One of the largest pain points we see Shopify Partners of all stripes face is taking their business to the next level.
Regardless of whether you’re busy finding your first client, in the midst of launching v3 of your flagship app, or diversifying what services you offer merchants, we here on the Shopify Partners Team are always thinking about what tools and marketplaces we can build to make your business better.
Today, we’re thrilled to announce three new updates to the Shopify Partner Ecosystem, sure to help your business grow and thrive.
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1. Announcing Shopify Services Marketplace
For the past five years, we’ve empowered Shopify Partners with exclusive resources, new learning opportunities, and heightened exposure within our ecosystem.
And while the goal has always been to bring merchants and partners together, research shows that Shopify merchants continue to struggle finding the help they need, while Shopify Partners still find building a client base challenging.
That’s why today, we’re announcing Shopify Services Marketplace—a place where Shopify merchants will be able to find, hire, and transact with vetted Shopify Partners.
Find clients
Shopify Services Marketplace will be a job-centric hub, where merchants can request help from Shopify Partners.
As a Shopify Partner, you’ll interact and connect directly with merchants who seek the skills you offer.
The services marketplace will:
- Send you direct introductions to leads, making it easy to connect with merchants and build your client roster
- Use the same advanced matching algorithms as the Shopify App Store to match you to client leads that are the right fit for your skill set and price range
- Give you the option to hide your profile when you’re not able to take on new projects
- Include built-in communication and payments in order to provide a seamless experience for merchants and partners
2. Launching this summer—The new Shopify App Store
Back in 2012—after three years of having an open API and enabling third-party developers to create applications for Shopify merchants—we wanted to provide a platform for developers to share their Shopify apps and grow their own businesses. To do this, we launched our first iteration of the Shopify App Store.
We had achieved our goals of exposing more merchants to useful apps, and had witnessed many app businesses grow and flourish because merchants could find them in the app store.
However, we know that over the past six years our ecosystem has grown and that search and ranking technology has improved greatly. We wanted to make the app store an even better platform for both merchants and developers.
That’s why we’re excited to announce a major redesign of the Shopify App Store, launching this summer.
Not only have we made great UX improvements, we’ve also re-engineered the backend to provide better app categorizations, superior personalized recommendations, and improved app listings. Read on to learn more.
Improvements to app categorization
To help merchants find what they’re looking for faster, we’ve updated our app classifications to be more specific to app capabilities and merchant needs. In addition to our dozen top level app categories, apps will also have the ability to be further labelled under more than 170 sub-categories.
For example, this means that instead of getting lost in a sea of sales and conversions apps, merchants can view ‘product bundling’ apps directly. In addition, for multi-function apps, granular sub-categorization means that you no longer have to choose just one category to market your app under.
In providing better categorization, your app can be discovered faster, and by the right merchants.
Personalized recommendations for merchants
While some merchants visit the app store with a particular solution in mind, we also recognize that many entrepreneurs are new to commerce and don’t yet know what kinds of apps they can benefit from.
To help merchants of all types and experience levels find relevant apps faster, we’ve updated our algorithms and will use the latest machine learning techniques to power smart app recommendations. This new adaptive user experience will be tailored to individual merchants, meaning we can better match them with the apps that fit their business needs.
Improved app listings
With these improvements, high quality apps will see an increase in qualified leads being driven to their listing page within the app store. For many merchants, the app listing page can be the determining factor in whether or not they’ll proceed with installing your app.
To assist with decision making and to better showcase your app’s value, we’ve restructured the app listing page to clearly communicate exactly what merchants need to know, without overwhelming them with too much information.
With this new, conversion optimized layout, merchants will be able to quickly understand your app’s value and make a decision to install.
While the new Shopify App Store isn’t launching until Summer 2018, you can visit the docs to learn more about what’s included in the new app listings.
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3. Redesigning developer experience within the partner dashboard
Shopify has always sought out ways to simplify becoming an entrepreneur. That’s why we’re constantly making improvements to the everyday tools that Shopify businesses use, from dashboards to admins, and more.
For entrepreneurs who build Shopify apps, we’ve redesigned the developer experience within the Shopify Partner Dashboard to become one convenient hub for everything you need to get started: your API keys, reference docs, tools, and tutorials are all now centralized in one place.
Testing your app is now also easier than ever before. With one click, you’ll be able to install your app onto any of your development stores, letting you quickly see what your users will see, and helping you continue building your app with confidence.
With this new streamlined developer experience within the partner dashboard, you’ll get quick and easy access to everything you need to start building on Shopify.
With the redesigned developer experience, you will also see one of our most exciting new developer platform features: app extensions. App extensions enable apps to seamlessly extend their functionality into different parts of merchant workflows, all while inheriting the latest product and design principles from the Shopify platform.
Instead of having many different windows open, merchants will be able to interact with your app without having to switch contexts or leave Shopify.
App extensions for the Shopify Admin and Shopify Flow are now available. Soon, your apps will be able to extend into Kit, Shopify POS, new areas of the Shopify Admin, and more.
With a simplified developer experience and a new way to integrate with Shopify, we’re opening up new, creative possibilities for apps while simplifying the way merchants use apps every day.
Checkout the Apps section of your partner dashboard to learn more. Not yet a Shopify Partner? Sign up today.
Helping you build a better business
We’re dedicated to dreaming up new commerce hubs and tools that will help your business grow and thrive. Be sure to keep an eye on the blog, as well as our Facebook and Twitter pages for further developments and updates.
What do you think of Services Marketplace, the new Shopify App Store, and the dashboard’s new and improved developer experience? Let us know in the comments section below!