Best Apps To Grow Your Shopify Store

According to Digital Commerce 360, consumers spent over $600 billion with U.S. online merchants in 2019. Because online shopping is becoming increasingly popular, you should install the right Shopify apps to capture leads, boost conversions, and rev up those sales. Are you feeling overwhelmed because Shopify App Store offers a wide variety of choices? Don’t worry; here are some of the best apps to help extend the functionality of your Shopify store and maximize your e-commerce ads:

Recart: Improve Sales through Messenger Marketing

Website: https://recart.com

Let’s be honest. Will you respond to emails notifying that you have abandoned items in a shopping cart? Will you click the link or delete the email? In these situations, emails typically have a low open rate. Bot campaigns in Facebook Messenger, on the other hand, enable online merchants to achieve an open rate of over 85 percent. Instant Facebook messages are not just easy to view or click through. Consumers are increasingly turning to messaging apps because directly connecting with brands helps increase confidence.

The Recart Facebook Messenger Marketing app can do more than just remind customers of shopping cart abandonment issues. The Shopify plugin enables businesses to grow their Messenger lists, facilitate new product announcements, disseminate weekly/monthly newsletters, request product reviews, confirm orders upon checkout, send shipping updates, and much more. The best part is all of these processes are automated and powered by next-generation artificial intelligence. 

Why do Facebook Messenger lists of businesses matter? Today, it is significantly easier to grow your audience through a trusted messaging app. In addition, website visitors are likely to convert and become subscribers if the opt-in process is a frictionless, one-click experience. Recart Messenger subscription does not require your leads’ phone numbers or email addresses. The process simply involves a button in a popup window.

It’s true. Recart does everything for you. Unlike Mailchimp®, business owners do not have to spend time on designing and organizing their own email marketing campaigns. In addition to avoiding massive time killers, Recart users have access to smarter response templates (there’s something suitable for every season, holiday, and major shopping event) that are attractive from a reader’s standpoint. 

Price-wise, Recart offers a small business plan at $29 per month and a growing business plan at $499 per month. If a sale is made through the messaging app, Recart receives $0.03 from each dollar in sales. You don’t have to pay extra fees if nothing happens.

How many people trust Recart? This FB Messenger Marketing app has 5,469 reviews with an overall rating of 4.8 stars on the Shopify app store.

Okendo: Build Trust with High-Impact Customer Reviews

Website: https://www.okendo.io

Just like how diners choose restaurants based on online reviews, ratings also have a huge impact on an online shopper’s purchase decisions. If you are looking for a Shopify app that effectively collects and showcases high-impact customer reviews on your e-commerce store, consider installing Okendo. This plugin enables businesses to create stamps of approval that online shoppers want to see before hitting BUY. In fact, Bizrate Insights has found that over 90 percent of consumers peruse online product reviews before making decisions to purchase. 

Okendo works because it is trusted by brands and celebrities like Katy Perry, SKIMS, Skinnydip London, Buck Mason , ZipSticka, and more. 

How does Okendo build trust, drive sales, and maximize your customer lifetime value (CLTV)? One of the answers is UGC (user generated content). It is a combination of product photography and written reviews that promote a brand. For example, your UGC may be feedback given by wear testers who utilized your sports compression suits. If you are offering makeup products, user generated content helps other consumers visualize how eyeliners or lipstick colors will look on them. Both small businesses and big companies benefit from using this type of customer review. It increases brand awareness and engages customers authentically. 

Okendo has joined forces with Foursixty to offer a Shoppable Instagram solution. This means that your Instagram and influencer marketing campaigns can be managed on the same app. You can easily search for creative social media posts that @mention and/or @tag your brand. From micro-influencers to well-known content creators, business owners can give these individuals quick shout-outs by sharing their content on Instagram Stories and more.

Thanks to Okendo’s multi-channel marketing capabilities, your customer reviews can be pushed to the feeds of your Facebook Ads or Google Shopping Ads. You can boost your brand’s overall visibility and improve your ranking in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

Depending on the business needs of your company, Okendo plans start from just $29 per month. The names of the plans include Essential, Growth, Power (most popular), Advanced, and Enterprise (a customized plan).

