I finally submitted InvenTrac to the Shopify App Store and… rejected. The reason was actually pretty simple. InvenTrac was built around a Chrome extension. You connect your store, install the extension, and that’s where you check inventory, orders, low stock, and everything else. Shopify doesn’t allow the extension to be required. It can be part of the app, but the Shopify app has to be useful on its own. At first I was a little annoyed because the Chrome extension is kind of the whole idea behind InvenTrac. I wanted something lightweight that I could open without constantly 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 everything. 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 where Shopify users can see their inventory, low-stock products, sold-out items and orders without needing the extension. The Chrome extension will still be there, it’ll just be the optional and faster way to check things 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 probably should have built next anyway. Back to coding.