What is a LINE Official Account, and why does it matter in ecommerce?
LINE is used by 99 million people a month in Japan (as of the end of June 2025) and reaches every age group — a genuinely national communication app. Within it, a LINE Official Account is how a company or shop sends service and product information directly to users. Its reach is far greater than email, and open rates are high. People who have added you as a contact are already interested in what you sell, so you reach exactly the right audience efficiently.
Related pages
StoreCRM for LINE — the definitive Shopify and LINE integration app
How to connect Shopify with a LINE Official Account
How to let customers sign up and log in to Shopify with LINE Login
How to add a LINE ID linking icon to your Shopify store
How to manage customers over LINE: 10 recommended CRM tools
Over 80% opened the same day: what a LINE Official Account does for acquisition
A LINE Official Account brings a lot with it. The first thing is reach. Because LINE can push a notification, your message arrives, and with 80% of messages opened the same day you can get campaign and sale information in front of people immediately. Communicating consistently also deepens the relationship, which feeds directly into repeat customers and lifetime value. One-to-one chat support and a smoother purchase experience through LINE Login round out a set of features that raise customer satisfaction.
| Immediately on receipt | 3–6 hours | Same day |
|---|---|---|
| 20% opened | 50% opened | 80% opened |
| 3–6 hours |
|---|
| 50% opened |
| Same day |
|---|
| 80% opened |
A range of message formats that drive purchases
LINE offers several message formats. Alongside the simple text message there is the rich message, which combines an image and text into a single visual, and the card-type message, which presents several products or items in a horizontal carousel. Using the right format for the job holds attention and makes a concrete action — a purchase, a store visit — much more likely. A LINE Official Account is free to create. Start with the basic features, then build a considered programme on top, and the results for an ecommerce or retail business grow substantially.
Ideal for trying it out: the free LINE Official Account plan
The LINE Official Account has a free plan (the Communication plan) that costs nothing per month. It includes up to 200 messages a month with no setup fee, so there is almost no barrier to getting started. It suits stores and ecommerce businesses messaging a small number of customers, or trialling the channel. Because you cannot send beyond the 200-message allowance, serious marketing or frequent sending calls for the Light or Standard plan.
| Plan | Monthly | Included messages | Additional messages | Setup fee | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Communication | ¥0 | 200 / month | Not available | ¥0 | Trying it out; sending infrequently |
| Light | ¥5,000 | 5,000 / month | Not available | ¥0 | One or two campaigns a month plus routine announcements |
| Standard | ¥15,000 | 30,000 / month | About ¥3 each | ¥0 | Regular sending plus promotion; scales as your list grows |
- Pricing and specifications are subject to change. Check the official information for the latest details.
The benefits of connecting Shopify to LINE
Connecting Shopify to LINE lets you deliver important messages — checkout abandonment notices, back-in-stock alerts — at open rates far above email. With a Shopify app such as StoreCRM you can follow up customers who left right before buying and get campaign news out immediately, which translates directly into revenue.
Shopify covers most of what running an ecommerce store requires, but at present (end of August 2025) its standard features cannot connect directly to a LINE Official Account. With a LINE integration app, you can send customers checkout abandonment notices, discount coupons, birthday messages and back-in-stock alerts. Promotion becomes fast, and repeat rates improve.
Winning customers with a Shopify LINE integration app
LINE's high open rate means information reaches people faster and more efficiently than email, which makes it a very effective channel for acquisition and promotion. Connecting it to Shopify amplifies that further. With a LINE integration app, checkout abandonment notices that were previously email-only go out over LINE, and both open rates and purchase rates improve. Combining discount codes and product recommendations in the same message increases the effect again.
The apps also add features Shopify does not have as standard — wishlists and back-in-stock notifications — and then let you message the customers who used them over LINE. Used well, this makes promotion faster and more effective, and feeds directly into repeat customers and lifetime value.
Push notifications so you never miss the moment
Because LINE pushes notifications, news reaches customers immediately and your communication is timely. You can announce a flash sale when people are most likely to act, and reach audiences email never gets to, which lifts purchase rates. In practice that means reminders about unused coupons, flash sale announcements, back-in-stock alerts for saved products and price change notices. Used well, they reach the people most ready to buy and grow revenue.
Signing up and logging in with a LINE account
Signing up or logging in to a Shopify store normally means typing an email address and a password. Connecting Shopify to LINE enables LINE Login, which skips all that and uses the LINE account the customer already has. Usability improves dramatically, and it is a considerable help in situations like asking a customer to create an account while you are serving them in store.
Building repeat customers and raising LTV
A plain LINE broadcast goes to everyone at once, which tends to feel like an impersonal mailshot. With a Shopify LINE app you can send something far more personal, based on purchase history and saved products. Send a coupon to thank someone for signing up, on their birthday, or on the anniversary of their first purchase, and satisfaction rises along with the repeat rate. Sending based on browsing and purchase history means each person gets what suits them, which is an efficient way to build repeat business. Distributing coupons and points issued in Shopify or another app over LINE drives repurchases and store visits, and keeping that up builds the kind of trust that maximises lifetime value.
