Are you a developer looking for ways to make money online? If so – you should look into creating an app for the Shopify App Store. Independent creators upload new apps to the store each day – and they earn money for each sale.
In fact, some developers work exclusively through Shopify. They make apps and provide advice/expertise for others in the community.
How profitable are Shopify apps?
The average monthly revenue for a new app is $58,995. That figure has an average of $355 and a median of $27. For new developers – the median income each month is $18,580. While those are the averages – that doesn’t mean you’ll see those numbers right away. Still – Shopify apps can be very profitable when done right.
If you want to learn how to design profitable apps for Shopify – you’re in the right place. Read on to discover how to create an app that earns you money on Shopify.
How to Design Shopify Apps
All right, so you’ve decided to pursue Shopify as your platform of choice for app development … now what? Have you ever owned an e-commerce store before? If not, you probably won’t have the first idea of what type of app to create.
Yet – you don’t need to be an e-commerce expert in developing an app for Shopify. All you need are some savvy development skills and a keen eye for gaps in the store.
After all, you don’t want to spend time and money working on an app that does what ten other apps already do better. You’ll need to identify a gap in the app store and fill it with your idea. How do you do that? There are a few ways.
Discover Merchant Pain Points
One of the most reliable ways to design a winning app is to solve a merchant’s pain point. These are common complaints and issues that merchants run into on a daily basis. By solving them – you’ll guarantee an audience for your app. Also, the simple fact that the pain points exist means there’s no current solution.
We recommend heading over to the Shopify forums to see what merchants are buzzing about the most.
Remember – Shopify has a bustling community of merchants, designers, and experts. They’re all available for you if you need to gather information.
Try creating your own posts in the Shopify forums. Let merchants know what you’re up to – and see if they have any suggestions. Before long – you should have a list of issues that merchants want fixing. You can think of them as the blueprints for your new app ideas.
Shopify’s community can also help you when you begin testing the app. During this process – show screenshots and ask community members what they think of your new app. That will generate some hype for the release of your app, which is a good thing. The idea is to get as many people excited about the release of your app as possible. That way – you’ll have a fanbase waiting to download your app as soon as you launch it on the store.
Locate Gaps in the App Store
As stated before – you should try to find issues that haven’t been addressed by apps yet. There are dozens of dropshipping and print-on-demand apps – so you don’t need to make one of those. The same is true for many storefront-facing apps such as upsell pop-ups and header bars.
Many organizations and researchers release quarterly and annual state of reports. Strive to find some of these reports related to e-commerce trends. From there, dive in to see what’s missing.
Are there new administrative tasks coming about? Are new Shopify updates going to pose some problems? Are merchants currently pushing for new features?
These are all valuable insights that you can find from reports. It’s also a good idea to check out Google, too. Try searching for subjects like ‘the current state of e-commerce’ and ’emerging e-commerce trends.’
As a rule of thumb – only use data from the last six months. You want to be as current as possible when designing your app so that merchants can download it. Strive to find reports that are within the last few weeks or months.
Make Sure Your App Runs at the Blink of an Eye
Once you have your idea and a build for your app – you need to optimize it for speed. Why’s that? Because the primary risk for a Shopify merchant downloading a new app is that it will slow down their store. For this reason – most merchants are hesitant to add new apps unless they’re essential. Moreover, every app must run quickly and efficiently.
If merchants discover that your app runs poorly, don’t expect them to stay subscribed.
That’s doubly true for the merchant’s customers – the reason why merchants have such stringent expectations for app speed. If a customer has to wait for more than a second for a store to load – they will go elsewhere.
Poor loading time is also terrible for SEO purposes. In particular, Google has a series of speed tests it runs on every webpage. Fail the test – and your online store falls considerably in the search rankings.
Optimize Your App for the Search
Speaking of SEO, you need to optimize your app for search engines. Otherwise, no one will know about your app or download it. You should optimize your app for Shopify’s search and for traditional search engines like Google.
How do you optimize your app? Just as you would a webpage or online store! Use targeted keywords, include backlinks, and write quality content. That will help you achieve more visibility in the search, leading to more downloads.
Great courses on Shopify app development
If you are interested in a great course to learn Shopify app development check out the Shopify app development course by CodingPhase. Codingphase by Joe Santos teaches you all about Shopify app development as you code alongside him to create an app. I highly recommend this course as it’s easy to follow and has tons of useful information. We recommend subscribing to the diamond plan so you can have access to both the Shopify app development courses and Shopify theme development courses , while also getting access to a huge collection of programming courses you can take. You can also buy courses individually but you will end up spending more money than if you bought the diamond plan and got access to all of the Codingphase courses. If you want to get access to the Shopify app development course and a huge collection of courses check out Codingphase at this link.
Key Takeaways: How Profitable Are Shopify Apps?
By now – you should have a better understanding of how you can profit by creating Shopify apps. When done right, you can earn a considerable living by designing apps for the Shopify App Store. You need to solve merchant pain points, optimize your app for speed, and optimize it for the search. Once you check all those boxes – nothing will stand in your way from becoming a successful Shopify app developer.
To see a complete guide on creating Shopify apps visit this link. To get more Shopify developer tips see our developer posts here.
