Learn how these free Shopify apps can help you get more sales and customers.

I spend some time every week in the Shopify forums to get a feel for what new shop owners are having trouble with and to see if I can help. If you feel like you need more sales (or your first sale!) you are not alone.

One question that is constantly recurring goes something like this:

“I’m getting traffic to my Shopify store, but no one is buying / I need more sales!”

Of course there is a lot to consider when it comes to setting up your Shopify store like solid SEO, properly named and tagged images, solid design and great product names. We’ll save those topics for another time – this post is all about turning that first run of visitors to your site into paying customers.

Let’s assume you emailed all your friends and family, maybe you got a great citation from a news outlet or influential blogger of social media persona, or you just cracked open your wallet and are paying for Facebook ads or Google Adwords. In any case we’ll assume for this one that you have visitors to your site already and are having trouble converting them in to customers.

Here are 7 Shopify Apps to help you get more sales

I tried to stick to free options, but if there is only a free trial I have noted it. Here we go!

First, let’s tackle one that falls under UX.

Does your site work well on mobile?

1. Sticky Add to Cart on Mobile

It should be understood by now that your Mobile experience must be at least as functional as your Desktop experience because of the sheer volume of visitors on mobile.

In years past shops often had a completely separate mobile version of the site, but since Google recommended “responsive” design as best for SEO, most everyone has gone that direction.

Which is great in theory – but in practice it can mean there is a lot of scrolling through elements on mobile to accomplish what you want to. I mean A LOT of scrolling.

Any time you can make a site visitor’s life easier on mobile you are dramatically increasing the probability of them making a purchase.

Enter the sticky buy button!

Link

This app (Starts free – up to 39.99 a month) makes it super easy for mobile visitors to add your products to their cart. Cuts the need for extra scrolling down by 356%*. If you have any doubts about your mobile UX, this is a must-have.

*Statistic completely made up

This first app addresses a common issue and should help with the user experience for mobile users. But what if you sell a high price item? Something that is more of an investment generally takes site visitors longer to purchase.

Whether your item is high priced or not, some studies suggest that it takes people  more than 7 touches with your brand before they feel confident enough to become a customer.

Which is where the next couple apps come in.

2. Klaviyo for email marketing

Klaviyo (highly recommended) : https://apps.shopify.com/klaviyo-email-marketing

Free for up to 250 contacts, so it’s great when you are just starting out.

NOTE: you need to be using Klaviyo as your email client (won’t work with Mailchimp for example)

You can read the documentation for a full understanding of what this actually does, but here is a quote from the app page : “Turn on built-in flows Klaviyo has abandoned cart emails; welcome series; and order follow-ups pre-built into the platform. All you need to do is turn them on – and start driving more sales right away.”

That says a lot! And if you want to know what other store owners are saying, here are a couple reviews:

This! If you are looking for an app for automating your emails, then this is the one. So easy to use and understand and the support is great. Just remember to turn the emails on to live instead of manual to send them automatically.

 

Simply put Klaviyo blows Mailchimp back to the stone ages. The email flows are brilliant. It took me minutes to set up 5-6 automated flows so that depending on what a customer or potential customer does on the site, they get sent to a different flow. It’s only been 2 weeks but we’ve already recouped the monthly cost with ease. I read some reviews saying that the editing function was difficult to use but I didn’t find that at all. In fact, it was super simple and allowed me to control all aspects of design (unlike Mailchimp) so no funky spacing issues.

There you go. You can use their tools to tightly integrate your users into “segments” so you can market to them appropriately.

What if you don’t have much of a list to market to yet? Well, considering that you already have traffic, let’s get them on a list with the next tool…

3. Sumo

Sumo (must have!): https://apps.shopify.com/sumome

Generally speaking, an average e-commerce conversion rate we often see is around 2% – that means that a whopping 98% of site visitors don’t convert. Rather than just let them walk away and forget about you, give them a reason to remember you! Sumo makes it easy.

The video is only 1 minute long, it says more than I can cram into this description so watch it! Easy to use, powerful, tested, and popular. Sumo is a no-brainer to build your list.

In case you don’t know who they are, the short sell on SUMO is this: they give you easy to use tools that will help you to build your email list – and an email list is like gold. It’s much easier to sell to someone who has explicitly indicated they are interested in you and your products than someone cold. And your list is the first step to building trust with your future customers.

4. Shipping Bar

Up next we have a simple and free app that helps to draw attention to a promotion.

Sometimes customers need a little incentive to make that first purchase. Offer them 10% off, or an addon, or even use the bar to promote your newsletter. Check it out.

Shipping Bar (hard to believe this one’s free! Great value) : https://apps.shopify.com/free-shipping-bar

5. Upsell

An often overlooked way to grow the bottom line is to offer an “upsell”. Have you ever heard “you want fries with that”? Then you’ve seen the simple power of an upsell.

Once a potential buyer has said “yes” they are usually more willing to say “yes” again, especially if the product is tightly related to what they have already agreed to buy.

Here are two apps that offer this functionality.

Upsell : https://apps.shopify.com/smar7-bundle-upsell (free trial, then Paid)

Alternative with a truly free version :

In Cart Upsell : https://apps.shopify.com/in-cart-upsell

6. Reviews

Another powerful motivator for purchase is that “other people” are buying.

Have you ever walked by a new place that just opened a couple weeks ago and you see no one inside? Makes you wonder “hmmmm what’s wrong with this place?”

On the other hand, ever go by a new place and the line is wrapped around the building? What goes through your mind then is probably more like this: “Wow, I can’t wait to try it!”

The question then, is how can we replicate that feeling with your Shopify store? Easy, UGC.

What is UGC you ask? It stands for User Generated Content. That includes star ratings, reviews, comments etc. Here is an app that handles all of it – and it starts out free: https://apps.shopify.com/yotpo-social-reviews

Try it out, and see what that “busy store” feeling can do for your sales.

7. Product Recommendations

And finally, one more app to try out once you get some purchases under your belt.

Customized suggestions : https://apps.shopify.com/product-recommendation

This is another great one to help buyers navigate your site while at the same time assuring them other customers are buying and loving your products.

Just how powerful are personalized recommendations? Is anyone else doing this? Let’s put it into perspective…

Amazon.com, hands down the worlds de-facto e-commerce retailer, dedicates as much as 70% of it’s home page to personalization.  Let that sink in. The site that has turned selling stuff online into a $1,084 per second  enterprise ( source ) has used it’s mountains of experience (in business since 1994) to give huge priority to personalization.

And just think – you now have that power at your fingertips! You should definitely consider using it once you have a few sales.

Bonus Apps!

Ok, so those are the 7 free “must try” Shopify apps. But I can’t stop there! I know what happens after that first rush of traffic fades. Due to any number factors stores usually need help to keep the traffic flowing in.

With my background being in development and SEO I have to tell you about a couple apps to help boost your sites ability to show up in search..

SEO (MUST HAVE!): https://apps.shopify.com/plug-in-seo
Image optimizer (Secret Weapon!): https://apps.shopify.com/seo-image-optimizer

There you go! My top 7 recommendations for new Shopify stores in 2018 to get more sales. If you enjoyed this article and think it would help someone you know, use the social share thingy over there and share it with your peeps. Your followers will be amazed by your wealth of knowledge!