How to Find Shopify Stores That Use a Specific App or Chat Tool

To find Shopify stores that use a specific app, run two checks on each store: confirm the site runs on Shopify, then look for the app's code in the page source or in your browser's Network panel. By hand, that works for a pilot of a few dozen stores. For hundreds, search stores by product keyword, filter them by the tool automatically, and verify each store's email before anything goes out.

Why the tool a store runs is worth knowing

A store's revenue is private. Its storefront code is not. Every app that shows shoppers something, like a chat bubble, a review widget or a pop-up, loads code into the page, and that code usually names its vendor.

A chat or helpdesk tool tells you three things. The store talks to enough customers to bother with a support tool. Someone on the team already chose, set up and learned a tool, so your pitch is a comparison, not an introduction. And if your product plugs into that tool, the store could start using it this week.

None of this proves budget or intent. It gives you a reason to write something specific, which is most of what makes a cold email worth reading.

Step 1: Confirm the store runs on Shopify

Shopify storefronts leave the same fingerprints whatever theme they use. Two checks are usually enough:

1. Search the page source. Open the store, press Ctrl+U (Cmd+Option+U in Chrome on a Mac) to view the source, and search it with Ctrl+F for Shopify.shop. On a Shopify storefront, that line usually holds the store's internal address, such as examplebrand.myshopify.com. Searching for cdn.shopify.com or /cdn/shop/ works too.
2. Read the response headers. Open your browser's developer tools, switch to the Network panel, reload the page and click the first request, which is the page itself. Shopify storefronts normally send a powered-by: Shopify header.

Two cases trip people up. A "Powered by Shopify" line in the footer is easy to remove, so its absence proves nothing. And headless stores, which put a custom front end on top of Shopify, hide most storefront markers. Their checkout usually still runs on Shopify, so go as far as the checkout page when you need to be sure.

Step 2: Identify the chat or helpdesk tool

The quick look is to open the chat bubble: many widgets print the vendor's name at the bottom of the chat window. Paid plans can often remove that branding, so confirm in the code.

Search the page source for the vendor's domain, or type it into the filter box of the Network panel once the page has fully loaded. The Network panel is the better check. Many widgets are injected after the page loads, by an app embed, a tag manager or another script, and never appear in the original source.

Vendors change their install code from time to time. If a string stops matching, open a store you know runs the tool and note what it loads now.

Three things skew the result:

• Cookie banners. Stores that sell in the EU and the UK often hold back third-party scripts until the visitor accepts cookies. Accept the banner before you check, or you'll record "no chat" for stores that have one.
• Page and timing rules. Some stores show chat only on certain pages, often the contact or FAQ page, or only after a delay. Check the home page and the contact page, and give each a few seconds.
• Leftover code. A script pasted into the theme by hand can outlive the subscription. If the script loads but no chat ever appears, the store may have switched tools and left the old code behind.

One limit applies to every outside check: you see what shoppers see. A store can chat in one tool and answer email in another, and the second one is invisible from outside. Word your opener as an observation ("I saw you use Tidio for chat"), not as a claim about their whole setup.

These checks take a minute or two per store: fine for a pilot of 20 stores, painful for 500. Glintscout's Shopify source runs them for you. It searches stores worldwide by keyword and keeps only those running the chat or helpdesk tools you pick (Gorgias, Intercom, Tidio, Zendesk, Re:amaze, Help Scout, LiveChat, Drift, Richpanel or Crisp), up to 100 stores per search. A search costs the same whether it finds 8 stores or 100, and the price shows before it runs.

The same method works for other apps

Anything that adds something to the storefront can be spotted this way: reviews, loyalty points, subscriptions, pop-ups, upsells. Find the app's domain or file names once on a store you know uses it, then search for the same strings elsewhere. Apps built as theme app extensions can load their files from Shopify's own CDN, so a file name may be the only clue. Apps that work only in the store's admin, such as inventory or accounting tools, leave no trace on the storefront, and no outside check will find them.

Step 3: Find stores worth checking

Checking is the easy half. The hard half is finding stores in your niche to check, and the best starting point is what they sell, not the tool they run.

• Search like a shopper. Use the words customers type ("refillable deodorant", "organic dog treats", "linen bedding"), not category jargon. Add the country you sell to, or set your search engine's region, and skip past marketplace listings to the brand sites.
• Use the site: footprint with care. A search such as site:myshopify.com "dog treats" returns stores whose myshopify.com address is indexed. Established stores redirect that address to their own domain, so this search leans toward new and small stores. That's useful if they're your buyers and misleading if they aren't.
• Browse Shop, Shopify's shopping app. Its web version at shop.app lets you search products and shows the store behind each one, a quick way to collect brand names in a niche.
• Mine existing lists. "Best brands" roundups, gift guides and trade show exhibitor lists give you names to check.
• Use a technology lookup service for a first cut. These services crawl the web and index the technologies each site loads, so you can filter by platform and app. Each entry is a snapshot from the last crawl, though, and stores switch tools, so re-check a store before you pitch it.

