Storefront apps are the foundation of a Swell store, and the recommended approach to building merchant storefront solutions. They can take many forms, while Proxima is designed to emulate the familiar Shopify model, there's no limit to the structure and capabilities that a storefront app might implement.

For a a deeper dive on building apps, see the App development guide.

Use cases

Swell's goal is to enable a wide range of customer-facing solutions with storefront apps, beyond the usual catalog store.

  • Industry-specific – Every business has unique needs and an opportunity to differentiate by optimizing for a their own industry. For example, a wholesale business may prefer to display products in a bulk interface, while a fashion brand might want to optimize engagement and inventory sell-through with a daily deal site.
  • Merchant-specific – Developers are often hired by merchants to create bespoke solutions. Storefront apps create an opportunity to build experiences that are tailored for a merchant from the ground-up, while packaging the solution in a way that can easily be offered to similar companies without managing custom infrastructure.
  • Add-ons – Because there's no limit to the kind of functionality a storefront app can implement, developers can build add-ons to a full catalog store. For example checkouts, customer portals, content-based subscriptions, and more.

Coming soon: Swell is planning a feature to combine multiple Storefronts into a single online store, called Portals. This exciting development will allow storefront apps to serve a niche purpose and create a cohesive customer experience for multiple use cases in one.

Structure

The structure of a storefront app is the same as any other type, with the only requirement being that they implement a Frontend. Development workflow, versioning, installation, and upgrade process is otherwise the same.

A storefront app frontend can implement any route structure and functionality relevant to its purpose. It may also implement Data models, Content models, and Settings for a seamless integration with the Swell dashboard.

Themes

Themes offer a way for merchants to customize the look and feel of their storefront visually with the Swell Theme Editor. While offering theme support may seem daunting, there are a couple of ways to achieve it.

  • Built-in theme – The app can offer its own theme by adding a theme/ folder to its code base with the necessary structure and default configurations. Note: Support for built-in themes is currently a work in progress.
  • Standalone themes – For the ambitious developer, this approach is allows independent theme developers to create unique designs for your storefront app. Proxima is a production-ready open-source example of this approach.

Next steps

  • Read the Getting started guide for Swell Apps.
  • Learn how to support advanced storefront features with the Apps SDK.