Publish to Shopify

Connect your store once and GrowWriter publishes straight to a blog of your choice. Images are copied to Shopify, so your posts never depend on GrowWriter's files. You need about ten minutes and admin access to the store.

What you need

• Admin access to your Shopify store.
• A blog in the store. Shopify creates one called "News" by default; find yours under Content, then Blog posts.
• A custom app for GrowWriter, created in the next section.

Create the app in Shopify

GrowWriter talks to your store through a small app that you create and that belongs to you. Shopify calls it a custom app.

1. Open the Shopify Dev Dashboard and create an app. Name it GrowWriter.
2. Give it these four permissions: read_content, write_content, read_files and write_files. The first two write blog posts; the last two upload the images.
3. Install the app on your store.
4. Open the app's settings and copy its Client ID and Client secret. The secret starts with shpss_. Keep both handy for the next step.

If someone else manages your store, send them this section. They need to hand you the two values above.

Connect in GrowWriter

Open the Channels page, find Shopify under Websites & CMS and click Connect.

1. Store domain: your store's myshopify.com address, for example my-store.myshopify.com. Pasting the full URL works too.
2. Client ID and Client secret: the two values from the app.
3. Click Test Connection. Connection successful means GrowWriter can reach the store. Connection failed usually means a typo in the domain or a missing permission on the app.

Your credentials are stored encrypted. GrowWriter never shows them again.

Pick the blog

Step 2 lists the blogs in your store. Choose the one that should receive articles and click Continue.

No blog in the list? Create one in your Shopify admin under Content, then Blog posts, and click Back, then Continue to reload.

Map the fields

Step 3 shows where each part of a GrowWriter article goes in a Shopify post. Shopify's post has fixed fields, so GrowWriter matches them for you: title, body, meta description, cover image and dates. Review the list, then click Save Connection.

The row on the Channels page now reads Connected.

Publish your first article

Open your Library, pick a finished article and click Publish. Tick Shopify, then choose an author: Shopify shows every byline already used on your blog, and you can type a new name. Click Publish.

A few things Shopify does for you:

• The cover image and every inline image are uploaded to your store's own file storage.
• Publishing the same article again updates the same post. Your edits to tags, author, handle and publish date in the Shopify admin are kept.
• View post in the results opens the post on your store.

The full publish flow, with screenshots, is on Choose where to publish.

Troubleshooting

• Shopify rejected the token or it is missing the required scopes: the app lacks one of the four permissions, or it is not installed on the store. Fix it in the Dev Dashboard, then Disconnect and connect again.
• The Shopify blog could not be found. It may have been deleted: the blog you picked is gone. Disconnect, reconnect and pick another one.
• Published, but Shopify rejected the image because it is larger than 25 megapixels: the article is live with its previous image. Pick a smaller image in the article and publish again.
• The article is live, but the author is wrong: the author is set on the first publish only. Change it in the Shopify admin; later updates keep your change.