How to Prepare for the Shopify App Store listing updates coming December 1st.

Following the Shopify App Store updates that were recently announced by Shopify, if you've not yet resubmitted, read this.

Did you reach the deadline?

The Shopify App Review team can reject an app at their discretion if it doesn't meet the set standards.

Don’t panic, we are here to help!

Shopify seems to be constantly shaking things up on the App Store algorithm in the hopes of making it simple, safe, and more personalised for merchants to discover apps.

There’s a strong focus on education and storytelling in order to allow merchants to make more informed decisions before installing an app — which, in our opinion, is great!

What's new, exactly?

Improved visualisation of in-app experience

It really feels like Shopify is trying hard to give merchants a true in-app experience on the App Store itself. This will reduce the overwhelm of trying to choose between thousands of apps, saving merchants time and money to discover — and — use more relevant apps to solve their personal challenges.

If merchants are given the opportunity to easily and quickly understand if an app is for them or not, before installing it, they’re less likely to uninstall and more likely to become loyal, happy customers.

These updates will give merchants the opportunity to not only discover your app, but also allow them to get to know your app as much as possible before actually installing it.

There’s nothing more frustrating than when merchants download your app and uninstall it after a few days (or don’t use it at all). Shopify’s updates on the App Store will help you to reduce churn, receive fewer uninstalls, and retain loyal customers.

So, let’s make sure you give it your best shot!

The Shopify App Store homepage

Recommendations will be personalised: The first row of apps in the App Store is now personalised to individual merchants’ business types and tenure. And, if they’ve already installed an app, it will be filtered out from their feed.

Homepage design will be less cluttered: The new homepage reduces overwhelm with only 7 rows rather than 13. They’ve also reduced the number of apps per row from 4 to 3 and you’ll notice new carousels that reveal more apps only when scrolling.

Demo store URL: Your demo store should showcase your app in action — giving merchants a live in-app experience so that they can see how the app works and how it will benefit them.

Feature media changes

The dimensions of mobile screenshots and point of sale screenshots will change as of Dec 1st in order to enhance the visual storytelling –they’ll be placed next to your explainer video or feature image.

It’s important to adhere to these new feature media guidelines to ensure you’ll be listed and / or promoted.

On December 1, 2022, the dimension requirements for mobile screenshots are changing to 1600px by 900px. After this date, you'll no longer be able to edit or add new screenshots in 900px by 1600px.

View full guidelines here.

Simplified copy and content

A significant change to copy and content is that the three key benefits section and the detailed description field (which until now has been 2,800 characters) will be removed on December 1, 2022. These two fields will be replaced with a more simplified, to the point approach — saving merchants reading time before making a decision.

They’ll be replaced with more optimised fields:

  • The App introduction field (100 characters) to communicate the main purpose and benefit of your app to merchants
  • The App details section (500 characters) to outline what makes your app unique and the impact of your app to merchants
  • The Feature list (80 characters per feature) to list functional features of your app and specific app capabilities

Let’s look at each new field in more detail…

THE APP INTRODUCTION

The app introduction field gives you 100 characters to explain your app's purpose and main benefit to merchants. The app introduction appears as prominently displayed text at the top of your App Store listing.

THE APP DETAILS

The app details field gives you 500 characters to expand on your app's main benefits. In this field, you should let the merchant know what makes your app unique. The app details should be concise, but informative.

THE FEATURE LIST

The feature list asks for up to 80 characters per feature.

Focus on functional elements and features of your app in your app details — don’t use any marketing language or testimonials. The Shopify review team asks you to describe the functionality, not the mechanics behind each feature.

Keep the feature descriptions short and to the point - let merchants scan the list and understand your offering right away.

APP DISCOVERY

There are thousands of Shopify apps, which is why merchants struggle with decision fatigue and explains the motivations for Shopify to improve app discovery on the Shopify App Store. 

In order to be discovered — ahead of your competitors — use this section to help merchants understand the value of your app in comparison to your competitors.

APP CATEGORIZATION

Shopify want to help merchants discover apps that can solve specific problems and grow their businesses. This is why Shopify have updated categories, subcategories and tags in the search function of the Shopify App Store.

We know app categorization can be confusing so we updated our app categories and are giving you more control over how you’re classified so you can reach the right audiences. In December, you’ll be able to select up to 2 categories for your app. Details to come.

Currently, the Shopify QA team create these categories for your app but After December 1, 2022, you'll be able to categorize your app by yourself. You will be able to select a maximum of two tags which is then reviewed by the Shopify app QA team. These tags should describe the main function(s) of your app.

You must have one primary tag because this impacts the discoverability of your app. However, a second tag is not required and should only be utilized if the primary tag does not describe the core functionality of your app. For example, if your app helps merchants with social proof and UGC and both are core functions, you’ll need two tags. But if your app’s main functionality is social proof, and has a little bit of UGC thrown in, you don’t need a second tag and should only tag it as social proof.

As well as considering the functionality of your app, think about how your ideal customers would look for an app like yours, do some customer research and a bit of competitor research within the Shopify App Store and take some inspiration from how merchants find them.

Shopify’s list of app categories, subcategories and tags can be found here.

  • App card subtitle
    The app card subtitle should be a quick one liner which explains the value of your app, what your app does, and what sets it apart from other apps in the app store.
  • Search terms
    Don’t forget your search terms! You can choose up to 5 relevant search terms for your app to enhance discoverability by merchants. Think about what merchants will search for when looking for a solution like yours. Make sure you only enter relevant terms that you want to rank for in the Shopify App Store.
  • Web search content
    In this section, Shopify lets you enter a title tag and meta description for your App Store listing. This will help with your overall ranking because it is used by search engines as the main heading for a search result. It’s super important to get right since it’s a primary snippet of information that merchants read in the search results and decide if they should click or not. 
    Shopify has details on the best practices for writing influential title tags and for tips on how to write an effective meta description, they have a great blog post about how to write a meta description.The meta description is a quick summary of your app’s App Store listing's content. Search engines show the meta description as a summary of your App Store listing’s content - showing up in search results under the title tag.
  • Merchant install requirements
    Uninstalls and negative reviews can affect your ranking in the Shopify App Store. Shopify tries to give you the best start by allowing you to specify which merchants can install your app in the app submission form. This can help reduce the number of uninstalls and negative reviews related to merchant eligibility for your app.

Have you made all of the relevant changes?

These updates may interrupt the ranking of your app in the Shopify App Store so it’s super important to get this right!

If Shopify app companies do not make these updates by Dec 1st, you won’t be eligible for promotions.

Kollectify specialise in Shopify App Store Optimisation — we are ready to help you rewrite your App Store listing before the deadline.

These changes should help your app to be discovered more easily by merchants - especially with the choice of primary tags for categorization. It just may take some work to get it right and for things to smooth out a little.

👉🏽 Want to learn more about how to attract and retain Shopify merchants? We have built a program specifically for you! For more details on the program lessons and 1-1 support, click here.

Or explore our services for Shopify developers, here.