Shopify Forms: Types & How to Build Them

Shopify stores need forms for more than one job — capturing emails, qualifying wholesale enquiries, collecting reviews, routing support questions. But "Shopify forms" now means two different things, and which one you need depends on the job.

This guide covers both: what Shopify's own Forms app does well, where stores outgrow it, and how to build custom forms that go further.

Shopify Forms vs a form builder

Shopify offers a free Shopify Forms app for capturing customer information — primarily email and SMS signups that feed into Shopify's own marketing tools. For a straightforward newsletter capture on a Shopify store, it's free, native, and there's no reason to add another tool.

Stores tend to reach for something else when the form has to do one of these:

• Look like the brand, not like the app — full control of layout, fonts, colours and spacing
• Ask more than contact details — qualifying questions, product preferences, wholesale volumes
• Run across multiple steps — so a longer form doesn't read as a wall
• Branch on the answer — different follow-up depending on what someone selects
• Sync somewhere other than Shopify — Klaviyo, Postscript, a CRM, a helpdesk
• Be split-tested — variants measured against revenue, not just submissions

That's the dividing line. Below, we'll build a custom one.

The main types of Shopify forms

Worth deciding which you're building before you start, because the format follows from the job:

• Email & SMS opt-in forms — welcome offers, list growth, back-in-stock signups
• Contact forms — routing customer questions to support
• Feedback and survey forms — post-purchase questions, exit surveys, product research
• Wholesale and B2B enquiry forms — qualifying volume, business type and location before a rep responds
• Quiz and recommendation forms — collecting preferences to recommend products
• Event and launch signups — waitlists and early access

The first is the most common, so that's what we'll build — but the process is the same for the rest.

Step 1: Choose a template

ConvertFlow's form template library covers each of the use cases above. You can also add a form to any popup or landing page template.

💡 Need inspiration first? See 6 Shopify Form Examples from other ecommerce brands.

Step 2: Pick your format

Depending on the template, you'll be offered landing page, popup, sticky bar or embed formats.

To place a form inside an existing Shopify page, choose Embedded CTA. For a welcome offer, an overlay popup usually converts better.

Step 3: Set the theme before editing content

You'll land in the builder with the template ready to customize.

Set the theme first. Every element then inherits it, and anything you add later follows too — rather than styling each element individually.

Each element type has its own collapsible menu for colours, fonts and sizing — buttons, for instance.

This is the step that closes the gap between a form that looks embedded and one that looks like part of the store.

Step 4: Choose your fields

Click the form and toggle the preset contact fields you want.

Or click Add Field to define your own — a birthdate, a wholesale volume, a product preference.

How the mapping works depends on which platform you're syncing to. Under Map To Custom Field, either pick an existing field or create one.

Then set the field type (text, dropdown, checkbox), its label, and its placeholder.

You can also set character minimums and maximums, prefill a value, and mark the field required. Click Done and it appears in the form.

To add other elements — timers, product blocks, progress bars — use Add Element at the top of the builder.

Split a long form across steps

If you're asking more than three or four things — typical for wholesale or quiz forms — split them across steps rather than stacking fields. Completion rates hold up far better when someone answers two questions twice than six at once.

Step 5: Connect your Shopify store

Go to your website's dashboard in ConvertFlow, then Settings → Integrations, find Shopify and click Connect.

You'll be taken to the Shopify App Store. Click Add app and follow the prompts — the ConvertFlow script is added to your store automatically, so there's no theme editing.

Connecting Shopify also lets you pull product and customer data into campaigns for personalization and product recommendations.

Step 6: Send the data where you need it

A form is only useful if the submissions land somewhere you'll act on them — your email or SMS platform, CRM, or helpdesk.

Select the form in the builder and click Manage Actions.

Click Manage integrations and choose your platform. ConvertFlow connects to Klaviyo, Postscript, Attentive, Mailchimp, Salesforce, HubSpot and many others — this is the main practical advantage over a Shopify-native form, which is built around Shopify's own marketing tools.

Step 7: Add the automation

Back in Manage Actions, click Add Automation.

Pick the automation type and the destination — adding the shopper to a list, applying a tag, or triggering a flow.

Click Create Automation, then Done. Repeat for any additional steps — if your second step captures SMS, point it at your SMS list.

Branch by answer

Conditional actions let a different answer produce a different outcome — a wholesale enquiry above a volume threshold can go to a booking link and a priority list, while smaller enquiries get a standard reply. That's the capability that's hardest to replicate with a native form.

Step 8: Set what happens next

Most templates end with a confirmation step. Make it useful rather than a dead end — the template we're using invites new subscribers into a product recommendation quiz.

Select the button, click Manage Actions, and set the confirmation action — redirecting to a URL, showing another step, or opening another campaign.

👉🏽 No quiz yet? See the product quiz playbook.

Step 9: Preview

Save, publish your changes, then click Preview.

You can test the form exactly as a shopper would. Automations don't run in preview, so you can submit your own email without triggering a welcome flow.

Step 10: Launch and target

Click Launch. Targeting options depend on the format:

• Popups and site messages: choose which pages and visitor segments see it
• Embeds: paste the embed code onto the Shopify page, or use an area snippet to control placement and audience
• Landing pages: customize the URL and link to it from your menu, emails or ads

Then set targeting conditions by page or audience attribute — for example, showing the form only to visitors who aren't already subscribed.

Suppressing the form for existing subscribers is worth doing first. Repeat visitors are disproportionately people already on your list, so a form shown to everyone is shown mostly to people who can't convert on it.

Toggle the activation switch to go live.

Then split-test it

Run variants against each other and read views, submissions and attributed revenue per variant. On a Shopify store the revenue number matters more than the submission count — a form that captures fewer, better-qualified shoppers frequently outperforms one that captures more.