--- title: "Set up Shopify app-change alerts. Turn movement into your next move." description: "Follow competitor apps and target brands in Shoplist, choose your email or Slack cadence, and build a monitoring flow your team can act on." canonical_url: "https://shoplist.co/guides/shopify-app-change-alerts" markdown_url: "https://shoplist.co/guides/shopify-app-change-alerts.md" last_updated: "2026-10-26" --- # Set up Shopify app-change alerts. Turn movement into your next move. Follow competitor apps and target brands in Shoplist, choose your email or Slack cadence, and build a monitoring flow your team can act on. ## How do I set up Shopify app-change alerts? Follow the apps and brands that matter to your business. Open Settings → Notifications, enable email, and choose a delivery mode for each relevant topic. Connect Slack under Integrations if your team works there. Use a Slack test message to check the connection, then confirm a real notification in your Shoplist inbox and chosen channel. ### Choose your signal: Apps + brands Watch a competitor’s listing and merchant movement, or follow a target brand’s app-stack changes. ### Choose your rhythm: Instant to weekly Give urgent account changes attention and collect broader market movement into a useful brief. ### Choose your workspace: Inbox, email, Slack Keep research in Shoplist and bring the next action into the channel your team uses. ## Route each signal to its topic Choose what you follow to see which notification topic carries each change. **What are you following?** ### A competitor app - Listing, pricing or positioning change → **App changes** - Installs, removals and momentum → **Market moves** ### A target brand - App added to or removed from its stack → **Market moves** ### Delivery - **Unified Inbox:** Review the notification in context - **Email and Slack:** Instant, Daily brief or Weekly per topic - **Webhook:** Event notifications to your endpoint, outside the topic matrix ## Start with the changes that change your sales motion. A useful watchlist starts with a decision. Follow a direct competitor to track its listing, pricing and merchant movement. Follow a target brand to see detected apps added to or removed from its stack. Give each follow a purpose: sharpen a competitive pitch, spot a relevant account change, or keep a priority opportunity current. For example, a subscription-app founder can follow a rival app and a handful of qualified subscription brands. Competitor listing updates inform positioning. Brand stack changes give the sales team a reason to revisit an account. Those are different signals, so configure them separately. 1. **Open the app or brand you want to monitor.** — Find it in Shoplist and open its detail or First Look view. Check the entity name so you follow the right app or merchant. 2. **Select Follow.** — The control changes to Following with the entity’s name. Read the confirmation beneath it: Shoplist also tells you when relevant email updates are switched off. 3. **Build a deliberate watchlist.** — Start with the competitors and accounts you will act on. Your plan sets follow limits; the product shows the available allowance when you reach one. - [See what tracking and alerts unlock](https://shoplist.co/features/tracking-alerts) ## Match the change to its notification topic. Open Settings → Notifications and find Topics. Each row has separate Email and Slack controls. Select the topic that matches your goal before choosing its cadence. Following an app brings together several kinds of intelligence. Listing changes belong to App changes. Installs, removals and momentum around that app belong to Market moves. A followed brand’s app-stack additions and removals also use Market moves. App market activity can arrive as a rollup, so one notification can represent several changes. Which Shoplist topic controls each monitoring goal? | Your monitoring goal | Topic | Useful starting cadence | | --- | --- | --- | | A target brand adds or removes an app | Market moves | Instant for accounts you actively work | | A tracked app changes its listing, pricing or positioning | App changes | Instant for close competitors; Daily brief for wider research | | Installs, removals and momentum around tracked apps | Market moves | Daily brief to review movement together | | Target-list monitors and relationship alerts | Your targets | Instant for active account work | | Launches in categories you watch | New apps | Daily brief | | Review signals and reports | Reviews | Weekly | ## Make your alert schedule fit your working day. In Channels, turn Email on. In Topics, choose Instant, Daily brief, Weekly or Off for each email topic. Instant puts qualifying signals into the alert lane. Daily brief collects updates at your selected Brief time. Weekly