Frequently Asked Questions
Below are answers to frequently asked questions that you may have when building and launching a Shop Mini.
For more support, please send us an email or send us a message in the #shop-minis channel in the Shopify Partners Slack.
Why do I need to enable entry points for my Shop Mini for my existing merchants and automate entry point creation for new merchants?
Entry points are a requirement for Shop App users to experience your Shop Mini. For our team to approve your submission, we need to see how your Shop Mini looks on active merchant stores.
Keep in mind that while entry points will be enabled for your existing merchants during the submission process, your Shop Mini will not be available for Shop app users until the Shop team confirms their approval.
For any new merchant users of your app, you’ll want to ensure that entry point creation for your Shop Mini is automated for the best possible experience. This reduces the amount of work for merchants to benefit from your app’s features on both their online store and on the Shop app.
Why are existing entry points needed as part of the submission process? Isn’t a development store good enough?
As part of the approval process, our team needs to see your Shop Mini live on active merchant stores.
Keep in mind that while entry points will be enabled for your existing merchants during the submission process, your Shop Mini will not be available for Shop app users until the Shop team confirms their approval.
Enabling entry points for your existing eligible merchants will accelerate adoption of your Shop Mini. This will allow you to realize success sooner, while receiving valuable early feedback on how your Shop Mini is performing.
In our experience, we’ve only seen Shop Minis have a positive impact on merchants while being a lead generation feature for our partners.
What if my merchant needs to configure their Shop Minis content before it can be published?
For the best merchant experience, if a merchant has already configured content for your app on their online store, the same configured content would ideally be mirrored in your Shop Mini. This reduces the amount of work that a merchant needs to do to start seeing the benefits of your Shop Mini. Below are some examples:
- If a merchant has configured a shoppable video feed on their online store home page with your app, that same feed would ideally be mirrored on their Shop Store home page through your Shop Mini
- If a merchant has configured a shoppable post gallery on a product page on their online store with your app, that gallery would ideally be mirrored on their Shop Store product pages through your Shop Mini
You can see a list of entry point locations here.
If a merchant hasn’t yet configured anything for their online store, or your app features aren’t easily mirrored in your Shop Mini, then you’ll need to have clear onboarding instructions in your enablement and support resources. You can also offer your merchants the ability to opt-out of your Shop Mini at launch.
What should I expect in terms of results from building a Shop Mini?
The Shop Mini platform is still early, therefore it’s hard for us to predict exact results. Our expectation is that the presence of your app’s functionality in the Shop app will provide more value to your merchant users. They will now have another channel to leverage their efforts where new customer acquisition and buyer discovery is a high priority.
There are over 100M+ Shop app users who have their payment and shipping information stored in their account, ensuring that they’re able to checkout quickly and in the best mobile-first shopping experience. This is a powerful channel for your merchants to tap into, with your Shop Mini allowing them to differentiate their presence from their competitors in the app.
Anecdotally, we’ve seen partners use their Shop Mini as a lead generation tool and as a competitive advantage when onboarding new merchant users.
Read more about success stories with shoppable videos and shoppable posts.