The new normal has nudged most of you to take your brand online. But starting an online store isn’t where your work ends. There are a number of other things that come along with it like setting up your logistics and shipping partners, proactively communicating with your customers, managing invoices and so much more. That's where having the best Shopify apps on your side comes into play.
Sooner or later (hopefully sooner), you’ll end up looking for simple plug and play solutions to make things easier. With thousands of apps in the Shopify App store, you have all too many options when it comes to extending the functionality of your online store.
So we thought to save you time, it would be a good idea to highlight some of the best Shopify apps for all the essential services you need to run a successful store.
Best Shopify apps to take care of all the essentials on your store
1. GST Invoice India
If you’re a GST registered vendor, you know how important it is to create the right invoices with all the information that you need for filing the tax. When you run an online store, invoice creation is not just time-consuming but also prone to errors.
The GST Invoice India app allows you to generate GST ready invoices in no time. It doesn’t need you to import your order data into third-party software. The app smartly fetches the order data and creates a GST invoice for you using ready-to-use and editable templates.
You can brand your invoices with your company logo, company legal name, authorized signature, support email, customer care number and company address. The app also lets you add product HSN codes based on categories and collections, and also product-wise GST percentages if you sell a range of products on the store.
If you’ve tied up with multiple shipping partners, you can turn on the GST settings on shipping charges as well and define the GST percentages on it.
Additionally, you can download the invoices in three formats - original invoice for the buyer, duplicate invoice for the transporter and one for the supplier; all of which can be automatically emailed as well to the respective parties.
Other features that make this app one of the best for invoices in India are:
- Invoice history
- GST collection report
- Multi-location fulfilment support
2. COD Order confirmation
One of the most opted for payment methods in India is cash on delivery. But since the payment mode makes it so much easier to place an online order, the number of fraud orders on the same is also a lot. That’s why it is important to verify the order before dispatching the products to prevent non-delivery, fulfilment failures, fake and fraud orders, and a high RTO rate, which only add up the expenses on your eCommerce operations.
The COD order confirmation app by Softpulse helps you reduce the product return ratio from fake/ dummy orders.
Whenever an online shopper places a COD (cash on delivery) order on your store, the app immediately calls the consumer on their mobile number. It then plays an IVR that the consumer is required to interact with to confirm the order. If the consumer does not receive the call or rejects it, the app marks the verification of the order as ‘pending’, letting you take manual action on the same.
Here’s a glimpse at how the app works:
3. Fraud order detection
Most online stores face a high RTO (return to origin) rate due to cash on delivery orders, costing them thousands of dollars in eCommerce processes. To tackle the problem you need to implement a fraud order detection solution early on.
Thirdwatch is an AI-powered app that enables online stores to successfully deliver more orders and reduce losses caused by RTOs by capturing 200+ parameters. It detects incomplete addresses, speaks to your customers and helps you update the address before shipping the order. By cancelling the order in time, you get to save on the forward and return logistics costs along with blocked inventory costs.
It’s one of the best Shopify apps to add to your must-haves with powerful features:
- Review red-flagged orders in detail along with the risk reasons
- Approve and reject orders based on the review
- Add more rules to flag fraud or fake orders
- Get insights into shipping patterns, fraud patterns, RTO patterns and more
- Get order confirmation before shipping via automated WhatsApp/ SMS
4. Order and inventory management for multi-channel sales
Do you sell on Amazon, Flipkart, eBay and other channels as well? Do you face inventory and order management issues often? Time to integrate and sync all your order data onto one dashboard for a comprehensive view of your inventory and fulfilment status.
As you start making sales on your Shopify store, it becomes critical to manage your orders and inventory better. If you don’t want to run out of stock on a product that is clearly popular amongst consumers, losing thousands of sales to a competitor, get yourself an order and inventory management app early on. Especially if you’re also leveraging other platforms to make sales!
Unicommerce is an order and inventory management app that makes this easier for you. The app integrates with 40+ global marketplaces, 30+ global logistics providers, 10+ global ERPs and POS systems, bringing all your order and inventory data onto a unified dashboard alongside detailed analytics and P&L reports.
Some of the other powerful features of the app include:
- Multichannel Order and inventory management
- Marketplace payments and returns management
- B2B and B2C advanced warehousing and fulfilment
- Robust online and offline omnichannel solution
- Drop shipment and vendor management
5. Shipping aggregator app/ Courier recommendation
If you’re selling across multiple sales channels, it’s obvious to partner with as many courier partners for efficient order fulfilment. But keeping track of all the orders placed on your Shopify store, assigning them to the right partner based on serviceability, can be overwhelming as there are too many processes and data parameters involved in making the decision.
Apps like Shiprocket and Shyplite work with 17+ courier partners in India with complete data on their serviceability, covering 26,000+ pin codes with cash on delivery and pre-paid facility. The app goes on to negotiate the delivery rates with courier partners so that you pay the lowest shipping rates and save more to grow your online business.
In addition to simplifying shipping for you, the app also offers end-to-end tracking. It enables automated SMS and email notifications to buyers with the status of their shipments.
