About this plugin
Webkoding ShopKit Connect for WooCommerce is the companion plugin of the ShopKit mobile app. Products, cart and checkout come from WooCommerce’s own Store API; this plugin adds what a shopping app needs on top of it:
- App keys and a connection code. Create a key under WooCommerce > ShopKit Connect and scan its QR code in the app (“Connect your store”) or paste the connection JSON there; the app then shows your store, without a rebuild. For a production build the same JSON goes into the app’s build configuration instead. Your WooCommerce REST API keys never go into the app.
- Customer accounts. Sign in, register, password reset by email, profile and password changes, and account deletion. Sign-in uses short-lived tokens that are stored hashed, can be revoked, and are throttled against password guessing.
- Checkout on your own checkout page. The app hands its cart to your normal WooCommerce checkout in a secure in-app browser, so every payment gateway you already use works. The hand-off link works once, expires after 5 minutes and only opens from the app that asked for it.
- Order history with status timeline, customer notes and shipment tracking numbers (from WooCommerce Shipment Tracking or compatible plugins).
- Address book, wishlist and a notification feed.
- Push notifications when an order status changes, plus broadcasts, through Firebase Cloud Messaging. Messages are sent in the background with Action Scheduler, so orders never wait for them.
- Extras the app’s screens use: review summary per star, review writing, sale end dates for countdowns, units sold, colour swatches for attribute terms, and coupons you choose to show in the app.
- Store settings for the app: logo (splash screen), a primary colour (used as the accent by the Core Kit design; the niche designs keep their own palette), home screen banners, contact and legal links, feature switches.
The plugin works with HPOS (custom order tables), the block checkout and the classic checkout.
Push notifications and Firebase
Push is off the network by default: the “Log only” driver writes each notification to the plugin log. To deliver real notifications, choose Firebase Cloud Messaging on the Push tab and enter the path of a Firebase service account key file. See “External services” below.
External services
This plugin connects to Google services only when you choose “Firebase Cloud Messaging” as the push driver on WooCommerce > ShopKit Connect > Push. With the default “Log only” driver nothing is sent anywhere.
When Firebase is enabled:
- Google OAuth 2.0 token endpoint ( https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token ): the plugin sends a JSON Web Token signed with your service account key to obtain a short-lived access token. Sent: your service account’s email address and the requested scope. This happens at most about once per hour.
- Firebase Cloud Messaging HTTP v1 API ( https://fcm.googleapis.com/v1/projects/{your-project}/messages:send ): for each notification the plugin sends the device’s registration token, the notification title and text (for example “Order #123: Completed”) and a small data payload: the notification type, and for order updates the order id and its new status. This happens when an order status changes, when you send a broadcast, and when you send a test notification.
Firebase is a Google service: Firebase Terms of Service, Google Privacy Policy. Firebase Cloud Messaging is free of charge at the time of writing; check Google’s current pricing for your project.
The QR code on the settings page is generated inside the plugin; no external service is used for it. The Status tab sends one request to your own site’s Store API to check that it answers; that request does not leave your server.