Steering your business through the COVID-19 pandemic means adapting to a changing online retail landscape. With many businesses going through a temporary slowdown, it’s more important than ever to give your Shopify customers the optimum shopping experience they deserve. View these useful apps that are designed to streamline your business operations.
Many people have temporarily cut back on online purchases, so it’s crucial to attract Internet shoppers who are searching for quality products. That’s where top-notch sales and marketing apps can make the difference.
Marsello can help you develop a customer loyalty program that lets you reward customer behaviors that benefit your business. You can also streamline and uplevel your marketing initiatives with automated, customizable email, promotional campaigns, and highly effective SMS text messaging service.
Benefits for Your Business
In the retail business realm, having a steady stream of loyal customers who purchase from you again and again is like hitting the jackpot. Marsello can help you achieve that by powering an attractive loyalty program plus automating your marketing and customer communications. That way, you can focus on growing your business and serving shoppers better.
This handy app encourages your customers to spend a little more and receive an enticing freebie. You design the free gift framework, and the gifts automatically appear in your customer’s cart when they meet the free gift criteria.
Benefits for Your Business
Customers are often willing to spend a little more to get a free gift, which helps to increase your business’ Average Order Volume (AOV). Offering a free gift with purchase can help to build customer loyalty and encourage repeat business.
The popular Spin-a-Sale app demonstrates retail gamification at its best. When a visitor enters their email address, this interactive pop-up displays a spinning prize wheel that settles on a random, one-time discount. Visitors can use those discounts on your eCommerce site.
Benefits for Your Business
Visitors are likely to stay engaged with your emails and prize wheels, helping to boost your email signup rate and build customer loyalty. And, discount-laden shoppers are more likely to jump on your eCommerce site and make a purchase. This app easily adds subscribers to your Shopify customer list and automated email integrations.
This customer-themed eCommerce marketing platform enables you to easily collect favorable customer reviews and referrals, plus photos and videos. Yotpo’s powerful marketing tools can spur on-the-fence visitors to become enthusiastic customers.
Benefits for Your Business
Favorable customer reviews and referrals attract new customers who already have a positive impression of your business. Showcasing customer videos and photos on your website helps to strengthen your customer relationships and build customer loyalty.
Tracking your online business’ financial indicators is especially crucial right now, so arm your business with solid financial apps. Here are some suggestions.
This workhorse app automatically syncs your Shopify orders into your Quickbooks Online program. Data for expenses, payouts, and fees also migrate into your accounting program.
Benefits for Your Business
You won’t have to manually enter your Shopify data into your Quickbooks Online program. This system efficiency enables you to quickly obtain a Shopify financial status report.
OneSaas targets workflows that start with a specific transaction. When you create a quote, an order, an invoice, or a receipt, you only have to enter that data once. OneSaas shares that data so it’s available to all functions in that sequence.
Benefits for Your Business
Xero by OneSaas can free up your time for other higher-value tasks. And, because time is definitely money, you’ll spend less time on mundane tasks that don’t enhance your bottom line.
All businesses are required to pay sales tax to their respective state and local governments. The hardworking TaxJar Sales Tax Automation app maintains daily sales tax balances due for all your selling platforms’ sales. Plus, TaxJar automatically submits your business’ tax forms before their due dates.
Benefits for Your Business
TaxJar Sales Tax Automation makes time-consuming manual sales tax calculation a thing of the past. Save valuable time crunching the numbers, and be confident that TaxJar is on top of sales tax payments for every applicable state. TaxJar submits the sales tax report to all required state and local government tax offices.
Tracking your business’ expenses and profit is important, but you don’t want to spend excessive amounts of time getting the answers you need. SimplyCost – Profit Tracking automatically calculates your store’s profit after considering all recurring and one-time expenses associated with your sales.
Benefits for Your Business
SimplyCost – Profit Tracking helps you save time by effortlessly calculating your store’s profits. By generating fast custom reports, you can gauge your store’s performance and determine your most profitable products. This valuable data will help you to execute better business decisions.
Wide-ranging “stay at home” orders are keeping potential customers within their homes for weeks on end. With viewers constantly browsing their social feeds, smart retailers are executing compelling social media initiatives that will ideally translate into completed sales.
For eCommerce retailers, smooth order communication and processing are key to completed orders. Toward that end, the WhatsApp Chat + Abandoned Cart app provides fast customer support and order functionality. To minimize abandoned cart problems, the Abandoned Cart Recovery app sends messages that include discount codes to help complete sales.