Gorgias: Enhance Customer Experiences with a Shopify Merchant Helpdesk

Website: https://www.gorgias.com

Think helpdesk for e-commerce stores. Gorgias enables customer service teams to centralize their support tickets from different CRM channels via a single app. This helps increase efficiency, reduce response times, and influence customers’ impressions. Because users can now talk to website visitors in real-time via macros (pre-made responses), businesses can avoid unresolved ticket backlog. Here’s an imaginary scenario:

• A customer types, “What is the status of my order?”
• Gorgias classifies the question and determines an appropriate customer support answer.
• The Shopify app showcases the customer’s profile and/or order details.
• The response may include a list of next steps (e.g., requesting to deliver products to another address).

Because Gorgias uses machine learning to answer questions and requests, business owners can build and customize their own response libraries. In addition, the versatile app allows consumers to send messages through Gorgias’ integrated channels, including Facebook Messenger, Twitter, Instagram, live chat, SMS conversations, and more. You can even reply to external marketing campaigns from your own website’s helpdesk.

Although Gorgias can be installed on Magento and BigCommerce stores, the app works best on Shopify and Shopify Plus.

Businesses can opt for Gorgias’ monthly or yearly plans, which start from USD$50 per month. Companies enjoy discounts (two months off) when they choose to be billed annually. It is important to note that Gorgias is required to collect sales tax (on top of your subscription) if your billing address is in New York or Ohio.

Privy: Win Customers and Subscribers with Displays for Every Step of Your Shopping Funnel

Website: https://www.privy.com

Privy increases user engagement on your website to improve email and SMS capture, drive more sales, and reduce shopping cart abandonment rates through a wide variety of displays and exit intent pop-ups. Don’t worry; business owners do not need any coding expertise because Privy offers an intuitive drag-and-drop designer. Simply add text as well as drag and drop images and buttons to create your own pop-up windows. To save time, you can also use the app’s professionally designed templates.

Exit intent pop-ups are great at capturing a potential customer’s attention. These individuals may have forgotten that products were added to their shopping carts a few minutes ago. Instead of letting them leave the site, you can use Privy to send on-site reminders.

If you feel that customers may find pop-ups intrusive, there are subtle alternatives like Privy’s Free Shipping Bar.

This bar (automatically updates itself) can be displayed either on top or the bottom of your site. Once the customer adds enough products to their carts and the quota is met, their orders will be shipped without extra charges. This is a great way to encourage customers to complete their purchase.

What if the customer ignores these messages and leaves the website? Fortunately, business owners can still reach these people via Privy Text (a SMS text messaging marketing tool) and Privy Email. In addition to sending abandoned cart notifications, you can also send personalized thank you messages and discount coupons to visitors who subscribed to your newsletters or signed up for a campaign.

While you are building your email list through Privy, don’t forget that you can also sync your contacts from other email and SMS platforms like MailChimp or an SMS app of your choice: PostScript, SMS Bump, Attentive, etc. 

Not sure if Privy suits your business? You can always start off with a free plan and opt for premium options (between $10 and $30 per month) when you are ready to scale.

Cartloop: Converting Abandoned Carts via the Power of Text

Website: https://www.cartloop.io

Cartloop helps online merchants to recover abandoned carts by messaging potential customers in real-time. Instead of SMS and email bots, Cartloop uses humans to answer customers’ inquiries 24/7. By removing the friction in customer-brand communication, businesses can generate great ROI. Startups and high-growth brands can consider using Cartloop if they want to increase revenue with minimal risk.

Cartloop is a human-powered text marketing platform that acts as customers’ personal shopping assistant. Using a one-to-one conversational approach, Cartloop’s Live Experts™ guide customers throughout their shopping journey in real-time. These services help drive sales, build strong customer relationships, and bring that in-store shopping experience online.

The great thing about Cartloop is business owners can use it to communicate with customers who do not use Facebook Messenger. These individuals may be more comfortable with businesses contacting them via SMS. Remember that Cartloop is not powered by robots. Real humans are on the other end and can act as additional sales team members. They can help customers decide which product to buy through real-time recommendations, navigate payment options (some customers may encounter debit/credit card issues), answering shipping questions, and more. 

