With the growing demand for online shopping, especially among young adults, businesses need to stay ahead of the curve to remain competitive. As of March, one study found that early 50% of people aged 18-24 shop online. And they’ll just continue to do so as they age.
Shopify, a leading e-commerce platform, offers a range of features to help businesses succeed online. One of the key things that sets Shopify apart from other e-commerce tools like WooCommerce or Wix Business is its extensive collection of apps. A Shopify app is widget, feature, plugin or tool that you can add to your website. They have special apps for mobile devices and special ones for regular websites. You can find these apps in the Shopify marketplace. 
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The Shopify App Marketplace
Shopify is a well-established and user-friendly e-commerce platform that has empowered countless businesses to sell online. Its marketplace has various tools and widgets to make everything from web design to processing payments to handling shipping easier. The apps make everything easier, and more functional for you and the customers shopping on your store. Don’t confuse their term for “apps” with the “app store” on your phone. Apps on your phone are entirely different.
What’s So Great about the App Marketplace
The Shopify App Store features over one thousand apps, with tools designed to make marketing, sales, inventory management, customer support, and more a lot easier. For example, there’s an app that puts a “chat” feature on your website. The chat can allow you to employ real people to reply to customer inquiries (an added cost of course) or it can allow you to send automatic replies to users. These replies can range from getting their details for you to follow up with, or giving them links to FAQs.
Why Care?
Shopify’s apps are a significant draw for businesses because merchants to create tailored solutions that align perfectly with their brand identity and customer requirements. For example, your customers may not need 24/7 chat features. But they may want a reply, eventually. Rather than having your customer look for your contact info, they can just click the chat button and a form will pop up asking them for their info. Then you can reply when you are working.
Why Invest in Shopify App Development?
You can create your own apps for your Shopify store too. These are tools that feature your own brand, and are customized for your unique business. We can develop these apps for you. We have years of experience in doing so. Here’s how customized apps help you.
Enhanced User Experience
User experience is a critical factor in online retail success. With custom apps, you can provide a seamless and user-friendly shopping experience. For example, apps can recommend items based on previous purchases, or even items based on what someone just added to their cart. For example, if someone orders a seeds, they need soil too, right? Shopify apps can make navigating your store a breeze.
Competitive Edge
In the ever-evolving world of e-commerce, staying ahead of the competition is a constant challenge. Do something one step better than your competitor. This differentiation can help attract and retain customers. We can help you analyze your competition and dream up customized apps to make you slightly more attractive.
Increased Efficiency
Automating manual tasks like order processing and inventory can save time and reduce the risk of errors. Custom apps can streamline various processes, such as order management, inventory control, and refund processes, making your business more efficient and allowing you to focus on growth.
Data-Driven Decision Making
Stop guessing what you think customers want. Shopify apps can help collect and analyze data to gain insights into past customer behavior, sales trends, and other crucial metrics like geographical location of your customers, who tends to leave reviews and more. Armed with this information, you can make informed decisions to improve your business strategies.
Types of Shopify Apps
Shopify apps cater to a wide range of business needs. Here are some common categories of apps and examples of what the do:
Marketing and Promotion
Shopify apps for marketing and promotion can assist in email marketing, social media advertising, and SEO optimization. They even have some AI apps to make editing photos for social media or for your website easier. Here’s another example: the Mailchimp integration allows you to create targeted email campaigns to engage with your customers effectively. Don’t keep sending email offers about adult products to customers who only buy kids products from you. Focus on the adults who purchase kid products by sending them special emails, texts or other forms of communication that mention kid-related products you want to highlight, flash sales on child-friendly items and/or more child-friendly content, like suggestions for holiday kid crafts.
Sales and Conversion
Apps in this category focus on improving conversion rates and increasing sales. You can use apps like TrustPulse to display real-time customer activity on your site. TrustPulse is the world’s allows you to quickly and easily allow social proof content that show customers what people are saying about you online as they’re looking at a product. This could lead to higher conversions across your site.
Inventory and Order Management
Efficient inventory and order control are crucial for any e-commerce business. Apps like Stocky help manage inventory levels and automate stock replenishment. You’ll get notified when items are low, and then you can use other apps to help you figure out how to get more of those items. We can help you find these other apps.
Customer Support
Providing excellent customer support is essential for retaining customers. Shopify apps like Gorgias integrate customer support channels into your website. Customer support doesn’t mean you need to pay for 24/7 live support. It just means taking customer’s issues and contact info, so that you can address them when you can afford to do so. It also gives customer’s an automated response.
Reporting and Analytics
To make data-driven decisions, you need apps that provide insights into your business performance. Analytics apps like Google Analytics and Data Studio can help you gain valuable insights into customer behavior and sales trends. If your customers are all on your site at 7 p.m., that’s when you should make sure your site looks its best and that’s when you should be posting new content. If all of your customers are in California, there’s no need to make or stock winter products.
Figuring Out What Apps You Need or Should Design
The app development process begins with identifying a need or opportunity in your e-commerce business that can be addressed through an app. You should see if such an app already exists in Shopify’s marketplace. We can help you figure out if it does. If it doesn’t, we can help you make one. 
Development
Once you have a clear concept, it’s time to start building the app. You can develop a Shopify app using various programming languages and frameworks, such as Ruby on Rails, Node.js, or Python. It’s important to follow Shopify’s guidelines and best practices during development. People need to take courses to learn these codes. We have. Let us handle it.
Testing
Thorough testing is crucial to ensure your app works flawlessly. This includes functional testing, user experience testing, and security testing. You should also ensure your app is responsive and compatible with different devices and browsers. This is part and parcel of our web development services.
Submission to Shopify App Store
After successfully developing and testing your app, you can submit it to the Shopify App Store. This involves meeting Shopify’s requirements and guidelines. Once approved, your app will be accessible to a wide range of merchants. We handle the nuts and bolts for you, including filling out Shopify’s extensive forms. Shopify requires comprehensive documentation that covers everything from app development fundamentals to advanced features. Developers can refer to the documentation for guidance and reference throughout the development process.
Figuring out what Shopify apps you need – that already exist in the Marketplace – and what apps we can build for you is exactly what you should reach out to us to begin discussing.
Let’s make money, doing things we both love, together.
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