Shopify Rejected My App, and They Had a Point

Here’s a shorter version that feels more like a founder writing about what happened, rather than a polished company blog.

Shopify Rejected My App, and They Had a Point

I finally submitted InvenTrac to the Shopify App Store.

And… rejected.

The reason was pretty simple: InvenTrac is built around a Chrome extension. You connect your store, install the extension, and that’s where you check your inventory, orders, low stock, etc.

Shopify doesn’t allow that. A browser extension can be part of an app, but it can’t be required. The Shopify app has to be useful on its own.

At first, I was a little annoyed. The Chrome extension is kind of the whole idea behind InvenTrac. I wanted something lightweight that I could open from anywhere without logging into Etsy, Shopify, Squarespace, and eventually five other dashboards.

But after thinking about it, Shopify actually pushed me in a direction I probably needed to go anyway.

Most of the hard work is already on the backend. InvenTrac already connects to the stores, pulls the inventory, orders and other data, and organizes it. The Chrome extension is really just one way of looking at that data.

So instead of fighting the rejection, I’m building a simple web dashboard.

Shopify users will be able to install InvenTrac and immediately see their inventory, low-stock products, sold-out items and orders inside the app. No Chrome extension required.

The extension will still be there. It’ll just become the optional, faster way to check everything while you’re browsing.

Funny how building a product goes. You start with one idea, run into a wall, and sometimes the wall points you toward what you should have built next anyway.

Back to coding.