In 2024, one of the best ways to ensure that your Shopify store is successful is to utilise apps on the Shopify App Store. Shopify apps have such a big impact and positive influence on store owners that 87% say that they rely on them to run their businesses.

In this guide, you’ll be provided with a comprehensive rundown of the Shopify App Store, its features, and how it can benefit your business. We’ll discuss:

• What is the Shopify App Store?
• How to integrate Shopify apps with your store
• How to effectively navigate the Shopify App Store
• The different types of Shopify apps available for your site 
• How to choose the right Shopify app for your business
• The Top 5 Shopify Apps for 2024

Let’s dive in…

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What is the Shopify App Store?

The Shopify App Store is an ecommerce marketplace that offers a wide variety of apps designed to enhance and extend the functionalities of Shopify stores.

The diverse collection of third-party apps and plugins hosted by the Shopify App Store can be used to customise your website, improve marketing, generate leads, create customer rewards, and increase revenue. 

Whatever goal you want to achieve, there’s a Shopify app that can help. 

These apps empower Shopify merchants to customise and optimise their online storefronts, creating a tailored and seamless shopping experience for customers, whilst also meeting their own, unique business requirements. This is vital if you are looking for the most innovative tools to stay ahead of competitors.

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How many apps are on the Shopify app store?

The Shopify App Store hosts a huge variety of over 8,000 apps for all of the different ways you might want to customise your website. Each of these apps is tried, tested, and reviewed, going through a 100-checkpoint examination before it goes live. 

The amount of choices within the Shopify App Store shows how dedicated the platform is to empowering business owners for success in such a competitive environment. 

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How do apps integrate with my Shopify store?

After selecting and installing an app from the Shopify App Store, the chosen application seamlessly integrates with your store’s existing theme, design, and infrastructure, often through your store’s backend using APIs.

APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) are used to establish a secure and efficient connection with your Shopify store, and are a standardised way for the two systems to interact. They act as the digital bridge that facilitates the smooth flow of information, which allows them to read, write, and modify relevant data about products, customers, orders, inventory, fulfilment, and more. 

Once integrated, apps typically appear within your Shopify dashboard, where you can configure and customise their settings to align with your individual store. This simple process helps you to extend a website’s functionalities without the need for complex coding or technical expertise.

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How do I navigate the Shopify app store?

With thousands of apps available, it could feel overwhelming trying to navigate all of your options on the Shopify App Store.

However, finding your way around the Shopify App Store is actually easier than you think. With its user-friendly navigation system, all you need to do is know where to look, and what to look for. 

All apps are sorted into distinct categories, ranging from Marketing and Sales, to Finance and Customer Support. Simply use the search box (shown above) to search for apps by feature, name, or category. For example, you could search, ‘mobile app builder’. Then, you can use the ‘apps by category’ drop-down menu to find apps by category or goal and more efficiently explore and locate apps tailored to your Shopify store’s needs. 

Once you’re within a chosen category, you can take a deeper look into detailed app listings that provide comprehensive information about each individual app. These listings include feature highlights, pricing details, compatibility information, which will help you to better understand the effectiveness and reliability of an app before integrating it into your site. 

The Shopify App Store has a big commitment to transparency and user feedback, which is evident within its rating and review system. Here, you can assess an app’s overall rating and read detailed reviews from other Shopify merchants who have already used and tested the app. This provides valuable insights into an app’s strengths, and the success it has brought to other Shopify stores, as well as its limitations or issues. 

Additionally, the Shopify App Store offers quick and easy access to support and contact information, which gives reassurance of excellent customer service and a great user experience. Each app listing includes details on how you can reach out to the app’s developers for assistance, such as through live chat, an external support portal, or another method.

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What are the different types of apps available for my Shopify store?

UGC & Reviews

Reviews and user-generated content (UGC) Shopify apps are great for helping you to manage and showcase customer reviews and user-generated content across your website.

92% of consumers hesitate to buy from a website when customer reviews aren’t available. So integrating social proof, reviews, and UGC Shopify apps can have a significant impact on your sales. 

These tools offer features that facilitate the collection, organisation, and display of customer reviews, testimonials, and UGC, which builds trust and credibility with customers by showcasing positive customer experiences. 

UGC and review-based Shopify apps often come with customisable display options, so that content can be showcased in various formats, such as star ratings, written testimonials, and even photos and videos that have been uploaded by happy customers. Many review and UGC apps also include moderation tools to filter and manage content, ensuring that the displayed reviews align with your brand image. 

By incorporating these apps, you’ll not only boost engagement, but also build a community around your products and services, creating a dynamic and trustworthy online shopping environment. 