You can start using Cartloop for free and the good news is all plans provide access to their 24/7 Live Experts. When you are ready to scale, you can check out their Growth ($99 per month) and Pro ($299 per month) plans. Do note that a profit-sharing system applies to all three plans:

• Starter: 15% as Cartloop Revenue
• Growth: 10% as Cartloop Revenue
• Pro: 3% as Cartloop Revenue

Tapcart: Create a Mobile Shopping App that Your Customers will Love

Website: https://tapcart.com/

Remember the days when it costs businesses thousands of dollars to create their mobile applications? You can now hop on the iPhone and Android app bandwagon at an affordable price, i.e., starting from $99 per month. The apps created through Tapcart are amazing. They look great, are responsive, load quickly, and the data syncs with your Shopify store in real-time. Thanks to Tapcart’s drag-and-drop builder, business owners can manage their own apps for the most part.

A majority of Americans are online shoppers and are heavy mobile users. If you currently lack a mobile application to capture these customers, consider using Tapcart to grow your Shopify brand. In addition to generating more orders, businesses can build brand loyalty and increase retention. Tapcart enables business owners to engage shoppers through push notifications, send animated lookbooks, offer app-exclusive promotions, instant checkout, and more.

Push notifications come in handy during major shopping events like Black Friday. If your app has hundreds or thousands of downloads, you can send out mass push notifications with a press of a button. Most importantly, these notifications have higher open and engagement rates. It is an excellent tool to drive customers back to your Shopify store during time-sensitive promotions.

Gatsby: Launch and Run Influencer Campaigns with Ease

Website: https://www.gatsby.ai

Gatsby is a modern influencer marketing app that’s built on top of Shopify. Business owners use the app to automatically identify influential customers, tracking influencers’ posting habits, measuring performance, issuing rewards, and coordinating ongoing collaborations. In fact, companies can automate the entire influencer, micro, and macro processes by combining Gatsby and Klaviyo.

Here’s how this combo works: Gatsby works with your email subscriber popup to discover influencers who shop on your Shopify store. These influencer insights are then sent to Klaviyo which trigger automatic flows – influential customers receive invitations to collaborate. If you are mentioned on a customer’s Instagram page, the event information is passed back to Klaviyo. The influencer will be rewarded for spreading the word about your brand.

Gatsby employs a volume-based pricing model that grows as you scale the business. Their plans start from just $89 per month.

UpOrder: Add Another Sales Channel via Optimized Shopify Notification Emails

Website: https://brands.pantastic.com/uporder

Maximize your thank-you Shopify emails through UpOrder and gain repeat customers. Send personalized messages so that you can strengthen existing customer relationships. Although marketing emails are important tools that drive sales, no one likes to be bombarded with excessive promotional emails. Shopify notifications that directly deal with customer orders, however, have a higher open rate. This is the type of email you should be sending to people who have purchased products or services from your e-commerce store.

From order confirmations to invoices to shipping updates to limited-time offers, these are effective touchpoints for nurturing repeat business. Because these potential recipients are already interested in your products, chances are that they will open and read your emails. This presents an excellent opportunity for your business to increase revenue by cross-selling.

Below is a non-exhaustive list of other emails you can send with UpOrder:

• Refunds
• Customer Activation and Welcome Notifications
• Gift Card and Discount Coupon Notifications
• Abandoned Checkout Reminders
• POS Electronic Receipts
• Password Reset Instructions
• … and more!

UpOrder is suitable for most types of business owners due to their drag-and-drop email template builder. The fonts, colors, and other design elements can be easily customized to fit your brand guidelines. Need ideas? Check out UpOrder’s inspiration page.

The great thing about UpOrder is that users don’t need to manually follow-up after a sale. Let’s say that you are reaching out to a customer who became a member one month ago but has not bought any product recently. You don’t want to be pushy and decide to wait for another week before checking up on them. Simply configure UpOrder to send this notification email at that specific date and time. Once done, you can sit back and relax while UpOrder takes care of the rest.

Depending on your business needs, UpOrder can handle up to 5,000 orders per month. You can, however, start using the Shopify app for free and upgrade at a later time.

Grow Your Shopify Store Today

All in all, Shopify App Store is home to thousands of apps, and they can help extend the functionality of your online store. From acquiring in-depth analytics to improving email marketing processes to adding customer reviews, there is an app for everything.

Whether you need professional Shopify development services or are just looking for ways to scale and grow your Shopify store — SmartSites can help. We know Shopify. We know digital marketing. Get a free consultation today and see how we can help you reach your eCommerce goals.