Developer AMA: New Customer Accounts and our Launch Partner Program

[Jacqui]

Join us Thursday, August 8 from 1pm to 3pm ET for a live AMA for Shopify App Developers where our team will answer questions on the New Customer Accounts Developer Preview announced at Winter Edition '24. 

Hit "Reply" below to ask your questions now and return when they’ll be answered from 1pm ET on August 8th. Don’t miss out on this chance to connect with our experts and engage with fellow developers.

What to know:

You can already start building extensions for customer accounts into your app and apply to be one of our exclusive launch partners for the upcoming release of customer account extensions to Shopify merchants in December.

This AMA is an opportunity to interact with the team who are building new customer accounts to get any questions answered on both the product itself and the launch partner program.

In advance of the session, dive into our developer documentation to join the developer preview and start creating unique, powerful customizations for customer accounts.

Rules of engagement:

We’ll do our best to follow up on every question during the event.

• You must be logged into your account on Community to participate.
• Assume positive intent with one another and be kind. Some users may be new and learning how to engage with the Community. 
• Be authentic and honest with your questions and answers.
• Do not ask for or share store admin login details or passwords.
• Like posts and threads that are of interest or helpful to you.
• Be constructive with criticism, not offensive.
• Share your experiences and insights whenever you can to support others. 
• Abuse, harassment, and spam content won’t be tolerated.

[dylanpierce]

Excited that Shopify is offering this awesome opportunity! We've already published a few checkout and customer account extensions that have been used by merchants for some time now and we're very impressed at how seamless the experience has been.

Quick question from the application, it mentions we should provide "all extension IDs for our app".

Can you clarify where we can find these extension IDs? I just want to make sure we're providing the correct answer but there's not a link to the docs or any explanation on how to find these IDs in the application doc.

Thanks!

[pmillegan]

Hi Dylan, We're excited about it as well, and that's amazing to hear that the experience has been seamless so far !

Providing all extension IDs for your app isn't necessary for the application any longer, as long as you include the AppID we'll be able to look up the extension IDs we need in order to test with ! 

That said - You can find your extension IDs from the Partner dashboard. Click on "Apps" in the sidebar, select your app, then click "Extensions", select your extension, and the number at the end of the URL is the Extension ID.

[evaldas_92]

We've been investigating impersonation and SSO possibilities for B2B merchants. Since a customer can only be assigned to one company at a time, in order to enable impersonation, we need to provide an interface to customers where they can reassign themselves between Companies based on some permissions. This can largely be handled through customer UI extensions and customer metafields, no problem.

However, when it comes to SSO on non headless stores, what are the options? Can we use the new customer account APIs for this? A use case would be that a user hits a URL that should log them into the Shopify store seamlessly - no code verification via email. The URL can be hosted on a server side application. 

I've seen single sign on mentioned a few times on articles related to the new customer accounts API, but I can't really see how it can bypass the email code authentication part.

[Kyle_W]

We’ve run into this roadblock too and have yet to find a solution. Our use case is providing a seamless login experience after a new customer submits a registration form. Typically the registration forms in question contain a mix of standard fields and custom fields (with custom field values saved to customer metafields).

With new customer accounts, it seems like the only way for a customer to be authenticated is through the native login form and OTP flow which is currently email-only. I suspect SMS OTP is coming at some point down the road but that is just a hunch...

Even if we can’t automate the full auth process, it would be nice to have a way to programmatically trigger the OTP email so customers are not forced to submit the login form on their own if they wish to log in to the account they just created.

[pmillegan]

Thank you, Nex-Vats ! 

Amazing, Order Management is a great use-case !  Yes! Based on how I'm understanding the question, you can take this approach! Important to be ready to switch over when Customer Account goes to wide GA (all launch partners will be required to do this).

[romie]

How can we get the correct quantity rules and price rules for a variant given that we have the company and the location?

As a location can have multiple catalogs and there can be conflicting rules for a variant which is present in both catalogs. For example:
Catalog 1 -> variant1 -> min: 10 increment: 15
Catalog2 -> variant1 -> min: 1 increment: 5
How do we know as an app which quantity rules should be taken into consideration? (same question for price rules)

Thanks!

