Shopify is the backbone of millions of online stores, selling countless different products. With shops representing 170+ countries around the world, and reports showing more than “4.39 million eCommerce sites are built with Shopify,” it’s clear to see that Shopify is a go-to choice for eCommerce store owners.
What does this mean for you, and your own Shopify store? Well, it means you have competition. And, like all else on the internet, you’ll need to work pretty hard to stand out.
The good news is that “Shopify possesses 10 percent of the global eCommerce platform market,” with a “gross merchandise volume of $197.2 billion in 2022.” So, there’s room in the sandbox for everyone to play together and come out winners ... assuming you can locate the right customers and bring them to your doorstep.
Luckily, the Shopify app store can help you there.
The app store is home to thousands of apps that can help in every way imaginable — from improving site functionality and customer experience to optimizing your homepage and landing page for higher conversion rates. You just have to know where to look for them.
Today, we’ll take a look at our 16 favorite Shopify apps that can help with all of the items listed above, providing notes on free vs. paid plans, and a promising customer review for each app. By the time we’re done, you’ll have all the tools you need to take your Shopify store to the next level, like, yesterday.
So let’s get started.
Email marketing is a big deal. As reported by Oberlo, “In 2022, the number of email users worldwide was forecast at 4.3 billion. This figure is set to grow to 4.6 billion in 2025, making up more than half of the expected world population.”
All this to say, you want to be in your customers’ inboxes if you’re looking to stay top of mind. The following apps will help you do just that.
One of the longest-living email services in the biz, Mailchimp is known to be an extremely user-friendly marketing automation tool, perfect for email list and email campaign management targeting old and new customers alike. It offers workflows and templates for near-instant email creation, and built-in integrations for SMS marketing.
Especially Loved By: Large enterprises needing lots of integrations
Pricing: Tiers range from free plans to $350/month
Promising Product Review: “We've found [Mailchimp’s Shopify app] to be very easy to use and seamlessly sends new email signups from our website to our Mailchimp account.”
Klaviyo shares a level of popularity with Mailchimp with which other services find it hard to compete. It offers seamless automations along with a huge body of instructional material, making it easy to bring yourself up to speed on the platform’s capabilities, develop your campaigns, and get your messages into customers’ inboxes.
Especially Loved By: Those looking for clear, easy-to-follow instructions
Pricing: Free to install; email packages start at $20/month and SMS at $15/month
Promising Product Review: “Klaviyo's automation is top-tier. It's quite intensive and a little intimidating at first, but the growth team's superb webinars and extensive help resources make it easy to master.”
Omnisend is rich in landing page and SMS options, and everything you build within the platform will surely be beautiful to boot. From one-woman shops to global companies, you can round out your email approach affordably with this app.
Especially Loved By: Those who prefer gorgeous templates and customizable email options
Pricing: Tiers range from free plans to $59/month
Promising Product Review: “We are so happy we the new look and feel of our email. The app is very intuitive, very easy to use but if you get stuck with something the 24/7 support is always ready to help you.”
Naturally, you’re also searching for the best Shopify apps to boost sales, pump up conversion rates, and cross-sell/upsell to increase average order value. The following apps help you create highly effective product pages, pop-ups, push notifications, and more.
One of the main problems many Shopify store owners have is with the main limitations of the platform itself. Shopify only offers certain customizations within its product page builder, meaning shop owners are left with limited ways to highlight their product options.
Product Options & Customizer allows you to fine-tune your listings and show every choice to customers. Offering such highly customizable products is known to increase sales, and Product Customizer makes it easy with a gentle learning curve — meaning you can become an expert in less than a day.
Especially Loved By: Shops that offer base products with several customizable options, such as color, size, design options, etc.
Pricing: Tiers range from a free demo plan to $99.99/month
Promising Product Review: "This app is what allowed us to have a Shopify store rather than an insanely complex and expensive custom store built for our specific needs. We make bags with enough size and feature options that one can order a bag in over 1,000,000 ways. Product Options & Customizer makes all of this possible. The support, when needed, is excellent."
Whether you’re into dropshipping or lovingly creating each handmade T-shirt in your store, PushOwl can help any store owner get more sales. It is a web push tool that uses outreach and notifications to convince customers to come back to their carts and see what they left behind. You can also collect information on your visitors without them having to opt in, and send them information to increase conversions on all your products down the road.
