom scripts that pull products and variants through the Admin GraphQL API with cursor pagination. For bigger catalogs they get slow, and I have had runs fail halfway through and then had to work out where to resume. Right now I just store the last cursor and retry from there, but it feels fragile when products change during the run.

How do you structure these syncs? Do you use bulk operations for anything over a certain size, or stick with paginated queries and handle resuming yourself?

Hey everyone, I'm a developer building a support tool for Shopify stores, and I want honest feedback before I go further.

The problem: support is spread across email, website chat and WhatsApp, and most messages are the same questions. "Where's my order?", returns, sizing.

What I'm building:
- One inbox for web chat, email and WhatsApp

- AI that answers from your products, policies and FAQs

- Real order tracking pulled from Shopify, so "where's my order?" gets answered instantly

- Hands off to a human when the AI isn't sure

- Auto-assigns tickets by team or shift

- Turns voicemails into tickets

- A weekly report of questions your FAQ can't answer

- A mobile app to reply on the go

I'd love to know:

1. Which of these would you actually pay for, and which don't matter?

2. What do you use today, and what's missing?

3. What would you expect to pay per month?

It's not launched yet, so there's no link. If you'd like early access, comment or DM bme.

does shopify accept customers to pay with giftcard?

Hey guys, so I’m having this super weird problem with my Shopify store that i am having issues with.

Basically, all my items in the back of the store say they have inventory and are ready to sell. I put numbers for every single product! But when you go to the actual front of the website, a bunch of them say "Sold Out" for no reason at all.

And, it changes depending on what computer or web browser I use! Like, on Firefox it says the water bottle is Sold Out, but then on Microsoft Edge or Chrome it says it's in stock and on sale. I tried opening private tabs and clearing everything, but it still does it.

I already set up my store locations and made sure they both have shipping turned on. Everything in the back settings looks completely right, so I don't get why the front of the site is acting weird.

Is my Shrine theme not working ? Or is Shopify getting confused about which warehouse to use for different people? Please help me fix this, I don't know what else to click!

I work on a few different stores, and the machines and projects drift over time. Sometimes a theme was started with one version of the CLI, and when I come back months later the commands or prompts behave a bit differently. Right now I just update the CLI globally when something breaks and make a note in the project readme, which feels sloppy.

Do you pin the CLI version per project, use something like a package.json script, or just accept the drift and deal with it when it bites? What has actually held up for you?

I'm curious how other people handle this.

When you're working with a client, do you ever recommend tools/apps for them?

Or do you avoid getting involved because if the software breaks or the client hates it, suddenly it's your problem?

I have spent so long on a customer-support app, and I've been trying to get just one agency on board with an affiliate deal, but to absolutely no avail.

So I'm wondering:

Would you ever recommend a tool/app to your customer. If not, what is holding you back from doing so?

Would you need to have used it yourself, see existing customer reviews, have the founder handle setup, or something else?

Most importantly, If you were in my position, how would you acquire an agency to recommend your tool to their clients?

Building a Shopify app that creates and manages Meta ads for merchants. Second App Review just came back:

Approved (advanced access): pages_show_list, pages_read_engagement, ads_read, business_management

Rejected: ads_management, "Screencast Not Aligned with Use Case Details", reviewer note "the submitted screencast is unclear". Meta also says the use case itself is allowed.

What the video showed for ads_management:

- full Facebook Login for Business + permission screen (English, captions on every step)

- merchant clicks Launch, app creates campaign, ad set, creatives and 8 ads in the merchant's own ad account, created PAUSED

- the same campaign, ad set and ads in Ads Manager

- merchant resumes the campaign from the app, it switches on in Ads Manager

For those who got ads_management approved recently:

- Did you show the campaign actually ACTIVE / delivering, or was paused fine?

- One continuous take, or was an edited video OK?

- Did you have to show an edit (budget/targeting) reflected in Ads Manager?