[robin-drexler]

Hey @romie , when you have the location id, you can use the storefront api from within the customer account ui extension to query for the price and rules that apply for the customer and location.

The storefront api will ensure to return the correct result.

- Docs on how to query the storefront api within customer account ui extensions

- Docs on how to send storefront queries queries with buyer context

Please note that there's a known issue with the `buyerIdentity.purchasingCompany` not being passed to extensions on the Order Status Page.

We will reply to this post when this fix has shipped!

As for when specific conflicting rules apply, this is a great question, but outside my area.

I'll reach out to team closest to this and they might reply. 

You can find info on price prioritization specifically in the docs. 

[robin-drexler]

Hey @romie,

just wanted to let you know that the `buyerIdentity.purchasingCompany` is now available to extensions on the Order Status Page. 🙂

[evaldas_92]

How well is/will be buyer portal functionality supported in terms of

- Customer/User who needs to access more than 1 company (need to be able to assign a customer to multiple companies)

- Hide price information across all surfaces including checkout and customer center (where pricing is determined offline)

- Show a list of documents in the customer center connected to the company or location with possibility to download them

- Allow the customer to modify the order until a certain condition is met (i.e. order is tagged or fulfilled)

- Allow a location admin to add new users/customers to the location through customer center

[Kenza_Iraki]

Hey Evaldas!

- B2B customers being assigned to more than one company at a time is on our radar, but isn't on our roadmap yet so we unfortunately don't have timelines to share

- Hiding native content inside new customer account pages (including prices displayed in the order list and order status pages) won't be possible, but it will be possible for merchants to hide header menu items, including the order list. So you could theoretically create full page extensions for order content without prices, and the merchant can link to those in the header menu instead of the native Orders page. It isn't possible to hide pricing in Checkout, though.

- This can be built via UI extensions, you can store the documents' urls inside of company location metafields and then retrieve them and surface them from your UI extension

- Since order modification is a functionality that isn't native, and an app implementing it would fully own the feature, you can implement any logic necessary from within your extension

- Although the Customer Account API doesn't yet support adding customers to a company, we've seen developers doing this by calling their own server from their UI extension that then proxying the Admin API to add users to a company location.

[Kalen_Jordan]

When will apps people to inject a link into the top nav or into the user menu? For example, a Subscriptions tab like what the Shopify Subscriptions app has.

[graeme]

Hey @Kalen_Jordan!

We're actively working on allowing merchants to add a link the the top nav of their customer account pages, and plan to release to the developer preview before Extensibility GA in December. Apps will be able to define a property in the extension.toml file called: "allow_direct_linking" to make the full-page extension available in the top nav for merchants to enable (coming soon!). Merchants will also be able to add custom links in the top nav. 

[Michael_CLift]

Are there any plans to let app developers customize the "Buy again" button on the order detail page?

Currently, the button is redirecting to the cart with a permalink, which only contains the variant IDs and quantity, all line item properties are lost. 

This is already a huge issue for our merchants, their customers are re-ordering, and they are getting a product without the custom info provided previously.

Possible suggestions include;

1. Fix the Buy again button to also restore the full line item properties.

2. Allow apps to hook into the buy again event.  

3. Allow merchants to replace the button with a custom logic from an app. 
 

Thanks!

[graeme]

Hey @Michael_CLift,

We are not planning to allow app developers to customize features like the "Buy Again" button, but allowing merchants to to do so is on our radar, but nothing soon. 

All three of those are great suggestions. From your suggestions, option 3 would be the best approach. Merchants that need to remove this button can reach out to our support team. 

Once removed, we recommend replacing the "Buy Again" button with an extension that uses the uses the Order Action Menu target to replace the "Buy Again" functionality.

[dylanpierce]

A bit of an more advanced question but here it goes.

We've published a Checkout Extension and Customer Account Extension under the same single extension, just specifying different targets in the toml file.

It's been working just great for months now, but we realize now that there's a single API version field on the toml file that will apply to both the Customer Extension targets and the Checkout Extension targets.

Since there are 2 distinct API versions for Customer Extensions vs Checkout Extensions, but only one api_version field per published extension - are you recommending that app developers create a separate extension per type of extension?

Just seems a bit messy, we'd like to share code between extensions as much as possible, and different versions across these two major extension options might get complicated in the future.

