Introduction to 3D Commerce for Shopify Merchants
Our journey towards achieving the "Built for Shopify" certification marks an important milestone in our commitment to 3D commerce innovation, quality, and excellence. In this article we highlight the significance of this milestone, how we achieved it, and the unique value the Nvzn Easy ARt app brings to Shopify merchants and customers. Because each standard required for the “Built for Shopify” badge has a positive impact on the merchant and customer experience, it was of paramount importance to Nvzn to strive for, and attain this goal.
Nvzn’s Shopify Partnership Journey
When we first started Nvzn in 2020, we recognized that Shopify would play an important role in our business strategy because it was the fastest growing ecommerce platform attracting millions of small to midsize businesses who were flocking to the internet to sell their wares during the pandemic. Shopify enables merchants to easily and inexpensively build web stores without having to do all of the complicated plumbing to manage payments, inventory, digital assets, etc. It also has an app store marketplace where partners can offer plugin solutions to merchants to enhance their store experience and performance.
In early 2021 we released our first Shopify app under the hypothesis that we would be acquiring a number of customers, many of whose stores would be built upon this platform. We wanted to make it easy for them to add our 3D virtual product preview experiences without having to write any code to integrate with their site. At the time there were a few thousand other apps available including a few that competed with ours.
Emergence of the Built for Shopify Program
Since that time the number of stores built on the platform has increased by millions and the number of apps has tripled. Shopify came to realize that there was a great deal of variability in the quality of the apps, and despite a robust review system it was becoming increasingly difficult for merchants to know which ones were well designed and built. As a result, a year ago Shopify announced their “Built for Shopify” program to “champion apps that are built to Shopify’s highest standards for quality, design, and performance.” This entails a laundry list of stringent qualitative and quantitative standards that when met, earns the app a conspicuous badge in the app store listing, preferential placement in app store search results and periodic features on the front page giving it a huge competitive advantage.
Achieving Built for Shopify Status
This was about the time we were starting the development of our “Easy ARt” app, and we knew that this was an opportunity for us to stand out from the growing crowd. So we built the app with the BfS certification in mind, and it went live in May. Since that time we’ve been continually improving it based on customer feedback and our own road map. We later invested in a go-to-market strategy with an eye on achieving the quantitative requirements for installs and customer review ratings.
We’ve now achieved these final milestones to become eligible for the certification, and after submitting the application Shopify asked us to make some user interface changes which were completed last week. We’re excited to announce that the Built for Shopify certification has now been bestowed upon us!
The significance of Earning the Built for Shopify Badge
Today there are somewhere between eight and ten thousand solutions in the Shopify app store and only about 400 of those have earned the certification — none of whom are Nvzn’s competitors in the virtual product preview space.
Having the badge on the Nvzn Easy ARt Virtual Previews app store listing will accelerate adoption of our best-in-class solution and further establish Nvzn as a leader in the 3D commerce space. We have an extensive roadmap of new features and improvements to roll out over the coming months that will further distance Nvzn from the competition for the foreseeable future.
Nvzn gets featured as “Staff Pick” in the Shopify App Store
Today we learned that Nvzn Easy ARt Virtual Previews has been nominated to be featured as a Staff Pick on the homepage of the Shopify App Store. Shopify features apps that have built great features and provide great customer support to their merchants.
From their announcement:
“Getting featured is a highly coveted and valuable opportunity to acquire new customers, so in addition to being a great provider to our merchants we also reward those that are being great partners in the Shopify ecosystem. Thank you for continuing to invest in the Shopify ecosystem.
This will be under the "In the Spotlight" section and be seen by the tens of thousands of merchants who visit the app store each day.
We're happy to acknowledge the success of your app and to reward you for the amazing work you've put into its development. Congratulations, Shopify [looks] forward to your continued success on the Shopify App Store.”
It’s great to see all of our hard work pay off, and this is a moment the whole team can be proud of.