Simplify your research. The best Shopify apps for fashion and apparel stores are here!Fashion and footwear were the top online shopping categories from 2018 to 2020 and accounted for 61% of the sales (Nielsen, EConsultancy, Statista). With more brick-and-mortar stores going online, shoppers have more options than ever.This means more competition for online fashion stores. Are you one of them? If yes, you’ll need to prepare your Shopify store for conversions. Your best bet - install Shopify apps for apparel stores to help you.Here, we’ve shared our pick of the best apps for your clothing business.

Must-have best Shopify apps for fashion and apparel stores

1. Klarna

Let’s be honest, fashion and apparel aren’t essentials. But at times, customers who are on a tight budget might not want to miss a chance to buy a good product from your store. What if they could make purchases without worrying about the payment? You can allow them to do so with Klarna. Here’s how the app will help your fashion store:

• Allow shoppers to pay the full amount at a later date.
• Conversely, divide the payment into installments over three months.
• Your store will receive the full payment upfront.
• The app helps increase the purchasing power of shoppers.
• Boosts sales by making payments easier for customers.

2. Back in Stock - Restock Alerts

Fashion and apparel are fast-selling items and it’s common for products to stock out. New styles and items on discount might sell out even faster. But does that mean you should let go of interested customers? Absolutely not! That’s where you can bring in Back in Stock - Restock Alert - one of the best Shopify apps for apparel brands. It allows customers to sign up for restock alerts, intimates them when the items are restocked, and does much more.

• Allows visitors to subscribe for restock alerts via SMS, web push, email, and Facebook Messenger. The app allows 6 million total subscriptions.
• Sends automated back-in-stock alerts when products are restocked via different channels.
• Allows segmentation of customers as well as lets customers subscribe to alerts for specific combinations of color, size, style, etc.

The powerful app has been built by Appikon.

3. Omnisend

Due to rising acquisition costs, Shopify store owners are looking more towards email and SMS marketing. Not only is it cheaper, and has a bigger ROI ($32 for every $1 spent), but it also is their own audience. Omnisend helps ecommerce store owners build brand loyalty and generate sales via email and SMS marketing.It has a wide host of features, but its upgraded Email Builder makes it easy to create professional-looking emails. Omnisend has a wide email template library, as well as the Brand Assets feature where it automatically grabs your store's branding (logo, colors, and fonts) and applies it to your emails and signup forms. Besides email, there are loads of popups, landing pages, automation workflows, segmentation, and so much more.With Omnisend you can easily:

• create branded popups, landing pages, embedded forms, and much more
• build and customize beautiful, professional emails and forms
• make automated workflows, like abandoned cart, welcome email, and more
• use powerful segmentation for better personalization
• deep dive into reporting to help you gather better insights

4. Pre-order Today

In the fashion and apparel industry, trends change at the speed of light. This means there’s a lot of anticipation for new collections, and products may get sold out fast. Customers might also have to wait for new products or stocked-out items.However, there’s an option for them to buy the products before they’re available in the store. We’re talking about pre-order. Shoppers can place orders for products that are out-of-stock, coming soon, or sold out. Shopify Pre-order Today makes this easy for your store, as a result, increases your sales. Here’ what it does:

• Replace the ‘Add to Cart’ button with ‘Pre Order’ for coming soon and sold-out products.
• Helps you capture purchase intent of shoppers.
• Enables brands to sell more coming-soon and stocked-out items.
• It performs tasks such as product tagging, pre-order badges, discounts, etc., so you don’t have to do anything manually.

5. Smartzer

33% of customers prefer to explore a product by watching a video. Explainer, product demo, and customer testimonials in video form, influence shoppers’ purchase decisions to a great extent. Now, what if they could buy the product through the video, instantly? In short, have interactive and shoppable videos. That’s exactly what the app Smartzer is all about:

• It allows shoppers to click on products in the video and add them to their carts from the video or go to the product pages.
• The app adds interactive overlays on your videos with clickable hotspots.
• The platform automatically creates versions for different channels - website, social, and ads - making your job easier.

6. WooHoo

“Fashion working with gaming is kind of the next obvious step in the evolution of fashion,” says Erin Wayne of Twitch, the video game live streaming service. Quite recently, luxury brand, Balenciaga launched a new collection in the form of a video game. No doubt, gamification has entered fashion and apparel eCommerce. And your store should make use of it, too. WooHoo, one of the best apps for clothing businesses will help you.

• It adds gamified and full-screen pop-ups to your store.
• Lets visitors play fun games to win discounts in exchange for their email addresses.
• Helps generate instant sales with offers and deals; hence boosts sales.

