I finally submitted InvenTrac to the Shopify App Store this week, but there’s one problem. Shopify’s requirements say a browser extension should be an optional part of an app, while InvenTrac is a Chrome extension. That’s kind of the whole point! I considered building a small Shopify dashboard just to meet the requirements, but after looking at similar apps, I wasn’t sure it was really necessary. So I decided to submit it as-is and see what Shopify says. If they reject it because I need an embedded dashboard, I’ll build one. If they approve it, I just saved myself a few days of work.
There’s also a funny chicken-and-egg problem. Shopify wants its reviewer to install InvenTrac from the Chrome Web Store, but Chrome is still reviewing it too. 😅 So I had to make a special version that Shopify’s reviewer can install while waiting for Chrome’s approval. Two app stores, two review queues, one extension.
This is one of those things nobody really talks about when building software. Sometimes the hardest question isn’t whether you can build something, but whether you should spend days building a feature just to satisfy an App Store requirement. For now, I’ll wait and see what the reviewer says before writing more code.