Question 1

What is Shopify?

Accepted Answer

Shopify is a cloud-based ecommerce platform that lets anyone create an online store without coding. It handles hosting, payments, checkout, inventory, and shipping in one place, and supports over 2 million active merchants worldwide.

Question 2

What is a Shopify plan and which one should I choose?

Accepted Answer

Shopify offers five plans: Starter ($5/mo), Basic ($29/mo), Shopify ($79/mo), Advanced ($299/mo), and Plus ($2,300/mo). For most new stores, Basic is sufficient. Choose Advanced or Plus when you need advanced report customisation, third-party calculated shipping at checkout, or enterprise-level volume discounts on transaction fees.

Question 3

What is a Shopify domain and how do I connect a custom domain?

Accepted Answer

A custom domain (e.g. yourstore.com) replaces the default myshopify.com URL. Buy it through Shopify or a third-party registrar like Namecheap, then connect it in Admin → Online Store → Domains. Shopify automatically provisions an SSL certificate.

Question 4

What payment gateways does Shopify support?

Accepted Answer

Shopify supports 100+ payment gateways including Shopify Payments, Stripe, PayPal, 2Checkout, and regional options like EasyPaisa and JazzCash (via third-party integration). Using Shopify Payments waives the additional transaction fee (0.5–2% on third-party gateways).

Question 5

What is Shopify Payments?

Accepted Answer

Shopify Payments is Shopify's built-in payment processor, powered by Stripe. It's available in 17+ countries (not yet Pakistan or India) and eliminates Shopify's transaction fee. It supports credit/debit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Shop Pay.

Question 6

What is Shop Pay?

Accepted Answer

Shop Pay is a one-click checkout accelerator from Shopify. Returning buyers can complete checkout without re-entering payment or shipping details. It reduces checkout abandonment by up to 35% compared to guest checkout.

Question 7

What is Shopify Markets?

Accepted Answer

Shopify Markets lets merchants sell internationally from a single store — automatically showing localised prices, currencies, languages, and tax rules to buyers in different countries without creating separate stores.

Question 8

What is a Shopify store's admin panel?

Accepted Answer

The Shopify admin is the back-end dashboard at yourstore.myshopify.com/admin. It contains everything: products, orders, customers, analytics, apps, settings, and theme customisation. It's accessible via browser or the Shopify mobile app.

Question 9

What is the Shopify Point of Sale (POS) system?

Accepted Answer

Shopify POS is a retail sales system that syncs with your online store. Merchants can sell in person using an iPad or iPhone, accept card payments via Shopify hardware, and keep inventory synced across online and physical locations.

Question 10

How many products can I add to a Shopify store?

Accepted Answer

Shopify has no hard limit on the number of products. You can add unlimited products on all plans, but each product can have a maximum of 100 variants (combinations of options like size and colour) and up to 3 options per product.

Question 11

What is a Shopify collection?

Accepted Answer

A collection is a group of products. Automated collections use rules (e.g. tag = 'sale') to add products automatically. Manual collections require you to add products one by one. Collections are displayed as category pages and used in navigation menus.

Question 12

What is a Shopify product tag?

Accepted Answer

Tags are labels you attach to products (or orders, customers) to organise and filter them. They power automated collections, app logic, Shopify Flow conditions, and customer segmentation in email marketing tools.

Question 13

What is a Shopify variant?

Accepted Answer

A variant is a specific version of a product defined by its option values — e.g. a T-shirt variant might be Size: M / Colour: Blue. Each variant can have its own price, SKU, barcode, weight, and inventory tracked separately.

Question 14

What is a SKU in Shopify?

Accepted Answer

SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) is a unique identifier you assign to each product variant for inventory tracking. SKUs appear on packing slips and integrate with warehouse management systems. Shopify does not auto-generate them — you define your own format.

Question 15

What is a Shopify draft order?

Accepted Answer

Draft orders let merchants create orders manually — useful for wholesale, B2B, phone orders, or customised quotes. You can send an invoice to the customer to pay via a secure link, or mark it as paid immediately.

Question 16

What is Shopify Flow?

Accepted Answer

Shopify Flow is a no-code workflow automation tool available on Shopify and Plus plans. It uses triggers (e.g. 'Order created'), conditions (e.g. 'Order total > $500'), and actions (e.g. 'Add tag', 'Send email', 'Create task') to automate repetitive tasks.

Question 17

What is Shopify Inbox?

