How Brands Can Launch a Shopify App to Reach New Customers
Thinking about launching a Shopify app? Here's what you can expect and how you can be successful.
Can You Help Shopify Merchants?
Does your business offer a product or service that can save Shopify merchants time, increase sales, or automate tasks? If so, that’s a good sign that a Shopify app development might be a good investment. Converting your offering into a Shopify app means you can reach a new audience of customers via the Shopify app store. Shopify connects you to millions of merchants and customers who need tools (and services) to help run their stores. Shopify merchants are always looking for apps to increase sales or help improve their work. If your app solves any of these problems, merchants will flock to your app and that means more money for your business.
A Shopify app can expand your business and create new revenue streams. For example, maybe you have an analytics platform that integrates directly with Shopify, or you have a warehouse system that can sync shipping rates, or you have dropshipping products or print on demand. You can offer these services as a Shopify app and charge merchants a usage fee for your services. The Shopify merchant gets a great new service and you get a new customer for your service. When your app fits into their store workflow, you become a part of how they succeed.
Let’s review how you can develop a Shopify app, get it into the Shopify app store and reach an array of new customers (oh, and make some money while doing it.)
The Shopify App Store
Shopify’s app ecosystem is booming. With millions of merchants running their businesses on Shopify, there’s a constant demand for new tools to help them sell more, operate efficiently, and connect with customers. If you’re looking to reach new customers, the Shopify opportunity is real. The Shopify App Store is home to thousands of apps across categories like marketing, product sourcing, store design, inventory management, analytics and customer service. These apps give merchants the ability to extend their store’s capabilities beyond Shopify’s core features.
But even if you meet every technical requirement, success depends on whether merchants actually want what you’ve built. Developing an app without testing demand is like stocking a store without knowing if customers will buy the products. The most successful Shopify apps start with a clear understanding of a merchant’s pain point, then prove their value by solving these issues. By validating the idea first and refining it, you create something that solves a real problem. This turns an idea into a viable product in the App Store.
To get listed in the Shopify App Store, you don’t just build an app and hit publish. Every app must meet Shopify’s technical, security, and performance requirements. This means you have to manage everything from coding, hosting, maintenance and strict compliance with Shopify’s review standards. You also need to keep the app updated as Shopify’s platform evolves, troubleshoot merchant issues quickly, and continuously improve based on feedback. Just as important, you need a clear understanding of what Shopify merchants actually want, so your app solves a problem that drives real adoption.
This is where having the right partner makes a difference. By working with an experienced Shopify development agency (like Sunrise Integration), you get a team that understands the entire app lifecycle. Having an experienced agency guide you through the process will yield a better result than trying to go it alone. We suggest finding a Shopify app development partner who knows Shopify inside and out to dramatically increase your chances of getting approved.
Launch Your App
Getting your app into the Shopify App Store is more than just uploading files and hitting “publish.” Shopify has a strict approval process designed to protect merchants and ensure every app meets high technical and user experience standards. Your app must pass checks for API compliance, follow Shopify’s design guidelines, and meet performance benchmarks that guarantee a smooth merchant experience.
App approval is also about proving you can keep it functional in the future. Shopify rolls out new API versions and platform features every quarter. If your app isn’t updated to match, it can lose functionality or even be removed from the store. That’s why planning for ongoing maintenance is critical. You need a system in place to monitor changes, push updates to ensure your app aligns with Shopify’s requirements.
Even after passing review, there’s another challenge: letting merchants know your app exists. The Shopify App Store is competitive, so you’ll need a marketing plan to stand out. That might include optimizing your app listing for search, creating onboarding content to drive adoption, and promoting your app through merchant communities, content marketing, or paid advertising. Launching is about compliance and visibility.
What Makes a Good Shopify App
A good Shopify app starts with solving a real problem for merchants. The most successful apps in the Shopify ecosystem save time, increase revenue, improve the customer experience, or open new sales opportunities. You need to understand the challenges merchants face and design a solution that fits seamlessly into their workflow.