Case and point the Drop Zone component was released for Customer Account Extensions yesterday, but it doesn't appear to be available for Checkout Extensions at the moment.

These kinds of differences between components/APIs across extensions will be very tricky to keep track of.

Please let us know your thoughts and how you think us App Developers should approach this!

[Kenza_Iraki]

Hi Dylan,

In general - we do recommend to put separate features in distinct extensions rather than trying to extend multiple targets within a single extension (apart from very specific use case, such as a feature that is exactly the same across different targets). This is because the merchant experience is much more rich in the case of one target being extended per extension, and it allows developers to leverage features such as extension collections and default extension placement.

It's true that sharing code across different extensions can be challenging. This is something we'll be looking at improving in the future in our ongoing goal of making the development experience across checkout and customer account UI extensions as consistent and good as possible.

[dylanpierce]

Thanks @Kenza_Iraki for answering my question!

We built our extensions very early, we didn't notice any guidelines in the Checkout Extensions or Customer Account Extensions documentation regarding this best practice.

Unfortunately now we have merchants implementing this extension in both contexts, so switching might not be possible for us. If your team has a way for us to split our current extension into two published versions without interrupting the checkout profiles merchants have set up, I would really much appreciate that.

[mirvise]

How "complete" do the customer extensions have to be by the deadline date of Aug 31, 2024? I see in the form that we require customer extension IDs as well as a screencast. Some devs have suggested to me to  screen cast figma prototypes while others are focused on fully functional extensions. I am curious if the extension readiness by Aug 31st, plays a role in the selection process

Thanks for doing the AMA!

[pmillegan]

Hey Mirv ! 

Extension IDs are optional (they are helpful for us to be able to do some testing on our side).

Our preference is to have the customer extensions be as complete as possible by 8/31, we do favor completeness! If you are still working at that time and can only show a recording of a figma prototype by then, I'd recommend doing this so we can get a sense of what you're working on ! Generally recommend to all folks to include links to any mock ups in the "Anything else to mention in regards to testing the app?" section so that our UX team can easily review and provide suggestions ! 

[mirvise]

Thanks for the reply! That makes sense

[ayushsoni1001]

1. What will be the eligibility and evaluation criteria to be a Launch Partner?

2. What exactly does it mean to be a Launch Partner Program and what benefits we can get?

3. What upcoming features or improvements can we expect to see in Shopify's New Customer Accounts (apart from the roadmap), and how can developers prepare for them (does Shopify plan to bring order edit natively) ?
4. What were the core objectives when designing the New Customer Accounts feature for Shopify merchants?

5. How does the New Customer Accounts feature enhance the overall customer experience compared to the previous version?

6. Can you share insights into the development process and any major technical challenges you encountered?

7. What metrics or feedback are you using to measure the success of the New Customer Accounts feature since its launch and how frequently you expect people to visit these page?

8. What advice would you give to developers looking to leverage New Customer Accounts in their own apps or integrations?

9. What kind of innovations or trends do you foresee in customer account management on e-commerce platforms, and how is Shopify positioning itself in that landscape?

10. What are some common misconceptions developers might have about New Customer Accounts, and how can they better utilize its capabilities?

11. What are some of the biggest opportunities you see for developers to add value to the New Customer Accounts experience?

12. Some of our clients thinks that it is limited in terms of customisations (moving sections around mainly or changing cards into disclosures for example) so how can we address that?

[pmillegan]

Hey Ayush! Great questions ! These are my opinions btw and may not represent all folks at Shopify 🙂 Also I typed a lot here, so if I made a mistype, call it out and I'll make a change ! 

1. Launch partners will have built a Customer account UI extension with functionality built directly into customer accounts, follow the customer accounts UX guidelines, and be in accordance with the Shopify App Store requirements. Full details can be found in the application.

2. We are offering opportunities for a select number of partners to be featured in Shopify’s marketing efforts for New Customer Accounts (e.g. Shopify App Store guides, email marketing campaigns, Help Center documentation, social posts, etc !). These apps with new customer account extensions may even be recommended to prospective enterprise merchants that are re-platforming to Shopify via our sales team 👀

3. Currently there are a few Shopify Native features built into New Customer Accounts such as Store Credit, Self-Serve Returns, Subscriptions App, Shopify b2b, etc.