Accepted Answer

Shopify Inbox is a free live chat tool for Shopify stores. It lets merchants chat with customers in real time from the Shopify admin or mobile app, with access to cart contents and order history during the conversation.

Question 18

What is Shopify Email?

Accepted Answer

Shopify Email is a built-in email marketing tool. It lets you send campaigns to customers using pre-built templates populated with your branding and products. Free up to 10,000 emails per month; then $1 per 1,000 emails.

Question 19

What is the Shopify App Store?

Accepted Answer

The Shopify App Store is a marketplace of 8,000+ apps that extend Shopify's functionality — reviews, loyalty programs, shipping rules, upselling, subscriptions, accounting integrations, and more. Apps are built by third-party developers and reviewed by Shopify.

Question 20

What is a Shopify Partner?

Accepted Answer

A Shopify Partner is a developer, designer, or agency that builds themes, apps, or stores for Shopify merchants. Partners get access to unlimited free development stores, revenue sharing on app sales, and a dedicated partner dashboard.

Question 21

What is a Shopify theme?

Accepted Answer

A Shopify theme controls the visual appearance and layout of your online store. It's built with Liquid (Shopify's templating language), HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Themes are installed from the Theme Store or uploaded as ZIP files.

Question 22

What is Online Store 2.0 (OS 2.0)?

Accepted Answer

Online Store 2.0 is Shopify's modern theme architecture introduced in 2021. It introduces sections everywhere (not just the homepage), app blocks via Theme App Extensions, JSON templates, and a unified customiser. Dawn is Shopify's reference OS 2.0 theme.

Question 23

What is a Shopify section?

Accepted Answer

A section is a reusable, customisable content block merchants can add to any page using the Online Store Editor. Examples: hero banner, featured collection, testimonials, image-with-text. Sections are defined in Liquid with a {% schema %} block.

Question 24

What is a Shopify block?

Accepted Answer

Within a section, blocks are individual content elements merchants can add, remove, and reorder. For example, a 'Features' section might contain individual 'Feature' blocks, each with its own icon, heading, and description.

Question 25

What is Liquid?

Accepted Answer

Liquid is Shopify's open-source templating language, created by Tobi Lütke in 2006. It uses {{ output }} tags and {% logic %} tags to render dynamic content — product titles, prices, cart quantities — in HTML templates.

Question 26

What is a Liquid object?

Accepted Answer

Liquid objects are variables that represent Shopify data. Common objects: product (current product), collection (current collection), cart (cart contents), customer (logged-in customer), shop (store settings). Access properties with dot notation: {{ product.title }}.

Question 27

What is a Liquid filter?

Accepted Answer

Filters modify Liquid output. Examples: {{ product.price | money }} formats a price; {{ product.description | truncate: 150 }} limits text length; {{ product.images | first }} returns the first image.

Question 28

What is the Shopify theme schema?

Accepted Answer

The {% schema %} tag inside a section or block Liquid file defines its settings — what merchants can customise in the Online Store Editor. Schema is written in JSON and defines setting types like text, image_picker, color, range, and select.

Question 29

What is sections everywhere in Shopify?

Accepted Answer

Sections everywhere (introduced in OS 2.0) means merchants can add and reorder sections on any page — product pages, collection pages, blog posts, and the cart — not just the homepage. Each page template is defined in a JSON file listing its sections.

Question 30

What is a JSON template in Shopify?

Accepted Answer

JSON templates (e.g. product.json) define the sections and their default settings for a page template in OS 2.0 themes. Unlike the older product.liquid, JSON templates separate data (sections config) from markup (section Liquid files).

Question 31

What is the Shopify Dawn theme?

Accepted Answer

Dawn is Shopify's free, open-source reference theme for Online Store 2.0. It's performance-optimised (no jQuery, minimal JS), fully accessible, and available on GitHub. Many merchants use it as a starting point or base for custom themes.

Question 32

What is a Shopify theme preset?

Accepted Answer

A theme preset is a predefined configuration of sections and blocks for a template, defined in the JSON template file. Merchants can reset to preset defaults in the theme customiser.

Question 33

How do I edit Shopify theme code?

Accepted Answer

Go to Admin → Online Store → Themes → Actions → Edit code. This opens a code editor with all theme files. Edit Liquid, CSS, and JavaScript files directly. Always duplicate the theme before editing to preserve a backup.

Question 34

What is Shopify's Online Store Editor (Customiser)?

