Leveraging Shopify apps to supercharge sales
If you run an online store, your top priority is always to win more sales. After all, a successful website is a profitable website, and vice versa.
If the orders are pouring in, that’s a key indicator that you’re doing something right, but if business is slow, your store may not yet be optimised for conversions. No matter what stage you’re at, there’s always room for improvement, and it’s important to continually seek out new ways to optimise your Shopify store’s performance and drive growth.
Fortunately, if you’ve built your store using Shopify, the platform has plenty of tools available to help you. One of the greatest advantages of Shopify is its extensive app store, which is packed with thousands of apps designed to supercharge your store’s performance. When integrated with your store, these apps can help you to start winning more sales.
In this article, we’ll explore what kind of website features can help you win more sales and reveal the top Shopify sales apps for maximising your store’s success.
What sort of website features can help to boost sales?
To start winning more sales, you need to put yourself in the shoes of your website visitors. What do they require to feel confident buying from your store? First, you need a great product to attract their attention. Next, you need to gain their trust. And finally, you need to make it straightforward for them to complete the purchase.
It’s clear that your website’s user experience (UX) is key to its success, so it’s worth spending time refining it and ensuring that it is optimised to encourage conversions.
Key website features for improving conversions include:
- Clear CTAs
- Fast-loading pages
- Mobile responsive design
- Intuitive navigation and menus
- High-quality product images and descriptions
- Fast checkout process
- Live chat
- Personalisation
- Trust signals
Improving conversion rates is an ongoing process that requires continual optimisation and the adoption of new tools as they become available. Once you’ve got the basics covered, it’s time to introduce some more advanced features to your store.
What are the top five Shopify apps known for boosting sales?
If you want to add new features to your Shopify store to boost conversion rates, the Shopify app store should be your first port of call. There are thousands of apps to choose from; the possibilities are endless. To help you get started, our team of Shopify specialists here at Create8 has selected the top five apps that we believe are the most effective for increasing sales.
Back in Stock: Restock Alerts
When items go out of stock, it is easy to lose sales to competitors without the right features in place. By sending interested customers an email or SMS notification when out-of-stock items are back in stock, you can re-engage visitors, enhance the user experience, boost customer satisfaction, and win back sales that may otherwise have been lost. Including a message like ‘limited quantities available’ within the communication can help to create a sense of urgency and fear of missing out (FOMO), encouraging customers to make fast purchase decisions.
The Back in Stock app for Shopify helps businesses stop losing sales when products sell out by replacing their store’s ‘out-of-stock’ button with a ‘restock notification’ button. This allows them to send interested customers automatic back-in-stock notifications via email, text, and push notifications. The ‘Notify Me’ button can be set up in just minutes and customised to complement your store’s design. The app also helps you grow your email list and sync new contacts to email marketing tools like Klaviyo and Mailchimp.
Yotpo Reviews
No matter how passionately you promote your business, your audience still wants to hear it from their peers before they’re fully convinced. By collecting and displaying customer reviews, you provide visitors with the reassurance they need to make a purchase. Social proof, like customer reviews, can massively enhance your brand’s credibility, positively influence brand perception, and ultimately drive sales and business growth.
The Yotpo Reviews app can be used to collect and display user-generated content, such as ratings and reviews, on your Shopify store. It also enables you to showcase your reviews on various social media platforms and within Google search results to enhance your store’s visibility and credibility. The reviews widget is quick and easy to set up and customise, and Yotpo offers a range of integrations to help you seamlessly connect your reviews with your brand’s SMS, loyalty, and subscription services, helping you to leverage social proof across the whole user experience.
Yotpo Loyalty & Rewards
Loyalty programs encourage customers to collect points for various actions, like making a purchase, and then redeem these points for rewards like discounts, freebies, exclusive access, and free shipping. Rewarding loyal customers helps businesses grow a loyal customer base, making customers feel more engaged, valued, and satisfied with their experience. It’s well known that retaining existing customers is far more cost-effective than acquiring new ones. Returning customers already know and trust your business, making them easier to convince to buy again – they are also more likely to spend more. So, nurturing your existing customer base is a smart strategy for sustainable growth.
