Shopify is one of the most popular eCommerce platforms in the world. A preferred choice for many small and large businesses alike, Shopify has simplified setting up a virtual storefront and democratized the online marketplace in the process.
Shopify allows you to leverage the internet to grow your business, that too without burning a hole in your pocket. If you don’t end up hiring a team of website developers or pay hefty site maintenance charges- Shopify is the smartest choice out there.
Whether you are just starting your online retail journey or are a veteran who would rather spend their time on things like product design- Shopify is a promising one-stop solution with lots to choose from-
Shopify offers many functionalities required to manage and scale an online business. However, we believe there is no standard set of functions or tools that are applicable to every e-commerce business. The one-size-fits-all theory might not work here.
The reason is that the requirements and needs vary from business to business depending on their annual sales. The objectives of a $1 million business would be different from that of $10M or $100M.
No wonder, the market offers jillions of Shopify apps. It’s no surprise. But here’s the catch. You will have to find the best Shopify apps that fulfill the requirements of your eCommerce store.
But how?
As we stated, there is no one solution that works for all businesses. The key is to find the right fit for your business requirements. Here are some things to consider before you choose your Shopify Apps in 2023:
One of the major benefits of using Shopify is the extensive Shopify Community. You can leverage it to find the best apps for the job. Users leave reviews and ratings on the Shopify app store, informing the other business owners of the benefits of using a certain app and its shortcomings as well.
Shopify has a wide range of apps or extensions for different functions like managing returns or tracking shipping. You can pick the features that best suit your business needs to build a custom tech stack. It will help you automate some of your processes and support the team.
One of the many benefits of using Shopify is its ease of use. You can set up an account in a few clicks and the platform is highly adaptable. The tech stack you choose should not take away from this experience. Choose a tech stack that is easy to use and quick to install so you can continue having a hassle-free experience on Shopify.
Most of the Shopify apps offer a free trial. As a business owner, you can take advantage of this and make your decisions based on your trial experience. It will help you decide whether the apps you choose meet your requirements and fulfill their purpose. Even for apps that do not offer a free trial, a demo can help you make up your mind.
Your tech stack acts as an extension to Shopify features and hence should have deep integrations with the platform. This enables your team to access customer data or perform order actions without having to toggle between multiple windows and go through a tedious process to perform simple tasks.
Still confused? Don’t worry.
We contacted 20+ customers of Richpanel who use both Shopify as well as Shopify Plus platforms to run their eCommerce businesses that generated between $10M and $100M in annual sales.
But we didn’t stop there! We even interviewed 50+ such businesses using Shopify apps to procure solid, reliable information. As we mentioned earlier, after all the interviews, discussions, and research, we finally curated our listicle.
Here are the best Shopify apps for eCommerce stores with annual sales above $10M:
Shopify offers many features that help enhance the user experience. It is fast, secure, and mobile-friendly- offering a seamless experience on different devices. However, there is room for improvement when it comes to handling customer communications and support functions. With added features like live chat, and a centralized communication hub you can streamline your CS operations.
What’s better? Most of these customer service extensions also double as a customer CRM allowing you to utilize the customer data on your Shopify store to gain insights into your customers and offer personalized support service. Here are the top customer service apps for Shopify:
Why hire more agents when a product can easily help your customers troubleshoot their problems? Richpanel lets you resolve up to 50% of customer support issues without having to involve an agent for every single process. By cutting down the overall customer support costs, Richpanel removes another roadblock, letting you scale up your eCommerce business.
Richpanel is easily one of the best Shopify apps and customer service platforms that you can find on the Shopify app store and that's primarily because of its robust solutions and features:
Review: 5.0 ⭐ (97 Reviews on Shopify Store)
A personalized self-service experience is what modern customers prefer. Gone are the days when self-service meant FAQs and long knowledge-based articles. The self-service software of Richpanel focuses on issue resolution. It helps you pull out the most relevant information and scenarios as per the customer journey stage and order status.
Richpanel also offers you an intuitive help desk ticketing solution that helps bring together customer channels, actions, and eCommerce data under a single dashboard. Save common replies and automate responses, view customer profiles, and track order actions via the internal ticketing system. You can provide an omnichannel messaging experience to your customers, be it through Whatsapp, live chat, Instagram, Facebook, etc., and still handle them all in one place.
Being one of the best live chat software for eCommerce sites, Richpanel helps you proactively support visitors and customers. Personalize interactions by segregating customers and visitors. Collect crucial data accordingly and set reply time expectations aided by task bots.
Integrate Richpanel's intelligent Customer Service Platform with Zendesk. You can offer mobile and web support via Richpanel and simultaneously sync the issues and knowledge base in Richpanel with your Zendesk dashboard. The issues will then be reviewed and processed as Zendesk tickets.
In short, the front end that your customers see is Richpanel’s, meanwhile, the agent console is Zendesk’s.
Related Read: Zendesk Alternatives & Competitors
Tidio is a customer support software that primarily acts as helpdesk support and streamlines customer experience across all channels. It has various features like live chat and chatbots that help the support team answer queries and problems efficiently. Here are some of its key features:
Key features:
Integrate and connect with your business tools using the cloud-based call center software of Aircall. The app lets you integrate with all the popular CRM and helpdesk tools to help in the seamless functioning of the customer support system.
Access the Shopify app from a desktop or a mobile, add numbers from 100+ countries, and draw insightful conclusions from real-time analytics.
Key Features:
Related Read:
For any online store, the returns process can be complex and tedious. However, an exchange request is an opportunity to turn a bad shopping experience into a positive one. A good return app helps manage the returns efficiently, giving you a chance to make a good impression on your customer and increasing brand loyalty. Here are the best return apps for Shopify:
Returnly is a post-purchase payment platform that lets brands facilitate smooth return processes. With such a Shopify app in place, you can enable customers to buy using their return credit even before the original item is shipped back. This process can help increase customer loyalty.