Accepted Answer

The Online Store Editor (accessed via Admin → Online Store → Themes → Customise) is a visual drag-and-drop interface for arranging sections and configuring their settings — without touching code. Changes are live-previewed in the editor.

Question 35

What is a Shopify theme snippet?

Accepted Answer

Snippets are reusable Liquid partials stored in the snippets/ folder. Include them in templates or sections with {% render 'snippet-name' %}. Common snippets: product-card, icon-cart, breadcrumb.

Question 36

What is a Shopify layout file?

Accepted Answer

Layout files (layouts/theme.liquid) are the outer wrapper for every page — they contain the , , and tags, load CSS/JS, and render the header and footer. Special layouts like password.liquid are used for specific pages.

Question 37

What is Shopify's Storefront API?

Accepted Answer

The Storefront API is a public GraphQL API that lets you read product, collection, and cart data from any client — including browser JavaScript, mobile apps, and custom storefronts. It doesn't require a server-side secret and is rate-limited by buyer IP.

Question 38

What is a headless Shopify store?

Accepted Answer

A headless Shopify store separates the front-end (custom React/Next.js/Astro app) from Shopify's back-end. The frontend queries the Storefront API for data and renders its own UI. Headless offers full design freedom but requires more development effort.

Question 39

What is Hydrogen?

Accepted Answer

Hydrogen is Shopify's React-based framework for building headless storefronts. It includes built-in Shopify data hooks, cart management, server components, and streaming. Paired with Oxygen (Shopify's hosting), it offers edge-deployed headless commerce.

Question 40

What is Shopify's Theme Inspector?

Accepted Answer

Theme Inspector is a Chrome DevTools extension for debugging Liquid performance. It shows a flame chart of which Liquid includes and renders are taking the longest, helping developers identify slow snippets or sections.

Question 41

What is the difference between a free and paid Shopify theme?

Accepted Answer

Free Shopify themes (Dawn, Craft, Sense, etc.) offer solid foundations but limited styling options. Paid themes ($180–$380, one-time) often have more section types, built-in animations, industry-specific layouts, and dedicated support.

Question 42

What is Shopify's CSS architecture recommendation?

Accepted Answer

Shopify recommends scoped CSS per section/component using native CSS custom properties (variables). Dawn avoids Sass, using plain CSS with :root variables for colors and fonts. This aligns with the browser's native cascade without a build step.

Question 43

What are Shopify predictive search and Shopify Ajax API?

Accepted Answer

Shopify's Ajax API is a set of JSON endpoints (no authentication required) for cart operations, product recommendations, and predictive search. Use /search/suggest.json?q=query to power a live search dropdown without a full page reload.

Question 44

What are the types of Shopify apps?

Accepted Answer

Shopify apps come in three types: (1) Public apps — listed in the App Store, install via OAuth, serve many merchants; (2) Custom apps — built for one specific store, installed directly in admin; (3) Private apps — legacy type, replaced by custom apps in 2022.

Question 45

What is Shopify OAuth and how does app installation work?

Accepted Answer

Shopify OAuth is the flow by which merchants grant your app permission to access their store data. When a merchant clicks 'Install' on your App Store listing, Shopify redirects them to your app's install URL, which redirects back to Shopify for permission approval, then returns an access token your server stores.

Question 46

What is Shopify Admin API?

Accepted Answer

The Admin API is a REST and GraphQL API for server-side access to a merchant's store — orders, products, customers, inventory, fulfillments, and more. It requires an access token obtained via OAuth.

Question 47

What is the difference between REST and GraphQL Admin API?

Accepted Answer

Shopify's REST Admin API uses resource-based endpoints (/admin/api/2024-07/orders.json). GraphQL uses a single endpoint with typed queries that return exactly the requested fields. GraphQL is more efficient and has access to newer features; REST is simpler for basic CRUD.

Question 48

What is a Shopify app session token?

Accepted Answer

Session tokens are short-lived JWTs issued by Shopify App Bridge to authenticate requests from embedded app UIs to your backend. They replace cookie-based sessions for apps embedded in the Shopify admin iframe.

Question 49

What is Shopify App Bridge?

Accepted Answer

App Bridge is a JavaScript library that enables communication between your embedded app (running in an iframe in the Shopify admin) and the Shopify host. It provides session tokens, navigation, modal/toast UI, and context about the current merchant.

Question 50

What are Shopify webhooks?

