Online Store 2.0 theme installation guide

Summary

Subscription Herder supports app blocks for Online Store 2.0 compatible themes on Shopify. There are 3 widget options depending on how you would like the subscription options to appear in your store:

1. Use the "Subscriptions" widget if you want to associate many subscription plan groups to products. This is the original widget and follows Shopify best practices around the display and selection of plan options.
2. Use the "Subscriptions (Flat)" widget if you want to display all options to customers at once. This widget reduces the number of clicks required for customers to purchase a subscription and has a more modern look and feel than the original widget.
3. Use the "Subscriptions (Hidden)" widget if your product requires purchase as a subscription and you have just one subscription option. This widget is invisible to customers and ensures that the correct subscription is added to the cart.

Learn more about the different widget options here.

Video tutorial

Watch a tutorial on installing Subscription Herder into the theme Dawn (a free Online Store 2.0 theme). Please note that there are two additional steps covered in this written guide that are not part of the video tutorial: Making a copy of your theme and installing the customer portal link for logged-in customers.

Optional: Make a copy of your theme

If your store is already live and collecting orders and you want to try out Subscription Herder without interrupting the normal customer process then we recommend that you create a copy of your live theme and apply all steps in this guide to the copy. When you're ready to make subscriptions options available to your customers then you can either publish the theme copy or re-do the set up process on your live theme.

To create a copy of your theme:

1. Navigate to Online Store > Themes
2. Use the Actions menu to select "Duplicate"

See the following image for where to find these sections. Once you've created the duplicate of your live theme it will appear in the Theme library section on the same page.

Customize your product page with the subscription widget

First, review the subscription widget options and decide which is appropriate for your store. In this example we'll cover setting up our flat widget as that option requires the fewest clicks for customers to get to checkout and is a good option when you have just one or two subscription plan options.

Before proceeding, ensure that you have created a subscription plan group and associated the plan group to at least one product.

Add the widget app block to your product page

Navigate to your product page in the theme editor via:

1. Sales channels > Online Store > Current theme (or use the theme library if you made a copy) > Customize button
2. Find a product that includes at least one subscription plan group as a purchase option
3. Under product information use the "Add block" action to select the widget of your choice

The widget will be added to the end of the product information section. We recommend that you move the widget to the main content area of your product so that customers are more likely to select a subscription plan over a one-time purchase. Use the six dots reorder functionality to drag and drop the widget into the correct location.

Optional: Add an account management link to the customer portal

This is no longer supported by default as Shopify has disabled write access to their Assets API. Account management links are also not supported by Shopify's new "unified" accounts page as stores have no control over this page. It is still possible to set this up for stores that are not using unified accounts with a secure code. If you are interested, please contact our support team.

If you skip this step, your customers will always be able to access their subscription from the Order Receipt page (displayed by Shopify after checkout) as well as an optional (enabled by default) email sent from our app.