Today, we will be diving into the must-have apps/plugins when building your next Shopify website.
Shopify provides the basic platform, however, you do need a few apps/plugins to complete the website development plan. Otherwise, you will not be able to optimise your customer journey.
I can go on and on about the apps that you need. But due to time constraints, I am going to keep it short and sweet and go through the following 3 must-have app categories briefly; operational apps, accounting apps and marketing apps.
Don’t fret I will create more videos on other apps in the future as well so make sure you subscribe to the iBusinessFormula Youtube channel and also like our Facebook and LinkedIn page so you can be one of the first ones to see all of our content
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Must-Have Apps
Operational apps
- Shipping – If you are running an eCommerce store and selling physical products, you will need to ship your products to your customers, right? Since I am in Australia, I will mention the following 2 apps that you will need without a doubt. For domestic and in some cases for international shipping, you will need to provide customers with how much the shipping will cost before they make their commitment to purchase your product. Since Australia Post is the most used solution provider, I will be talking about the Australia Post app in this video. This application allows you to show Australia Post calculated shipping rates on your shop’s checkout page.
- Bonus tip #1 – Sign up for a Business account with Australia Post. When your volume grows, you will start seeing your shipping cost reduce if you have a business plan and you also might get a dedicated account manager.
- Bonus Tip #2 – It’s always a good idea to offer free shipping to your customers. These days, customers pretty much expect to NOT pay for shipping so you will need to incorporate the shipping cost in your margin. Statistics show that 65% of eCommerce customers will not move ahead with a purchase when they see a shipping cost.
- Similarly, if you are looking to send your products worldwide, you will need to use the DHL app, it does the same thing as Australia post but for oversea customers.
- Bonus tip #3 – Sign up with DHL for a business account. You will end up saving shipping costs when your volume grows.
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Accounting Apps
- You will find a few costs coming out of your Shopify store when you run your business. For that reason, you will need accounting software to help keep things in order. We highly recommend the A2X for Quickbooks and Xero Sync app.
Marketing Apps
- You want to make sure you run some clever marketing campaigns to give your eCommerce business the best possible chance to succeed. There is no doubt, having a strong email marketing capability will definitely help boost your revenue and bring your customers back over and over again.
- MailChimp is one of the most popular email marketing platforms. To make sure you build up your email database, connect your Shopify store to your MailChimp account so that every new transaction will capture the customers’ email addresses.
- To connect MailChimp to your Shopify store, you will need a 3rd party app since MailChimp and Shopify no longer synchronize natively post February 2020. Here is the Shop Sync App that most of our eCommerce clients are using.
- A free plugin: At iBusinessFormula, we have a strong capability to build up your email database. Our email marketing strategy can help build up a massive database of the hyperactive and related customer base. Book a session with my team if you want to find out more about how we can help you by clicking the book a strategy meeting in the video caption or by commenting below.
- Instagram Feed Capability
- Instagram is huge these days and most businesses are very active on Instagram. Want your daily posts to appear live on your website? Check out this Instagram Slider Feed app.
- Discounts and Promotions
- Get new customers and retain existing customers by running regular discounts and promotions. Look no further than the Bulk Discount and Price Editor app.
If you need help setting any of these apps up my team is here to help! Book in a 30 minute free strategy session by clicking the link below. All of the app links have been hyperlinked above so make sure you check them out to find out more information; I have also gone into the finer details of each app in the video provided above.
We hope you found this information useful.
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