How to Turn Your Shopify Store Into a Mobile App

Your mobile website is how new customers find you. An app is how your best customers come back. Once it’s on their home screen, your brand is one tap away, they stay signed in, and checkout remembers them. That is why brands with a loyal, repeat-buying audience are usually the first to add an app alongside their Shopify store.

An app is worth it when:

• Customers buy from you more than once, for example skincare, fashion drops, snacks or supplements.
• You run regular launches, sales or festive campaigns that you want returning customers to see first.
• You want a direct channel that doesn’t depend on ad spend to bring people back.

1. Hire an agency to build a custom app. You get full control, but also a large upfront cost, a long build, and an ongoing bill for every change and every iOS and Android update.

2. Wrap your website in an app shell. Cheap and fast, but it is your mobile website inside a frame. It feels like a website, loads like one, and app stores increasingly reject apps that add nothing over the website.

3. Use a native app builder connected to Shopify. A builder like Storepod gives you a real native app whose screens you design with drag and drop. Products, prices, stock, discounts and checkout come from Shopify, so there is nothing to keep in sync. This is the option most growing brands choose.

Whichever route you take, check the app will have these:

• Native Shopify checkout. Checkout should be Shopify’s own, so every payment method, discount code, shipping rate and cash on delivery works exactly as on your website. Storepod uses Shopify’s native checkout sheet inside the app.
• Live catalogue. New products, restocks and price changes should appear without anyone touching the app.
• Design changes without app updates. You should be able to change a banner or run a sale without submitting a new version to Apple and Google.
• Product pages that sell. Variant swatches, offers, trust badges, low-stock messages and recommendations. See product page blocks.
• Accounts and orders. Shoppers should be able to sign in, track orders and reorder.

1. Install Storepod from your Shopify admin. Your products and collections are available immediately.
2. Design your home screen. Drag in banners, collection rows, product grids and countdowns, and watch them on the phone preview.
3. Set up your product and collection pages. Choose which blocks appear, and on which products or collections.
4. Brand it. Pick your colours, fonts, tab bar icons, menu and the wording of every button.
5. Add offers. Turn your Shopify discounts into tap-to-apply offers in the bag and add a free-shipping bar.
6. Publish to the App Store and Google Play under your brand name and icon.

Apple and Google review every new app. To give yours the best chance:

• Make sure the app offers a real shopping experience, not a copy of your website in a frame.
• Have a privacy policy URL, a support URL and accurate screenshots ready.
• Provide a demo account or test instructions if parts of the app need sign-in.
• Use the same brand name and icon shoppers know from your website.

After the first approval, design changes made in Storepod reach shoppers without another review, because the app loads your latest published screens when it opens.

• Offer an app-only welcome code and show it in a popup the first time the app opens.
• Add app download links to order confirmation emails, the footer of your website and your social bios.
• Tell shoppers what they get: faster checkout, order tracking and early access to launches.
• Launch new collections in the app first.

A custom agency build is a large one-off project plus ongoing maintenance. App builders charge a monthly fee instead, with updates included. Storepod plans start at a fixed monthly price with no setup fee; see pricing. You will also need Apple and Google developer accounts, which Apple and Google charge for directly.