Shopify Apps That Can Transform Your Website
Having the right apps for Shopify can greatly transform your store, improve customer experience, and, most importantly, increase sales. However, with the number of different apps out there, how do you know which are the best ones to get?
To help you, here are our 12 favorite apps for Shopify – hopefully it’ll give you some ideas on how to take your website to the next level:
1. Hotjar
Do you get traffic to your website but lack conversions?
Hotjar records user behavior on your site, allowing you to see things like what pages they view, how much content they read, whether they check out your collection and if they have any checkout problems.
This means that if page views don’t lead to purchases, you can look and see why, and do something about it.
Hotjar is so good, it almost feels naughty as it really does watch your customers’ every move. If you’re wondering about safety and privacy, don’t worry – it doesn’t record any numbers, so no credit card details are recorded.
The icing on the cake is that there’s a free plan! The account allows you to see the activity of the latest 300 visitors to your website, and you can easily upgrade to a Business account if you want to see more.
2. Auto Currency Switcher
The beauty of having a Shopify store is that you aren’t restricted to one physical location. If you can ship your products internationally, make sure your website is as global-friendly as possible to help increase conversions from around the world.
Auto Currency Switcher is an app that automatically changes the currency of your prices according to the location of your customers. If someone is looking at your website in the US, they will automatically see prices in USD; if someone else is browsing in the UK, they’ll see GBP. It’s free and easy to install.
3. GDPR Cookie Compiler
Unless you’ve been living in a closet, you’ve probably heard of the recent GDPR rules and regulations around data.
Recent laws state that all websites have to be transparent with the data that they collect. There are tons of intricate details around what data you can collect, how long you can keep it, and ensuring ease of opt-outs for your customers.
Make sure to do your research to ensure full compliance, then add all the information into your privacy policy and link to it with the GDPR Cookie Compiler.
This app installs a small banner at the bottom of the page which links through to your GDPR policy and makes it easy for customers to accept it.
It’s also a signal to the Google bots that you are compliant too.
4. In-Cart Upsell
One of the best ways to increase your average order value is to encourage up-sells for customers at the check-out stage. It’s a little bit like store queues, which have quick-to-buy items by the counter which you can throw into your cart without having to think too much about it.
In-Cart Upsell works by asking the customer if they would like to buy another of your products when they are about to check-out. You can set it manually (to ensure that the up-sell naturally works with what they’re already buying), or let the app work automatically.
It’s easy to set up and only costs $14 per month – we try to recommend free apps first, but this paid one can dramatically increase your customer average order value. Depending on your profit margins, just one up-sell could pay for the month!
5. Frequently Bought Together
Frequently Bought Together is another app that can improve your average customer order value.
It sits underneath the descriptions on your Product Page and can give customers the nudge they need to add some other items to their cart. You can also set it manually (if you want to promote certain products) or let it automatically do its thing.
We’ve experienced customers buying everything that’s been recommended to them with this app – so even though it’s $6.99 per month, it could pay for itself!
5. Klaviyo: Marketing Automation
Klaviyo is an email provider that allows you to send emails to your customers – you can use it to thank them for purchases, welcome them to your newsletter list, or try to win someone over who added a product to their cart without purchasing.
It works a little bit like MailChimp, but it’s easier to set up and has more functionalities & templates.
For example, their Abandoned Cart flow allows you to send a series of emails automatically to customers who have added their email into the check-out page but haven’t completed the purchase. It could be set up to send automatic emails like this:
- 30 minutes after they have abandoned their cart: Let them know that you’ve noticed they added a product to their cart but didn’t complete the purchase; would they like to buy before it runs out?
- 6 hours later: Let them know that you’re giving them X% off, for 48 hours only (Klaviyo can create time-sensitive coupon codes that are bespoke to each customer)
- 24 hours later: Remind them they have 24 hours left to redeem their discount
- 48 hours later: Tell them their coupon has now expired but you could use this as an opportunity to ask them why they didn’t purchase and if they’d like any extra help.
It’s free for the first 250 email addresses.
7. Free Trust Badge
Customers are becoming more and more conscious of entering their card details because of the rise of online scams.
The Free Trust Badge tells them that you are a verified store and show them the multiple ways to buy – hopefully this will help increase conversions, as they know that you are a legitimate store and that you accept their preferred method of payment.
8. Wheelio – Gamified pop-up
If you’re trying to build your email list, you might like to try the pop-up app, Wheelio.
Wheelio is a gamified pop-up which gives prizes if they spin – and input their email address. You customize both the prizes and the chances of winning.
For example, you could add prizes like “Get $100 off”, “Free shipping”, and “Save 10%”. But don’t worry – if you don’t want to give $100 off, you could restrict it to ensure that they only land on the other prizes.
You can also set when the Wheelio spinner pops up, but we like to use it as an exit pop-up so you can get their emails just before they leave. Hopefully, you can nurture one-time visitors into warm and valuable customers.
It costs $14.92 per month – a bit pricey, but we’ve generally found it to work better than most exit pop-ups.
9. Yotpo Reviews, Photos and Q&A
In today’s age, positive reviews are extremely important – customers need to know that the hard-earned money that they will be spending will be worth it, because of the value you have created for your other customers. Review apps help customers cross that threshold by providing them just the validation that they need.
Yotpo is a free app that allows you to automatically email your customers, asking them to leave a review on your website and/or social pages. You can then install the Yotpo widget across your home page, collection page, and product page to advertise all the positive reviews that you are getting.
10. Crush.Pics
One of the most important factors in winning customers is a fast website – if loading times are long, you’ll lose your customers before they’ve even seen the home page.
We recommend compressing and optimizing all your images using Crush.Pics, so that your site won’t have unnecessary media attached to it, which impacts load times.
11. Free shipping by Hexton
The Free Shipping by Hexton app shows your customers how far away from free shipping they are.
Shipping costs play a vital role because many people don’t like to pay for it. It’s often seen as an unnecessary cost, especially if they can buy something similar from the shop down the road.
Offering free shipping on orders over a certain amount helps you gain customers – an added bonus is that they may spend more in order to qualify for it!
The app works by showing a bar on all pages of your website, which you can edit to show your shipping policy. For example, you can set it to: “FREE SHIPPING IN THE US ON ORDERS OVER $50”, which changes to “YOU ARE $25 AWAY FROM FREE SHIPPING” when they add a product to their cart.
This not only encourages higher order values but can also inform customers that you ship to their country.
12. OrderMetrics
Finally, OrderMetrics is an amazing app that helps you to work out your overall costs.
Staying on top of finances is arguably the most important part of eCommerce. But with so many costs in and out, it can be very difficult to manage. Keeping track of PPC ad spend, transaction fees, or monthly app costs can be confusing but this app makes it so much simpler.
OrderMetrics takes everything into consideration. It integrates with Shopify, Amazon, Facebook, Google, and more.
To set-up, you add your cost price for each product. That way, it can then work out how much profit you make on each sale. Then, add all your monthly costs and any other outgoings, and it will calculate your overall profit.
You can filter by date to check the profit each day, week, month, or whenever you like – so you can always make sure you’re on track to stay profitable.
It does cost $29 per month (after the 2-week free trial) but in our opinion, being able to see your numbers clearly is worth the cost.
So there you have it – our favorite 12 apps to install on Shopify. Hopefully, they will help your site run better, bring in more customers, and increase your sales.
There are always new apps emerging all the time so if you find any apps that you specifically love, please comment below!