Shopify merchants have endless options in the App Store, so your app must offer clear, tangible value. It should be easy to set up, integrate smoothly with Shopify, and deliver quick results. A useful app is one that merchants rely on every day. If your product or service genuinely improves how they run their store or helps them reach more customers, you’re far more likely to gain traction and keep users over the long term. So, before you invest in building a Shopify app, confirm there’s a real market for it. This is where an experienced Shopify App Developer can help by performing discovery or UX research to ensure this is something merchants want. Through this process, you’ll discover the viability of your proposed app. By taking the time to validate your idea, you reduce the risk of developing a product that fails to gain traction and increase your chances of creating a Shopify app that earns positive reviews, steady adoption, and long-term revenue.
Development Concerns for Shopify Apps
The actual development process of a Shopify app comes with a lot of rules that must be followed to get approved. Shopify publishes a checklist that gives a good outline of the requirements for creating an app. You can expect Shopify to reject your submission for things like prohibited app types, design issues, failing to use proper billing, incomplete on-boarding or missing compliance pieces. Meeting all of these criteria makes the app eligible for the Built for Shopify status, which signals to merchants that the app meets Shopify’s benchmarks.
Some common reasons apps get rejected include:
- Not using Shopify Polaris for design
- Not utilizing the Billing API for usage fees
- Poor onboarding experience
- Failing authentication and incognito mode
- Wrong/too-many API scopes
- Category/classification errors with the app
Without Shopify expertise, you may face multiple rounds of rejection, costing weeks of delays. The more planning you do upfront, the better changes you have of getting approved. We suggest working with an experienced development to help develop and launch the Shopify app.
Ongoing Maintenance and Support Is Critical
Let’s say you’ve figured out the perfect app, you get it developed and launched in the Shopify app store, your job is done right? This is a critical step that many people forget. You need to provide ongoing maintenance and support for your app or it will fail.
Launching your Shopify app is just the beginning. Shopify is constantly improving its platform, which means your app needs to keep pace to remain functional and competitive. Without regular updates, Shopify API changes can break features leading merchants to abandon your app in favor of competitors. If you want your app to survive and grow, you must provide consistent maintenance, timely updates, and reliable support. Without these, your app will quickly lose relevance, functionality, and users.
Merchants expect apps to improve over time, whether that’s through new features, better integrations, or a smoother user experience. Regular updates show that you’re actively investing in the app. If you treat launch day as the end of your work, your app’s lifespan will be short. But if you treat it as the beginning of an ongoing relationship with your users, you’ll have a much better chance of building something that thrives for the long term.
If all this seems like a lot, you’re right. Getting a quality app developed is not an easy task. Supporting Shopify merchants can be very rewarding but you need to ensure you’re giving them something they want. Finding the right Shopify app development agency should be your first step in your process.
Partnering with a Development Agency for Success
If you have an idea for a Shopify app, your time is better spent building partnerships, growing your audience, and refining your offer, not debugging API calls or rewriting code. Sunrise Integration gives you the freedom to focus on the business side while we handle the technical side.
When you work with a Shopify app development partner like Sunrise Integration, you gain a full team of experts who handle every technical detail for you. We’ve spent years building, designing, and launching successful Shopify apps for businesses across industries.
Here’s how we make it easier:
- We start with discovery, competitor analysis and research to ensure your idea can be successful in the Shopify App store.
- We turn your idea into a fully functional, Shopify-approved app. We handle the design, coding, and integration.
- We know Shopify’s requirements inside and out. Our experience helps you avoid costly delays, failed submissions, or technical dead-ends.
- We design with merchants in mind. Our UX team creates onboarding and workflows that encourage adoption and retention.
- We manage ongoing updates. From bug fixes to feature releases, we keep your app healthy and competitive so you can focus on growing your customer base.
By partnering with an experienced team like Sunrise Integration you’re gaining an ally who understands how to turn an idea into a long-term success. We remove the technical roadblocks so you can focus on growing your audience, building partnerships, and shaping the value of your app. With our proven experience, deep platform knowledge, and commitment to your success, we’ll help you create an app that merchants love and rely on. Contact us today to start building your competitive edge in the Shopify App Store.
