Developing and Publishing Your Shopify App(Part -2)

So, you have a working Node.js Shopify app . You have developed it locally and used a service like NGROK to test it. Now you would like to deploy it and submit it to the shopify store for app listing.

App deployment

There is actually no difference between deployling a stand-alone nodejs app and deploying a shopify app. Basically, you are just using the node js server for authentication and serving the react bundle. You should be able to deploy it just like a deploying a node js server or Ruby server if you have used ruby for serving the the app.

You can choose any infrastructure(AWS,Digital ocean etc) of your choice. We have used heroku for deployment.

App submission Guideline

After you have deployed your app, go to your Shopify partner’s dashboard and change your app url and auth callback url. Use the urls of the deployed app instead of using NGROK’s urls.

Shopify provides a guideline for submitting your app for approval. First of all check if your app meets shopify’s requirements —

Requirements for public apps on Shopify

Though the documentation is pretty good. But I still would like to add some things that you should be careful about before submitting your app.There are some common causes of rejection(Observation of shopify community and my app submission) —

• Make sure app has been tested properly. If any bug/error occurs that interrupts the review process, your app might get rejected.
• Make sure you have implemented the mandatory webhooks required by shopify. If you haven’t, you can learn more about these here. After implementing those, update the mandatory webhook section with the url paths in your app settings’ “mandatory webhook setting” section.
• If your app isn’t free, you must implement shopify’s billing api. It’s mandatory. Learn about the billing api from here.
• In your app listing settings, you have to provide at least 3 screenshots of the application. And, in the description, you must add a paragraph explaining the key benefits of using your app.

Follow the ‘App listing step’ provided by shopify —

Submitting your app

After submitting your app, you’ll get an email notifying you about the app submission and the review timeline.

If your app is rejected,you’ll get an email describing what were the reasons and how you can fix them. You can update your app and re-submit. From a community Q&A section, I got to know that there is no limit for app submission request.

Finally, when your app gets approved , you’ll get an email saying that your app has been listed on the shopify app store.