Accepted Answer

Webhooks are HTTP callbacks Shopify sends to your app's endpoint when specific events occur — e.g. orders/create, products/update, customers/delete. Your server receives a POST request with the event payload and must respond with 200 OK within 5 seconds.

Question 51

What is a Shopify webhook HMAC verification?

Accepted Answer

Shopify signs every webhook payload with an HMAC-SHA256 hash using your app's client secret, sent in the X-Shopify-Hmac-Sha256 header. Your server must verify this before processing the payload to prevent spoofed requests.

Question 52

What is Shopify Billing API?

Accepted Answer

The Billing API lets apps charge merchants for subscriptions or usage. Types: RecurringApplicationCharge (monthly/annual), UsageApplicationCharge (metered billing), ApplicationCredit (issuing refunds). Shopify deducts its revenue share (20%) from charges.

Question 53

What is a Theme App Extension (TAE)?

Accepted Answer

A TAE lets your app add UI to merchant storefronts without modifying theme code. App blocks can be added to any section via the Online Store Editor; app embeds are global toggles (for widgets, scripts, or banners). TAEs are declared in the extensions/ folder of your app.

Question 54

What is a Shopify Checkout Extension?

Accepted Answer

Checkout Extensions (previously Checkout UI Extensions) let Plus-plan merchants customise the Shopify checkout experience — adding fields, banners, upsells, and address validation — via a sandboxed React-like component system. They replace checkout.liquid for Plus stores.

Question 55

What is Shopify Functions?

Accepted Answer

Shopify Functions are server-side WebAssembly modules that run inside Shopify's infrastructure to customise core commerce logic — custom discounts, shipping rates, payment method filtering, and cart transforms. They replace scripts on Plus and are available on all plans for some use cases.

Question 56

What is Shopify CLI?

Accepted Answer

Shopify CLI is a command-line tool for developing Shopify apps and themes. Use it to scaffold apps (shopify app init), generate extensions, run local dev servers (shopify app dev), and deploy (shopify app deploy).

Question 57

What tech stack does Shopify recommend for apps?

Accepted Answer

Shopify's official starter kits use Node.js with the @shopify/shopify-api library, React for embedded admin UIs, and Polaris for design. Shopify also maintains Remix-based templates. You can use any language/framework — Ruby, Python, PHP, Go — as long as you handle OAuth and webhook verification.

Question 58

What is Shopify Polaris?

Accepted Answer

Polaris is Shopify's open-source React component library and design system. App developers use it to build admin UIs that look and feel native to the Shopify admin. It includes 100+ components: data tables, cards, modals, page layouts, badges, and more.

Question 59

What is an embedded Shopify app?

Accepted Answer

An embedded app runs inside an iframe within the Shopify admin, using App Bridge to communicate with the host. This provides a seamless UX — the merchant never leaves the admin. Most modern Shopify apps are embedded rather than opening in a new tab.

Question 60

What are Shopify Metafields and when should I use them in an app?

Accepted Answer

Metafields are key-value pairs attached to any Shopify resource (product, variant, order, customer, etc.). Apps use them to store custom data — e.g. a review score on a product, a custom field on an order. Access via Admin API GraphQL or Storefront API.

Question 61

What are Shopify Metaobjects?

Accepted Answer

Metaobjects are structured custom data models — like a database table you define in Shopify. Example: a 'Staff member' metaobject with fields for name, photo, and bio. They're surfaced in the Online Store Editor and accessible via Storefront API.

Question 62

What is the Shopify App Store review process?

Accepted Answer

After submitting your app to the Shopify App Store, Shopify's partner team reviews it for functionality, performance, security, and compliance with Partner Program policies. The review typically takes 5–10 business days. Common rejection reasons: missing HMAC verification, broken OAuth flow, inadequate onboarding.

Question 63

How do I handle rate limits in Shopify API?

Accepted Answer

Shopify's REST API allows 40 requests/second (leaky bucket). GraphQL uses a cost-based system (1,000 points/second). Implement exponential backoff when you receive a 429 response. Use bulk operations (bulkOperationRunQuery) for large data exports instead of paginating thousands of requests.

Question 64

What is a Shopify App Proxy?

Accepted Answer

An App Proxy routes requests from a storefront URL (e.g. yourstore.com/apps/my-widget/data) through Shopify's servers to your app's backend. This lets you load authenticated app data into storefront pages without exposing your backend URL.

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