Top 5 app categories to consider for a new Shopify Store in 2020

Shopify is either the largest or is about to become the largest platform for eCommerce in 2020. This being said, anyone looking to join this platform can be overwhelmed by the options in Themes, Apps, and even credit card processors. For anyone jumping into the trial period, and setting up your store, here are 5 Apps that should be looked into that will have a business impact on your store this year - ranging from Countdown Timers or Customer Services Apps that will help your website visitors.

Your website design is driven by your digital marketing strategy, social media platforms, marketing campaigns where your graphic designers focus the digital media for your online marketing targetting your internet users. However, your shopping cart requires tools to funnel and execute behind your web design and serve more than just brand awareness. Digital channels are often involved, as well as popular social media outlets. This is a lot more just a color palette to manage, or traditional marketing - the top 5 Shopify App categories will assist to ensure things are properly aligned.

Category 1: Loyalty, Rewards, and Referrals

To maximize your marketing and site traffic, having returning customers is key to success. Gathering a following and optimizing their interest brings together social media and your store’s ability to promote to them. Here are some Apps that can serve well in this department:

1. Smile: Rewards and Loyalty - https://apps.shopify.com/smile-io

2. S Loyalty: Loyalty, Rewards, and Referrals - https://apps.shopify.com/s-loyalty

3. LoyaltyLion: Loyalty, Rewards, and Referrals - https://apps.shopify.com/loyaltylion

Each of the above apps has slight variations in accomplishing the same outcome. The links above provide video and details on each app that will describe its operation, pricing structure, and compatibility with other apps/services.

Category 2: SEO

Crucial in funneling traffic to your store, SEO plugins are by default a must to get the traffic analyzed so as to get the most from your advertising and Organic searches. The following apps would help you seek out traffic-limiting SEO issues, give you the details of what issues are being found and ensure you have the right structure for the search engine to crawl and catalog through.

1. SureSwift Capital: Plug in SEO - https://apps.shopify.com/plug-in-seo

2. Manage SEO: SEO Manager - https://apps.shopify.com/seo-meta-manager

These apps have different plans to offer you additional tools in which you might want to consider. For a new store, ensuring that you have your store ready to be search engine ready, is considered a must.

Category 3: Social Media – Facebook Messenger

In today’s world, Social Media is an integral part of your marketing funnel, and client interaction through Facebook Messenger is where the clients would rather interact than email or a form to fill out in your store. Therefore to integrate this feature in your store, the following apps are available.

1. Booster Apps: Facebook Messenger Marketing - https://apps.shopify.com/facebook-messenger-marketing-by-booster-apps

2. Omega: Facebook Messenger Live Chat - https://apps.shopify.com/facebook-chat-1

3. Zotabox: Facebook Live Chat - https://apps.shopify.com/facebook-messenger-live-chat

While there are other apps in addition to the ones above, these are the top-rated apps. They do vary in chat-based features covering chat history, notifications, and other tools that go beyond the chat initiation and interaction through Facebook.

Note: the ability for you to receive text messages may depend on your phone type and how it connects to online chat.

Category 4: Reviews

Reviews have become your resume for your reputation, and a key consideration for most customers to make a confident purchase decision. These reviews and their ratings are distributed across your store to reinforce the value in the purchase experience and customer satisfaction of the product/service they received. Here are some key apps to look over.

1. Shopify: Product Reviews - https://apps.shopify.com/product-reviews

2. Yotpo: Product and Photo Reviews - https://apps.shopify.com/yotpo-social-reviews

3. Thimatic: Rivyo Product Review - https://apps.shopify.com/rivyo-product-review

Being a key component for converting customers, this is a must-have for your store. While some may start with basic functionality is free, do check out their paid plans for additional features such as coupons, carousels, and upsells.

Category 5: Customer Experience

While we touched on customer experience with reviews, creating that solid customer experience takes a structured approach to consistently deliver a post-sale effort and be able to retarget that audience. It is part of your marketing portfolio of tools, while the capability of creating Facebook Ads is powerful as well as ensuring that all can be done to get the best ratings for your reviews.

1. Kit CRM: Kit

This is a bit of a unique app – filling the gaps in your marketing and customer experience processes to allow the business to focus on their product. The use of SMS and interactive tracking/reporting is a great addition to your store.

Conclusion:

While there are thousands of apps in the Shopify store, when you are getting started, focusing on the key components of your marketing, customer experience, and Social Media integration is important. There are many other tools out that can cater to your business model, configurable products, dropshipping, and many other categories. Searching out these tools is a straightforward search in the Shopify App Store. If you need any custom Shopify development or custom Shopify apps built for your business, contact our Shopify Experts today.