7. Growave

You may have the best collections and a well-stocked inventory in your fashion store, but unless you put in marketing efforts, generating sales is going to be tricky. Tried marketing tactics, but failed? It’s okay. You’re not alone. What you need is a partner to help you out. Try Growave - the perfect marketing platform for small and medium-sized Shopify stores. The platform will perform engagement-building and sales-generation marketing tasks for you.

• Reviews: collect customer reviews on autopilot and display across channels.
• Loyalty programs: offer rewards for sharing reviews, etc.; drive high-value sales.
• Wish lists: allow visitors to add items to the wish list; drive sales through purchase intent.
• Instagram and user generated content (UGC): converts Instagram and UGC into shoppable display galleries.

8. Gorgias - Live Chat

96% of consumers across the globe say customer service is an important factor in their choice of loyalty to a brand. For eCommerce fashion stores, customer service is even more important because actions such as feeling clothes, looking at accessories, trying out products and seeking help from a salesperson are completely missing.So, what can you do to offer instant help to shoppers while they’re browsing? Try live chat - the fastest and most preferred mode of communication for shoppers. 79% of consumers prefer live chat to other modes of communication. That’s where Gorgias comes in - the customer service and live chat app for Shopify stores. Some ways it can help you:

• See purchase history and order details of customers.
• Allows refund, cancellation and repeat orders within the app.
• Integrates with social media platforms, emails, etc.
• Helps increase conversion rates by answering customer queries in real-time.
• Engages customers on other platforms before they visit your website.

9. Product Filter & Search

Imagine this - your customers visit your store looking for a specific item; say a white dress. How do they find it? Do they have to go through a long route to find options? Women - Clothes - Dresses - White? Or do they have an easy shortcut - a product filter and search feature?Customers are busy people. They expect brands to help them at every step of their buying journey. Your best option - have a product filter and search feature on the site. Try Product Filter & Search for Shopify stores.

• The app allows advanced filters by product features, variants, tags, etc.
• Collect data of what shoppers search and use it to grow sales.
• Include instant suggestions, spellcheck, typo-tolerance and catalog redirect so you don’t miss any sales opportunity and go the extra mile to help your customers.

10. SEO Optimizer

Your apparel brand may be well-known and customers might be loving your products. But remember, fashion eCommerce brands are multiplying like rabbits! Your customers might find another brand they like and forget about you. It’s one of the biggest threats to fashion brands. How are you going to make sure they keep coming back to you?The answer: Search Engine Optimization (SEO).It helps eCommerce stores in many ways: ensures your site receives organic traffic, helps in paid lead generation activities, engages customers, ensures you are where your customers are, and more. Use SEO Optimizer for your Shopify store. Here’s what you can do with the app:

• Automate optimization of meta tags, alt text, sitemaps, JSON-LD, etc.
• Constantly monitor and optimize your site based on Google best practices.
• Monitor and redirect broken links.
• Reduce image file size to decrease page load time and improve your ranking.

11. PageFly Page Builder

When it comes to fashion and apparel eCommerce, the look and feel of the site are as important as the products. At times, even more. Shoppers have several sites to choose from, and one thing you can employ to your advantage is the design of your site. But we know, simple theme customizations tend to get boring after a point. Besides, there are so many product pages to be designed. It’s far from easy.That’s where PageFly can help. One of the best Shopify apps for clothing stores, the app helps:

• Design product pages, landing pages, among others, with a simple drag & drop method.
• Include images, videos, gifs, QR code, tabs, slideshows, hero banner, among other elements.
• Add FOMO effects such as timer, low stock alert, etc.
• Boost sales through upselling, cross-selling, subscriptions, and more.

12. Candy Rack

Customers buy from you because they like your brand and/or products. That’s awesome! Why not take the opportunity to entice them to buy more from you? We’re talking about upselling and cross-selling. Upsells can increase your revenue by up to 30%. Not just that, it is 68% more affordable than converting a new customer. So why not sell more to your existing customers? You can do it with Candy Rack.

• Offers extra services, gifts, and bought-together product bundles to upsell and cross-sell.
• Automates discounted upsells; selects related products through AI algorithm.
• Allows customization when upselling and cross-selling.
• Displays well-designed upsell and cross-sell pop-ups.