Especially Loved By: Those who have good traffic but high cart abandonment rates
Pricing: Tiers range from free to $38/month
Promising Product Review: “I highly recommend [PushOwl’s] Push Notifications to help you diversify your marketing. It is very easy to install and send out a campaign with a discount code.”
Want to get more customers interested as soon as they visit your shop? Get shoppers to put you on their wishlist, increase their average order value, and stay found with this easy drag-and-drop app. It lets you create both popups, bars, and embeds to collect customer information, offer discount codes, promote new product recommendations and encourage customers to complete purchases with countdown timers and limited-time offers. Using contextual targeting and A/B testing, you can count on the best leads and prospects when using this app.
Especially Loved By: Those who want a pop-up app that integrates easily with their email marketing app
Pricing: Tiers range from $49/month to $199/month
Promising Product Review: “[Wisepops is] easy to install, easy to create nice popups or other marketing collaterals which you can edit to your needs, design, etc.”
No matter which other approaches you take to marketing, tracking referrals and establishing an organized referral program is always a good plan. Word-of-mouth marketing is not only the perfect way for small business owners to build their brand recognition, but it also helps you draw current customers back to your shop with smart incentives. Let’s take a look at the best Shopify apps to encourage referrals today.
Keep customers coming back with an app like Smile, which uses intuitive processes and cute widgets to keep shoppers engaged. Smile uses referral points on purchases to incentivize shoppers to spend more and keep coming back, creating more loyal customers. It offers both easy-to-use links for sending to customers as well as easy marketing integrations and customizable designs for your own branding.
Especially Loved By: Those who want a plug-and-play referral program with no coding required
Pricing: Tiers range from free to $999/month
Promising Product Review: “Great customer service. We needed an app to unify our online and in-store locations and has worked seamlessly for us to offer rewards both online and in-store.”
Referral Candy is a two-for-one app that customers love. It allows you to both give rewards to customers who bring their friends and pay affiliates a commission when they develop their own user-generated content to market your products on their blogs or social media channels.
Especially Loved By: Those looking to manage referral and affiliate marketing in one place
Pricing: Tiers range from $59/month to $299/month with a 30-day free trial
Promising Product Review: “So far, I've had a great experience with Referral Candy. It was easy to set up and the platform has helped my customers to spread the word about our brand. These referrals have led to thousands of dollars in additional revenue at a minimal acquisition cost.”
Find influencer partners, send out free gifts for reviews, and track affiliate marketing with Shopify Collabs. Formerly known as Dovetale, Collabs was specifically designed with Shopify influencer and referral marketing in mind. It allows you to gather affiliate applications, share commission offers, and track your referral marketing in one handy dashboard.
Especially Loved By: Those who want a better solution than Excel spreadsheets for tracking affiliate referrals.
Pricing: Free to install plus a 2.9% commission processing fee
Promising Product Review: “Shopify Collabs is a dream come true. It has helped us scale our affiliate program and increase overall sales. The automatic payments are convenient as well. I would definitely recommend this app!”
In a perfect world, you’d have tons of site visitors while paying next-to-nothing on ad spend. ... or, in other words, you’d be utilizing search engine optimization (SEO).
If your site optimizes each landing page with proper text internal and external text linking, SEO keywords, alt text, and other SEO functions, you’ll catch more customers. Simultaneously, if you spend time up front connecting your products with Google Shopping, you’ll get more bites in the long run. The following apps will help you do that.
SEO is more than just adding tech details to your site; it’s also seeing where you fall short. Plug In SEO not only helps you optimize your storefront and product pages, it also audits what you currently have (or don’t have) and tells you how to fix it.
Especially Loved By: Those who don’t have a dedicated SEO staff on board
Pricing: Tiers range from $9.99/month to $49.99/month
Promising Product Review: “Absolutely great support with quick response and helpful tips. Really good help with setting up the app and automatically structured products in Google Search Console.”
Google Shopping is a great way to get your products in front of more people, but it takes some legwork. Happily, CedCommerce offers an entire suite of apps that reduce that legwork for you. Its Google Shopping app, for instance, allows you to bulk upload the products from your store onto Google, so customers searching for goods like yours can find them easily.
Especially Loved By: Those who want to promote their products beyond their Shopify store, without spending months manually uploading them all
Pricing: Free to start
Promising Product Review: “Everything works as it should and when we make a mistake internally, the support team is extremely fast and efficient at solving any issue that might arise due to user error.”
