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Shopify → App Store & Google PlayYour Shopify store, as a real mobile app.
A store is not the usual App Store problem. Commerce is real functionality, your Shopify checkout is allowed to stay exactly as it is, and Apple does not take a cut of physical goods. What you gain is the thing a browser cannot do: a notification on the home screen.
A store is a different case entirely
Most advice about App Store rejection does not apply to you, and the advice about in-app purchases actively does not.
The rejection everyone writes about is guideline 4.2, Minimum Functionality — an app that is just a repackaged website. A store is much better placed against it than a marketing site or a dashboard, because browsing a catalogue, managing a cart, checking out and tracking an order is genuine commerce functionality. The question a reviewer asks is whether the app does something worth downloading, and a store with push notifications and order tracking does.
The part worth being precise about is payments, because the usual advice is wrong for you. Apple requires its own in-app purchase system for digital content consumed inside an app. It explicitly does not require it for physical goods and services delivered outside the app — that is what App Store Review Guideline 3.1.5(a) is about:
Goods and Services Outside of the App: If your app enables people to purchase physical goods or services that will be consumed outside of the app, you must use purchase methods other than in-app purchase.
Read that again, because it goes the other way from what people expect: for physical products you are required to use something other than Apple's billing. Your Shopify checkout stays. Apple takes nothing. Nobody has to rebuild anything.
Most stores only ever use the left-hand route. If you sell both, the two run side by side and both are allowed.
If you also sell something digital that is consumed in the app — a course, a membership area, downloadable files — that part does need StoreKit. Most stores do not, and if yours does it is usually a small slice of the catalogue.
Apple's in-app purchase requirement covers digital content consumed inside the app. Physical goods shipped to a customer are explicitly excluded.
That means your existing payment providers, discount codes, Shop Pay, abandoned-cart flows and tax setup all continue to work untouched — and Apple's 15–30% does not apply.
What actually changes for your customers
The store is the same store. What is around it is not.
- You reach them only when they choose to come back
- Abandoned cart recovery depends on them opening an email
- Competing with every other tab they have open
- No home-screen presence — you are a bookmark at best
- Order updates arrive as email, if the email is opened at all
Nothing here is broken. It is just the ceiling of what a website can do.
- Push notification for a drop, a restock or a sale
- Abandoned cart recovery that arrives on the lock screen
- Order and shipping updates as notifications, not email
- Your icon on the home screen, permanently
- Face ID / fingerprint lock and native Google and Apple sign-in
- Deep links straight into a product or collection
- Offline handling so a weak signal does not look like an outage
Push is the whole business case. Email open rates for a promotion sit in the low twenties; a notification lands on the lock screen of someone who chose to install you.
Shopify store to TestFlight, start to finish
Four steps. Nothing installed in Shopify, and no theme changes.
Copy your store URL
Use your live storefront address — your custom domain if you have one, or the *.myshopify.com address if not. A password-protected store will not work; the app loads what a customer would see.
Nothing is installed in Shopify. No app from the Shopify App Store, no theme edits, no Liquid changes, and no monthly Shopify app fee.
Paste it into Glideep
Choose Create new app, give it a name and paste the URL. Your store appears with an editor beside a live preview.
Scan the QR code to open the real thing on your phone. Walk your own checkout on it before you go any further — that is the flow that has to be perfect.
Turn on what makes it worth installing
For a store the priority order is different from every other platform. Push notifications are not a box to tick for review — they are the reason the app pays for itself.
Build and submit
Building takes one to two minutes. No Mac and no Xcode — iOS builds run on cloud macOS machines and the signed IPA goes to TestFlight through the App Store Connect API.
The store accounts are yours: Apple Developer at $99 a year, Google Play at $25 once. Those go to Apple and Google, not to us — and the Apple account is usually the slowest part, so start it first.
Your checkout stays. Apple takes nothing.
The single most misunderstood part of putting a store on the App Store.
For physical goods, Apple's guidelines require you to use a payment method other than in-app purchase. Your Shopify checkout is not a workaround or a grey area — it is the compliant option. No 15–30% commission, no re-plumbing, no separate product catalogue to maintain in App Store Connect.
- Shopify checkout, unchanged. Shop Pay, your payment providers, discount codes, shipping rules and tax settings all keep working.
- No Apple commission on physical products. Guideline 3.1.5(a) puts them outside in-app purchase entirely.
- Your existing apps keep running. Anything installed in your Shopify store works, because it is your real storefront in the app.
- Digital goods are the exception. A course, a members-only area or downloadable files consumed inside the app do need StoreKit — we can wire that through RevenueCat alongside the normal checkout.
- One catalogue. Products live in Shopify and nowhere else, so there is nothing to keep in sync.
Or let our team submit it for you.
A store owner's time is better spent on merchandising than on provisioning profiles and content ratings. Submission is also where a first-timer most often loses a fortnight to something small.
For a one-off fee our team takes it from a working build to a live listing. We QA on real devices, walk your checkout end to end, prepare the store assets and handle the back-and-forth with review.
- Checkout QA — we buy something on a real device before you submit.
- Push setup — abandoned cart and order updates wired and tested.
- Store assets — listing copy, screenshots, content rating, privacy answers.
- Submission and review — including replying to the Resolution Center if it comes to that.
You keep running the store in Shopify
The app is a window onto your storefront, not a copy of it.
Shopify to app store, answered
Will Apple take 30% of my sales?
No. Apple's commission applies to in-app purchases of digital content. Physical goods shipped to a customer are explicitly excluded by guideline 3.1.5(a) — which in fact requires you to use a payment method other than in-app purchase. Your Shopify checkout stays and Apple takes nothing from it.
Do I need to install anything in Shopify?
No. There is no app to install from the Shopify App Store, no theme edits and no Liquid changes, so there is no extra monthly Shopify fee. Glideep loads your live storefront.
Will my store get rejected under guideline 4.2?
Stores are much better placed than most, because browsing, cart and checkout are real functionality. The apps that do get rejected are the ones with nothing added — no notifications, no native sign-in, opening straight onto a loading storefront. Turn on push and a native home screen and you are on solid ground.
Can I send abandoned cart notifications?
Yes, and this is usually where the app pays for itself. Push runs through OneSignal, so a Shopify webhook or flow that fires on cart abandonment can send a notification to the lock screen instead of an email that may never be opened.
What if I also sell a digital product?
If it is consumed inside the app — a course, a members area, downloadable files — that part needs StoreKit and Play Billing. It can run alongside the normal Shopify checkout for your physical products; they are separate paths and both are allowed.
What about Shopify's own Shop app?
The Shop app is Shopify's marketplace, with your products alongside everyone else's and their branding around it. This is your own listing, your icon, your notifications, your customer relationship. Plenty of merchants have both.
Put your store on the App Store.
Start free, build a real app, and walk your own checkout on your own phone before you pay anything.