Shopify is third largest e-commerce platform, with a nearly 10% market share. Shopify powers more than 800,000 online stores and has processed over a billion orders.
As of mid-2019, Shopify businesses all over the globe had made more than $100 billion in sales.
This platform is loved for its ease-of-use and amazing backend support. However, the best thing about it is the built-in tools that allow users the ability to improve the functionality of their store or add custom features.
Shopify plugins can be extremely helpful. They can be used to increase customer engagement and drive sales.
These are the 10 best Shopify plugins that I recommend to optimize your e-commerce store.
Free Shipping Bar from Hextom
Online shoppers love the idea of free shipping.
According to 9/10 consumers, free shipping is their top incentive to shop online more. Orders with free shipping are on average 30% higher in value.
Free shipping is something I know I am more likely to do.
It makes perfect sense for e-commerce stores to offer it to customers who reach a certain threshold.
Instead of trying to do it manually, the No Shipping Charge Bar by Hextom does it automatically.
This plugin is amazing and allows you to display your customizable bars and adjust your messages when customers place more items into their carts.
It also offers metrics that allow you to determine which shipping goals result in the highest sales.
Returnly – Returns & Exchanges
E-commerce stores have a disadvantage in this area compared to brick and mortar stores.
A third of online products (HT0_ 30% ) are returned while 8.89% of brick-and-mortar products are returned.
This can be due to a variety of factors, including product appearances that are different from what you expected, incorrect clothing fitting and damaged products.
However, e-commerce store owners can still expect high volumes of returns.
However, a simple return procedure can reduce this problem. In fact, 92 percent of shoppers said they would buy again if the return process was easy.
Returnly is where it all comes in.
This eliminates the hassle of returning products and allows customers to buy another product with store credit, before returning the original. This helps increase sales and loyalty.
Wishlist Plus
Who doesn’t love a nice wishlist?
It’s a great way to keep track and find the products that interest you so you can easily go back later and buy the ones that you like.
Wishlist Plus – This plugin makes it easy for customers to create this wishlist.
They can “bookmark their favourite products and continue where they left off when returning.”
They can return to your ecommerce store to quickly find the items they want and make a purchase.
It’s extremely convenient and customers don’t even need to log in to Wishlist Plus.
They can also sync their wishlist across multiple devices, which is a great convenience.
The impact can be significant, with conversion rates rising by 20-30% and customers spending on average 30-50 percent more.
It also shows how many times each product has been requested, which I find very appealing and can be used as social proof to encourage shoppers to purchase.
One-Click Social Login
Extra costs such as shipping and tax are the number one reason online shoppers abandon carts.
Are you aware of the second reason?
You will need to create an account.
This is why 34% shoppers leave without buying, and many don’t return.
I am aware that I cringe whenever I’m asked to create an account.
This can be a pain, especially if you are only planning to make one purchase.
The One-Click Social Login plugin solves this problem.
Instead of forcing customers to create an account, the system allows them to sign up automatically using popular social media networks such as:
- Facebook;
- Twitter;
- Google;
- Instagram;
- LinkedIn.
They provide all the necessary information and make it easy for shoppers to sign up.
It can be customized to meet your needs.
You can also keep track of how many people sign up for each network.
It can not only save your customers a lot of frustration but also make a big difference in your sales.
Cross-Sell Products and Upsell Products
It’s cheaper to keep an existing customer than to acquire one. This is an old business maxim.
It’s true.
One of the best ways you can increase your revenue is to increase your average order value.
It’s possible to quantify this by saying, “You’re 60%-70% more likely to sell to an established customer than the 5-20% likelihood of selling to new prospects.”
Why wouldn’t you place emphasis on cross-selling and upselling?
This is exactly what the Shopify plugin by Exto allows you to do.
A simple rules system can be used to establish relationships between products.
If someone happens to land on a product that is currently out of stock, they will be shown similar products that might be of interest.
You can also access a feed of items that have been recently viewed so that shoppers can quickly locate items after clicking on another webpage.
All of this together makes it one of the most powerful Shopify plugins to maximize average order values.
PageSpeed Monitor
It is important for an e-commerce website to load quickly.
In 2018, the recommended load time was three second.
You’re putting yourself at risk if you go on for too long. Shoppers will leave in droves.
This is why I recommend PageSpeed monitor.
This plugin is simple to use and keeps track of how fast your ecommerce store loads. It also offers suggestions on ways to improve its speed.
PageSpeed Monitor monitors your Google PageSpeed Insights every hour and alerts whenever there is an issue to ensure you are able to resolve it quickly.
It can be used to compare your site to key competitors, which can help you gain an edge.
SEO
Maintaining visibility in search engines is another key component to e-commerce success. ” 75% users don’t scroll past the first page in search engines,” and 35% of organic clicks go to top three results.
It is therefore crucial to ensure that your e-commerce site ranks in the top ten.
Plug-in SEO is one of the best Shopify plugins.
This tool helps you find simple ways to increase the rank of your Shopify store, as well as fix any problems that might be preventing you from reaching your goals.
It reviews the following elements:
- Meta titles
- Headlines;
- Meta descriptions;
- Keywords
- Broken links
When it is all said and done you will rank higher for targeted keywords phrases and increase your organic traffic significantly.
It’s easy to do even if you aren’t an SEO expert.
Plug in SEO takes care of the heavy lifting and slowly builds up your SEO knowledge.
Free Trust Badge
Shopping cart abandonment can also be caused by shoppers not trusting the website with payment card information.
This is also understandable.
Every day, more than six millions of data records are lost or stolen.
Many shoppers are cautious about giving sensitive information such as payment details to unknown parties.
This is why e-commerce shops need to address this issue head-on.
Trust badges can be placed on important areas such as your product pages or checkout page.
Free trust badge is the top rated plugin.
You can get access to many basic badges.
Socialphotos
Are you able to show customers how your products are used on social media?
Socialphotos is a great way to display your images to online shoppers.
It is based on a simple, but brilliant concept.
Socialphotos collects the top product photos of your customers from social media networks such as Instagram and Facebook, and creates an album on your ecommerce store via a widget.
Here’s an example.
This is a great way for prospects to use the power of social proof and visuals to win them over and make them feel more comfortable buying from you.
You can customize the widget to display photos from your own collection.
Loyalty Program & Reward
Online shoppers love rewards and loyalty programs.
In fact, ” 58% internet users worldwide listed earning loyalty points and rewards as the most valuable aspect of their retail shopping experience.”
These perks are a great way to increase your first-time sales and customer loyalty.
Loyalty and Rewards is my top choice for the best Shopify plugin.
These are just a few of the ways that you can reward customers:
- Refer friends to your store
- Spend more
- You can make more purchases
- Review products by leaving reviews
- Targeted content
- Social media interaction with your brand
You can also use it to advertise your rewards program, and let customers know how much points they will receive for completing certain actions.
Conclusion
As of mid-2019, there were more than 3,100 Shopify plugins.
There are many ways to optimize your e-commerce store.
These 10 Shopify plugins can help improve many aspects of your shop.
These plugins can help you upsell and cross-sell products or increase the average order value, as well as boost customer loyalty.
The best thing about most of them is their customizable nature, so you can personalize them.