If you’re worried about generating the right product details for Google Shopping, ensuring accurate listings, and staying on top of the product data feed in Google Merchant Center, Nabu is here to help. You can even go beyond organic SEO efforts and create Google Ads for your products, and optimize them to increase your product sales from external platforms such as TikTok, Pinterest, Bing, and more.
Especially Loved By: Those who want to put their products in front of as many people as possible without breaking the bank.
Pricing: Tiers range from free to $249.99/month
Promising Product Review: “The user interface is incredibly intuitive, making it easy to navigate and manage campaigns, even for someone new to Google Ads. It has also helped me create highly targeted and optimized campaigns that reach the right audience, ultimately increasing my store's visibility and sales.”
The best Shopify apps in the world can only go so far—but a winning social media presence can easily take your store and products the rest of the way. Social proof is a critical aspect of any organization’s marketing campaign – or at least, it should be. Whether you’re looking to work with influencers, showcase your lovely Instagram feed on Shopify, or finetune your segmentation, these apps can provide the assist.
Everyone loves Instagram, and the little photo squares still have their hold on the world’s heart. Now you can integrate them into your Shopify site to add that extra visual punch you’re looking for. Instafeed is an official Instagram partner, enabling you to post not only photos but reels to your site.
Especially Loved By: Those who have lots of user-generated content and social proof to offer and want to put it to better use.
Pricing: Tiers range from free to $17.99/month
Promising Product Review: “Easy to install. Decided to upgrade to the pro plan to get product tagging. Adding my Instagram feed to my homepage just gives me one more way of presenting products - especially products in a lifestyle setting.”
Imagine how much easier life would be if you could turn your product photos into ready-to-go social media content. With Outfy, you can. It allows you to create and curate photos, collages, videos, and more, then post them automatically or manually to your social profiles.
Especially Loved By: Those who value both social media marketing and saving time
Pricing: Free to $60/month
Promising Product Review: “So easy. Saves me time not having to schedule posts myself. I love it. I don’t have to go take new pictures. It uses pictures from the website and posts them.”
Shoppable videos and fun, interactive quizzes? Yes, please. VideoWise helps you do both, creating amazing content for desktop or mobile that keeps shoppers on the page long enough to learn about your items. Better yet, the app does so without compromising your page load time or other resources. You can import content from Instagram or TikTok, then organize it as you see fit.
Especially Loved By: Those who want to integrate more video onto their sites without diminishing UX
Pricing: Tiers range from $99/month to $449/month
Promising Product Review: “VideoWise is the best eCom video platform we've ever seen. Simple onboarding, great UI/UX, solid functionality, and an awesome partner to work with. We tested it on our site and it boosted our CVR.”
Customer support is sometimes viewed as a necessary evil for business owners, but that’s far from the truth. The right approach to customer support can actually win you the loyalty of your clients and customers, and is a critical part of marketing as well as your loyalty program. A good customer support team or service provides them with real-time answers to FAQ or novel questions, offers refunds quickly, uses chatbot technology to assist immediately, and offers order tracking as a matter of course. Here are two of our fave Shopify customer support apps.
If you’re going to take the time to go through the process of sending review requests, you need a way to display the kind words you receive elegantly. That’s where Loox comes in, giving you the ability to gather reviews and incentivize people for including customer photos. You can then display them in beautiful widgets that catch your customers’ eyes.
Especially Loved By: Highly visual brands with products tailored to aesthetics, such as clothing, food, or beauty.
Pricing: Tiers range from $9.99/month to $299.99/month
Promising Product Review: “A very interesting and intuitive review app. The app has various widgets to show the reviews in an elegant yet minimalistic way.”
Reviews are incredibly important, but getting them set up on your site is not always incredibly easy. Junip works to simplify the process, putting your reviews into a format that automatically matches your branding – no coding needed – and appeals to your customers.
Especially Loved By: Those with a smaller budget for specialty web development but who still want everything to look nice.
Pricing: Tiers range from free to $74/month
Promising Product Review: “Great support team. They installed the app on a custom theme within 24 hours. Everything works the way it should and it's also a huge improvement in speed over the previous review app we were using.”
It’s impossible to overstate the benefits of using Shopify apps to target different goals for your business: reviews, referrals, socials, support, and so forth. Knowing which apps to use and applying them smartly can help you decrease abandoned carts, boost sales, build your brand awareness, and more.
If you’re in the market to up your Shopify game and boost your eCommerce business to the next level, the marketing tools above are sure to take you there.
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What are the best Shopify apps to build your business and keep customers coming back today? Read on for the full rundown here!
