1. Know your plan limits before publishing
Reelmerce verifies the active Shopify App Pricing subscription and maps it to product entitlements.
| Plan | Published videos | Product tags / video | Saved designs | Templates | Analytics | A/B Lab |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free · $0 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 7-day basic | No |
| Starter · $5/mo | 25 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 30-day detailed | No |
| Growth · $14.99/mo | 100 | 10 | 20 | All 8 | 90-day detailed | No |
| Unlimited · $29.99/mo | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | All 8 | 365 days + custom | Yes |
Only ACTIVE/published Reelmerce videos count toward the published-video limit. Draft and Processing videos do not count.
2. Add your first video
Open Reelmerce → Videos inside Shopify Admin and choose one of the supported sources.
- Upload from device: MP4, MOV, or WEBM, up to 1 GB.
- Choose from Shopify: select a Shopify Video from Shopify Files.
- Cover image: JPG, PNG, or WEBP, up to 20 MB.
Reelmerce can save the video as a Draft while Shopify is still processing it. Publishing stays blocked until the Shopify file status is READY. Failed processing is surfaced as a Failed state and cannot be published.
3. Tag products (optional)
A Reelmerce video can remain video-only, or it can tag multiple Shopify products within the current plan limit.
- The first active tagged product is the primary product on general placements.
- On a product page, Current product mode shows only videos tagged with that product and uses the matching page product.
- On product templates using All videos, an untagged video can use the current page product as contextual commerce.
4. Publish the video or keep it as Draft
Publish only after Shopify processing is READY and your plan has published-video capacity. A Draft can stay in the library without consuming the published-video allowance.
5. Choose a Widget Studio template
Open Widget Studio → Templates. Reelmerce provides eight built-in immutable starting points:
| Template | Intent |
|---|---|
| Social / Reels | Fast, familiar shoppable-reels presentation. |
| Commerce card | Product details, compare-at/selling price, and strong full-width Add to cart CTA. |
| Expert / Story | Large play treatment for explainers and story-led content. |
| Editorial | Clean video-first presentation. |
| Premium | Larger cards with depth, glass UI, autoplay, and stronger merchandising treatment. |
| Product-first | Merchandising-led product details and shopping CTA. |
| Carousel | Compact horizontal slider. |
| Grid | Multi-video gallery without slider UI. |
All eight templates can be previewed on desktop, tablet, and mobile. Locked templates stay previewable but cannot be applied or customized until the required plan is active. The gallery uses sample content only to judge design; the storefront and Customize view use your own published videos.
6. Customize the Default design
Use Widget Studio to configure the reusable design system for placements that use the shared Default.
| Panel | Controls |
|---|---|
| Layout | 9:16 / 4:5 / 1:1 ratio, 1–12 cards per device, gap, corner radius. |
| Video | 5-second preview / full autoplay / open-on-click, full-video loop, sound, play button, cover/contain fit, overlay, actual view count, view format/position/radius. |
| Product | Product card over video or below; glass/solid/minimal; image, price, compare-at price, discount percentage. |
| Button | CTA label, filled/outline, corner radius, background/border color, text color. |
| Navigation | Autoplay, delay 1–15 seconds, 2–20 maximum videos, arrows/dots/progress/none, arrow placement/style, indicator style. |
| Style | Default / skeuomorphism / neumorphism surface, accent color, card shadow, 900–1800 px reusable section width. |
| Text | Heading/subheading, alignment, sizes, heading and subheading colors. |
7. Save a reusable design when you need another storefront look
Saved designs are named reusable configurations (up to 80 characters) that can be selected in Theme Editor. Changes to a Saved design automatically affect every placement using it. If a Saved design is deleted, those placements fall back to the Widget Studio Default.
8. Add the Reelmerce reels app block
Open Online Store → Themes → Customize and add the Reelmerce reels app block. Reelmerce App Home detects whether at least one video exists, a Widget Studio design is configured, and the theme app extension is active on the published theme.
9. Configure the placement
Theme Editor owns placement-specific decisions. Configuration precedence is:
| Group | Controls |
|---|---|
| Design | Saved design picker; blank uses Widget Studio Default. |
| Conversion Lab | Unlimited: enable experiment, choose Variant A and B Saved designs, choose Theme Editor preview variant. |
| Content | All videos or Current product; sold-out behavior; video order; maximum video override. |
| Heading | Use design text, custom heading/subheading, or hide heading. |
| Placement layout | Use design/custom density, desktop/tablet/mobile counts, design/custom width, heading alignment, slider autoplay override. |
| Section appearance | Background, four-side padding, four-side margins. |
| Advanced | Custom CSS using Reelmerce widget selectors. |
Configure product-page and sold-out behavior
- Current product: show only videos tagged with the current product-page product.
- All videos: general placement behavior; an untagged reel on a product template can use the current page product as contextual commerce.
- Sold-out products: either keep the reel visible and disable its CTA, or hide sold-out reels.