Four popular LINE apps that pair well with Shopify
Growing a Shopify store depends on deepening your relationship with customers and building repeat business. Connecting Shopify to LINE — used by an enormous number of people in Japan — means messages that would never land by email get through reliably.
None of this is in Shopify's standard features, so you need a dedicated app. This article covers four well-established apps that work well with Shopify: StoreCRM, CRM PLUS on LINE, Lipify and Omise Connect, along with what each one is good at.
All of them install from the Shopify App Store.
| App | Free plan | Beginners | Breadth of features | Strengths | Key features | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| StoreCRM | 30-day trial | ◎ | ◎ | ◎ | Runs email and LINE together | LINE and email campaigns, segmented and automated sequences, coupons, abandoned cart, back in stock, wishlists, birthdays, anniversaries, email marketing, rich menus, Shopify Flow integration |
| CRM PLUS on LINE | Yes (up to 100 linked IDs) | ◎ | – | 〇 | Breadth of LINE integration | LINE campaigns, segmented and automated sequences, coupons, rich menus, Shopify Flow integration |
| Lipify | Yes (up to 120 IDs) | ◎ | △ (via an integration) | 〇 | Chat and POS integration | LINE campaigns, abandoned cart, chat, automated sequences, POS integration, membership barcode |
| Omise Connect | Yes (up to 50 people) | ◎ | – | 〇 | Easy to adopt | LINE campaigns, one-to-one chat, coupons, shop cards, browsing and abandoned cart |
StoreCRM
A full-featured CRM app that sends both email and LINE
StoreCRM is a full-featured CRM app that sends LINE and email from every automation. Reaching customers through two channels raises the conversion rate. Reminders about unused coupons, restocks and price changes on saved products, and anniversary campaigns for birthdays and purchase anniversaries are all available as ready-made automations, which makes it excellent for growing repeat business. Running LINE and email together reaches a wide range of customers, and with templates you only need to swap the images and the copy, so you can put it to work the day you install it.
CRM PLUS on LINE
A full-featured CRM app built around LINE
CRM PLUS on LINE is a full-featured CRM app specialising in LINE. It connects Shopify's customer and purchase data to LINE and sends effective messages from it. It supports Shopify Flow, so automated sequences triggered by a purchase, a shipment or a restock, and automatic abandoned cart recovery messages, are all possible. You can also place an add-as-friend block on the order confirmation page and the account page, which enables shipping notifications and repeat purchase campaigns over LINE. Segmented sending — to first-time buyers, for instance — supports efficient promotion alongside a better customer experience. Six kinds of social login, including LINE Login and membership cards, simplify the purchase process and improve conversion. It is available in Japanese and English, which suits a wide range of stores.
Lipify
An OMO tool that merges online and physical stores
Lipify is an OMO (online merges with offline) tool that handles everything from in-store LINE signup through Shopify POS integration to LINE messaging. After a customer signs up via QR code, a barcode is issued in LINE; scanning it on a Shopify POS terminal completes the ID link. Points and coupons are then managed in one place, and your staff have less to do. Individual chat can be sent to customers whether or not their ID is linked. Order confirmations, shipping notifications, abandoned cart and back-in-stock reminders, automated sequences and carousel messages are all available. Because everything lives in one app, adoption is both economical and efficient.
Omise Connect
Configured in just ten minutes
Omise Connect is a CRM app specialising in LINE. Setup takes ten minutes after installation, and you can send personalised LINE messages without requiring customers to sign up or log in. It covers abandoned cart reminders, retargeting reminders for products a customer viewed, back-in-stock notifications over LINE, automated sequences triggered by a purchase or a shipment, segmented sending, configuring the routes by which people add you on LINE, purchase analysis by route, different greeting messages per route, an add-as-friend popup banner, a LINE link button, and automatic analysis of the revenue each LINE campaign produced.
Summary
Used strategically, Shopify and LINE integration and LINE notifications strengthen exactly what ecommerce struggles with: staying connected to customers. Doing it requires a LINE integration app. The four covered here — StoreCRM, CRM PLUS on LINE, Lipify and Omise Connect — each have their own strengths, so you can choose according to your store's size and your goals.
If you want to use email and LINE together to reach the widest audience, StoreCRM. If you want to run LINE campaigns from many angles, CRM PLUS on LINE. If you want to run online and physical stores efficiently as one, Lipify. If you simply want to start easily, Omise Connect. All of them have features that show results quickly and contribute substantially to growing a Shopify store and winning repeat customers. Choose the one that matches how you operate and what your customers need, and get the most out of marketing on LINE.
