Champ

30 months ago, I launched an app on the Shopify app store. I see a growing interest in developers looking to get started, so I wanted to share with some of you my experience in developing on this ecosystem.

If you're interested in learning more about Shopify and making some side income on there, read on...

The Beginning

The idea didn't come from anywhere special. I just picked something I wanted to do and worked on it. The great thing about Shopify is that there are so many merchants (over 1 million) that someone out there is looking for the solution you're providing.

Now, having said that, depending on what you're offering, you're either going to have A LOT of customers or only a handful.

In my case, I'm not ashamed to admit that my idea (a forum) isn't exactly something that many merchants want to use. Most people end up using a combination of Facebook Pages or a WhatsApp/Telegram group to host their communities. But for the few merchants who are interested, it serves them well.

Coding the app took about 2 months. There are a lot of moving parts when it comes to developing for the Shopify ecosystem. You really need to read through the API and install a few other apps to see what's possible.

If you're looking for a quick buck, one of the easiest ways is to simply look for something that's available in Wordpress/WooCommerce and port it over to Shopify.

Marketing

You don't really need to do a lot of it. The Shopify app store takes care of it for you. You do need to write decent copy, but I have a feeling some merchants just install the app without reading through it anyway. Sort of like what happens on the Apple app store.

Shopify has, in recent years, enabled ads. So now you can buy ads for placement of your app in the listing. I have not tried this and will likely not try it as the return on investment is too low to justify the cost for my app. I would imagine that it may make more sense for some other apps, though.

Customers

If you've never dealt with Shopify merchants, well, it's an experience of its own. There are different types of merchants, but I would say that in general, most merchants behave more like B2C than B2B customers.

Some merchants will use the app review to hold you (the developer) hostage in order to customize your app for whatever it is they need it to be (yes, no joke). You will need to retain some principles of what you're willing and not willing to do, so that 1 or 2 bad merchants don't end up driving your development roadmap (and driving you crazy).

To get the better merchants, you need to price your product well. Which brings me to the topic of...

Pricing

There's an inherent race to the bottom on the app store. You will see a lot of free apps. App developers resort to the same Apple app store tactic to get merchants to install the app and then upsell them. This works, but it requires you to deal with customers of all type.

I personally wanted to serve fewer customers, but really devoted ones who appreciated my work. I went the opposite and priced the app higher than the typical price, but I also explained that the price is what it would be to justify my development time and to pay for hosting.

There's a whole industry of advertising agencies who pay for merchant data. It's against Shopify's TOS, but it would not be surprising if some apps are abusing this in order to pay for providing free services (eg. similar to Facebook, anyone?).

Reviews

In the early days, I asked for reviews. Now I just depend on word of mouth. Reviews help to some degree in the ranking, but I find that merchants will generally install all the apps in a single category and then decide after trying a bunch of them out.

Some app developers are also known to be gaming the review system. Unfortunately, the enforcement of this (by Shopify) hasn't been too effective (a consensus amongst a lot of developers).

Should you develop for Shopify?

I would say, "ABSOLUTELY, YES". Despite all the issues and shortcomings of the app store, Shopify has created something that has not only benefited merchant-users, but also developers.

If you're starting out, this is a great place to stair step (ala Rob Walling/Startups for the Rest of Us style) your way to your next big product. I would not base my entire company on a Shopify app, but if you're looking for a way to ease out of your day job or if it's your first foray into indie development, then it's a great place to start.