13. Kiwi Sizing Chart

One of the biggest apprehensions that people have when buying clothes online is size. Imagine shopping online for clothes and shoes without proper guidance on the size. It can get frustrating, confusing, and drive shoppers to leave the site in no time. Just like in brick-and-mortar stores, customers shopping online also expect help and guidance to choose the right size. Use Kiwi Sizing Chart. It’s known to be among the best apps for clothing businesses. Here’s how it can help you:

• Creates easy-to-read size charts including layout, images, content, and colors.
• Helps manage size charts for all products on the site.
• Sizing recommendations based on machine learning (ML) with the help of measurement input from customers.
• Size recommender can be used for various kinds of products, eg. footwear, pet products, clothes, etc.

14. Shop The Look

When customers shop for fashion and apparel, they tend to buy more than just one item. Eg. if they buy a shirt, they’ll be open to checking out matching pants or a belt, too. This is an advantage for clothing stores. So, are you maximizing your store’s sales potential by trying to sell more to your customers? We’re talking about cross-selling. You can use one of the best Shopify apps for clothing to help - Shop The Look. The app drives customers to buy the look. Here’s how:

• The app helps promote product combinations to entice customers to buy them.
• The app has a clean design that can be customized to match your branding needs.
• It makes shopping more interesting for customers and decreases cart abandonment rates.

15. Smile

The human brain is wired to get excited to receive more than what they expect - a gift, rewards, loyalty points, etc. In the fashion industry especially, consumers are more attracted to stores that offer more. That’s why, brands with loyalty programs grow revenue roughly 2.5x faster than brands without rewards and loyalty programs. But setting up a successful loyalty program is easier said than done. Unless you have Smile: Rewards & Loyalty to help you.

• Set up a rewards and referrals program to attract and retain customers.
• Offer points to customers for various actions - creating customer accounts, placing an order, sharing reviews, etc.
• Create FOMO by offering bonus points for products.
• Drive customers back to abandoned carts through reward points.
• Encourage referrals and monitor performance of the program.

16. Nada - Sort & Hide Sold Out

Fashion and apparel are fast-selling items and can get sold out quickly. But it’s not a good idea to show too many sold-out products to customers. It’s only going to disappoint them. Nor can you remove the sold-out products completely if you’re expecting a restock. The best thing to do - move sold-out products to the bottom of the catalog. Keep your page clean. But you don’t have to do it manually. Nada can automate this process for you. The moment a product gets sold out, this app automatically moves the item to the bottom of the catalog. And there’s more you can do with it:

• Keeps in-stock items on top so customers see what they can buy.
• Moves stocked-out items at the bottom in real-time.
• Helps with SEO because all your products remain in the store, nothing is deleted.
• When items are restocked, they are automatically moved to their original spot.
• Sets up sorting for selected collections or all collections.

17. Gift Box

“Buy 2, get 1 free” - we tend to comply with something easily when something free comes along; it’s psychologically proven. That’s why gifts and discounts work well for eCommerce stores. When it comes to fashion and apparel, which are luxury items, offering something free as a gift can work wonders. You can create your free gifts and rewards offers with the help of Gift Box.

• Offer free gifts to customers when they make purchases. What you want to offer is up to you.
• Motivate your customers to buy more by offering gifts. Free gifts can increase orders by up to 15%.
• Offer a specific gift or allow your customers to choose the gift they want.

18. Oberlo

Have you newly started an online fashion store? It’s possible that you have limited inventory. But there’s a solution to that - dropshipping - have a third party fulfil your order and even have them ship directly to the customer. Oberlo is your dropshipping expert partner, one of the best Shopify apps for fashion stores. The app helps you find products from other fashion stores and add them to your Shopify store, making it one of the best Shopify apps for fashion and apparel stores.

• You don’t need to worry about stocking your inventory, warehousing, shipping, or packaging.
• The app allows you to add more products to your store without the hassle of product management.
• Allows you to build relationships with suppliers and communicate directly with them.

19. Intelistyle

While brick-and-mortar fashion stores have the advantage of face-to-face customer-salesperson interaction, it’s completely missing in online stores. So as a proactive store, how would you offer personalized recommendations to your shoppers online? Intelistyle is an app that can help you with personalization and more:

• Complete the look: Recommends personalized products to complete outfits. It allows customization of the widgets to match your store’s style.
• Fashion chatbot: Offer styling advice to your shoppers, promote the latest products, allow visitors to upload their photos for personalized recommendations, etc.
• Visually similar: Show similar-looking products to your shoppers when an item is out of stock. That way, you won’t miss sales opportunities.

Ready to get started with the best apps for your fashion and apparel store?

What apps best fit your requirements depends on your brand and its specific needs. You could try a few of the Shopify apps we’ve shared above, and even explore other apps for clothing stores.But remember, don’t bite off more than you can chew - don’t install all the apps together. Download apps on the go as the need comes along. Keep your store lightweight, so your customers can have a seamless experience.