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Customer Support & Service

Customer support and service-based Shopify apps are used to streamline and enhance various aspects of an online store’s customer support, ranging from communication and query resolution, to order tracking and feedback collection. They often have features such as live chat functionalities, automated responses, and ticketing systems, providing customers with instant assistance. 

Utilising these tools allows you, as a Shopify store owner, to create a positive and responsive environment, contributing to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty. In fact, 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a brand that provides a great customer experience (CX). So not only will you be improving your CX, but also boosting sales. 

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Marketing & SEO

Shopify apps centred around marketing and SEO are great when it comes to helping Shopify merchants to amplify their online presence and drive targeted traffic to their store. These apps are designed to enhance a brand’s marketing strategy by offering a single location to find tools for design, email marketing campaigns, social media promotion, and more. 

For SEO, these apps provide features for optimising product listings, meta tags, for example, as well as tracking tools to improve the store’s visibility on search engines. Many also offer insights into keyword performance and site analytics to refine and tailor a store’s SEO strategy. 

This way, you can create and execute targeted marketing initiatives seamlessly, meaning you can effectively reach their target audience, improve brand visibility, and ultimately boost sales. 

Learn about more ways to improve your Shopify store’s marketing and SEO here.

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Dropshipping

Using a dropshipping app alongside a Shopify store provides you with a hassle-free approach to managing inventory and fulfilment. They enable Shopify merchants to establish partnerships with third-party suppliers, allowing them to sell products without physically handling or storing inventory. When integrated into a Shopify store, dropshipping apps typically offer features such as automated order processing, inventory updates, and streamlined communication with suppliers. 

How it works is that you can easily select products from the supplier’s catalogue, set their own prices, and market them to customers. When a sale happens, the order is then automatically forwarded to the supplier, who handles packaging and shipping directly to the end customer. 

This minimises upfront costs and logistical challenges, empowering business owners, like you, to focus on marketing and customer engagement, while the backend processes are efficiently managed through an app integration. 

Want to learn more about dropshipping? Discover our article, What is Shopify Dropshipping and How Does it Work?

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Web Design & Page Optimisation

Website design and page optimisation apps are tools that can be used by those who are looking to create visually appealing, user-friendly, and high-performing online storefronts.

Web design isn’t just about making your online store look good - it’s about creating sites that are easy to navigate. These apps are tailored to enhance the design aesthetics and optimise the functionality of a website by offering a variety of customisable templates, layout options, and design options. You can optimise product pages, collections, and checkout processes to ensure a consistent and engaging shopping journey for customers. 

This is a key consideration for your website strategy in 2024, as 42% of shoppers will leave a website due to poor functionality.

Website design and page optimisation-based applications also often include features for improving page load speed, mobile responsiveness, and overall user experience. 53% of customers will abandon if a page doesn't load quick enough.

The intuitive nature of website design and page optimisation-based Shopify apps means that you can make impactful and effective design changes without the need for extensive coding or technical expertise, which will also save on time and cost. 

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Upselling

There are many upselling-based apps on the Shopify App Store which have been made to help you to maximise revenue by encouraging your customers to purchase additional or upgraded products. 

Upselling apps are designed to strategically suggest complementary items, add-ons, or higher-tier options to customers during the shopping process. They can also analyse customer behaviour, order history, and preferences to make personalised product recommendations. 

Through engaging pop-ups, product bundles, or strategically placed suggestions on product pages and the checkout process, these apps prompt customers to consider additional purchases. 

Some upselling apps also use techniques such as limited-time offers or discounts to incentivise buyers to enhance their shopping cart value, which can significantly increase average order values (AOV) and overall revenue.

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Order Inventory & Management

Order inventory and management-based apps are great tools for store owners who are looking for ways to efficiently organise, track, and fulfil customer orders. They work by streamlining the complex process of managing inventory levels, ensuring that products are in stock and readily available for purchase. 

These applications offer features such as inventory tracking, order processing automation, and centralised management of product listings, which means that you can also easily monitor stock levels, receive notifications for low inventory, and set up reorder alerts to avoid stock outs. 

Many order inventory and management Shopify apps often facilitate order fulfilment by generating packing slips, tracking shipping statuses, and providing information into past order histories. This level of automation not only reduces the risk of errors, but also frees up time for you to spend more time focusing on other aspects of your business. 

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How to choose the right apps for your Shopify store

Consider your needs and goals

When selecting apps for your Shopify store in 2024, it’s important to align your choices with your specific business goals and needs. Are you trying to increase sales? Improve customer engagement? Streamline operations? Improve your marketing efforts? 

You can focus your search for the best app for your Shopify store when you’re clear on what you need help accomplishing. 

Take some time to analyse the current state and operations of your website, identifying areas where an app could enhance your Shopify store, productivity, or elevate the shopping experience.

