Alva Courses is a Shopify app that lets merchants build, sell and deliver online courses natively inside their store. Because the course and the shop are one Shopify store, a lesson can sell the products it teaches with, through the same cart and checkout as everything else you sell.
A standalone course platform sits on a different site from your shop, so a product recommendation becomes a link and a hope that students follow it later. On Shopify, the product can sit in the lesson itself.
What is a shoppable lesson?
A shoppable lesson is a course lesson that sells a product inside the lesson itself. The student sees the product's image, price and a buy button next to the video or text that explains why they need it, then adds it to their cart and carries on learning. It turns a recommendation into a purchase.
Shoppable lessons suit any course where students need something to follow along: equipment, ingredients, materials, a printed workbook or a set of templates. They also suit your next course, offered at the moment this one ends.
Why sell products inside a course instead of on a separate page?
Selling inside the lesson meets the student at the moment of need. A student who has just watched you use a tool already knows why it matters. A link in a welcome email or a product page in your menu asks them to remember later. In general, a recommendation in context is easier to act on.
- Relevance. The product appears beside the lesson that shows it in use, so the student doesn't need convincing that it's useful.
- One store, one cart. Products added in a lesson go into the same Shopify cart as anything else from your shop, with your usual shipping, taxes and checkout.
- Reorders. Consumables such as ingredients, inks or practice materials run out, and the lesson that uses them is a natural place to buy more.
- The next step. A course product can sit in the final lesson, so students who finish see what to take next.
What products sell well inside online course lessons?
The best fits are products the lesson actually uses. Think of the knife in a knife-skills lesson, the resistance bands in a workout, the paper and inks in a calligraphy module, or the printed workbook in a business course. Consumables students run out of, and your own next course, work well too.
| Course | Products to embed, and where |
|---|---|
| Cooking class | Knives, spice blends or an ingredient kit, in the lesson that first uses them. |
| Fitness programme | Bands, a mat or a printed training log, in the set-up lesson of week one. |
| Art or craft course | A materials kit, paper, brushes or inks, at the start of each module. |
| Music lessons | Strings, picks or a songbook, in the technique lesson that needs them. |
| Business training | A printed workbook, templates or a coaching session, at the end of each module. |
| Any course | Your next course, in the final lesson. |
The niche guides go deeper on what each kind of course needs: selling cooking classes on Shopify and selling fitness courses on Shopify both start from the equipment students already ask about.
How does the Shopify Product block work in Alva Courses?
The Shopify Product block is a lesson content block in Alva Courses. Add it to a lesson, choose products with Shopify's own product picker, then pick a layout and a button. On the storefront, each card loads live from your store, so prices, sale prices, images and sold-out status are always current.
Choose up to 12 products per block
Click Select product to open Shopify's product picker, which lists active products only. Use Add another product to build a list of up to 12 in one block, and add more blocks if a lesson needs them. Each product can be swapped with Change product or dropped with Remove product.
When you pick a product, the editor checks it in your store and warns you when students won't be able to see or buy it: a draft, an archived product, or one that isn't published to your Online Store.
Pick a layout
| Layout | What it looks like, and when to use it |
|---|---|
| Card | The image beside the details. The default, and the workhorse for a single product. |
| Banner | A full-width image on top, details below. A single hero product at the end of a lesson. |
| Compact | A small thumbnail, title, price and button in one row, with no description. A list of materials for the lesson. |
| Grid | 2 or 3 products per row. A small set of options side by side. |
| Inline link | The product title and price as a link, with no image. A quiet mention between other blocks. |
The Layout section also sets Alignment (Left, Center or Full width) and, when the image is shown, its Image shape (Original, Square, Standard or Wide) and Image fit (Crop to fill or Fit inside).
Choose what the card shows
Under Content, the card shows either the product's own description, as plain text, or Custom text written for this lesson, up to 2,000 characters. Trim it to 2, 3 or 5 lines or show it all. Then choose whether to show the price, the original price when it's on sale, a sale badge, the vendor and the SKU.
Choose what the button does
Under Buy button, the Button action is Add to cart, Buy now, Add to cart and Buy now, View product or No button. Leave Button label blank to use your theme's own wording, or write your own. Button style is Solid, Outline or Link.
