Shopify is an eCommerce platform that allows its users to fully-customize their online store. There is no need to learn programming languages such as HTML or CSS, the platform allows business owners to have full control of the setup of their store. That means that people can now focus on what’s important which is running the business and making sales!

There are tons of e-commerce stores out there but Shopify is the top choice for sellers due the simplicity of its features. Here’s a few reasons why the platform is such a huge hit with business owners:

• Easy to setup – Shopify is known for their fuss-free setup. The platform even offers documentation and video guides to help users set up their stores. Even the hosting is provided by Shopify itself. All the users need are their products to sell!
• Easy to use – The platform has a simple and intuitive user interface where features are logically structured to ensure ease of usability.
• Secure and reliable – Shopify users doesn’t have to worry about data breaches due to the high-end security protection the platform provides.
• Customer support – Customer support is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with an almost-instant response time. If users run into some issues while setting up their store, the Shopify customer service is always ready to help.
• Mobile friendly – Mobile devices account for 27% of all US retail e-commerce sales by the end of 2018. This means business must tailor their website to cater to this sudden popularity of mobile commerce. All Shopify themes are mobile responsive which means that it works well on all devices.
• App integrations – Sellers can also integrate apps into the platform if they want to add extra features and functions to enhance their store’s value.

Starting and growing your online business have never been this easy. No wonder why Shopify is one of the biggest and most successful eCommerce platforms in the world today!

Top Shopify Apps to Boost Sales

There are over 1,200 apps in the Shopify app store but it’s not easy to filter through them to choose which the best ones for your business are. So, we rounded up the best apps for you to save you the trouble! Here are Top 5 Shopify Apps to Boost Sales for your online business:

• Shopify Live Chat

Customer service is a vital part of large and small businesses alike. When a store visitor has a question about your product, you need to be able to answer their queries in a matter of minutes. In fact, the optimal response time in live chat which is measured from the inquirer’s first message until the first reply of the chat agent is below 10 seconds!

Not responding to queries fast enough can actually make you lose potential customers.

A survey conducted by Drift found out that there’s a 10x decrease in your odds of making contact with a lead after the first five minutes and that increases to 400% decrease if you respond after 10 minutes. In other words, those potential customers are gone forever if you won’t answer their questions under five minutes.

This is why live chat is one of the best practices of high-quality customer service. Why have your customers wait for hours when they can get instant help? Obviously, responding to them quickly leaves a better impression than making them wait around.

The Shopify Live Chat app by Social Intents is FREE app that lets you or anyone from your team answer your customer’s questions immediately allowing for a seamless shopping experience.

• Boost Sales

Upselling is a marketing method where shoppers are persuaded to buy a product of higher value, an ‘upgrade’, compared to their original product of choice. This product has the same purpose but has more features and therefore, has a higher price tag. Cross-selling is another marketing technique where shoppers are offered products that complements the ones that are already inside the cart.

If done right, a seller can get a huge boost in revenue by selling more to the same customer. If you want to maximize your profits, using a combination of both techniques is the way to go.

The Boost Sales is the go-to upsell and cross-sell app in the Shopify platform. When a customer adds an item to their cart, a pop-up will show suggestions of better and complementary options that customers can also choose. The app allows you to manually schedule your upsell and cross-sell bundles and in addition to that, Boost Sales also analyzes the data of your store to automatically recommend products to your customers.

• Better Coupon Box

The Better Coupon is one of the most popular free apps in Shopify for a couple of years now. In fact, over 30,000 stores in the platform uses this app. Better Coupon Box allows users to create popups designed to grow email list. You can offer shop visitors a discount code on their first purchase if they subscribe to your newsletter or if they follow you on your social media accounts. The goal of Better Coupon Box is to convert visitors to email subscribers or social media followers so you can motivate them to purchase your products if ever they end up not buying from you in their initial visit.

Other app features include:

Exit-intent technology

Exit intent pop-ups are triggered when the mouse cursor moves towards closing the window or tab. When buyers begin to take action in leaving your store, a pop-up will appear offering a last-minute discount coupon to encourage them to finish the order. This is a very good last ditch attempt in making people buy your products.

Theme customization

With 20+ pre-built themes, you can customize your pop-up templates to suit your overall brand feel. You can also use CSS code and add your own backgrounds to make them match with your store’s designs.

Show coupon popups to new or existing customers

You can target the right customers by triggering your pop-ups to show on specific pages or to selected customer segments.

• Smile.io

Customer acquisition costs five times than to keep an existing one which is why building customer loyalty should be a top priority by all business owners. As a matter of fact, according to recent studies, 83% of consumers says that loyalty programs make them more likely to continue doing business with certain companies and 49% of consumers agree they spend more after having joined a loyalty program

In the Shopify platform, sellers don’t have to build a loyalty program from scratch because the Smile.io app is free for download in the Shopify App Store. The application is trusted by thousands of stores which boasts an 80% increase of repeat purchases. And with almost 3000 5 star ratings, it is undoubtedly Shopify’s most popular reward app.

You can choose to integrate the free version of the app which has the following features:

• 10+ Ways to Reward
• Points & Referral Programs
• Visual Customizations
• Email Notifications

Alternatively, you can opt for a paid plan which is $50 per month with the following features:

• All Free Features +
• Full Design Customization
• VIP Programs
• Smile Analytics
• Remove Smile.io Branding

Smile.io was formerly known as “Sweet Tooth” and is a program which makes use of a point accumulation system. In 2017, the company underwent rebranding where the app was upgraded from a point based loyalty solution to more of a reward system. Rewarding customers on their purchases ensures them to remain loyal to your business!

• Persistent Cart

It’s a reality that people own and use multiple devices on the daily. Let’s say that someone is shopping on your store using his or her mobile phone. After adding a couple of items in the shopping cart, the user clicks out the do other kids thinking to finish the checkout process later on in the day. After a while, your customer logs into his or her computer only to find that the cart is empty. Your potential customer gives out and you lose a sale.

Persistent Cart is an app that promises to never lose your customer’s shopping carts. The app saves all the items in shopping the cart when a customer logs in. When they log out or access the cart from a different PC, it re-adds those items into their cart.

Persistent Cart is not a free app, but no worries, it’s very inexpensive. For only $3.99/month your customers will never lose their shopping carts ever again!

About the author

Jeroen van Gils is a content writer at Social Intents, a platform with a full suite of tools to grow sales and improve customer service. Social Intents’ most popular apps are its live chat apps, such as Live Chat for Slack and Shopify Live Chat.