What Happens to Your Shopify Apps, Integrations and Features When You Build a Mobile App

Your Shopify store is more than just a product catalog and payment gateway. It’s powered by many apps and third-party integrations, possibly also custom features you’ve built on top of Shopify.

You might have apps for subscriptions, loyalty, reviews, search, bundles, personalization, customer accounts, and more.

These apps are your customer experience. So if you’re launching a mobile app for your Shopify store, you’ll want them all to carry that customer experience over to your app.

This is where the problem comes in. With a Shopify app builder (the most likely way you’re going to build your mobile app), all your apps, integrations, and (especially) custom features won’t automatically carry over to your app. Some will; but you almost certainly won’t be able to carry your full tech stack into your app.

Keep reading and we’ll explain why this is, how much of your store will carry over, and the one way to ensure full feature parity between your website and app (no matter how custom your store).

Key Takeaways

• Most Shopify app builders work by creating a separate storefront for your mobile app. That means your Shopify apps, integrations, and custom features have to be rebuilt for your new channel.
• Each feature depends on the app builder already having a compatible integration, or being willing to build it separately.
• Even supported integrations may offer less functionality or work differently from the website version.
• Most app builders also have a limit on the number of integrations you can use, so you may not be able to take all your apps with you.
• MobiLoud has a different approach: by building on top of your existing site, instead of rebuilding it, all your site’s features work in the app automatically, giving you full feature parity between website and mobile app.

How Most Shopify Mobile App Builders Work

A Shopify mobile app builder doesn’t turn your existing website directly into an app.

What these tools do is create a separate storefront, with a completely separate codebase, and connect it to your store via Shopify’s API.

The API syncs core data between your website and app, such as:

• Products and collections
• Prices and inventory
• Customer accounts
• Orders
• Cart and checkout data

But that’s just the backend store data. When it comes to the front end of your app, and all the customer-facing features, you’re building it all new.

You’ll have templates and pre-built blocks to play with, but it’s all, functionally speaking, a new storefront.

And since it’s in a different environment, you can’t rely on the things you’ve built on your site working the same way in your mobile app.

When it comes to using Shopify apps or other external marketing tools, the best you can hope for is that your app builder of choice has an integration for the apps, tools or features you want to bring into your mobile app.

How Mobile App Builder Integrations Work

To bring a Shopify app or third-party feature into the mobile app, the app builder needs to create a separate integration with that tool.

These apps are built to plug in cleanly to Shopify sites, and the specific technical frameworks these sites are built with.

To make these apps work in a mobile app, there needs to be a separate implementation, like a bridge between the Shopify app and your mobile app.

For example: you want your Yotpo loyalty features to work in your app. Yotpo and the mobile app builder have to build a custom integration that allows that to happen.

Or you have an app that powers your cart drawer and shows personalized up-sells in your checkout. For this to show up in your mobile app, you’re relying on the app builder offering a specially-built component that works with the same app you use on your site.

The Limitations of Shopify Mobile App Integrations

While an app builder might have an integration for a certain tool, that doesn’t mean it will work exactly as it does on your website.

The integration might only support part of the feature. For example:

• Loyalty points may be visible, but some rewards or referral features may be unavailable.
• Customers may be able to purchase a subscription, but not fully manage it from the app.
• Reviews may appear on product pages, but customers may not be able to submit photos, videos, or questions.
• Search may work, but without the same filters, merchandising rules, or personalized results.
• Product options may be available, but without all the conditional logic or custom pricing used on your website.

This is because it all needs to be built separately. The app builder might find it’s more efficient to go live with an integration that carries over 80% of the app’s functionality, not all. Or there may be too many conflicts trying to carry over the full integration, so they simplified it to minimize bugs.

There’s also the possibility of things breaking; an edge case might come up between two integrations you use, which the app builder couldn’t have tested and found earlier.