Not aware of any other functionality being developed into New Customer Accounts at this time, but we have lots of teams that are always investing in solutions for devs and merchants. To best prepare, would recommend following all Shopify Dev Channels (twitter, AMAs, GitHub boards, Dev Changelog, etc) as well as many Shopify Devs appreciate DMs with specific questions / feedback ! 

RE: Order Editing, I think this is a great use-case for developers to build for merchants with customer account extensions ! 

4. At a high-level, we noticed a pattern amongst many merchant stores where they had multiple logins with multiple portals (e.g 1 for subscription management, 1 for returns, 1 for order tracking, etc EACH) when building with Classic Customer Accounts which was giving merchants great self-serve functionality for their customers, BUT this resulted in a very fragmented customer experience which merchants lamented.

There are two main merchant user stories we are solving with new customer accounts
A) I want one login for my customers that I control and is persisted across the whole experience we’ve created for them.
B) I want a single experience that I control where my customers can login once and do things themselves.

By building New Customer Accounts we want to drive merchants to get more self-serve functionality from their customers with 3P apps so that merchants can
- lower their support cost
- drive customers to login for any "logged in" experience
- build a deeper relationship with their customers and collect more preferences from them

By having all self-serve functionality in new customer account extensions that require login, we expect logged-in customers to rise for merchants which will usher in an era of greatly increasing the opportunity for merchants to build and deliver more personalized experiences for their customers. 

5. In so many ways (!), see above for a high-level improvement for customers, would also highlight two major improvements
- Passwordless Login, we've seen some merchants have up to 10% of their customer support volume managing password resets, as well as there's a lot of friction in a password flow that may not be necessary
- Instead of having an Order Status Page emailed out that has nothing to do with their customer account, with new customer accounts we have unified the experience so that the same order status page that is emailed out to users is the one that they can access from accounts. This is good for everyone in the ecosystem because it means a less fragment experience for  the customer, and for the merchant/dev to build/maintain

Would also highlight that the developer experience is greatly improved. Before, Apps had to make their solutions work with a tonne of custom themes and unique merchant front-ends. With new customer accounts the enablement process is drastically streamlined (flip on extensions) which will make it easier for merchants to onboard to Apps, and decrease super complex enablement scenarios. 

6. Oh man, where to begin! So many challenges, but nothing we haven't been able to handle.... yet! (fingers crossed). This feels like something that I could talk for hours about 😛 let's save this for a future AMA, or if you're curious more on this DM me directly ! 

7. As far as metrics, we rigorously view data of how all of our main personas interact with new customer accounts, for instance
- how merchants are interacting with new customer accounts (why they are using it, why aren't they using it),
- how customers make their way through the experience (login conversion, page views, checkout conversion, ltv/clv, etc) 
- how are developers interacting with this (remove friction for devs, and make enablement as fast as possible)

As far as feedback, I prioritize feedback from devs that are on the front-lines of building with our tools, who are closely connected to merchants, and have made an effort with how the platform works today. Similar for Merchants, I prioritize feedback from merchants who are in the weeds with our tools. I also value people who are genuinely nice and trying to make impact in the ecosystem. I regularly make exceptions for this, but generally find the best feedback is from folks in the weeds, because that's where our dev team LIVES. 

I can't offer specific data here, but New Customer Accounts is much more tightly integrated into the default customer experience than classic customer accounts has been (for instance, the order status page in new customer accounts will be the same order status page that's emailed to customers by default post-checkout). Also, because New Customer Accounts will unify many 3P app experiences into one space this will drive lots of customers into the New Customer Account Experiences.

As a result, New customer account pages will be viewed much much more than classic customer account pages were.

8. We encourage developers to:

A) Enable buyers to take self-serve actions by building functionality directly into new customer accounts using components

B) Design for consistency: Merchants can use different apps to enhance their customer account interface. Because your app operates alongside other apps, it's important to ensure a familiar user experience.

