In our opinion at Stryde, Shopify is THE premier eCommerce platform. One of the biggest reasons Shopify is the go-to for online retailers is due to their large number of integrated apps for increasing sales and optimizing revenue.
Because we work so closely with lots of eCommerce brands, we have a pretty good handle on what the best Shopify apps are to increase sales. From reducing abandoned carts to building customer relationships, these must-have Shopify apps are bound to improve the performance of your online store.
While many of them are perfect for businesses of any size, their user-friendly nature also makes them the best Shopify apps for small businesses. So, if your online store could be performing better, it’s time to look at the tools you can use—many of them free or nominally priced—to convert more browsers into paying customers.
So let’s dive in! According to Stryde, our clients and thousands of happy users, here are the very best Shopify apps:
Product Reviews
Reviews build trust in your product. A whopping 91% of online shoppers read reviews, and 84% trust these reviews as much as a personal recommendation. To that end, if you want to transform browsers into buyers, you’ve got to have online reviews. The Product Reviews App is a great way to showcase what your customers think. The design is fully customizable so it can match your theme, and review scores can be added to Google, improving your SEO. You can manage your reviews with bulk actions, along with filtering, sorting, and even hiding them.
Referral Candy
Sharing is caring—and it’s also a great way to spread the word about your business. Word of mouth has always been a powerful marketing tool, and it’s even more potent with platforms like Facebook. ReferralCandy helps you leverage the exponential power of social media to promote your brand. You can control the rewards and incentives, such as coupons, gifts, and cash. They’ve streamlined the process of creating and managing referral programs, eliminating a lot of the back-end labor. The themed editor is customizable, and it integrates with Google Analytics, so you fine-tune your referral strategy.
Flexify
Synching up your store to social media can be time-consuming and full of kinks. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a streamlined way to set it and forget about it? Enter Flexify, an app that helps you create highly targeted ads on Google, Instagram, and Facebook. You can use Flexify to connect your store to your Facebook product catalog, eliminating all the manual work—and all the bumps in that process. With your store synched up to your Facebook product catalog, you can create targeted, dynamic ads that get in front of millions of the right customers.
Bold Upsell
It’s no secret: companies make most of their money by upselling current customers; it’s much easier to sell something to an existing customer than it is to a new one. Harness the power of upselling with Bold Upsell, which lets you upsell and cross-sell at every step of the way: the product page, the cart page, and even after checkout. Create follow-up offers based on shopper behavior, and continue to deepen relationships with previous customers. This is the only app that facilitates upsells and cross-sells, maximizing your profits with a tailored strategy based on analytics.
Just Uno
Capturing leads is the bread and butter of business today. However, there is no one-size-fits-all strategy for lead capturing—what works for one customer might now work for another. Justuno is a conversion platform that leverages billions of data points to analyze and track every shopper. You can capture leads with tailored popups and then target your list with promotions, optimizing your conversion rate. Email popups, special offers, countdown timers, and spin-to-wins are just a few of the AI-powered tools at your disposal.
Lucky Orange
You don’t need a crystal ball to understand why visitors aren’t turning into customers…you just need a Lucky Orange. This incredible app will help you learn why visitors aren’t converting. Watch recordings of their activity on the store, and check out a heatmap of your website that can show you pain points and problem areas. You can even implement chats and surveys with customers while they’re on the page—find out what’s bothering them or stopping them from making a purchase, and use that opportunity to turn them into satisfied customers. Busy store owners can get a daily and/or weekly email report.
Back In Stock
One of the biggest reasons that potential customers don’t make a purchase is that their intended item is not in stock. Unfortunately, by the time it’s back in, they’ve already gotten it somewhere else. But with alerts like Back in Stock, you don’t have to lose these customers. Notify previous shoppers with email, text, and Facebook messenger alerts when the item is back in stock. The app is easy to install and requires no setup. Even better, it can work with specific product variant levels (such as size and color). There is also a coming soon feature that helps you gauge pre-order interest.
Shopify Chat
Chatting is a great way to interact with customers, respond to their questions, and send them special offers. Shopify Chat is a free sales channel that lets visitors contact you easily, and improve your chances of turning them into paying customers—by as much as 82%. You can respond to and manage your message with Shopify Ping, right from your iPhone or iPad. Don’t lose out on the easiest way to get customers interacting with your brand, right when they’re thinking about making a purchase.
Guardia1
Creating a positive customer experience is crucial to generating success as an eCommerce business. This extends to when things may go wrong, such as a package getting lost en route to the customer. This is where Guardia1 comes into play. They provide shipping warranties designed to provide peace of mind, both for business owners and customers alike, giving you the ability to provide top tier customer service at all times. With a focus on keeping things simple, easy, and efficient, Guardia1 changes the game when it comes to keeping customers happy, no matter the circumstance.
SEO Image Optimizer
Shoppers looking for something will often use Google Image Search. Wouldn’t it be nice to leverage this popular SEO avenue to increase store traffic? With SEO Image Optimizer, you can. The one-click installation allows to set and forget this feature, without having to spend time and energy on your SEO strategy. Google Images is second only to Google in terms of search; attract the whopping 27% of search traffic conducted by online window-shoppers right into your digital doors with the SEO Image Optimizer.