The Yotpo Loyalty and Referrals app makes it quick and simple for brands to set up a customised loyalty and referral program to boost customer retention and build brand loyalty. No coding is required as the app offers more than 20 pre-built campaigns that enable customers to earn and redeem points in your store. With Yotpo, you can offer customers a diverse range of rewards and create a tiered program based on points, spending, purchases, or referrals. The app also provides access to analytics and key performance metrics like ROI, AOV, and LTV, helping you to learn more about customer behaviour so you can make more informed business decisions.
UFE Cross Sell and Upsell Bundle
Shopify apps for upselling and Shopify apps for cross-selling are used to increase average order value by offering customers personalised product recommendations—either for complimentary products or higher-value versions. They’re a cost-effective way to increase sales by maximising average order value while also enhancing the customer experience by introducing them to products that meet their needs or add value to their purchase.
The UFE Cross Sell and Upsell Bundle app helps brands offer website visitors personalised recommendations within the product purchase flow, boosting customer satisfaction and increasing sales. It offers customers discounted upsells, upsell bundles, and volume discounts and recommends frequently bought-together products. One-click upsell promotions are available in popups, in-page displays, and floating styles, allowing you to choose the best option for your store. Fully customisable designs and A/B testing enable you to optimise your promotions to achieve the best results.
Klaviyo
As we’ve already learnt, retaining customers is a far more cost-effective strategy than acquiring new ones. Therefore, you must take the time to nurture these relationships and engage your customer base with personalised SMS and email marketing. Sending email and SMS communications can enhance the customer experience and increase customer retention rates by encouraging re-engagement. Email and SMS can be used for all sorts of campaigns and communications, including promoting special offers and discounts, sharing relevant content and product recommendations, promoting loyalty programs, and more. Segmenting your email or SMS list and sending personalised messages can make customers feel valued, increase the chances of them engaging, and foster loyalty.
Need help creating a more sophisticated email marketing strategy? Klaviyo can help your brand create and send highly targeted and personalised emails and texts to drive sales and engage your audience. With over 350 integrations, Klaviyo can connect seamlessly with customers across all of your channels. The app features built-in AI tools, email templates, and peer benchmarks. It will also help you to utilise data from Shopify and other sources to create audience segments and communication triggers to boost the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.
How can these apps be integrated into an existing Shopify store?
The beauty of Shopify lies in its simplicity. The apps we’ve discussed in this article enable store owners to integrate advanced conversion rate optimisation features into their stores with ease. Shopify app integration is a relatively straightforward process.
First, you need to visit the Shopify App Store and search for the app you wish to install. Once you’ve found the app, make sure you’re logged into Shopify and click the ‘Add App’ button. The app will then be installed on your profile and will appear on your Shopify dashboard. You may be asked to grant app-specific permissions during the installation process. Once it’s been installed, open the app from your Shopify admin panel and begin the setup. The app will walk you through the process of setting up and customising its features and design. Before you put the app live on your store, make sure that you test the integration and all of its features thoroughly to ensure it is set up correctly.
How frequently should these apps be updated to ensure optimal performance?
Shopify app developers tend to release regular updates to keep their apps working optimally. These updates can include feature enhancements, bug fixes, security updates, and improvements to compatibility. To keep your apps working as they should, it’s important to install these updates as soon as they become available.
If possible, set your apps to update automatically, then there’s no need to worry about remembering to check for updates. For apps that don’t update automatically, you’ll need to get into the habit of checking the ‘Apps’ section of your Shopify admin panel to look for updates. Once a month should be regular enough.
Partner with Create8 to start winning more Shopify sales
Is your Shopify store optimised for sales? Integrating Shopify apps like Klaviyo and Yotpo Reviews is a simple and effective way to implement advanced features to engage your audience and boost sales.
Whether you need help setting up and customising any of the apps in this blog or require assistance with more advanced Shopify web design and UX changes to boost sales, get in touch with Create8. As a Shopify partner, we have a team of specialists ready to help you maximise your store’s potential and start converting more of your visitors into loyal customers.
Contact us today to learn more about our work and discuss your project with our team.