Hey there,
I have a few questions regarding an app we plan to submit to Shopify. Our main concern is understanding what exactly the apps must or are allowed to do, particularly in the case of a connector to a portal that supplies data to a marketplace. This involves only our solutions, meaning no third-party marketplaces are involved—everything is managed in-house.
We have a portal where our partners can manage their products and orders sold through our marketplace. Many of these partners manually transfer orders to their Shopify backend for management and fulfillment or manually list their products with us, even though they are already maintained in their own Shopify backend.
Therefore, we have built an app that establishes a connection between the partners’ Shopify backend and our portal. Using the Shopify API and authenticating via OAuth (through the app installation), the app allows for the transfer of orders, retrieval of product data, and more.
We are unsure how to submit this app, as it does not have a frontend and essentially only connects our portal with Shopify, serving no other purpose. All management takes place in our portal; the app is only used to perform OAuth authentication, provide us the necessary access tokens, and set appropriate permissions.
None of the offered categories fit, and if the app is to be tested, one would also need to engage with our portal, which we do not quite understand how it would work from Shopify’s side.
However, Shopify states: “Shopify currently does not accept apps that connect to a marketplace system outside of Shopify. This applies to all apps that link to an external marketplace system.” Yet, there are other connectors listed, such as those from Mirakl. Additionally, the checkout process must be completed on our marketplace storefront directly. As mentioned above, Shopify retrieves the orders solely for convenience, allowing our partners to plan fulfillment and manage their stock/orders, etc.
I would appreciate any help or advice on how we can comply with Shopify’s guidelines and achieve our desired purposes.
Thanks!