Migrations from Tapcart
Switching from Tapcart to Appolar takes roughly a day of setup and a few days of store review time. Your catalog, customers, and orders all live in Shopify, so there is nothing to export or import.
Overview
The migration involves three things: setting up your app's design in the Appolar builder, submitting a new build under your existing App Store and Google Play developer accounts, and transitioning your users to the new app. The Shopify side of your business (products, collections, customer accounts, orders, checkout) is unaffected.
You can run both apps in parallel during the transition. Shopify processes orders from any channel, so customers on the old Tapcart app and customers on the new Appolar app will both check out normally while you phase Tapcart out.
What transfers automatically
Because both Tapcart and Appolar read from your Shopify store via the Storefront API, the following are available in Appolar the moment you connect your store:
| What | How it transfers |
|---|---|
| Product catalog and collections | Automatic — read from Shopify |
| Customer accounts | Automatic — customers sign in with their existing Shopify account |
| Order history | Automatic — pulled from Shopify customer account data |
| Selling plans and bundles | Automatic — if configured in Shopify |
| Domain and checkout setup | Unchanged — your Shopify checkout is the same regardless of app platform |
What you need to redo
Three things need to be rebuilt from scratch:
App visual design
Set your brand color, font, and border radius in the theme token panel, then arrange your home screen blocks. Most merchants complete this in 1 to 2 hours. Your Tapcart design is not importable, but the Appolar builder is faster to work with for most merchants.
App Store and Google Play metadata
App name, short description, full description, screenshots, and keywords all need to be created for the Appolar-built app. If you have existing copy and screenshots from Tapcart, you can adapt them. New screenshots are required because the UI will look different.
Push notification campaigns
Any recurring or scheduled push campaigns you had in Tapcart need to be recreated in Admin, then Notifications. Push subscriber lists cannot be transferred (see below).
Push notification subscribers
Push notification tokens are platform-specific and cannot be transferred between app platforms. A subscriber's APNs or FCM token issued to the Tapcart app is only valid for that app. When your users install the new Appolar app and open it for the first time, they are shown the standard iOS or Android permission prompt and can opt in again.
A transition campaign sent through Tapcart before you sunset it, telling users about the new app and offering an incentive to download it, is the most effective way to recover your subscriber base. Merchants who run a transition campaign typically recover 40 to 60 percent of previous push subscribers within the first month.
Even without a transition campaign, subscribers will gradually opt in naturally as they discover the new app through your regular marketing channels.
Migration timeline
A realistic schedule for most merchants:
| Stage | Typical duration |
|---|---|
| Builder setup (design, layout, connect store) | 1 day |
| App Store review | 1 to 2 days |
| Google Play review | 1 to 3 days |
| User transition (notify existing users, run parallel) | 1 to 2 weeks |
| Deactivate Tapcart | After most users have migrated |
You do not need to rush the deactivation step. Running both apps in parallel for a few weeks is low cost and means no customer is stranded mid-transition.
Deactivating Tapcart
When you are ready to retire the old app, uninstall Tapcart from Shopify Admin, then Apps. This stops any Tapcart billing and removes the app's access to your store.
The Tapcart-published app will continue to work for existing users after uninstall until it fails a future iOS or Android compatibility check, or until you submit a removal request to the App Store and Google Play. You are not required to submit a removal request immediately, but doing so eventually prevents confusion from old listings appearing in search.
Appolar support can help you plan and coordinate your migration, including timing the transition campaign and reviewing your builder setup before the first build. Reach out at support@appolar.com.