Key Features
Loop returns is a unique exchange-first returns platform that helps eCommerce businesses manage their customer returns. It makes it easier for customers to find the right products and increases a customer’s brand loyalty leading to a higher lifetime value and more referrals. Here are some of its key features:
Key Features
Aftership is a shipment tracking solution that aims to improve the post-purchase experience by adding another level of transparency in the order delivery process. It is
Key Features
Read More: Best Shopify Returns App
Having repeat customers and generating recurring revenue is the only way for an eCommerce business to scale. The fastest way for a business to achieve this is to promote a subscription model is one of the most popular eCommerce business models. It helps promote brand loyalty and generate recurring revenue. Here are some of the most popular subscription apps for Shopify:
Manage your subscription business easily with the help of Recharge, a leading subscription management platform. Grow your subscriber count to an impressive number using the suite of reliable features the Shopify app offers you.
Key Features
Bold is Shopify’s official subscription app. It is Shopify plus certified and helps high-revenue businesses implement their business model. It delivers highly customizable subscription tools for Shopify merchants. Here are some of its features:
Key Features
With increasing competition online, reviews are one of the quickest and most effective ways of promoting trust amongst your customers. A good review system helps your customers to engage with you, and build a better relationship with your brand. It also helps promote sales as it provides credibility to your business:
Amp up your business growth supported by the Shopify app, Yotpo which is a great eCommerce marketing platform. Yotpo provides you with a suite of tools to help you manage customer reviews, visual marketing, loyalty, referral, and SMS marketing. Monitor, control, and place customer content at key conversion points with the AI-powered solutions of Yotpo.
Key Features:
Read More: Manage Yotpo reviews directly from Richpanel
Okendo is a customer marketing platform built exclusively for Shopify users. It allows business owners to manage all kinds of customer-generated content ranging from ratings, and reviews, to questions and comments. Here are some of its salient features:
Key Features
Learn More: Best Shopify Review Apps to Manage Product Reviews
Shopify has basic reporting capabilities and analytics tools which help you monitor different metrics and gain some insights into your customers and business. However, a good sales and marketing app can enhance this functionality by allowing you to run targetted ads and promotion campaigns for your intended audience:
NotifyVisitors offers marketing automation tools such as email marketing app, sms marketing app, pop-ups and many more apps for Shopify stores. These tools allow you to send automated campaigns that can be customized for better branding. Moreover, these tools can be seamlessly integrated to offer an omnichannel experience. By implementing these tools you can attract , engage and retain new and existing customers.
Key Features include:
Attentive is a Shopify app that provides personalized mobile messaging solutions for e-commerce brands. Leverage the patent-pending solutions of the platform to curate and manage a list of mobile subscribers. With this Shopify app, you can send automated messages to each one of your subscribers based on real-time data.
Key Features
Essentially an email marketing platform, Klaviyo delivers personalized experiences across various marketing channels like SMS, in-app notifications, and the web. Klaviyo claims that around 67 brands move to their platform every day. Well, when that's considered Klaviyo is indeed one of the best Shopify apps available.
Key Features:
ReferralCandy helps Shopify and Shopify Plus stores to create and automate customer referral campaigns and attract new customers, increase sales and grow their brand through word of mouth. Provide customers with a personal reward link that they can share with their friends to promote the brand.
Key Features:
Omnisend is a marketing automation tool that lets you build your subscriber list and send emails, text messages, and push notifications, all from a single platform.
Key Features
Growave is a marketing platform that helps businesses reach, engage, and convert their customers. The app offers tools, such as Reviews, Wishlists, Q&A, Loyalty and Referral, Social login, Instagram galleries, etc. The app is multifunctional, making it a great platform for online store conversions and sales. It is as much as six times more cost-effective than any of the alternatives on the market.
Key Features
Whether it is for retail therapy or an everyday necessity, the joy of receiving the message- “Your order has been shipped” is unparalleled. Shipping and tracking apps help improve your post-sales experience and add a level of transparency that promotes customer loyalty:
Shipstation is a shipping software that helps you import, manage, and ship orders. Shipstation is a platform that is particularly suitable for merchants employing multiple selling channels. The Shopify app integrates with more than 150 online marketplaces in order to provide an effortless experience.
Key Features
NetSuite is a unified business and order management suite that is extremely popular for its cloud ERP solutions. Apart from ERP solutions the platform also offers CRM, Human Capital Management, accounting solutions, etc. NetSuite is ideal for small and mid-size businesses and aids them to optimize financial operations, managing customer relationships, and reducing IT costs.
Key Features
QuickBooks Commerce helps you manage inventory and orders for your eCommerce store. It helps you track your inventory across different warehouses and optimize the selling and restocking process. Here are some of its best features:
Key Features:
Read More: How to Choose Best OMS Software for Ecommerce
The most common shopify apps to use are- ecommerce helpdesk, returns management app, CRM software, review management app, and subscription management app.
You can check the source code for the website for snippets, or you can use a third-party plugin to find out what apps a Shopify store is using.
Shopify is a leading eCommerce platform that addresses the majority of problems faced by eCommerce vendors. It has a wide range of extensions that add to Shopify’s functionality and make it highly customizable. You can pick and choose the apps and tools that best suit your business model and utilize them to bring out the best your Shopify store has to offer. With the addition of the right returns, order management, or even sales tools, your Shopify store can scale faster and drive in more revenue.
Building your Tech stack? Book a demo or create free account with Richpanel today!