Benefits for Your Business
Beyond WhatsApp’s eCommerce order functionality, this is a hugely popular communications platform. By blending it into your eCommerce online retail operation, you’ll gain added credibility with social media-savvy customers.
In the realm of social media powerhouses, Instagram influencers carry a lot of clout. The Instagram Influencer Marketing app’s Carro program lists all the influencers that appear on your store’s customer, follower, and email subscriber lists. After Carro facilitates your collaboration with an influencer, you’ll be able to communicate with and supply products to them.
Benefits for Your Business
When used properly, Instagram Influencer Marketing can widen your reach on social networks. By cultivating a long-term relationship with Instagram influencers, you have highly credible allies who will help to promote your brand.
If you’re looking for an additional marketing medium, Facebook Messenger is an increasingly popular choice. In fact, Messenger boasts an impressive 80%+ message open rate. With that optimistic backdrop, you can use the platform to generate more engagement. But do it soon before the space gets too crowded!
Benefits for Your Business
Why leverage Facebook Messenger Marketing? Chances are, you’ll reach customers and prospects while they’re browsing through their favorite Facebook channels. It’s simple, in this relaxed and familiar setting, customers may be more receptive to your marketing messages, so it’s a great opportunity to try and reach them.
Instafeed lets you boost your store’s online presence by adding crisp, new Instagram content. Images and videos are welcome, and you won’t need coding skills to complete this fast, easy installation.
Benefits for Your Business
Adding Instagram content to your store will encourage browsers to enjoy the photos and videos. When visitors stay longer, they’re more likely to explore your store’s offerings and purchase products.
As a retailer, you need to know exactly what’s working (and what isn’t working). You also want to pinpoint your revenue sources, and learn about emerging financial problems, so you can make smarter business decisions.
Hotjar views your site from your visitors’ perspective and analyzes each aspect of those interactions. Note: The Hotjar Install (Unofficial) app isn’t affiliated with Hotjar. You’ll need a Hotjar account to implement this app.
Benefits for Your Business
Hotjar will carefully analyze your store’s instant feedback, feedback polls, form analysis, surveys, and conversion funnels drop-offs, among other metrics. Using that data, you can determine what is (and isn’t) working so you can make adjustments to improve site effectiveness.
Conversific has funneled varied Google Analytics data and eCommerce metrics into one powerful app. Even better, Conversific has distilled those mountains of data into 10+ action-oriented reports.
Benefits for Your Business
With just a few clicks, you can view your gross profit, profit margins, and other reports that support profit growth and conversion. Doing so will allow you to get a steer on how your business is doing and you’ll get a good picture of your profitability and market position.
You don’t have time to hunt through your inventory, marketing, sales, shipping, and other functions to get the analytics data you need. Enter Glew, a multichannel analytics app that gathers all your eCommerce tools in one place. View your data via customized dashboards that enable segmentation and filtering.
Benefits for Your Business
Glew’s analytics solutions can identify your most valuable customers. Analytics results also help you to determine how (and when) to invest in channels with the best ROI potential, and develop other strategies to improve your bottom line.
Providing excellent customer service can set you apart from your competitors, and can help to build long-term customer loyalty. Armed with the right tools, you’ll be well equipped to provide your customers with customer service they’ll rave about.
While customers interact with your store’s Facebook Page, they can also buy products from your online Messenger store. If shoppers have questions, you can address them in Messenger. You’ll be able to fulfill Messenger-based orders through Shopify and track your Facebook sales through your Analytics pages.
Benefits for Your Business
When customers order products while chatting on Facebook Messenger, you receive that sales revenue. At the same time, you’re engaging with customers, which boosts your profile and encourages relationship building and long-term loyalty.
You want to provide good customer service, but spending time on emails and live chats is time-consuming. Instead, the Help Center app posts frequently asked questions on a searchable Help Center Page. Customize the page to match your brand, and offer services in varied languages.
Benefits for Your Business
By serving your customers via the Help Center app, you’ll provide valuable details on your store and its offerings. You’ll spend much less time answering questions, enabling you to focus on helping your business grow.