Page Speed Optimizer
Site speed can make or break sales. If a page is too slow to load, impatient customers will be off to another store. Page Speed Optimizer is a free app that improves page load times for your Shopify store, no matter its size. Website performance is directly linked to conversion rates because user experience plays a huge part in customer perception of your brand. The one-click installation of Page Speed Optimizer requires no coding, and it can be turned off and on at will.
Instafeed
Instagram is a great way to build customer trust. Its visually-centric format is great for showcasing products and providing proof of popularity through likes and comments on your posts. Instafeed helps build customer trust in your products by seamlessly weaving your Instagram feed right into your store page. Turn store visitors into Instagram followers, and reap the benefits—user engagement on Instagram is higher than most other social media platforms. You’ll also increase the social credibility and appeal of your product selection with your existing Instagram content.
Klaviyo
Building quality, lasting customer relationships is the best long-term growth strategy for your business. Klaviyo will help you get there with its suite of tools like signup forms, email flows, and abandoned cart emails. Data from Shopify and other leading apps are integrated to personalize each and every email campaign. Businesses that have integrated Klaviyo into their site have seen a 67x increase in terms of ROI, translating to about $85 in return for every dollar spent on Klaviyo. Measure and track segmented stats to dig deeper into customer data.
Shogun
If you need to build product pages and other crucial store elements, but you’re not a web designer, Shogun is for you. The drag-and-drop builder and editor have been used by companies like K-Swiss, so your store will be in good company. Shogun has mobile-responsive pages, conversion tools, SEO tools, and marketing tools. There are 30 different templates to choose from, allowing you to customize the look of your store and create the ambiance you want. Shogun integrates with Google Analytics, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest.
Vantage
Ads on Google, Facebook, and Instagram are great precision marketing tools…if you know your audience. If you don’t, they can be a huge waste of time and money. Vantage helps you analyze shopper data (such as behavior and purchase patterns) to build A/B tests hundreds of ads in minutes—and zone in on the ones that will boost sales. Accelerate your growth; bring in new customers by targeting similar shoppers, retarget shoppers with abandoned carts, and re-engage previous customers. Vantage lets you automate this whole process in a matter of minutes, making it easier than ever to find what works and what doesn’t.
Lifetimely
Customer Lifetime Value lets you know which shoppers are the lifeblood of your business, especially if it’s subscription-based. In order to have a long-term business plan, you’ll want to look beyond that first purchase and perform a lifetime value analysis. Lifetimely understands how your best customers behave, making it the perfect tool for optimizing retention. Lifetimely will help you assess your profits after costs, ads, and shipping—leaving you with a clear picture of customer LTV and letting you know how much to spend on new customer acquisition.
Sales Pop
FOMO (fear of missing out) is a driving force in sales. Let shoppers know what everyone else is purchasing from your store with SalesPop, making your store look and feel busy—and busy stores sell more. Showcase real people placing orders, build trust and reduce your abandoned cart rate. You can choose which pages and where on the page you want to place the pop-ups; a variety of templates and styles will help make sure they match the look of your store.
Free Shipping Bar
Free shipping is a great way to increase the appeal of buying multiple products, even if the shipping costs are already built into your price (shhh!). In fact, most consumers expect free shipping when they order multiple items…so free shipping can become an incentive for making extra purchases. Promote your free shipping offers with Free Shipping Bar, which will allow you to leverage progressive popups and cart goals to drive sales. Advanced targeting options respond to country and time period, helping you avoid extra expenses by creating different thresholds for free shipping. There are also customizable holiday themes for special times of the year.
Bulk Discount Code Generator
Giving out coupon codes is a great way to drive business, but it can also result in coupon abuse and reduced profit margins. Prevent coupons from being used again and again with the Bulk Discount Code Generator. Email recipients with a unique, one-use code, which also creates a more personalized experience and builds customer rapport. There is no limit to the number of discount codes you can have automatically generated and imported into Shopify, saving you time and energy. Their proprietary screener also makes sure there are no offensive words in your randomly generated codes.
Tapcart
An increasing number of shoppers are going mobile, and you should too. Tapcart is an app designer and builder that will showcase your products and content and increase conversions with mobile shoppers—as much as three times more than what you’d get with a mobile site. You can sync your app up seamlessly with your Shopify store, and create a smoother checkout experience for mobile shoppers with ApplePay and pre-populated payment information. Tapcart also lets you increase shopper engagement with real-time push notifications.
A Final Word
Looking over the best Shopify apps, you’ve seen they take care of a wide range of business and marketing concerns. Seasoned store owners are doubtlessly aware of these incredible tools already, but these are also the <strong>best Shopify apps for beginners</strong>, especially with their easy installation and automated performance. To that end, if you’re just getting started with a Shopify store, you might as well do things right from the start and integrate some of these amazing apps into your business today. If you’re looking for some help to take your Shopify site to the next level, Stryde is a Shopify Marketing Agency, and we would be happy to help you get your site ready to generate results.
Laurel is a member of the executive team at Stryde. She’s been doing digital marketing for businesses for 10 years. Two years ago, she started set up her own ecommerce business selling baby gowns and knows the struggles of a small business owner. She loves talking about digital marketing, content, SEO, and conversion rate optimization.
Laurel Teuscher
Laurel is a member of the executive team at Stryde. She's been doing digital marketing for businesses for 10 years. Two years ago, she started set up her own ecommerce business selling baby gowns and knows the struggles of a small business owner. She loves talking about digital marketing, content, SEO, and conversion rate optimization.
