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Ecommerce

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Shopify

Introduction

  • 📺 Understanding the Shopify API • 8 minute video by Coding with Jan briefly summarizing what you can do with the Admin and Storefront APIs

Creating a free development store

This is how to create a free store you can play with for as long as you like:

  1. Create a free Shopify Partner
  2. Log in
  3. Click “Create new partner account”
  4. Fill in the form and click “View your dashboard”
  5. Confirm your email address
  6. Click “Create store” on main dashboard or “Stores” > “Add store”
  7. Select “Development store”
  8. Fill in the form (any email/password combo is okay) and click “Save”

Reference

Adding sample product data to a store

If all you need is some dummy data, this is the fastest way to get it:

  1. In your store, click “Apps” in the sidebar
  2. Click “Visit the Shopify App Store”
  3. Search for “simple sample data”
  4. Click on the result called “Simple Sample Data”
  5. Although it says it costs $0.99, since we’re building a development store, it will actually be free when we add it
  6. Click “Add app”
  7. Click “Install app”
  8. On the Simple Sample Data app page, select a theme and which types of sample data to add (note that if you include “Orders”, you’ll receive an email notification about each order, but don’t worry! They aren’t real orders and it doesn’t mean your shop is public. In the next step, we’re going to remove the online store completely).
  9. Click “Generate Data” (top right)
  10. Click “Yes, generate dummy data!”
  11. Wait several minutes while the data generates ☕️

Reference

Remove Online Store

These pages aren’t needed when using Shopify as a headless API:

  1. In your store, go to “Settings” (bottom of sidebar)
  2. Go to “Sales channels”
  3. Remove the Online Store
  4. Confirm

Generating Shopify API credentials

This will allow you to query your store data from your site:

  1. In your store, go to “Apps”
  2. Scroll to the bottom and click “Manage private apps”
  3. Click “Enable private app development”
  4. Select all three checkboxes and click “Enable private app development”
  5. Click “Create private app”
  6. Enter any name (e.g. “Website API Access”)
  7. Enter your email address
  8. Scroll down to Storefront API
  9. Check “Allow this app to access your storefront data using the Storefront API”
  10. Check all relevant data categories
  11. Click “Save”
  12. Click “Create app”
  13. Use the “Storefront API token” at the bottom of the app settings page to authenticate with the Storefront API
  14. Use the “API key” above it to authenticate with the Admin API

Reference

Using the Storefront API

This is the API that includes your products, collections and checkouts.

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