Glossary
Shopify App
A Shopify app is an add-on that extends what a Shopify store can do. Merchants install apps from the Shopify App Store to handle tasks the base platform doesn't cover natively: collecting product reviews, running email and SMS campaigns, adding upsells and bundles, building custom pages, managing subscriptions, or syncing with suppliers.
Apps integrate through Shopify's APIs and can inject functionality into the storefront in several ways: embedded admin interfaces, theme app extensions, script tags, and app pixels. Some run silently in the background, like analytics or fulfillment tools, while others are visibly part of the shopping experience, like a review widget or a cart drawer.
Because many apps leave detectable traces in a store's HTML, scripts, or network requests, you can often tell which apps a store has installed. Recognizable stacks emerge. For example, an email tool for lifecycle marketing, a reviews app for social proof, and an upsell app to raise average order value.