Our UX guidelines include additional principles for developers

9. See answer 4 which touches on this, some more thoughts below

Three main trends tho that merchants are after
- Self-Serve functionality so customers can process things themselves (which drives login post-purchase)
- Personalized experiences for customers based on what they've bought previously, or info they've shared securely with merchant (for instance, have seen a merchant making it so that every single storefront image on their site changes based on the size that the customer selects
- Incentivizing login before first purchase thru unique sales/discounts/products/preference sharing etc

10. Have to think about this one more, will post my answer on twitter once I've collected my thoughts !

11. There are many opportunities with new customer accounts,

the most blue ocean opportunity with new customer accounts is to build for b2b customers (read this post here for more of my thoughts on this !)

another opportunity is to translate existing popular dtc functionality like (returns/exchanges, subs management, loyalty, order management) into new customer accounts with extensions. I suspect many merchants are going to want to switch to New Customer Accounts and will likely favor apps that are built there over classic customer accounts (which btw we plan on deprecating, no public timeline yet) 

12. I hear you on this, a couple thoughts

- When this comes up, pls share this feedback with me & and the team of how the merchant would want the layout to change and what they're trying to accomplish (DM with video is great, but whatever works !)- this helps us have empathy and prioritize the change in future roadmaps
- more customization is something we're constantly investing in for merchants and devs, however this can sometimes come at the cost of having a less streamlined enablement flow (more bespoke development), as well as, taking could preclude merchants from taking advantage of the network affect from customers experiencing a similar experience across multiple stores  

[JonathanPJM]

5. On you point about login...

Some basic customisation of this page would be great. So that I can:

• Amend wording/phrases
• Insert additional copy
• Customise the button color
• Add/edit footer links

[pmillegan]

agree and aligned with all these cases!

we're on this !

[JonathanPJM]

Awesome!! Any kind of ETA?

[Ray_Servicify]

In the form submission, specifically under 

- Brief description of what your app does in new customer accounts
- Specify Extension IDs
- Links to End to end demo

How much of this do you want to see built and ready for new customer accounts rather than demonstrating and explaining how we see it working and solving the merchant and customer pain points? For example, we can reference current extensions we have but this may evolve as we try to solve the problem a bit better for our merchants. 

Thanks in advance!

[megang-Shopify]

Our preference is to have the customer extensions be as complete as possible by 8/31, we do favor completeness!

If you are still working at that time and can only show a recording of a figma prototype by then, I'd recommend doing this so we can get a sense of what you're working on. Generally recommend to all folks to include links to any mock ups in the "Anything else to mention in regards to testing the app?" section so that our UX team can easily review and provide suggestions !

[aamir_shop]

Hi

• Is this AMA some kind of zoom call, or we will just receive reply to our messages in this thread ?

Questions relating to Launch Partner Program

• Are there any specific metrics which the app or developer should meet ?
• By when / what specific date should the app/feature be working ?
• Is there any preferences between existin vs new apps ?
• For existing apps, it will have existing working feature, and this new feature being developed may b a small feature compared to overall features of the existing app .. is that ok ?
• For new apps, should it pass shopify review by some specific time ?

Sorry for too many questions..

 

[Jacqui]

Hey @aamir_shop, 

This AMA is text based, your classic forum AMA. Pop your questions in (just like you did!) and our dev team will answer you as soon as possible.

Thanks for joining us!

[megang-Shopify]

Hi @aamir_shop 

• To be eligible for the launch partner program, your app should leverage Customer Account UI extensions and add functionality directly into customer accounts using components. The selected apps will also follow the customer accounts UX guidelines and be in accordance with the Shopify App Store requirements. More details are in the application 
• Applications should be completed by 8/31. We favor extension completeness and the quality of the buyer experience when reviewing the submissions. The team is considering both new and existing apps.
• Recognize that your Customer Account UI extension may be less feature-rich when compared to the rest of your app. That's ok!
• We recommend aiming to complete Shopify App Review by mid-October. When you apply to the Launch Partner Program, make sure to note that your app is 'new' and note that it is not live yet (or if you're running into issues with this) in the box titled "Anything else to mention regarding testing the app"

[Ravish_Monk]

Question regarding the Customer Accounts Launch Partner Program - For new apps we won't be able to publish it on the Shopify App Store as a public app since the CA extensibility is still in developer preview, but the form asks for the app listing URL, so how exactly are we to submit the app? Is there a way for us to share the app without publishing either via direct access to the partner account or a demo store? 

