Shopify’s official plugin for WordPress was removed from the plugin directory this week. The plugin allowed users to create “Buy Buttons” for products from their Shopify stores and insert them into WordPress posts and pages using a shortcode. It was built by WebDevStudios and had approximately 9,000 active installations before it was removed.
Shopify’s documentation says the plugin has been discontinued and will not be supported after June 30, 2017. WordPress users who want to display Shopify products on their sites are now instructed to create a Buy Button for a product or collection and paste the embed code into WordPress instead.
The WordPress plugin team would not comment on why the plugin was removed, but a support representative from Shopify said it was outdated and difficult to maintain.
“The reason it was removed is that it was being replaced by Buy Button, which is a better way of selling in WordPress,” Shopify customer support representative Jacquelyn Failano said. “The WordPress plugin was built by a third party and even if we support it, it could break at any time as we make future updates to the Buy Button channel.”
Failano said that by switching from using the plugin to creating Buy Buttons with Shopify, users will have access to updated features, including fonts, colors, layouts, buttons, and multiple images on variants. Merchants will also be in a better position to take advantage of future updates.
“The plugin uses older code and methods that will no longer be updated or supported,” Failano said. “There is no longer a dedicated development team for it. This means that there are no resources to maintain or rebuild the plugin.”
Failano would not confirm whether or not the plugin was removed from the directory by Shopify at the company’s discretion or whether it was forcibly removed by WordPress for a violation of the guidelines.
“I’m afraid I cannot confirm on that part – the main reason why it was discontinued was because the plugin uses older code and methods that will no longer be updated or supported,” Failano said.
It would have been better if they had simply converted the plugin a shortcode that will make embedding the Buy buttom easy in WordPress TinyMCE editor.