Tidio Live Chat gathers your email, live chat, and Messenger channels together in one location. The Live Chat function utilizes intelligent bots that jump on abandoned cart issues and often save the sale via live chats and discounts. In fact, studies have shown that live chats can increase sales by 40 percent. Tidio Live Chat is available in multiple languages.
Benefits for Your Business
Tidio Live Chat is an invisible partner who never sleeps. By interacting with customers on your behalf, you’ll see increased sales and fewer abandoned carts. You’ll also enjoy easy access to your email and Messenger channels in one location.
Depending on your budget, you may need to reduce paid advertising in the short term. As a result, you’ll need to work extra hard to drive organic traffic.
Recognize the value of SEO-optimized images, but don’t have the time or expertise to handle these tasks yourself? With a one-click installation, the SEO Image Optimizer – Auto SEO app monitors and optimizes your store daily to comply with Google’s best image search practices.
Benefits for Your Business
This hardworking app will automatically optimize your images to comply with Google’s best image search criteria. As a result, you’ll be favorably positioned in Google’s search rankings.
The one-stop, Plug in SEO app fixes existing SEO issues with your Shopify store. The app also optimizes your blog, adds valuable keyword tools, and performs updates as search engines change their algorithms.
Benefits for Your Business
Your improved SEO position will drive more organic traffic to your store. Better-optimized SEO also helps to improve your search engine rankings.
This value-packed SEO package includes varied tools, and real-time feedback, designed to help your store rank better in search engines. SEO Manager also identifies and automatically repairs your website’s broken links.
Benefits for Your Business
SEO Manager helps you to improve your search engine rankings. In turn, your store enhances its online visibility and will likely see increased traffic to your eCommerce store.
With more people shopping online, efficient order processing has become extremely important. Ecommerce merchants need an order fulfillment system that handles all transaction aspects. Brick-and-mortar stores need a proven tool that helps them to manage their curbside pickups and delivery orders.
Processing orders through several sales channels can be a laborious process. Shippo syncs your channels so you can manage your orders on a single platform. You can also generate discounted shipping levels, efficiently track your shipments, and update your customers.
Benefits for Your Business
Shippo’s time-saving order processing and tracking app saves time and reduces your frustration factor. This all-in-one solution reduces duplication of effort, giving you more time for higher-value tasks.
If you regularly ship via the United States Postal Service (or USPS), the ShippingEasy app can save you money on domestic and international shipping costs. You’ll receive a free Postal Service postage account, plus discounted rates on all services. ShippingEasy also supports delivery to APO/FPO/DPO locations.
Plus, you can print labels in batches, avoiding laborious one-at-a-time printing tasks. As an added bonus, ShippingEasy boasts an award-winning support team.
Benefits for Your Business
ShippingEasy’s discounted USPS shipping rates will certainly save you money, and the savings will increase with your processed volume. Printing labels in batches will also save valuable time.
Managing your store’s inventory is a balancing act. You don’t want to run out of popular products, but you also don’t want to tie up too much money in inventory. Stocky enables you to manage your purchase orders from one location, and you’ll quickly learn when it’s time to replenish stock. Use Stocky’s data to evaluate inventory and make decisions accordingly.
Benefits for Your Business
By giving you an accurate inventory snapshot, Stocky helps you to avoid spending your hard-earned cash on excessive stock. When an item reaches the “Replenish Now” level, you’ll get an immediate alert. This timely data makes it much easier to gauge your ongoing inventory needs.
Retailers of all sizes can benefit from having store pickup and delivery options, so this app is a game-changer. Store Pickup + Delivery, you can implement local delivery and curbside pickup, while keeping your shipping calendar clean and up-to-date.
Benefits for Your Business
Utilizing the curbside pick-up method saves you money on picking, packaging, and shipping costs. Local product delivery is a desirable concierge service. Social-distancing customers will appreciate these options for receiving their products with minimal risk. By offering these choices, you’ll help to build customer loyalty and encourage repeat business.
This handy app tells your customers when their desired out-of-stock items are now available for purchase. Send alerts via email or SMS text messaging, and customize the messages to reflect your store’s brand.
Benefits for Your Business
Because the customer already wants to purchase a “Now Back in Stock” item, you’ll likely generate a sale. By obtaining the customer’s email and mobile contact information, you can add the customer to upcoming marketing campaigns. You’ll also promote customer loyalty by offering this desirable service.
Now we’d love to hear from you. Which Shopify apps are invaluable to your store during these times? Let us know in the comments.