10. Choose manual or performance-based video order
Each placement can remain in natural/manual order or use a ranking snapshot from the last 30 days.
| Mode | Rule |
|---|---|
| Manual order | Natural/manual storefront order. |
| Most viewed | Ranks by storefront VIEW count. |
| Highest click rate | Ranks capped product-click conversions / views; requires at least 20 views. |
| Highest add-to-cart rate | Ranks capped add-to-cart conversions / views; requires at least 20 views. |
Low-sample or unranked videos remain in manual order after the ranked items. Reelmerce stores up to 50 ranked video handles and refreshes the storefront snapshot no more than about once every five minutes.
11. Publish and test the storefront
Publish the theme change, then verify desktop and mobile storefront behavior.
- Short groups center when all cards fit; overflow remains horizontally scrollable.
- 5-second preview loops only the beginning of the original Shopify-hosted video; no separate five-second file is generated.
- Full-video autoplay and open-on-click-only modes are also available.
- Offscreen cards pause/reset, and visible/hovered/focused cards coordinate playback.
- The expanded viewer supports close/Escape, fullscreen, sound, optional actual views, Like, Share, Cart, and product CTA.
- Share uses Web Share when available with clipboard fallback.
- Like is browser-local only; there is no server-side global like count.
- Reelmerce attempts direct Shopify cart add, refreshes common cart UI where possible, and retains a product-page fallback.
12. Review Analytics
Use Analytics to review the funnel from storefront visibility through paid-order attribution.
| Metric | Meaning |
|---|---|
| VIEW | Reel card reaches at least the 68% storefront visibility threshold. |
| PLAY | Video begins playback; tracked separately from views. |
| PRODUCT_CLICK | Shopper activates a product link. |
| ADD_TO_CART | Product is successfully added through the Reelmerce cart flow. |
| Added cart value | Variant price amount attached to successful add-to-cart events; intent value, not revenue. |
| Attributed paid sales | Paid merchandise subtotal allocated to valid Reelmerce-attributed paid order lines; excludes shipping, tax, and duties. |
Paid-sales attribution uses Reelmerce cart-line metadata and a filtered Shopify orders/paid webhook. Reporting can include attributed orders, lines, units, and paid sales by currency and by video. Reelmerce does not calculate advertising spend or ROAS.
13. Run Conversion Lab on Unlimited
- Create two different Saved designs.
- In one Reelmerce Theme Editor block, enable Run A/B experiment.
- Select the Variant A and Variant B designs.
- Publish and allow storefront traffic to accumulate.
- Review results after both variants reach at least 100 storefront views.
Assignment is random on first encounter and then stored as the A/B letter for that experiment in browser localStorage. No visitor identity is created. If browser storage is unavailable, the storefront safely uses Variant A.
Conversion Lab compares views, clicks, click rate, add to carts, add-to-cart rate, added cart value, attributed paid orders, attributed units, and attributed paid sales. Reelmerce does not automatically choose a winner.
14. Understand plan changes and downgrade behavior
- After a verified downgrade, if live videos exceed the new limit, Reelmerce preserves the earliest published videos and automatically moves newer excess videos to Draft in small batches.
- If plan verification is unavailable or stale, existing storefront content is not altered; new publishing is blocked until verification succeeds.
- Saved-design creation is blocked at the new limit, but existing designs are not deleted automatically.
- A Saved design using a newly locked template warns the merchant and the storefront uses Social / Reels fallback until the design is made compliant.
- Existing product tags remain stored, but only the first tags within the current plan limit are active on the storefront.
- Conversion Lab stays visible as an upgrade surface on lower plans, but live experiments require Unlimited.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | What to check |
|---|---|
| Reels do not appear | Confirm videos are published/READY and the Reelmerce reels block is active on the published theme. |
| A video cannot be published | Check Shopify processing status and current plan published-video capacity. |
| Product-page reel does not appear | If Current product mode is enabled, confirm the video is tagged with the product on that page. |
| Sold-out behavior is unexpected | Review Theme Editor's Sold-out products setting: disable CTA vs hide sold-out videos. |
| Performance ordering looks manual | Rate modes require at least 20 views and use the last 30 days; low-sample/unranked videos keep manual order. |
| Template or Saved design is locked | Check plan template/saved-design limits. A design using a locked template can fall back to Social / Reels. |
| Analytics period is unavailable | Check plan history: Free 7, Starter 30, Growth 90, Unlimited up to 365 days by custom range. |
| Attributed sales are missing | Confirm paid-order webhook delivery, read_orders scope, Reelmerce cart-line metadata, and that the order reached paid status. |
| Conversion Lab shows Below threshold | Each variant needs at least 100 storefront views before the comparison is Ready to review. |
| Plan / usage looks wrong | Refresh Settings so Reelmerce re-verifies Shopify App Pricing; cached plan state can take a few minutes to refresh. |