Lets make choosing the best Shopify apps easy.Running a Shopify eCommerce store and a personal blog are two entirely different things. There’s so much more you have to look after when it comes to an eCommerce store. Other than the basic requirements, you have to take care of secure checkouts, timely shipping, email marketing, speed optimization, etc.However, Shopify boasts a huge ecosystem of apps that provides you with various useful features and helps grow your eCommerce store. These apps help store owners improve the functionalities of their online store and add useful dimensions to it. Automating processes, integrating marketing, improving the store design, and boosting sales are just some of the many benefits of using Shopify apps.On the Shopify App Store, there are myriads of apps which makes it quite challenging for the new Shopify store owners to pick the right solution. This blog is meant to help you tackle this problem. We’ll provide you with certain measures that will help you choose the right Shopify app for your store.Without further ado, let’s jump into it.

Steps to choosing the best Shopify apps

Figuring Out the Needs

Try going to the grocery store without a list of items you have to buy. Nine out of ten times, it will take twice the time for you to return back to your place, and you’ll still end up forgetting many of the things that you actually need. Not just that, you’ll come back buying irrelevant things that might not be very useful for you. This example perfectly sums up your quest for a decent Shopify app.If you don’t want to install irrelevant apps, it would be best to first make a list of features that you want to add and the problems you want to solve on your Shopify eCommerce store. These requirements are different from merchant to merchant. Some want to appear credible to their audience, while some focus on improving customer loyalty.The point is that when your requirements are clear to you, it becomes easier for you to browse through various categories. You can actually just go out there and search for the right app instead of relying on apps to catch your attention.Another challenge that merchants often face is that they are not really sure what they need in their Shopify store. If this is the case for you too, your first steps should be toward solving the issues your store is facing. There can be high cart abandonment, low conversion rate, no ways for the customers to know if the item is back-in-stock, or any other issue.When you know the problems your site needs to tackle, you can easily find the apps to help you do so. For instance, if you want your customers to know when a certain item is back in stock, try going with Appikon. Whenever a customer lands a product page, but it is not in stock, this app will ask them if they would like to be notified when the item is back in stock. If buyers opt for it, they’ll receive a notification as soon as you restock.This strategy ensures that your time and money are only spent on the apps that are valuable for your store.

Shortlisting the Useful Apps

Once you know what sort of Shopify apps you need to upscale your store, it’s time to jump into the Shopify app store. There are mainly four ways you can start your search with:

1. Keyword search

In this method, you have to search for the problem you want to solve. For instance, if back-in-stock notifications are what’s missing from your site, you can just search for the phrase ‘back-in-stock’ and apps related to it will appear on your screen.

2. Collections

Shopify does a wonderful job of curating collections based on various criteria like merchant and app types. Some of the collections that you might browse through on the Shopify app store are sales channels, Shopify marketing, launching a store, growing a business, email marketing solutions, etc.

3. Categories

These apps are products of the Shopify app store. And just like any established product store, Shopify has also categorized its apps to make it easy for the store owners to navigate through the store. This categorization allows customers to find apps quickly.

4. Shopify-recommended apps

Now, you might know that the Shopify team has endorsed around 25 free apps, making it convenient for merchants to achieve their eCommerce goals. This is quite a time-efficient way of searching the apps, as these are not just useful ones, but their performance is also guaranteed.

The Evaluation Process

After shortlisting the apps that you might need, say 10 or 20 apps, it’s time to evaluate their genuineness more closely. If you have considered two apps that perform the same operations and come with the same features, this evaluation process will help you determine the one you should go with.We’ll look at the four different aspects of the app to ensure that it can deliver what we expect from it:

What are you willing to pay

Most of the Shopify store owners, when they are starting out, have a very limited budget. This limited budget makes them search for the apps that are free to use. Now some of the free apps can perform really well. But when you are selecting an app, your priority should be “does it solve my problem?” and not “am I getting it for free?”In your quest for a decent app, you first have to be honest with yourself about how much you are willing to pay for that particular service. When you set up this budget, a lot of your apps are ticked off of the list. However, if there’s a free app available that serves your needs as well as the paid one, just go for it. You must ensure that you’re not compromising with a free app, as in the long run, the app that was free will cost you much more.

Don’t let the description fool you

The app descriptions, photos, and videos on the Shopify app store are one of the most crucial marketing elements of the app. They are just one of the many layers of the app. You have to be rational with these descriptions and attractive media, as selecting the app is not about its marketing quotient. It’s about how well the app functions.For example, a merchant downloaded an email marketing app that advertised it supports a unique discount code generator. After exploring the app, when the client didn’t find that option, they contacted the developer and found out that it costs an additional $99 fee to activate that integration. The description of this app over promised and under delivered.The point is that description alone is not enough to judge an app. However, there’s a great way to find out what’s missing even before installing the app — it’s by looking at what people are saying about their experience with the app.

What people are saying about it

If you know how to read reviews, they can give the most accurate representation of the app. The more reviews you read, the better you get to know the app. Not saying that reviews can’t be manipulated for marketing, but here consumers are on the messaging side.We can classify the review part into three sections -

• 1 and 2-star reviews: When you are reading 1-star reviews, you don’t need to put in a lot of time to understand the reasons behind the review. Most of the time, they are for the sake of revenge. However, how the developer responds to such reviews helps you set expectations about how you are going to be treated.The 2-star reviews are what you have to read carefully. In the majority of the cases, the 2-star reviews are left because the user had a legitimate concern. You can look out for some common elements, like the features that are not working, and then check if the developer has solved the issue with time. If there’s no such complaint in the future, it means that the developer is here for the long game, and the app will keep improving.
• 3-star reviews: These reviews are meant to be skimmed by the store owners. Nine out of ten times, these reviews say — the store owner liked the app, but the app didn’t meet a certain requirement of the customers. However, these reviews are quite helpful for the developer as they can manage expectations by writing an accurate description or might add that particular feature that store owners are looking for.
• 4 and 5-star reviews: You don’t have to be worried about customer experience by the time you read 4 and 5-star reviews. In these reviews, people are happy enough with the service to leave a review in the first place. These reviews are a great source to find the features that were not mentioned in the app store description.

Post-installation Performance Monitoring

After the evaluation process, you’ll have a list of the apps that you need to install. But, your work is not finished after installing those apps. Instead, for the next 30-days, you’ll have to monitor if the app is solving the issues that they were expected to solve. Using the right metrics, determine if the app has helped your Shopify store in upscaling. If there are some apps that have not delivered the result for you, it’s time to uninstall them and find some alternative that works better.

That’s It for Today

Shopify apps enable the stores to be more functional and versatile. By selecting the right apps, you’ll be able to boost your sales, retain more customers, and create a reputation in the eCommerce community. We hope that with the help of this blog, you’ll be able to come up with the best apps for the growth of your store. Now, this process can last 1 to 2 months, but it ensures that the apps you install make things convenient for you and helps you reach your eCommerce business goals.Need help figuring out the best Shopify apps for your online store? Reach out to us today!