topics arrive on Monday at that hour. Empty briefs are skipped. Under Daily brief time, set Brief time and Timezone, then select Save changes. Under Quiet hours + pause all, keep Pause all notifications off for active monitoring. If you enable quiet hours, set the start and end times and save. Deliveries wait until quiet hours end. Use Instant selectively. A topic setting applies across that topic, so choose the rhythm that suits your watchlist. Busy activity is grouped, and instant-delivery limits move overflow into a brief. For competitor movement, a focused daily review often creates a better working queue than a stream of interruptions. - [Open notification settings](https://app.shoplist.co/settings/notifications) ## Send the signal where the conversation happens. For Slack, open Settings → Integrations → Slack. Select Install if needed, then Connect. Complete the Slack authorization for your workspace and destination channel. Back in Shoplist, check that the connection shows Connected. Set the cadence for notification topics in the Slack column under Settings → Notifications → Topics. Use the integration page to manage the workspace connection and send a test message to its destination. For a custom workflow, open Settings → Integrations → Webhooks, install the integration and choose Open portal under Manage endpoints. Add and test your receiving endpoint there. Webhooks carry event notifications directly; the email and Slack topic matrix does not configure their delivery. - [Connect Slack](https://app.shoplist.co/settings/integrations/slack) - [Configure webhooks](https://app.shoplist.co/settings/integrations/webhooks) ## Check the connection. Then work a real signal. In the Slack integration, select Send test message and check the selected Slack channel. This confirms the connection can deliver there. For webhooks, use the portal’s endpoint test and inspect the response at your receiver. Then check a new matching event in the Notifications view of your Shoplist unified inbox. Open its detail link, confirm the app or brand, and compare it with the email or Slack delivery at the configured cadence. This checks the complete monitoring flow; a channel test alone checks only the connection. Turn the event into a next action: review the changed pricing, refresh the target account’s stack, or update your competitive pitch. A detected removal is useful account context. Read the current brand view before deciding what to say to that buyer. ### Read the timestamp correctly. An alert follows a detected and processed change. Its timestamp does not establish the exact moment a merchant changed an app. Use the event and current account context together. - [Open your Shoplist inbox](https://app.shoplist.co/unified-inbox) - [Understand Shoplist data and timestamps](https://shoplist.co/data-methodology) - [Fix a delayed or missing alert](https://shoplist.co/guides/troubleshoot-shopify-app-alerts) ## Frequently asked questions ### Can I monitor both competitor apps and individual Shopify brands? Yes. Follow an app for its listing updates and merchant movement. Follow a brand for detected changes in that brand’s app stack. App changes controls listing updates; Market moves controls install and removal activity, including followed brands’ stack changes. ### Will every app install or removal produce a separate message? App activity can be grouped into rollups, and delivery follows your topic settings. Use the notification’s detail link to inspect the relevant activity and current account context. ### Where do I change the daily brief time? Open Settings → Notifications → Daily brief time. Set Brief time and Timezone, then select Save changes. Weekly topics use that hour on Monday. ### How do I know the Slack connection works? Open the Slack integration and select Send test message. Confirm the message in the chosen channel, then check a real matching event against your Slack topic preferences. ### Can I send changes into my own software? Yes. Install Webhooks under Integrations and use Open portal to configure and test your endpoint. Shoplist sends notification.created and notification.rollup.updated events for downstream processing. ## Make the next change your next opportunity. Follow the apps you compete with and the brands you want to win. Build a monitoring flow that gives your team a reason to act. - [Start tracking with Shoplist](https://shoplist.co/app/login?ch=web%3Afeature-page&intent=tracking-alerts) ## Related guides - [Troubleshoot Shopify app alerts](https://shoplist.co/guides/troubleshoot-shopify-app-alerts) - [Competitive intelligence for Shopify app vendors](https://shoplist.co/guides/competitive-intelligence-for-shopify-app-vendors) - [Shoplist data methodology](https://shoplist.co/data-methodology)