#54 - Build A Successful Shopify App - Submission process 🚀

Hey! I’ll share with you some incredible growth for WideReview. 🔥

But before that… let me tell you about where I am!

I’m sending this email from Québec in Canada! 😁

Last week I took a flight to Montreal with my girlfriend and here is what I’m planning to do:

Montreal > Québec > Ottawa > Toronto > Montreal

And I love this country for now! (In Montreal and Quebec they speak French so it’s amazing haha)

Here is a small picture of my view 👇

Now regarding WideReview. I don’t know what’s happening!

If you’ve been following me, you know WideBundle is my biggest app.

Mostly because I decided not to do marketing for WideReview as we’re busy with WideBundle. And the only place where we talked about WideReview was a small box at the end of the WideBundle dashboard.

I didn’t even optimize the listing!

So WideReview was stuck at $1500 MRR for a looooong time!

But recently we started to get some cool traction… WideReview started to get more installs.

I noticed it because we were getting more support tickets for WideReview.

We were at $1600 MRR for this app 2 months ago…

… We are now at $2000 MRR. That’s a 25% increase!

Without any marketing.

What happened? Honestly, I don’t know.

We are getting many installs on WideBundle but not a significant change that could explain that.

The only thing is that we started to work with new affiliates that decided to push WideReview too even if we don’t have any affiliation system for that app.

What a crazy situation.

We’re facing a weird problem, what I call a “rich” problem.

We’re getting too many installs and we don’t want to! That’s a good problem to have, right?

Last week Pierce, from the Shopify App Review Submission team, reached out and offered to organize an AMA session.

So we did it!

Everyone could ask him questions regarding the submission process. And we had incredible questions!

So let’s summarize and review some of the important answers!

So you can crush your next App submission!

Let’s go!

1) What common mistakes should we avoid when submitting the first time?

• Partners focus too much on the bigger picture and not enough on details like the app icon.

• Another common problem is regarding the OAuth process, ensure it works properly!

• Finally, don’t add text you can’t prove like “The best Shopify App for e-commerce”

• Don’t add the word “Shopify” in your texts, email address, domain.

2) What are the tests performed by Shopify when app-security.myshopify.com installs any app

This store performs a few technical tests to see if there are critical issues that would send the app back to the draft state. But we can’t say exactly the tests performed.

3) Can someone reject an app that another person would have accepted?

It’s rare. The team follows structured guidelines and if they’re unsure they’ll ask the team for a 2nd opinion.

4) Can you just submit an app free and then add all payment options without resubmitting?

Yes.

5) Can you leave an app unlisted and then publish it when you reach 10 reviews?

Yes.

6) How long does it take before someone from the team checks the app for the first time?

Usually 7 days but it can go up to 14 days (rarely)

7) Can I create many different apps for the same feature but for different platforms? (Example, a system to connect the store to different platforms)

If the app has many similar features we prefer 1 app instead of multiple ones

8 ) How many times can you fail the submission process before the suspension

3 times if the rejection is due to the same critical error that is not being fixed the 3rd time. And you get a 14-day suspension before being able to re-submit

9) Can an app get rejected if it’s too small or industry-focused?

No.

10) What happens to existing users if the app has to get re-reviewed?

They stay on the app and they don’t see any change. They won’t be impacted.

11) How does the team test if the app relies on 3rd party cookies?

The team tests the app in Incognito mode with 3rd party cookies blocked. If your app loads forever and doesn’t work, it fails the tests.

That was it for the AMA session! Let me know if you have any other questions I can transfer to Pierce!

And let me know by replying to this email what subject you want to discuss next week!

That’s it for today’s email!

I hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to share my newsletter with someone else: https://news.matdesousa.com/

See you next week,

Mat 😁