Or a Shopify app vendor might make an update to their code, which then breaks the integration, and puts it out of service until the mobile app builder and the app vendor can ship a fix (if they choose to do so at all).

And then there are the actual limits placed on integrations by most mobile app builders. They’ll often put a cap on the number of integrations you can use in your mobile app; or they might limit certain integrations to certain plans, requiring you to upgrade to a higher tier to access the integrations you need.

Why Feature Parity Matters

Okay, you’re building a mobile app - does it really need to be exactly like your website?

No, not necessarily. A feature on your site that doesn’t work in your mobile app isn’t always a dealbreaker.

But you’ll want most of your website features (at least) to carry over to your app.

For one thing, you have these apps installed on your site because they work. Your cart drawer app increases conversions and AOV. Your loyalty app increases retention. Your subscription app drives more subscription signups.

These features missing from your mobile app means you’re losing these benefits.

Then there’s the overall customer experience. And this is the biggest piece.

All these apps, features, tools, are there to make a better customer experience. To reduce friction, make it easy for the customer, to make them love shopping with you, so they come back again.

When things from your site are missing in your mobile app, you risk offering a worse customer experience in your app.

And this is exactly the opposite of what it should be. An app is a channel for your VIPs; your best customers.

It needs to justify the customer keeping it on their phone. It needs to survive when the customer does a clean out of their home screen.

It’s harder to convince someone to download your app (and keep it downloaded) when half the features on your website aren’t in the app.

Your mobile app doesn’t have to be that much better than your website. It doesn’t need to reinvent the entire notion of commerce.

But it can’t be worse.

This is the mantra you should keep in mind with every decision you make regarding your mobile app.

The Overhead of Managing Two Distinct Experiences

There’s also the operational impact that comes when a gap grows between your website and app experiences.

The more different your website and app, the more work it is to maintain.

It becomes a full time job just trying to keep the two channels consistent. More updates, more testing, more things to juggle.

Your team is probably already stretched, as it is. You don’t need the additional overhead of trying to manage two distinctly different storefronts, which should still deliver a unified, on-brand experience.

Common Shopify Mobile App Integrations

Here are some of the most common areas where tools from your store require an integration to work in your mobile app, and a little on the functionality that needs to be recreated.

Subscriptions

If you use a subscription app such as Recharge, Skio, Appstle, or Loop, the app builder needs to support the full subscription experience.

That may include:

• Choosing between a one-time purchase and a subscription
• Displaying subscription discounts
• Selecting delivery frequencies
• Managing upcoming orders
• Skipping, pausing, or cancelling subscriptions
• Updating payment and delivery details

An app may support subscription purchases without supporting everything customers can do through the account portal on your website.

Loyalty and Rewards

A loyalty integration may need to carry over:

• Points balances
• Reward redemption
• VIP tiers
• Referral programs
• Loyalty-specific promotions
• Account activity and history

Basic support might show customers how many points they have, but leave out other parts of the program.

Search and Filtering

Most app builders come with some kind of search functionality.

But if your website uses a specialist search tool, the basic search available in the app may not include:

• Advanced filters
• Search suggestions
• Typo tolerance
• Synonyms
• Merchandising rules
• Personalized results
• Custom collection filters

This can be a major issue for stores with large or complex product catalogs.

Reviews and User-Generated Content

A review integration might carry over star ratings and written reviews, but leave out:

• Photo and video reviews
• Questions and answers
• Review filtering
• Review submissions
• Custom review widgets
• Ratings displayed on collection pages

So while reviews technically appear in the app, the full experience may not be there.

Page Builders and Custom Pages

Pages built with tools such as Replo, Shogun, PageFly, or GemPages usually won’t automatically carry into a separately built app storefront.

These might include:

• Campaign landing pages
• Custom product pages
• Buying guides
• Editorial content
• Promotional pages
• Interactive sections

You may need to recreate these pages using the app builder’s blocks and templates, simplify them, or leave them out of the app.

