How to Optimize Your Store in Shopify’s Shop App in 2024

Shopify’s Shop app is a “digital shopping assistant” that serves as a way for your customers to bookmark your business, see what’s new in your shop and keep you top of mind, as well as track their orders from you. You can use it on desktop, as well as a mobile app.

We’ve been closely following the Shop app ever since it was first announced in 2020, and with all of Shopify’s recent updates, the Shop app is more appealing than ever.

You may have seen this app before when it was called Arrive, and was all about tracking your orders. Now, it has new features to help you follow and keep track of your favorite stores, and a shopping component. This could be a game changer. Since it’s notifying all your customers when they receive an order update from anyone on Shopify, each interaction like that may mean they’ll open the app, see your latest products, and buy from you.

When your customers download the app, they have the option of connecting to their Google account, which pulls in not only Shopify orders, but orders from other sites (for instance, their Amazon orders).

It sets your customer up to follow your shop automatically, once they’ve purchased from you. All of their past purchases from Shopify shops build their original list of who they’re following. Then, customers can choose to follow local businesses (based on their shipping address), and they can search for shops they like by name. It has an AI shopping assistant, powered by ChatGPT.

Wait, is this a marketplace?

Shopify shared in an online group:

“Shop brings together Shop Pay, and features of Arrive to give merchants the ability to develop longer-lasting relationships with their customers by making it easy to buy, track and manage their online orders with ease. Shop helps to A) improve the overall customer experience on merchant storefronts, and B) drive rediscovery of brands through the Shops tab in the app. Shop is a response to not only a shift from desktop to mobile, but also from mobile web to native mobile apps. With most consumers only downloading and shopping from a handful of apps, Shop helps give independent brands a space to call their own on mobile.”

In 2021, they claimed that they had no plans to be a marketplace, however, “the app allows shoppers to find brands and products from all of the millions of Shopify-hosted stores. It solves discovery and allows the entire shopping journey to happen in-app. Only checking out from multiple merchants at once is missing.“

The Shop app is both a way to connect with people who have purchased from your site but also for new shoppers to discover you via search. Shoppers will see competitor’s products alongside yours in searches (all the more reason to optimize your site in Shop).

How do you get your shop in Shopify’s Shop app?

First, you need to be using Shopify. We recommend Shopify as the best solution for all ecommerce-focused businesses, for reasons too numerous to list here.

Next, you need to activate Shop Pay, a system where your customer is texted a code that fills in all their previous information, making checkout super quick. We also highly recommend this, as it will increase the conversion rate on your site.

Shop Pay requires Shopify Payments, Shopify’s payment gateway. Note that this isn’t available in all countries. While the app is available on iOS and Android internationally, the “track with Shop” button on the order status page is only set up for US, Canadian, UK, and Australian customers at the moment.

Once you have this set up, you will be listed in the app. To turn on Shop Pay and be listed, go to the payments settings in your Shopify admin.

How can you get your customers to use it?

When you have the Shop opt-in enabled, customers in the US, Canada, UK, and Australia will see a link to install Shop from the order status page on mobile devices. Here’s how to enable or disable the link to install the app for your customers. Note that this does not add or remove your store from the Shop app.

When your customers use Shopify’s Shop app, they’ll get regular updates on their order, which should cut down on your customer service inquiries. They’ll also see your products listed anytime they browse the shopping tab on this app.

How to optimize your listing in Shopify’s Shop app

Edit the appearance of your Shop store

You can edit your store brand assets and collections. From the Shop channel in your Shopify admin, you can edit the header, logo, and color of your Shop Store. This is also where you can customize information such as Shop description, contact info, and policies. 

​As of July 2023, your shop app listing allows you to add video to the header of your Shop Store listing and featured collections can easily be customized.

Product listings – in the Shop channel, you can add, remove or reorder Products and Collections. “Shop product data completion score” is a new feature that will help boost discoverability. 

Activate tracking

Track with Shop is available to customers in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia. Track with Shop provides customers with real-time order status updates, delivery notifications, and live-map tracking. To take this a step further, you can edit the shipping email templates to embed markup to improve automatic tracking.

Set up Shop chat

This feature allows customers to initiate a chat with your store using the Shop app. This requires having Shopify Inbox set up and having customer service staff available.

Monitor product reviews

After purchasing a product through the Shop app, customers receive an automatic notification on their device requesting a review. Shop owners can monitor, reply to, or report customer reviews.

Please note that these reviews may be completely separate from the reviews on your site. For instance, if you’re using judge.me, you may not be able to edit or delete these reviews. Once, I saw a product advertised on Instagram. Their website had all positive reviews. Their reviews on their Shop app shop were filled with negative reviews. Make sure you’re aware of the reviews you’re getting on all different platforms, including the Shop app.

Create a post-purchase marketing automation

In the Shop channel, if you have Sell with Shop activated, you can create an automated post-purchase offer that provides an in-app discount to returning customers.

Shop Minis

Shop Minis, developed by trusted Shopify Partner Program members, enhance your Shop Store with features like upsells, size charts, FAQ pages, bundles, and more. Take a look at the Shop app Shop Minis available here, and read Shopify’s help information here.

Shop Promise

Shop Promise boosts conversion rates by showing customers an accurate delivery date based on their order timing and location, using Shopify’s fulfillment history and transit time data. Shop Promise automatically integrates with Shop Pay and the Shop app.

Go see what Shopify’s Shop app is all about

Learn more and manage your store on Shopify’s Shop app here.

We’d love to hear what you think about this, and what questions you have. If you’d like help moving to Shopify, or improving your existing Shopify site, we’re your team — please get in touch!