This week's Shopify Dev Resource is an often overlooked, and frequently misunderstood resource, the Shopify Partner Academy.
Shopify Partner Academy
When I first started as a freelancer specializing in Shopify, I thought that I had to complete these courses/certifications in order to do good work or start working with clients.
It's not a very well-known resource or aspect of your Shopify Partner dashboard because it's pretty well hidden:
Shopify Partner Dashboard → Resources →Partner docs → Get certified at Shopify Academy
Explore the catalog by filtering out what you'd like to learn.
- Shopify Foundations Certification
- $99 to take the Shopify Foundations Certification and you'll earn your certification if you receive a passing score of at least 80%.
- Upgrade Shopify Checkout
- How to Increase Customer Conversions with Shopify POS
- Conversion Optimization Checkout
- Foundations: Introduction to Cross-Border Selling
- Foundations: Shopify 101
- Foundations: Introduction to POS & Retail
- Foundations: Introduction to Shopify Plus
- Foundations: Introduction to Working with Merchants
- Foundations: Shopify Data & Analytics 101
- Foundations: Certification Exam
- Foundations: Introduction to Marketing
- Foundations: Introduction to Product Development Opportunities
- Prepare for a successful peak season 2023
You DO NOT have to complete these certifications in order to start working on Shopify stores, but they do provide very valuable information.
Tip: I think that you'll learn more from starting up a development store in your Partner account and working on implementing some changes in themes, but this still has great information and shouldn't be ignored.
Use This as a Supplemental Resource
Don't let the Shopify Partner Academy resource be a requirement that you feel like you absolutely need but do use it as a supplemental resource. I was really surprised that most merchants didn't care at all that I had/had not gone through any of these when I first started working in Shopify.
What I've seen is that some agencies use Shopify Partner Academy as training for their developers, so it would be a great thing to already be familiar with if you're looking for an agency job.