By effectively assessing your site’s needs and goals, you can make more impactful and strategic choices when selecting from the Shopify App Store. This also ensures that your chosen apps align with your adjectives, leading to better, more tailored solutions for your business.

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Research the app

When researching the effectiveness and credibility of a Shopify store, there are 2 main areas to look into:

‍Reviews & Ratings - Make sure to read the feedback from other Shopify merchants who have had experience with an app. Reviews and ratings will help you to understand the app’s efficiency, reliability, and user-friendliness. 

Pay special attention to reviews from users who have similar business needs to you. Their experiences can offer the best look into how well an app caters to the specific requirements similar to your own. 

‍Changelog -  Checking an app’s changelog before integrating it with your Shopify store is vital because it reveals the frequency of updates. Regular updates show there’s an active development team committed to fixing issues, adding new features, and ensuring compatibility with the latest Shopify versions. 

This gives you the peace of mind that a Shopify app remains reliable, secure, and up-to-date, which will contribute to a smoother, more successful integration process for your store. 

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Get to know the developer

Like most things, a developer’s track record speaks volumes about the app’s reliability and performance. By getting to know an app developer’s reputation and support, you can better gauge the level of customer satisfaction and identify any potential issues. 

It’s also important to understand the support offered by the developer in case problems arise post-integration. Do they provide a knowledge or help support base? Do they clearly show how to get in touch when an issue is found? Do they offer a 24/7 support chatbot? A responsive and helpful support system means that any issues can be quickly resolved, minimising any potential downtime for your Shopify store. 

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Use demo & free trial options

Utilising the demo and free trial options will allow you to test and evaluate an app before you make a purchase or start a subscription. The demo allows you to explore the app's interface, features, and functionalities without spending any money on it.

A free trial goes a step further, as you can test the app’s performance within your specific store.This trial period is invaluable in helping Shopify store owners to see whether or not the app seamlessly integrates with existing processes and further enhances the workflow.

Be sure to closely evaluate an app and all of its features during the trial period, and don’t hesitate to reach out to the developers if you need guidance or have any queries. This will significantly limit the risk of investing in an app that may not meet your expectations or business requirements.

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Top 5 Shopify Apps for 2024

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1 - StoreLab

‍79% of traffic to Shopify stores comes from a mobile device, and mobile apps convert 3x better than mobile websites. By creating a mobile app for your Shopify store, you’re generating a whole lot more sales. 

StoreLab is an intuitive, Shopify mobile app builder that allows you to launch a mobile app for your store in as little as 2 weeks, giving you the same power as some of the biggest brands.

The benefit of a Shopify mobile app builder like StoreLab is that you can supercharge your mobile sales whilst also easily converting, retaining, and communicating with your customers.

Key features:

- Maximise your Shopify store’s revenue with abandoned cart notifications. 70% of Shopify sales are lost to abandoned carts, but automatic push notifications can solve that, re-engaging customers to get them to convert. Included completely free no matter your plan.

- Improve your customer experience by creating a high-converting Shopify mobile app for your store. Design your mobile app exactly how you want it, no coding needed - or let StoreLab do it for you. StoreLab’s mobile experts can manage your entire app process, building the perfect mobile experience for your customers.

- StoreLab provides instant updates, meaning that you can make edits to your Shopify mobile app whenever you want and see the changes straight away. You can also use the handy preview feature to check that your design is perfect before making it live.

- We know how much your business means to you, so we offer expert support to guide you through your Shopify mobile app journey. Our 5-star customer service team is always on hand to make sure you and your customers have the best possible experience. StoreLab also provides you with access to a range of articles, downloads, and videos to support your Shopify results, with more content published all the time.

Here at StoreLab, we believe that mobile apps should be accessible to businesses of all sizes, not just the biggest. This is why our product/service is paywall-free, which means that we’ll never make you pay extra for product features, push notifications, or integrations - no matter your plan.

To learn more about how you can turn your Shopify store into a mobile app, check out our guide. Alternatively, you can try our app for free, or talk to a member of our team for more information.

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2 - Recharge

As a Shopify business, you may be looking for ways to maximise your lifetime value (LTV), but with so many different tools circulating, it’s tough to know how to improve, as well as what works best for your unique brand.

ReCharge is a Shopify app that allows you to build seamless shopping journeys, helping you to understand, grow, and retain your customer base whilst increasing LTV.

It gives you a suite of retention and growth tools to boost average order value, minimise churn, and encourage customers to come back again and again. These tools include:

• Subscriptions; to grow and scale your recurring revenue stream
• Loyalty programs; so that you can provide exclusive rewards, benefits, and experiences for your customers.
• Bundles; where you can sell curated product bundles or let shoppers customise their own.
• Flows; aimed at personalising customer journey and solving key scenarios, such as customer retention rates.

