The number of apps that are breaking Shopify’s rules regarding listings, app functionality and reviews is staggering and seems to be increasing dramatically in the last 2 months.
Today I installed all the competitors in my category of app and found 80% of them were breaking the rules that the rest of us have to abide by. One in particular (has been reported) has gone from the 75th/125 position in the app store for the category to 1st/125 in the last 3 months due to the fact to remove branding from their app (and the functionality it provides) the user must provide a review. It is absolutely clear looking at the reviews, particularly time spent using the app, how these are being obtained. In this example I have reported them through the official Shopify channel but I don’t really feel like it should be up to me to be checking (and reporting) all the offending apps.
It is starting to get quite depressing to be a legitimate app developer abiding by all the rules that Shopify asks us to follow, only for egregious offenders to get a huge number of new installs and revenue due to their illegitimate ranking in the app store.
Is anything being done to address this? Does Shopify check apps to ensure compliance post initial submission and post BFS status being granted?
As a former iOS app developer, I can tell that this is the same issue inside Apple AppStore and Google Play apps. A lot of developers are playing hide&seek game and making feature toggles, hiding something from reviewers and etc.
There is no way Shopify can fix it with extra reviews, because after review finished, developer can break rules again.
My suggestion - after 3 violations, reported by partners, delist the app
The review issue is bad, but much worse than that are apps that claim to boost SEO only to inject 1000 scripts that actually just circumvent google testing tools, and add questionable code that is obfuscated (not minified).
In my experience they also ask for reviews pretty aggressively.
I won’t name them here since there are several of them and they might target me.
I agree that this isn’t a simple problem for Shopify to solve due to what you outline. Perhaps they could do one of the following
Monitor Rate of Reviews
Using data from SASI some of the offenders appear to be gaining X reviews at an improbable steady rate such as consistent 4 reviews a day (± 1 over a period of a week). I believe this pattern over a period of months is suspicious enough to trigger an investigation. My experience in other app stores, which to be fair might not be applicable here, is there is at least some variation when it comes to business days / weekend, seasonality and other factors. Such consistent linear growth in reviews over such a long period should be a signal. Shopify has a wealth of data to determine legitimate review rate patterns (majorly successful apps that don’t require paid/forced reviews for growth, free apps that have stayed free, Shopify’s own apps).
Time Spent Using App
Several of the apps I investigated the average time spend using the app → leaving a review was less than 15 minutes. Some app types (bulk delete, product descriptions) legitimately warrant a fast review and should expected. For many other app types however it is suspicious. Shopify could identify a large number of offenders by investigating apps where the majority of reviews are from Shops who have spend less than 15 minutes using it.
Identify Stores Selling Reviews
I receive about 3 emails a day from people selling reviews through their shop networks. Would it not be relatively trivial to identify the network of stores that have 1. Identical app installation patterns (historic app installs, installation dates etc) 2. Left reviews for those same apps. On top of that it seems unlikely that such large networks (I have been offered up to 500 shops before) operate like a regular shop in terms of sales and visitors. It also does not appear to be profitable enough or worth the risk for legitimate shops to be part of this on a commission basis. Given that, if a network of 500 shops with collectively almost no visitors and no revenue is reviewing the same set of 30+ apps, surely it is worth having a look at?
Due to perverse incentives (a competitor signing up your app) it doesn’t seem like this could be used to directly penalise offending app developers, however if these networks are taken down and the reviews removed at least it would help level the playing field and stop what seems to be a quite profitable industry for those running it.
Unfortunately none of this really solves it completely as even if an app has abused the system with the above for a few months and gets a slap on the wrist + reviews removed, the legitimate installs and reviews they obtained during this period (due to their apparent popularity among shops) act as a positive feedback loop. Banning the app unfairly penalises legitimate shops. Perhaps a fair punishment could be stopping the listing from appearing in the app store - only allowing a direct url installation page for X months.
Thanks for taking the time to lay this out so clearly! The points here are understandable, and we hear this feedback from partners who are trying to build and grow the right way.
To clarify - apps are allowed to ask merchants for reviews, but they’re not allowed to gate functionality, ask for positive reviews, or manipulate reviews in other ways. We have an intake for anyone to report abuse and the team looks into those.
You’re also right that one-time reviews at submission don’t fully solve this problem. Apps can and do change behavior after approval, and ongoing compliance at scale is a harder challenge than initial review alone.
We appreciate the concrete suggestions and the level of detail being shared. This kind of feedback helps inform where our detection and follow-through need to improve so the App Store remains fair for developers and merchants alike.
I definitely agree with the situation. Our team is playing by the rules and try to ask genuine feedback.
I’ve seen multiple times how certain apps violate the Shopify rules, even publicly:
One app had dozens of 5 star reviews, posted only after 3 - 5 minutes of using the app from the same country, with generic text messages
I’ve even seen merchants writing in the review (!) that they were offered an incentive to post it, like “I got a free feature or discount for posting this review”
There are Facebook groups where app reviews are traded for $12
I wish Shopify would be much stricter with the policy enforcement because currently it’s too easy to break the rules for one’s benefit.
We’re receiving every day (!!!) messages using the Shopify customer support form which offer services to post “reviews“ for remuneration.
The current situation definitely demotivates people that want to play by rules.