Shopify Tweaks Its App Store - Double-Down on a Strength

I reviewed the changes, and here's what I came up with. Harley Finkelstein and others in the ecosystem also tweeted about it.

Also, did I miss that Shopify moved from a 14-day trial to a 3-day trial and then rejiggered its three months for $1/month basic pricing initially? I'm certain this is targeted at churn, but a "3-day trial" is an odd number.

Moving on!

Overview

* The design is cleaner, and it is useful to see Shopify building on strength rather than expanding into new areas that are not core to their offering. One of Shopify's greatest strengths continues to be the breadth of developers on its App Store.

This can quickly turn into a weakness if these are not well-presented, verified to be working, and up to date.

* It's also clear they focused on SEO in this release. Lots of contextual links, cross-linking, speed, and moving information above the fold.

Home Page:

* App-focused case studies are now more prominent

* The company has indicated that if you are logged in, this page will be personalized to the merchant.

Category Page:

* More "how-to" content for beginners from their blog is integrated here.

* Also, more content pushing you to Shopify solutions, like Shopify Fulfillment Network (naturally)

App Page (aka the "PDP" for the App Store):

* Partners can have their logos featured next to their App Name

* Pricing is more prominent right below the name of the app.

* Imagery and Video move above the fold, as the imagery was previously lower on the page.

* App descriptions are cleaner and more bullet/check-mark based, without having to "expand" descriptions to read them.

* Reviews and other layout improvements to tighten things up.

* There are new badges that apps can earn related to:

-- "Speed": based on app performance scores / Lighthouse score.

-- "Popular with businesses like yours": Trying to personalize the app store based on the viewer. Mine said, "Based in the United States" - it wasn't clear how deep this personalization goes - by product category? Stage of business? Etc. They have mentioned these things before.

-- "Built For Your Business" - An attempt to be Shopify's "carrot" for apps to stay up to date. i.e., work with the latest themes, configurable in Shopify admin, etc. There may be others.

Your partner page now shows you how close you are to earning these.

Also:

* More obvious/standard privacy policy placement. Support is also no longer hidden behind a tab. This is important.

* You still have "competing apps" on your app page, but that's a marketplace! It's not "your page" completely. How long until you can target ads on competitor app pages? ;-)

What Else?

* It appears there used to be an "all app" page which was removed, according to at least one user.