The same section sets the Variant selector (shown only when the product has options, by default), an optional quantity selector, and what happens When sold out: show a disabled button, hide the product, or link to the product page.
How do in-lesson purchases reach your store's cart?
Shopify renders each product card inside your own theme, so Add to cart uses the same cart as the rest of your store. Prices use your store's money format and the visitor's market, and default button text comes from your theme's translations. Whatever a student adds waits in their normal cart, ready for checkout.
After adding to cart sets what happens next. Stay in the lesson, the default, brings the student straight back to the lesson. Go to the cart opens the cart page, and Go to checkout goes straight to checkout. Buy now uses Shopify's dynamic checkout button, so the student pays for that one item straight away.
Product links open in a new tab by default, so a student who clicks through to the full product page keeps their place in the lesson. Switch off Open the product page in a new tab if you prefer. Selling in more than one language? The card follows the visitor's storefront language too, as selling online courses in multiple languages explains.
What should you check before publishing a shoppable lesson?
Most problems come from the product, not the lesson. Make sure each product is active and published to your Online Store sales channel, check how subscriptions and sold-out stock behave, and test from your storefront as a customer, because purchases are switched off in the course preview you open from the admin.
- Published to the Online Store. The editor warns when a product is a draft, archived or missing from the Online Store sales channel. Students can't see or buy those.
- Subscriptions. A product with a subscription plan can't use Buy now, and the editor switches that option off. Use Add to cart instead.
- Removed products. If a product is later deleted or unpublished, the card shows an unavailable message rather than breaking the lesson.
- Course products. When the product grants access to a course, the editor flags it: students who already own that course can still buy it again. Offer the next course, not the one they're taking.
Where should products go in a course?
Place a product where the lesson creates the need for it. Put equipment in the lesson that first uses it, a materials list at the start of a module, and your next course in the final lesson. As a rule of thumb, one product block per lesson keeps the teaching in front and the selling second.
- Compact for a list of what students need at the top of a practical lesson.
- Card or Banner for a single recommendation after the demonstration.
- Grid for choosing between two or three options, such as a starter kit and a full kit.
- Inline link for a quiet mention that doesn't interrupt the flow.
Shoppable lessons work alongside the rest of your course design. Sequencing lessons and quizzes covers lesson order, and online course pricing models covers tiers and bundles if you'd rather package a kit with the course itself.
How do you add a Shopify Product block to a lesson?
Adding a product takes a few minutes in the lesson editor. Add a Shopify Product block, choose products with Shopify's product picker, then set the layout, what the card shows and what the button does. Save the lesson and check it on your storefront, where live prices, availability and images load.
- In your Shopify admin, open Alva Courses, then the course and the lesson you want to sell from.
- Add a Shopify Product block from the lesson editor's add menu.
- Click Select product and choose a product. Use Add another product for more, up to 12.
- Under Layout, choose a layout, alignment and image shape.
- Under Content, choose the description and which details to show.
- Under Buy button, choose the Button action and what happens After adding to cart.
- Save the lesson, then open it on your storefront to check the card.
Every setting is covered step by step in Add a Shopify product to a lesson. New to the lesson editor? Add text, images and files explains how content blocks work, and The storefront course player shows what students see.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. With Alva Courses, any active product published to your Online Store can appear inside a lesson through the Shopify Product block, whether it ships or not. Students see live prices and availability and add it to the same cart as the rest of your shop, so shipping, taxes and checkout work as they do for any other order.
One Shopify Product block holds up to 12 products, and a lesson can contain more than one block. As a rule of thumb, one to three products per lesson keeps the focus on teaching. Use the Grid layout, with 2 or 3 products per row, to show a small set of options side by side.
Not by default. After adding to cart is set to Stay in the lesson, which brings the student back to the lesson once the item is in their cart. You can switch it to Go to the cart or Go to checkout, and product links open in a new tab unless you turn that off.
Yes. Each card loads from your store when the lesson opens, so new prices, sale prices, images and sold-out status show up without editing the lesson. If a product is later unpublished or deleted, the card shows an unavailable message instead of breaking the lesson.
Yes. A Shopify product that grants access to a course can go in a Shopify Product block like any other product, which makes the final lesson a natural place to offer your next course. The editor flags these products, because students who already own that course can still buy it again.