How I Connected Claude to Shopify to Handle Customer Support and Returns

A client came to me with a problem most small Shopify store owners know well: they were spending 3-4 hours a day just answering the same support emails. Order status. Return requests. Refund questions. Same thing, over and over. We built a lightweight Node.js integration that connects Claude directly to the Shopify Admin API. There is no third-party automation tools included and no bloated support platforms. Just Claude reading order data and responding like a smart support agent. Here's exactly how we did it. What the system does When a customer sends a support message, the system: Parses the message to figure out what they want (order status or return/refund) Pulls the relevant order data from Shopify Feeds that data + the customer's message to Claude Sends Claude's response back to the customer If the request is something Claude can't handle confidently, it flags it for a human. The stack Node.js (Express) Shopify Admin REST API Anthropic Claude API (claude-sonnet-4-20250514) A simp