With the increasing need of online sales, it has become important more than ever before to open an online store. And platforms like Shopify are facilitating thousands of customers worldwide to increase one’s sales online. Shopify is one of the major players in the e-commerce market, providing state of the art technologies and tools to build an e-commerce portal online. With increasing Shopify customers, there has been a huge demand in Shopify App Development, for a customised experience in one’s store.
In this article, we will take a dive into how to become a Shopify developer and some resources that one might look into for becoming Shopify App Developer.
Who is a Shopify developer?
Shopify developer is a tech specialist responsible for e-commerce websites/apps development using the Shopify platform. They are trained in frontend as well as backend technologies to integrate websites and themes on the platform. Along with the knowledge of all the shopify integrations. Such integrations are necessary to manage inventory, payments, and marketing setups.
Why become a Shopify developer?
According to, a study done in 2020 the online stores are about to reach a figure of 20-24 million, and with all these online stores in place, there is an increasing need for developers who can manage/create themes, apps for e-commerce platforms. Out of these numbers, Shopify hosts more than 650,000 stores online in more than 170 countries. This gives a huge market for developers.
How to become a Shopify developer?
Prerequisites
Shopify uses its own markup language (Liquid) for its themes, which one should be aware of. Apart from that one must know:
– HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript
– How to work with Command Line
– jQuery (Many Shopify libraries use jQuery )
– knowledge of Ruby on Rails, PHP is optional
What is a Shopify app?
A Shopify App is a web application built from Shopify store. Any web app which fulfils all the following requirements is a Shopify web app
- The apps built from shopify store must be authorised.
- Shopify apps must be hosted somewhere, and
- Shopify apps must utilise a Shopify API
App types
There are three different levels of accessibility your app can have:
- Public apps: Apps available to merchants and listed in the Shopify App Store are public apps (see below). They are created in your Partner Dashboard.
- Custom apps: Custom-made apps for a specific merchant which cannot be listed in the Shopify App Store and created in your Partner Dashboard are custom apps.
- Private apps: Applications designed for developers creating solutions for merchants with unique needs that cannot be fulfilled by standard custom applications. These apps are not featured in the Shopify App Store and are generated within the Merchant Admin interface. Given that private apps lack access to functionalities such as extensions and integration within the Shopify Admin, we strongly advise opting for the custom apps approach whenever it is feasible.
Getting started
This Shopify article covers the theory and prerequisites for your Shopify App Development journey.
Resources to learn Shopify Theme development
- Shopify Partner Blog: Articles and guides about design inspiration, Shopify development tips
- Shopify Partner Academy: Free courses from the Shopify team to learn how to work with Shopify tools
- Liquid Cheat sheet: Cheat sheet to get all Shopify liquid variables, filters, and helpers
- Liquid Code Examples: Collection of code snippets to speed up your development process and understand how to write liquid code
- Shopify YB Playlist: YouTube course to learn Shopify theme development
- Shopify Theme Kit: a command-line tool to upload your Shopify theme to a Shopify store automatically when changes are made locally
- Shopify Theme Docs: Shopify docs to create your Shopify theme
- Shopify Dev YouTube Channel: Official Shopify YouTube channel for developers
- Shopify Dev Twitch Channel: Official Shopify Twitch channel for developers
- Shopify Build Tool: Great tool to build your Shopify theme from well established Shopify Agency
Resources to learn Shopify app development
- Shopify Partner Blog: Articles and guides about design inspiration, Shopify development tips
- Shopify Partner Academy: Free courses from the Shopify team to learn how to work with Shopify tools
- Shopify React Node App: Tutorial by Shopify team to create your first React and Node JS Shopify app using Polaris (Shopify React design system) and KOA Js to handle server-side rendering
- Shopify App CLI: Create your Shopify app like (Create React App), serve your Shopify app in Ngrokserver (Free) and update your Ngrok server link automatically in your Shopify App dashboard
- Shopify Dev YouTube Channel: Official Shopify YouTube channel for developers
- Shopify Dev Twitch Channel: Official Shopify Twitch channel for developers
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