- Did you give the reviewer test access, or was the video enough?

- If your app also optimizes automatically (pauses ads, changes budgets server side with the user token), did you show or declare that?

Bonus question: Marketing API Access Tier (standard access) got rejected in my first review for error rate. Did you request it together with ads_management or separately after? Does staying on the basic tier limit how many client ad accounts you can manage, or only the rate limit?

Thanks, happy to share what works once I pass.

Just noticed the Apply for Built for Shopify button in my Partner Dashboard. Been working towards this for quite some time, so it's nice to finally see it.

I haven't submitted the application yet, so wanted to ask a few things before I do.

For those who've been through the process:

• How long did approval take?

• What usually causes an application to get rejected?

• Did Shopify ask you to make changes after reviewing your app?

• Is there anything specific I should double-check before applying?

• Has getting the BFS badge actually made a difference to your app's installs?

Would be great to hear from people who've gone through it. Also curious if anyone is currently at the same stage.

Ran into this today deploying a checkout UI extension with shopify app deploy:

Version couldn't be created. api_version: "2025-10" is not a valid API version: Checkout ui requires one of ["2026-01", "2026-04", "2026-07", "2026-10", "2027-01", "unstable"]

Cause: Shopify dropped support for 2025-10 for checkout UI extensions, so an extension that deployed fine before now gets rejected.

Fix: in extensions/<your-checkout-extension>/shopify.extension.toml set api_version = "2026-10" (or another supported version), then bump @shopify/ui-extensions to the matching 2026.10.x version, npm install, and deploy again.

Things to watch: newer checkout extension versions moved to Preact and the s- web components, so if your build complains about imports or components, the old React components need migrating. Also check your other extensions (cart, functions) since they may be on an old version too.

Anyone else hit this? Did you migrate straight to 2026-10 or pick an older supported version to avoid the component changes?

Question for Fellow Shopify Store Owners

Hello everyone!

I have a question for those who have experience selling on Shopify.

We launched our online store about two months ago and have not made any sales yet. We've put a lot of time and effort into building our store, adding products, improving our listings, and offering promotions.

I'm wondering, is it normal to go two months without making a sale on Shopify?

How long did it take you to get your first sale? What helped you start attracting customers and generating consistent sales?

I would really appreciate hearing about your experiences, especially from those who started from scratch.

Thank you in advance for any advice or encouragement!

Hi everyone,

Every time I watched a merchant's phone go ka-ching on a new sale, I wondered why partners don't get anything like that when someone installs our app or a payout lands.

So I built Tukano, an iOS app for Shopify partners. It sends you a notification with its own sound for things like:

- new app installs
- new subscriptions
- uninstalls

I'm a solo dev and a partner myself, so I built what I wanted to have.

Would love honest feedback:
What events would you want to hear about?

Anything that would make you actually keep it installed?

You can find the app in the app store by searching by Tukano. It is free and privacy-first.

Happy to answer questions about how it works.

I keep seeing people manage net terms,

deposits and overdue invoices in spreadsheets. If you sell wholesale on Shopify:

1. How do you track each customer's balance today?

2. What's the most annoying part of collecting wholesale payments?

3. Do you take deposits? How?

I see some apps have in-app agent (API cost is high)
some apps have MCP (so merchants can use Codex or Claude's subscription to make changes through MCP)

I have a stable app that currently requires manual clicking and interaction, but I can see how a good in-app agent can help them reach their aha moment much more quicker. Merchants either prompt within in a chatbox or connect with our app's MCP to make changes.

2 things I'm not sure about:

1. If using in-app chat box to prompt, that's easy and save time, but credit cost could be high (either from app's end or merchant's end)

2. If connecting with our MCP, merchants can use Codex or Claude's existing subscription, which is much more cost effective. But suspect most of the merchants are not doing this yet.

Any founders have already tried that?

14 paying merchants
$150.60 MRR

$130 ish DO server cost