You’ve done the hard work: you’ve set up a Shopify shop, your store is getting steady traffic, and the site works. But here’s the truth about 2026: almost 70% of online shopping traffic comes from mobile devices, and your mobile site may only be average — not fast, not engaging, and not optimized for repeat purchases.

Turning your Shopify store into a mobile app helps you capture and retain customer attention. Apps are on home screens. They load right away. They send push notifications that appear instantly and thus make it easier for returning consumers to check out.

This blog covers everything you need to know about building a Shopify app, including the tools and fees involved, potential issues in the app store, and whether you should even make one.

A Look into Shopify App Development in 2026

Developing a Shopify app involves creating useful tools that integrate seamlessly with the Shopify platform. The goal is to create a faster, more engaging mobile shopping experience – whether you’re building a private tool to support your company or a public app for thousands of merchants on the App Store by enhancing the Shopify experience through targeted features.

And Why Is It Important to Make Apps for Shopify?

The worldwide B2B eCommerce industry is growing rapidly, with a 14.5% CAGR, and is predicted to reach $36.16 trillion by 2026. The primary reason many companies choose Shopify app development is the rapid growth of eCommerce.

Because Shopify enables cross-border commerce, firms in many other fields are already developing applications and leveraging this opportunity. If you want to capitalize on the growing eCommerce industry, establish a Shopify website development agency for your company. Before you make a choice, it’s important to understand the types of applications Shopify offers.

Why Do You Need to Turn Your Shopify Store into A Mobile App?

About 57% of all internet traffic originates from mobile devices. Most of the people you want to reach are on smartphones. If your store isn’t optimized for mobile, you risk losing customers who shop mainly on smartphones.

● Getting Customers Involved

You can talk to your customers directly in the Shopify mobile app. Clients’ smartphones always have the app, making it easy for them to reach your business. This implies it’s easy to communicate with people and gather real-time information, helping you stay in touch with your audience.

For example, if you have a fashion store and use the Shopify Mobile app, you can effortlessly send personalized push notifications to customers about specials, discounts, and new arrivals, which will quickly drive conversions.

● Loyalty to a Brand

The best Shopify development company gets more exposure and keeps customers coming back. People who download your app are committed to interacting with your brand frequently. Apps can significantly increase customer loyalty by offering a personalised, easy shopping experience.

Like Starbucks’s mobile app, the Shopify mobile app lets you build brand loyalty with your consumers. With the Shopify App, you can also offer benefits such as early access to items, loyalty points, and special promotions.

● Easy to Get to When Not Online

Users can view items even when offline. It also lets users view wish lists and previously loaded data. This improves the user experience by enabling mobile applications to work offline, allowing users to explore products, access wish lists, and view preloaded data even when they are not connected to the internet.

When users reconnect, their carts or wish lists are updated, making it easy for them to purchase items when they return online.

● Less Money Spent on Development

You can make native iOS and Android applications without spending a lot of money on conventional development using tools like Monster Mobile Builder. This saves time and money on eCommerce website development while still making a high-quality app.

A Shopify store owner can use a no-code app builder like Monster to turn their store into a mobile app in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost of hiring a full development team to build one from scratch.

How to Do It Step by Step: How to Make a Shopify App in 2026

There are more than 15,000 apps in the Shopify App Store, and 87% of merchants use at least one. Here is a step-by-step tutorial on building a Shopify app.

Step 1: Figure out What Your App is for and who it is for

The first step in building a Shopify app is to define its functionality. What issue does your Shopify shop fix? Who is the intended audience? What resources and work are required for development? These are some important questions to address. 

Make the app’s features relevant to your target demographic and the issue it can address. You may also check the Shopify app store for issues with current solutions. You should also look at merchants’ reviews of the best Shopify development company. After conducting a comprehensive study, create a complete user persona that lists their problems and the gaps they currently face.

Step 2: Set Up Your Shopify Partner Account and Development Store

You may access development tools, testing environments, and the app submission site by setting up a Shopify partner account. A partner account will let you build as many shops as you need to test your app. 

Shopify app development tools let you build environments that closely resemble those of real merchants. You may use them to review processes, check integrations, and identify issues before you release. Setting up the eCommerce website development with example items, customer information, and purchase histories might help you in replicating how the target merchant operates.

Step 3: Pick the Right Tech Stack for Your Shopify Store

Choosing the right technology stack for your Shopify app development is critical, as it can affect how well your shop performs, how easy it is to maintain, and how well it scales. Shopify works with a range of technologies and development approaches.

Shopify requires all embedded apps to use session token authentication instead of regular cookies. To keep merchant sessions secure, session tokens must be included with each request and validated on the server. Use encrypted storage on the backend to protect access tokens, and never expose them in client-side code, URLs, or logs.

Step 4: Create the Main Features and User Interface

Use Shopify Polaris to design your app’s UI. This is Shopify’s design system that ensures your app looks like it belongs in the best Shopify development company Admin. Start with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that addresses the core use case, and expand it over time to build your app’s essential functionality. Instead of adding features only to make things more comprehensive, build features that actually help merchants.

Testing is crucial to ensuring an app works well and meets merchants’ needs. Test all features to ensure they perform as expected under typical settings. To ensure your app works with all Shopify plans (Basic, Shopify, Advanced, Plus), test it with each one.

The Key Takeaways

If you want to get the most out of your online shop in 2026, you need to build eCommerce website. It lets you not only meet specific business requirements but also ensure a smooth purchasing experience. But to capitalise on market demand, you need a well-thought-out strategy for building your Shopify app. If you are looking to hire the best Shopify development experts to take your e-store to another height, book a free consultation with VWorks today!