Other powerful features of the app include:
- Automatic order sync
- Automatic shipping status sync
- Catalog and inventory sync
- Insurance cover for shipments
- Courier recommendation engine
- Easier return order processing
- Automated labels and manifest generation
6. Branded order tracking and shipping notifications
Online shoppers get anxious as soon as they place an order on your store. Right from the point of an order confirmation, they want to know the status of their orders and seek easy tracking. More often than not stores share a waybill number that the customer needs to use on a third-party site to track orders, but that can be very overwhelming.
Shipway enables you to set up a branded order tracking page on your site in the same look and feel as well as language as that of your store. It's one of the best Shopify apps for setting this up in no time. This lets customers come back at any given point in time to track orders. It also lets you send automated order status notifications to customers, reducing customer queries and improving the overall user experience.
Some of the key features of Shipway include:
- Order status/ shipment notifications via SMS and email
- Branded order tracking and order lookup URLs
- Dedicated tracking link for each shipment
- Measuring customer satisfaction using net promoter score
- Track airway bill number from multiple courier partners in one place
- Track complete shipping status
- Real-time order status details
- Auto-sync status change
- Customer feedback on delivered orders
6. WhatsApp Chat
With over 300 million active users, WhatsApp is easily one of the most commonly used platforms for communication in India. Be it personal or professional. That’s why it also makes for a great channel to reach out to your customers to promote products or remind them about the abandoned carts.
SuperLemon is another of our best Shopify apps that provide quick and easy customer service via a WhatsApp Chat button on your store. It also enables shoppers to share their purchases with friends on WhatsApp easily, increasing your referral traffic and sales. The app also lets you set up automated marketing, cart recovery, order confirmation, order shipment and other sequences to keep customers engaged.
Some of the powerful features of the app include:
- Automated WhatsApp message templates
- Manual WhatsApp messages for seasonal promotions
- Supports multiple WhatsApp numbers
- Customizable chat button CTA
- 50+ premium chat and share buttons
7. Email marketing
Right next to WhatsApp, emails have time and again proven to be effective channels for reaching out to your customers. At different points in time, you will need to send across promotional emails or policy changes to your customers. So do you send them an email manually? No.
With Shopify Email, you can connect with your customers and build lasting relationships. You can send branded emails to your subscribers directly from your store admin, removing the hassle of installing another app on your store.
Here’s what comes with Shopify Email to make email marketing easier for your store:
- Send emails directly from your store admin dashboard
- Ready-made email marketing templates
- Automatically pull your logo, product images, descriptions, prices and URLs from the store
- Easily customizable emails (text, buttons, images and more)
- Import and segment customer lists
- Track results including open and click-through rates, products added to carts and purchases
It's one of the best Shopify apps to keep your email marketing campaigns running smoothly from day one!
8. SMS Alerts
With a typical millennial using their smartphones for over 5 hours a day and a 98% open rate on SMS, the text is a channel that you should not ignore for marketing your store. Using SMS marketing, you can reach out to your subscribers and customers even when they’re not online, re-engaging their interest and bringing them back to make a purchase.
SMS Alerts India is another one of our best Shopify apps that enables you to send quick and timely SMS notifications. These consist of important order information, payment details or even promotional messages about your ongoing discounts and deals.
Here are some features of the app that make it easy to use:
- Ready-made message templates
- Promotional SMS
- SMS campaign scheduling
- Supports DND
- SMS campaign reports
9. Customer account page
In times when the competition is on the rise, it’s important to capture as much data about your customers as possible. It’s also important to use that data to entice the shoppers to come back and make purchases from your store, despite other deals that are being offered to them.
Flits is one of the best Shopify apps when it comes to creating a platform that helps you learn more about your customers. By enabling you to create branded customer account pages, the app summarizes all the shopper data in one place - profile (birthday, gender, contact number), order history, recently viewed products and delivery addresses. It also lets you add an additional tab in the customer account page so that shoppers can easily see information like shipping, returns, refunds, exchanges and more.
Some of the powerful features of this app include:
- Order history
- Recently viewed products
- Re-order button (add-on)
- Wishlist button (add-on)
- Multi-language support
- Custom account page layouts (paid)
10. Currency converter
If your Shopify store caters to a global market, it is important to give your shoppers a more local experience. More often than not online shoppers abandon a purchase simply because they’re too overwhelmed to make currency conversions. They find it difficult to tally with the current rates and often resort to using the search engine.
With apps like Doubly Currency Converter, you can automatically display the pricing of products based on the currency at the location they have accessed your site from. You can also enable a dropdown on your Shopify store to let the visitor choose the currency they want to see the pricing in.
Do you need some of these best Shopify apps?
Setting up a store on Shopify is easy.
But we think running it as well, should be easy!
These Shopify apps are sure to make the mundane day-to-day back-office tasks easier for you. But at the same time, they will also help you improve your eCommerce operations to optimize costs and also offer a better on-site experience to your shoppers.
Looking for another solution that you couldn’t see an app here for? Reach out to us for a recommendation!