Anyone here develop Shopify App with no coding experience?

[DeletedUser0287]

Need some opinions of people that are programmers.

How long do you think it would take for someone to develop a functional app of moderate-high complexity through Shopify? How large of a feat is this? Is this considered difficult for someone who already knows software development?

My thing is ecommerce, but I have a clear vision of a Shopify App that is mandatory for brand building.

Why I'm deciding to build it myself, unless someone convinces me otherwise...
1) All the other solutions on Shopify App don't suit are poor and don't suit my needs well. Paying for a mediocre solution ekk.
2) Save money and ongoing operating costs by having my own app and not paying for someone elses.
3) App is going to be built for my own store, but if good enough, I guess I can also list it on the App Store for another source of income. If so, I would be listing at $100/month.

Based on my research: I am going to have to know Javascript, Node.JS, React, Polaris, Shopify API, GraphQL, and how a web app works in general.

 

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[reedracer]

With no coding background, I would hire someone to create an MVP to your specs. Then learn to code by making the app better. Good luck

 

[John Clancy]

Do you want to share the general purpose of the app?

Experienced software developers might be able to give you a better estimate then. Or someone could point you towards an existing solution you could modify to meet your needs.

Failing that, you could investigate a low-code/no-code solution. Check out applications like Bubble & Adalo --> depending on what you're looking for, they could be useful for getting an MVP up and running.

 

[csalvato]

With no coding background, I would hire someone to create an MVP to your specs. Then learn to code by making the app better. Good luck

Or hire someone to build it and take you along for the ride, teaching you what they are doing and why. Great way to learn.

 

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[JohnForte]

Creating a Shopify app is an advanced level, cause with Shopify you would have to do your own hosting. One thing you are missing is for GraphQL to work properly you need a database like mysql or postgresql these are just two examples. GraphQL is a way in code to take a question from your API and ask the database in its own language.

A good thing is if you do go the NodeJs and react way, you can use lambda in AWS which is auto-scaling and you just rub money on it and you can serve yourself or millions of people with no effort. I usually use lambda with nodejs and nextjs (if I need server-side rendering for SEO value). Otherwise, you can serve to react code from an S3 bucket again rub money on the scaling problem.

Another thing is for an MVP you don't need to use Polaris, this is just if you wanted the admin panel that would be loaded into Shopify's dashboard to use the same styles as shopify.

Other things to think about if you do list it and it deals in people's information you would need to handle GDPR

A junior developer would struggle but a senior developer could do this. This isn't something that can be done fast.

 

[DeletedUser0287]

Do you want to share the general purpose of the app?

Experienced software developers might be able to give you a better estimate then. Or someone could point you towards an existing solution you could modify to meet your needs.

Failing that, you could investigate a low-code/no-code solution. Check out applications like Bubble & Adalo --> depending on what you're looking for, they could be useful for getting an MVP up and running.

Product customizer like those made for Car websites with attribute adds for each confirguation.
For example, if you add the turbo booster on the car product, on the side the max speed bar would increase. Kinda like a video game. I was looking for a video game tutorial and use the logic into Shopify.

Or hire someone to build it and take you along for the ride, teaching you what they are doing and why. Great way to learn.

How would I go about doing this? My funds are strapped. Yeah should accelerate learning if someone is there. Ideally, I was looking for a programming apprenticeship where I get paid to learn, but those are probably no existant.

Creating a Shopify app is an advanced level, cause with Shopify you would have to do your own hosting. One thing you are missing is for GraphQL to work properly you need a database like mysql or postgresql these are just two examples. GraphQL is a way in code to take a question from your API and ask the database in its own language.

A good thing is if you do go the NodeJs and react way, you can use lambda in AWS which is auto-scaling and you just rub money on it and you can serve yourself or millions of people with no effort. I usually use lambda with nodejs and nextjs (if I need server-side rendering for SEO value). Otherwise, you can serve to react code from an S3 bucket again rub money on the scaling problem.

Another thing is for an MVP you don't need to use Polaris, this is just if you wanted the admin panel that would be loaded into Shopify's dashboard to use the same styles as shopify.

Other things to think about if you do list it and it deals in people's information you would need to handle GDPR

A junior developer would struggle but a senior developer could do this. This isn't something that can be done fast.

For GraphQL, don't I just pull my product data from Shopify database? I wanted to the app to be loaded into the Shopify dashboard. Yeah, I gotta read more on GDPR.

 

[rpeck90]

Product customizer like those made for Car websites with attribute adds for each confirguation.
For example, if you add the turbo booster on the car product, on the side the max speed bar would increase. Kinda like a video game. I was looking for a video game tutorial and use the logic into Shopify.

I've done something similar, and have programmed about 10 Shopify apps for a variety of clients.

The big problem is how you add the "custom" products to your basket. The front-end isn't that big of a deal (it's mostly thematic), but making it work with Shopify will be a problem, as they don't support customized products:

The above is probably the best example I have. It uses a bi-directional iFrame to help the user create a custom "Carte Grise" application. It had to pull a form from this site and capture the user's inputs.

The important thing to note is that the only way I could get the "custom" carte-grise price (which needed to include a separate tax product) was to create a draft order within Shopify.

Draft orders work similarly to invoices/quotes, and allow you to add as many custom line items as you need. You're then provided with a checkout link, which you're able to send to your client (or redirect them to upon completion of the form).

You can see the server part of my code here:
richpeck/node-g6k

The site isn't around anymore, but another of my creations is:

Custom Collection

Customize Your Jewelry As Easy As 1-2-3! Choose your Shape. Pick a compatible Charm/s. Choose from a stone collection or create your own... --

www.serifinanaturals.com

This uses exactly the same process, except I needed to code a MASSIVE customizer in the backend to handle the relationships. And yes, if any developer is reading, I had the n+1 problem (fixed with SQL joins):



-

To do this yourself, there are several things you need to be aware of:

1. Shopify is only concerned with its API

What you "see" in the theme is only a small part of the solution. Much of what you'll create will reside off Shopify's servers, and may include the likes of a "relationship" manager tool (above), or some other management interface.

This may appear confusing - but remember that Shopify will not store any custom data for you. If you wanted to build a "customizer app", all the relationships have to be kept on your server/application, and then ported into Shopfiy via its API.

In terms of what you're asking - you may need to create a totally independent solution, which is then part ported into Shopify. I can talk further about this if required.

2. Treat "users" of your application as Shopify users

The best piece of advice is to consider your "solution" as a tool into-which Shopify users are able to integrate their store. In other words, your solution is only as powerful as the integration it receives within Shopify. You cannot change any core functionality of their system.

This means that what you're actually trying to do (at least in my opinion), is take your functionality and "blend" it with Shopify. If you consider the examples above, you're providing the user with an input (which has to be added manually in the theme), and then computing a response that the user can work with. The response is dependent on your application/code.

To make this work, you need API access to the user's store. This is achieved either by obtaining their API key manually (known as a "private app"), or with oAuth (known as a "public app"). What you're thinking about is the latter.

3. Don't build to sell

Of all the people asking me for things, they are looking for specific functionality, and generally don't want to pay that much for it. Shopify is quite a bloated system, and is overpriced for what it is.

To this end, if you're looking to create a solution solely to provide Shopify users with a certain type of functionality, I would focus on trying to get it to work for your own store first. If you're able to achieve results with it, then you'll be able to make it something more substantive.

 

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[John Clancy]

@rpeck90 mind if I PM you with a quick Shopify app dev question? Don't want to take this thread off-track (and I can't initiate a conversation with you).

Thanks!