4.1 Bonus 1 - Getting Support (7:49)

Shopify has a lot of great documentation, videos, and experts set up to help. But it can be a little confusing as to where to go for what. In this short video, I explain the key areas I use frequently, to find quick answers to questions and to get support.

 

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4.2 Bonus: Curated List of the Best Shopify Apps

I'm often asked: Which Shopify Apps are MUST-HAVEs? Which ones should I DEFINITELY install? My answer is: none.  

I only recommend installing apps when you actually need them.  I'd suggest not to go looking for apps until you have a need for that specific app... otherwise it can be overwhelming, it can be done 'in a rush', and you can end up with a large bill too.

With that said, of course, Shopify Apps can massively increase the functionality of your store, help you make more sales, improve conversions, save time, and run your store.  With that said, here are the apps I use on my own stores (and recommend to my clients) on a regular basis.

Feel free to search the app store for alternatives if you don't find these suitable for some reason; but my goal here is to cut out the noise. I've tested hundreds and hundreds of apps, to try and find the best 1-2 apps for each purpose. I hope these help save you time and get to the 'best of the best' more quickly. 

Some notes:

1. Apps marked with "Plus" are for Shopify Plus only.  This is Shopify's enterprise plan. If you're not on Plus, you can just skip over them. 
2. I've tried to mark any free apps with "Free" below. I'll avoid listing prices, since they can change over time; but you can assume that anything marked "Free" below has a zero-cost option, whereas those that don't have that, are paid apps.
3. In general, I actually prefer paying for apps (rather than free ones).  Why? You get what you pay for, and free apps don't make money for the app developer, so they're not very incentivised to provide the best support. As such, I look for a handful of simple free apps on my store, along with a few more powerful paid apps. 
4. Lastly, try to look at apps as an investment.  If it costs you $20 per month.. will you make your money back, and more? Chances are, if you make one sale, it'll be worth your while to pay for the app.  I'm not suggesting you install paid apps willy-nilly - that wouldn't make sense - but the question should be, will this app pay for itself?, not just 'is this app free or paid?'.

With that, here goes!

Increase Sales

In Cart Upsell - allows you to easily insert upsells into your cart based on certain criteria. 

Upsell X - simple upsells and cross-sells, with options to show a popup when adding to cart or checking out. I like how simple it is. 

Cartroids - Another good option for upsells, with a simple interface. A good option to create simple upsells quickly, and the app is very attractive and easy to use.

Magic Zoom Plus - the best solution I've found for adding 'zoom' to product images. Works great on mobile and has a range of options. And I like their one-off fee rather than monthly. Great support. Use this on all my stores. 

Smart Wishlist - I like this Wishlist App. It has a range of options and loads fast. I also like how it allows customers to create a wishlist without creating an account, and the app is very well-priced. 

JudgeMe Reviews - LOVE this app for reviews.  They offer a free version and a cheap premium version.  Even the free version is fantastic.  Incredible support as well.  Best review app in my opinion. 

Shopify Scripts (Plus) - create huge flexibilty for upsells, promotions, bundles and conversions. 

Improve Conversions

Size matters (free) - create size charts with a neat little button to be placed on product pages. You can create various size charts and link them up by tag - e.g. one size chart for T-Shirts, one size chart for dresses, and so-on.  Neat, and free. 

Live Search - Add predictive search that works well. Support is good, and it's very well-priced too.

Lucky Orange - Allows you to record what users do on your website, then view them as videos. Freaky!  You can learn a LOT about your visitors by watching even 30 minutes per week.  What I do is: dedicate 30-60 minutes weekly, and narrow down to users who added to cart but didn't buy, and try to understand why. Great app, affordable and good support. 

Product Filter & Search - The most comprehensive app that I've found for adding 'eBay-style' filters on the left or top of collection pages. Tons of other options too. Their support is good and it works really well. Takes a little bit of setting up, but they help with this and once configured it works great. 

Countdown Timer Bar (Free) - Great app for setting up countdown timers.  Can be set up in a preview theme to test before launching. Lots of different styles, works well on mobile and is free. I use it for our Black Friday sales. Like it!

Time Savers

Mechanic - You can automate almost anything using this app, and their support is unmatched.  Mind-blowing how much it can do. Could save you hours per month. I use it on our stores to send automatic sales notifications to the right suppliers, let us know when products go out of stock, and also for this course to ensure customers receive an invite to create their account (doesn't happen automatically on Shopify, so I use this app to do it).  

AOD: Smart Auto Tagger - A neat little app (free for one tag, paid for more) that allows you to tag certain customers or products based on some conditions. I use it for this course - if a customer purchases the course, then I add a tag so they get access to the materials. Easy to use, very handy, and extremely well-priced.

Trackr - Great for setting up a Tracking Page on your website, allowing customers to self-serve their tracking information, by looking it up themselves using the tracking code.  Big time saver, easy to set up and affordable.  (Side note: They don't give tons of customisation options, so if you need more, search the app store for "Tracking" and there are other options (LINK). For a simple setup it works well though.)

Orderly Emails - The BEST and most advanced email templates on Shopify in my opinion. I use this on all my stores and I think it's my favourite of any app. The emails look SUPER professional, save time by providing tons of info, and work great on mobile. One-off fee to download, rather than a monthly fee, is also an upside. And the support is top-notch as well. 

Order Printer Templates - A nice accompaniment to Order Printer Pro above, this simple and useful app allows you to automatically send a PDF invoice with every Order Confirmation. 

Hextom Bulk Edit App - If you need to edit lots of products at once, especially for content like descriptions or SEO, this is a great app.  For example, replacing a typo in 300 products.. can be done in 1 minute with this app. I like it for bulk-editing. 

Back In Stock - Great app for notifying customers when a particular product comes back in stock. They've thought about the details - for example, allowing notifications of a variant ("Small Blue T-Shirt") as opposed to just a whole product being sold out. It builds lists so you can email all interested customers at once. Handy!

Shopify Flow (Plus) - Automate manual tasks building custom workflows. Huge time-saver.

LaunchPad (Plus) - Automate launches by automatically switching themes, turning on Scripts, and enabling discounts at pre-determined times. 

General

Rewind Backups - This is the closest I would get to an 'essential' app that every store should have. It backs up your store and makes it easy to restore. Has saved the day many times with clients (and my own stores) in case of accidental deletion of product info, pages or blog posts, which aren't automatically backed up by Shopify.  Very good insurance. 

Klaviyo - Great integration with Klaviyo Email software (the best for eCommerce in my opinion, as we looked at in Section 2). 

Gorgias - Great integration for Gorgias Customer Support software (the best for eCommerce in my opinion, as we looked at in Section 3). 

Google Shopping - I've used this Google Shopping Feed app on two stores and it's always worked well for me and is very affordable with good support. 

Crush.pics - Fantastic, automated way of condensing down your product and blog photos so that they're 'optimal' size: not too big that they slow your pages down, but not too small that they look good on all screen sizes. Also gives you a great way to auto-optimise your alt-tags and image names for SEO. 

Metafields Guru (Free) - Very easy-to-use metafields editor for adding extra fields and information to your store. More of an advanced topic, but if you know what metafields are and need to add them to your store, this is my go-to app. I use it for various things, such as adding a second "description" field to collection pages, so I can have one Collection Description up the top, and one down the bottom, of each collection, for SEO purposes. 

Fraud Filter (Free) - Prevent shady orders and/or block annoying customers from ordering on your store.  Simple, free app to prevent known problem customers or addresses from ordering. 

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