Product Options and Personalization

If customers can personalize or configure products, the mobile app needs to support the same logic.

That can include:

• Custom text fields
• Engraving
• File uploads
• Conditional options
• Product add-ons
• Price changes
• Live previews
• Custom variant logic

If these options don’t work properly, customers may be unable to order certain products through the app at all.

Bundles, Upsells, and Recommendations

Features such as bundles, free gifts, cart upsells, and personalized recommendations also need their own implementations.

The app builder may need to support:

• Fixed bundles
• Build-your-own bundles
• Mix-and-match offers
• Frequently bought together sections
• Cart recommendations
• Free-gift thresholds
• Personalized product suggestions

These tools can affect both conversion rate and average order value, so losing them can make the app a less effective sales channel.

Localization and Multi-Currency

International stores may need the app to carry over:

• Language selection
• Local currencies
• Regional catalogs
• Country-specific pricing
• Local content
• Duties and taxes
• Right-to-left layouts

A mobile app can be connected to the same Shopify store while still failing to reproduce the full localized experience available on the website.

Customer Accounts and Checkout

You’ll also need to check that the app supports the full account and checkout experience, including:

• Customer login
• Saved addresses
• Order history
• Gift cards
• Store credit
• Discount codes
• Shop Pay
• Checkout extensions
• Customer-specific pricing

Typically all the basics carry over - accounts, logins, basic Shopify checkout. But anything custom or non-standard may not.

Custom Features and Functionality

Anything built specifically for your Shopify store won’t automatically carry over to a separately built mobile app.

This might include:

• Custom product configurators
• Quizzes and product finders
• Bespoke calculators
• Custom account dashboards
• Wholesale or B2B ordering flows
• Delivery-date selectors
• Location-based purchasing rules
• Custom cart logic
• Unique discount or promotion mechanics
• Bespoke forms and interactive tools

Because these features were built specifically for your site, no app builder will have a pre-built integration ready to go.

They need to be rebuilt specifically for the mobile app, which may require custom development, additional testing, and ongoing maintenance.

In some cases, the app builder may not be able or willing to reproduce the feature at all. This can leave you choosing between removing it from the app, simplifying how it works, or paying for a separate custom implementation.

How MobiLoud Carries All Your Shopify Apps, Features and Integrations Into Your Mobile App

MobiLoud is a different kind of Shopify mobile app builder.

Instead of rebuilding your store as a separate storefront, MobiLoud builds on top of your existing website. This means that everything from your website automatically works in your mobile app.

There’s no separate integration needed, no compatibility issues - because the functionality comes from your live site.

In short, if it works on your site, it works in your app.

Your subscription setup, loyalty program, search tool, reviews, bundles, product options, or custom functionality will keep working in the app in the same way they do on your site.

There are no integration limits or unsupported tools. You have full feature parity by default.

And on top of everything, your site and app, including all your features, are fully synced. So you’re not managing two separate storefronts; you’re managing one store, powering two channels: website and app.

MobiLoud vs Other App Builders

Here’s how the difference breaks down between MobiLoud and typical block-based Shopify mobile app builders; including how all your site’s apps, integrations and features carry over to your mobile app.

Build an App Without Rebuilding Your Store

Your Shopify store is the result of a lot of work.

You’ve chosen the right apps, built the right customer journeys, customized the storefront, and created an experience that works for your business.

Building a mobile app shouldn’t mean starting again.

With most Shopify app builders, that’s what you’re doing. You’re rebuilding your store in a new platform, which means you might struggle to carry over everything your site does.

And on top of all that, you’re giving yourself another channel to manage, for as long as your app is alive.

MobiLoud is a better way to do it, especially if you rely on a lot of apps and third-party tools, or you have custom features which can’t be replicated with a drag-and-drop mobile app builder.

You get two channels, fully in sync. No matter how custom or unique your website, your app is guaranteed to follow suit.