Keep a sheet with one row per keyword, listing the synonyms shoppers use and the tools you want. "Candles" and "scented candles" can return many of the same stores, while "wax melts" may find a different set, so look at a sample of stores for each keyword before you commit to it.

Step 4: Qualify each store and find the right address

A store that runs the right tool can still be the wrong lead. Before a store goes into a sequence, check that:

• It's live and selling. Products in stock, prices shown, a working cart, and no password page or closing-down notice.
• It sells in a market you serve. Keyword searches return stores from many countries. The store's country decides the language you write in, the time you send and the email law that applies.
• The tool is really in use. The chat bubble appears and works; it isn't leftover code.
• It publishes an address on its own domain. That's the address the business chose for contact, and the one you can verify.

Then there's a problem specific to this audience. Many stores publish only a support address, and that address often feeds straight into the helpdesk you want to replace. Your email becomes a ticket, answered by an agent working through a queue. Write so that the agent can forward it, and say in the first line who it's for ("For whoever looks after your support tools"). Better still, find a founder or operations contact: the about page, the press page and, for stores based in Germany or Austria, the legal notice (Impressum) often name the people behind the store. Our guide on how to find a company's email address covers the other methods.

Then verify every address. Stores rebrand, change domains and close mailboxes, and each bounce counts against your sending domain. How to verify an email address without sending an email explains what the check does and what its verdicts mean.

Step 5: Run a switch campaign

If you sell a helpdesk or chat tool, stores on a competitor are your warmest cold list and your hardest. They already evaluated, paid for setup and trained their team, so your pitch has to beat the cost of switching, not just the other product.

1. One segment per incumbent. Stores on Gorgias get a different email from stores on Tidio. Each segment gets the one difference that matters most against that tool, not your whole feature list.
2. Research the incumbent honestly. Read its current pricing page and recent reviews from its users. Note the complaints that keep coming up, and use only those your product actually fixes.
3. Make switching cheap. Offer what removes the work: importing past conversations and saved replies, a setup call, a trial that runs alongside the current tool.
4. Time it. Support teams avoid changing tools right before their busiest weeks, which for many stores means the run-up to Black Friday and the holidays. Pitch well before the peak, and when a store says "not now", note the month it names.

A first email for a helpdesk vendor:

Subject: {Store} chat, a quick question

Hi {first name},

I saw that {Store} runs its chat on {current tool}. We make {product}, a helpdesk for Shopify stores, and for a team your size the main difference is {one concrete difference}.

If it's useful, I can show it on your own setup in 15 minutes. If you're happy with {current tool}, no reply needed.

{Your name}, {company}, {postal address}. Not relevant? Reply "no" and I won't write again.

The first line proves you looked. One difference is easier to believe than five. The ask is small and specific, and the way out is explicit, which keeps complaints down and gives the reader an easy reason to reply either way. The last line carries the postal address and the opt-out that the US CAN-SPAM Act requires, among its other rules, and every later message in the sequence should carry it too.

A follow-up about a week later, if there's no reply:

Subject: Re: {Store} chat, a quick question

Hi {first name}, one last note. {A specific observation, such as "Your contact page says replies can take two business days"}. {How your product changes exactly that}. Worth a look, or should I close the file?

An agency swaps the product for a service:

Subject: Your {current tool} setup

Hi {first name},

{Store} uses {current tool} for chat. We set up and tune {current tool} for Shopify stores: {one outcome, such as "order lookups inside the chat, so agents stop switching tabs"}.

Would a list of three changes for your store be useful? It's free, and it comes by email.

Stores are everywhere, so the rules depend on where each recipient is: CAN-SPAM in the US, CASL in Canada, the GDPR and national laws in Europe. Our guide Is cold email legal? covers the main ones; read it before you add a new country to a campaign.

Common mistakes

• Trusting an old snapshot. A lookup from months ago can be wrong today. Re-check the storefront before you name a tool in an email, and name only what you saw.
• Ignoring the store's country. The right email sent at 3 a.m. local time, in the wrong language, to a market with stricter consent rules is three mistakes at once.
• Pitching features instead of the switch. The current tool works well enough. Show how small the move is.
• Skipping verification. Bounces from stale store addresses hurt the domain your next campaign goes out from.

FAQ

Can I see every app a Shopify store has installed?

No. You can see apps that load something on the storefront. Apps that work only in the admin, such as inventory, accounting and most reporting tools, leave nothing on the pages shoppers see.

Why do I see a chat bubble but can't find the script in the source?

The widget was probably added after the page loaded, by an app embed, a tag manager or another script. Check the Network panel after the page has finished loading, and accept the cookie banner first if there is one.

Does a site:myshopify.com search find every Shopify store?

No. It finds stores whose myshopify.com address shows up in search results, which are mostly stores without a domain of their own. Established brands redirect that address to their own domain.