[megang-Shopify]

Hi Ravish! If you are building a new app exclusively for new customer accounts, I would recommend noting this in your application and sharing a screencast/demo and Figma with our team in the meantime (our Figma UI kits are a great design resource). You can add these under "Links to demo videos showing your apps end-to-end experience (preferred), screencasts or visual assets"

We also made the "App Listing URL" field optional - thanks for the feedback!

[siddhesh2106]

- Are there any apps that have already implemented this in production?

- Given B2B customers are by default on Customer Accounts 2.0, how are they currently creating customised experiences?

- Can you please recommend any channels through which app developers can speak to potential customers for these use cases?

[pmillegan]

- Customer account UI extensions are still in developer preview, and will become available to all merchants in December 2024, so it isn’t available in production yet
- Since this is still in developer preview, they aren’t able to create customized experiences in production yet
- Merchants are everywhere ! 😛 We regularly see merchants active on different social media platforms (r/shopify, r/ecommerce on reddit is big, also lots of merchants active on twitter/X), events, and you can always reach out to them via the contact form on their website (but please don’t spam them haha :P)

[Brett_Helium]

Not extensibility specifically, but relevant to new customer accounts and curious if anyone has thoughts:

One of the common problems our merchants run into is that the "Restrict access to B2B customers only" Online store setting doesn't provide any way for new B2B customers to submit any sort of application. The only workaround for this is not to use the built in setting at all, and use an app or Liquid for access control based on a customer tag instead.

Is there any thought towards this use case? One example solution I can think of would be to allow new users to sign in to the account page only where our app could provide an extension for an application form, without the customer being able to access the rest of the site until they get approved.

[Kenza_Iraki]

Hey Brett, the best way to do this is to leverage Catalogs to hide all products from customers who aren't logged in and part of a Company location with access to those Catalogs. An alternative, as you mentioned, is to use Liquid to hide prices for customers who aren't logged in as B2B.

For company account requests, this is supported via the Shopify Forms app.

[Brett_Helium]

@Kenza_Iraki Thanks for the response. Can you elaborate if there is any way to use either of these features specifically in conjunction with the "Restrict access to B2B customers only" Shopify setting?

Merchants want to use this setting to prevent access to the entire site, but also want to allow collecting applications through Shopify Forms, our Customer Fields app, or otherwise. This does not seem to be possible currently.

[Kenza_Iraki]

Unfortunately not, that setting is specifically meant to prevent all access to the Online Store, which isn't compatible with the desire to support Company account requests on the Online Store.

[Nostum]

We're very excited to start migrating our Clients to the New Customer Accounts. Our main reason to not start doing so is because our Clients have Multiple Markets and we've been facing the issue that when using New Customer Accounts they are being redirected to the default market.

For example:
- I have an EU Store where Germany, France, Spain and Netherlands are active.
- Netherlands is the default Market.
- If a Customer from Spain tries to Sign up using New Customer Accounts, when they go 'Back to the Store' they get redirected to Netherlands instead of Spain.
- This is not a desirable UX because the language is now different.
- A couple more notes is that when an account is created using New Customer Account, the Customer record doesn't have a Location assigned, probably the reason why they're not redirected to the correct Market.
- In B2B this works because they get redirected to the Company Location they Select. But this is not available to Customers.

Hope this can be solved soon as we're looking forward to start using New Customer Accounts.

Thank you!
Enrique

[Kenza_Iraki]

Hey Enrique!

Completely understand that some merchants can't be migrated to New customer accounts at this time due to the lack of compatibility with Markets/International. No timeline yet, but is a known issue and something we are actively RnD'ing.

[Jacqui · Accepted solution]

This AMA is now closed.

Thank you to everyone who participated in this AMA for new customer accounts and our Launch Partner Program. We appreciate all your thoughtful questions. 

If you want to know when we have future AMA's you're welcome to subscribe to our AMA's board or keep your eyes on our announcements. 

[wayforward]

possible to see the recording? thx

[Jacqui]

Hey @wayforward, 

Thanks for your interest in our AMA!

This AMA was text based, not a video. You're welcome to read through the questions posted above with the answers provided by our developer team to see what was talked about. 

[Mohd1994]

Customize my account and ready to sell