Shopify Opens its Platform to Developers With New Sales Channel SDK

We’d like to introduce you to our new Sales Channel SDK: a collection of APIs and a UI kit that you can use to add commerce to any site, app, or platform.

From bartering to Buy Buttons, people have always relied on commerce. When the internet came along, online commerce was a natural evolution. Online stores were the first frontier of ecommerce, but think of all the ways that people use the internet to connect, discover, and learn.

What if there was a way to introduce commerce to any and all of those online experiences? There are thousands of unexplored touchpoints and interactions that commerce has never been a part of — and it’s time to start exploring.

We’d like to introduce you to our new Sales Channel SDK: a collection of APIs and a UI kit that you can use to add commerce to any site, app, or platform.

Now, anything you’ve ever built can be turned into a sales channel. This will create new possibilities and endless opportunities for you to build, and for merchants to sell.

Our new software development kit will allow you to get your app into the heart of our 243,000+ merchants’ businesses. We’re taking the technology we used for our integrations with Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, and Amazon, and we’re handing it over to you.

Here’s what you’ll get from our new SDK:

Product Listings

Create a catalog of products to sell, plus let merchants choose to publish entire collections, individual products, or both.

Real-Time Checkouts

Build a fully customized checkout experience with the ability to create a cart, reserve inventory, calculate shipping and taxes, and process payments for merchants.

UI Kit

Design an integrated onboarding experience and account dashboard within Shopify so merchants can manage and grow their business with you.

You can monetize your channels with our latest Billings API on a one-time, monthly, or per-order basis. Read more about our new Billing API here.

Sales Channel SDK in action

A few years ago, we started asking ourselves: “What would commerce look like on Pinterest? On Twitter? On Facebook?”

In 2015, we became pioneers of contextual commerce, creating industry-leading partnerships with those very three companies. This allowed any business on Shopify to sell through those channels.

Since then, we’ve seen first-hand how these important shifts have helped Shopify merchants stay ahead of their competition and succeed. Over 50% of Shopify merchants are now selling on more than one sales channels.

And we’re just getting started.

Here are some examples of how people are already using our Sales Channel SDK:

• Wanelo: Users can discover and buy products from thousands of Shopify merchants without leaving Wanelo.
• Ebates: Customers can check out directly within the Ebates app improving the conversion rate.
• Houzz: Merchants can start selling in the Houzz marketplace, putting their products in front of 35 million monthly users.

Build with us

Our mission statement is to make commerce better for everyone. That includes our merchants, shoppers, and you – our partners.

This is an invitation to start building the future of commerce. What will you build first?