The benefit of having all of these programs located on one platform is that you can easily check what’s moving the needle for your business, allowing you to focus on exactly what works best for your customers. This way, you’ll have all the information you need to effectively optimise your offerings, and provide the best experience for your customers.

Key features: 

• Unified data & insights. ReCharge allows you to look at all of your website’s data as a whole, so you can quickly identify your most valuable customers, offers, programs, and incentives. This means that you can use the features to more effectively assess the health of your business and identify successful ways to drive sales and LTV.

• Built-in testing and optimisation. Not only does ReCharge give you insights into what you need to do, it also provides tools to help you to do so. This way, you’ll have both the ability and resources to create segmented and personalised shopper journeys based on your subscriber and customer data.

Designed to maximise the value of your customers, ReCharge is a very effective and highly rated subscription management solution that helps brands turn one-off purchases into repeat business.

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3 - AfterShip

A customer’s post-purchase experience is just as important as their onsite journey. In fact, a recent study proved that excellent, hassle-free return policies can bring back 96% of buyers, turning them into repeat and loyal customers.

AfterShip is one of the leading Shopify apps featuring an amazing customer support tool that simplifies order tracking and automated shipping notifications for both you and those shopping on your site. 

The app adds an easy-to-use returns portal directly to your online store, providing a place for customers to place or log returns or exchanges without too much fuss. AfterShip also gives you a returns management platform where you can both track and manage all of your returns in one place.

‍Key features:

- The expert shipping management platform automatically facilitates fulfilment, reduces costs, and simplifies management for all of your carriers. This means that all of your prepaid shipping instructions that need to be included with your orders are automatically generated.

- AfterShip’s shipment tracking software enables proactive and automated delivery updates and notifications so that your customers can stay up-to-date throughout the delivery process. 

 - The app supports three types of payment resolutions to fit your customers’ different needs and preferences. These include refunds, store credit/gift cards, and exchanges.

Sparking loyalty and engagement with your customers after their purchase is an effective way to increase your customer retention rates and keep them coming back to make more sales in the future.

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4 - Yotpo

As an app integration for your Shopify store, Yotpo provides all of the essential building blocks to create ‘customers for life’ all in one place. This includes reviews, SMS, email, loyalty, referrals, subscriptions and more.

All of these unified, data-driven solutions can help your brand consistently deliver the best customer experience possible to drive growth and retention.

Key features:

- With the majority of consumers shopping on mobile, it’s important to utilise SMS. Yotpo’s SMSBump allows you to craft targeted SMS campaigns that start driving sales in just a few clicks and create your highest revenue channel with personalised text messages that convert.

- Built for Shopify, Yotpo has an intuitive subscription management solution that makes it easy for ecommerce brands to grow recurring revenue and increase lifetime value by adding a subscription offering.

- Use one of the industry’s smartest review solutions to generate authentic reviews that make a difference and display them where they’re most impactful to your website visitors.

- Build customised loyalty and referral programs to engage existing customers and reach new ones. This way, you can reward your most loyal customers with membership benefits and perks. 

Yotpo puts all your retention solutions on one platform, so you can create seamless post-purchase journeys tailored to each customer and track performance. This allows you to see what drives your retention forward, and take action to optimise.

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5 - Gorgias

The best Shopify merchants grow through exceptional customer service, and Gorgias is the ecommerce desk that’s aimed at turning your customer service into a profit centre.

Whether you’re interacting with your customers through email, social media, live chat, SMS, or Whatsapp, Gorgias can empower your support teams to answer customer questions in minutes, not days.

You also have the opportunity to give visitors a personalised shopping experience, no matter the time, or where in the world they’re located.

Key features:

- Centralise all your support tickets in one place so that you can have all of your customer’s data displayed when talking to them. This means that you can edit orders, modify subscriptions, and refund payments without having to leave your helpdesk.

- Unlock sales from support via live chat, text, and social media. Customers won’t always be on your website, so this feature allows you to track all sales generated by support agents over text messages, social media answers, and live chat conversations on your website.

- Automate repetitive tasks to spend more time where it counts. From automating tasks like cutting and pasting commonly asked questions, to fully automating and closing out tickets, Gorgias software means that your support team will spend less time looking busy, and more time talking to customers.

The goal of Gorgias’ customer service platform is to increase your Shopify stores’ conversion rate by turning visitors into shoppers through an unmatched customer experience.

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Want to discover more of the top Shopify apps for 2024? We’ve created a guide that will talk you through 21 of the top Shopify apps that will benefit your online store and drive sales, from mobile app and ecommerce page builders, to marketing and automation apps. You can find it here.

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