When I set up my first Shopify store I found some parts of the process very intuitive, and some strangely lacking in depth. That's where I realised apps come in.
Shopify Apps, like most plugins, add-ons, packages what-have-you in any CMS or eCommerce platform, add functionality or change the way your site works.
But beware: just like with many platform "App Marketplaces" there's no shortage of app developers trying to sell you something you can do for free. Watch out for trials that auto-renew, or you could find your Shopify account costing you more than you planned
They can be used for lots of reasons but the main uses I found were:
My store was relatively simple - about a dozen products, each with a couple of variations, and nothing too fancy. But as it was a small, boutique fashion business I had a few things I needed:
So here's what I found, and currently use on my site. Note that in some cases, I actually used the native Shopify functionality:
A note here: Shopify guides you through the implementation of a lot of the analytics/social media type apps and can do a lot of things natively. However, there are a lot of 3rd party plugins that do the job well. Possibly better. But if you don't have complex requirements, I'd recommend sticking to the name-brand stuff, since the apps are free.
This app does a great job of wiring your Shopify store into your Google profile. You'll need to set up a Google Merchant Center account, and a Google Business Profile if you haven't done so already.
Once this is done, your products will automatically sync to your Google Merchant Center account so you can run ads in the Google and Youtube shopping network without any extra fuss.
This app plugs you in to your Meta Business Suite account - very useful for managing your social content and advertising all from one place.
Another important note: while both apps give you a way to manage advertising from within Shopify, I found it much better to do so via each platform's respective interfaces
Since WhatsApp is dominant in my local market, and customers are used to communicating with local businesses via WhatsApp, I wanted a nice big green WhatsApp button people could click on so they could ask me questions about products.
I found this extremely valuable, and made a lot more sales this way than I otherwise would have relying on my conversion funnel alone. If people don't use WhatsApp where you're selling, an email or live chat contact popup is highly recommended.
So which app did I use? Honestly, most were similar. The one I have on now is:
I previously had some do-it-all multiple contact methods app there but ditched it since almost all my contacts were on WhatsApp
Aside from that, I also used:
I've not provided a link but after fiddling with a lot of mail apps I realised that the built-in Shopify email thing was free and did what I needed. You will probably want a dedicated email client at some point, but I found that logging in to the Shopify Email app became part of my daily store management work and I never felt like it was lacking.
Shopify's native form builder is not excellent, so I found this a great alternative. I didn't need to upgrade since I didn't get a lot of submissions (most contacts were via WhatsApp) but at around $10/month for a basic subscription you get just about everything a new business needs to make nice-looking contact forms that feel good to use.
The last two I used were a bit niche but I found them extremely useful:
I wanted to bundle products together since I had quite a lot of low-value inventory and I didn't want to pay a fortune in shipping sending off cheap items. The free tier of Bundler let me do this a lot more easily than I could with Shopify alone.
I ended up upgrading to the Premium tier to run a promotion, though I didn't need it after that. Even their highest tier ("Executive") is only $10/month so if bundling products together works out for you, this app is an absolute bargain.
So my honorable 6th Mention is:
This one's a bit niche - I was selling mostly footwear, and the sizing was not easy to figure. Implementing it to show up nicely was relatively simple once I RTFM. I didn't need all the fancy bits that it uses to recommend the right size - I only needed a clean simple "if you wear this size shoe order this size from us" chart and it did that beautifully.
Hope you found that useful. Tell us about any great apps you've found that made your Shopify life easier by sending us a message on LinkedIn, and we'll feature them (and you) here!
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