Must-Haves In Your Shopify Tech Stack

One of the great features of Shopify is the treasure trove of other apps and platforms you can integrate into your store. With over 7,000 different options, the range of functions contained within is effectively limitless.

Not all are created equal, however, and we at ECOM DEPARTMENT have spent a great deal of time determining which ones stand tall enough to qualify as our “must-have” additions to your stack.

This tight group provides a solid core, one which can provide you and your entire team with a superb foundation of solutions for common challenges faced by many Shopify merchants.

So, let’s take a brief look at our recommendations. These are presented in no particular order - all are equally worthy in our opinion.

Klaviyo

A powerful tool for automating and personalizing messages, Klaviyo’s unified SMS and email platform allows you to deliver specific information at just the right time to exactly who you want. A friendly email reminder to a shopper who’s left items in their cart or an enthusiastic text message announcing a flash sale - the range of options will resonate with customers and drive sales.

• Sync all your Shopify data with a single click: The seamless one-click ecommerce integration allows you to sync all your historical and real-time data, so you can stay on top of every interaction shoppers have with your site.
• Automations: Dozens of built-in automations are fully customizable, like welcome emails, happy birthday, or abandon cart. Each can have any mix of emails and sms messages.
• Segmentation: Drive more sales with powerful personalization. Whether you’re sending a drip campaign or a transactional email, relevant content can help you boost engagement (and drive more revenue).
• Reporting: Pre-built reports answer the marketing questions that matter most. Go beyond vanity metrics and understand what’s driving sales.
• Benchmarks: With Klaviyo, you get relevant, real-life benchmarks based on real-time data from thousands of brands. See how you compare to businesses of your size and scope, and to your overall industry.

 

Gorgias

Gorgias is a live chat/helpdesk solution that gives brands a holistic view of their customers. By funneling customer support tickets from a wide array of communication channels into one dashboard, the Gorgias solution helps eliminate the “silo effect” of sequestered customer data. And, through the time-saving use of chatbots and canned responses, a brand’s live agents can focus less on repetitive questions and more on turning customer support into a profit center.

• Update Shopify orders from your helpdesk: Pull in Shopify data and manage orders from directly within Gorgias. You can even create and send a draft order without opening a new tab or window.
• Klaviyo integration: Segment Klaviyo marketing campaigns using Gorgias attributes, then handle any replies within Gorgias.
• Actual personalization at scale: Insert customer data provided by Shopify directly into each customer interaction. It's an automatic and accurate way to get a more personal customer experience.
• Automate your most common tasks: From looking up the most recent orders to sending out an update to some of your most common questions, you can automate up to 20% of your customer support tasks.
• Detect the intent of what your customers are asking: Advanced machine learning detects the intents/sentiments of each message and helps you set priorities and categorize tickets based on what they're about.

 

ReCharge

Used by over 15,000 brands, ReCharge is a preeminent subscription management platform for merchants selling everything from coffee to candles to cosmetics. In mere minutes, its seamless integrations let brands set up their subscription programs, connect to their stacks and communicate with payment processors. Customers are afforded options to pause memberships and delay deliveries if necessary and ReCharge’s data analytics provide actionable insights to meet customers’ needs in real time. 

• Frictionless payments: With Recharge’s Shopify checkout integration, no longer do your customers have to go through separate checkouts depending on the contents of their cart.
• Create subscription box offerings on Shopify: Empower your customers to swap products in their subscription box, add on one-time purchases to their order, or upgrade their subscription to a more premium version. 
• Unified checkout: Now, your online store can use Recharge for subscription management and customer management, while order processing, whether for a subscription, one-time product, or a mixed cart, will take place through Shopify.
• Built-in analytics features: Allow you to track the health of your subscription business over time, measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, and study the behaviors of different customer cohorts.
• Track product performance in real-time: Which products are selling? Which ones aren’t? Which one has the highest retention? The highest churn? Answer all of these questions with one glance in Recharge’s product analytics dashboard.
  

 

Okendo

The new standard in customer reviews, Okendo is for high-growth consumer brands that want to elevate their marketing efforts with the power of social proof. Requests for reviews and user generated content can be sent via SMS, a frictionless CX cuts session times in half and first-party customer data can be collected in the process. Okendo’s flexibility also allows for extensive customization - merchants can create beautiful, customer content-filled showcases for display at key points throughout their stores.

• Send review requests from Klaviyo: Use tactical strategies to push your marketing efforts to their full potential with the Okendo & Klaviyo integration.
• Klaviyo Email Enhancement: Drive performance by showcasing ratings and reviews in emails triggered by things like cart abandonment and product recommendations.
• Advanced Flows: Build advanced Klaviyo Flows that use event triggers and data from Okendo to optimize campaign performance and create new engagement possibilities.
• Customer Attributes: Collect valuable first-party customer data (demographics, lifestyle, behaviors) to increase customer intimacy and optimize marketing performance.
• Google Shopping: Automatically push product reviews to Google Shopping via Okendo to increase the visibility and conversion rates of your Google Shopping product ads.
  

 

LoyaltyLion

Building relationships in the opt-out era, LoyaltyLion is a data-driven platform helping ecommerce brands drive sustainable growth. Its customizable widget for loyalty program creation focuses on merchant useability by requiring little-to-no developer support. And, by incentivizing increased engagement between purchases, LoyaltyLion can drive more revenue from your existing customers while protecting profit margins from excessive discounting and increased acquisition costs.

• Personalization: Send emails and SMS messages with unique data such as points balances, available rewards or tier statuses.
• Relationship Building: Use onsite notifications to remind shoppers that they’ve missed out on points, or have loyalty rewards waiting to be redeemed.
• Customer Acquisition: Make it easy for customers to refer friends and family members with unique URLs delivered on any channel or device.
• Segmentation: Loyalty Lion’s analytics let you identify your most valuable customer segments and offer them experiential rewards such as free shipping and early access to sales.
• Brand Building: Build custom rules that allow loyal customers to earn points in exchange for actions that align with your brand values.
  

 

Boost Product Filter and Search

The #1 product filter and search solution for Shopify stores, Boost is used by over 13,000 global brands. A better-faceted navigation and search enables shoppers to find their desired products in milliseconds and merchants rave about the significant impact it’s had on their conversion rates. In addition to advanced product filters and smart search functionality, powerful merchandising tools help brands promote the right products to the right customers, automatically.

• Advanced Shopify Filter: Create Shopify collection filters by product options, variants, tags, and metafields.
• Smart Search & Instant Suggest: Improve your Shopify search bar performance with features like instant suggestions, spellcheck, typo-tolerance, and catalog redirect.
• Powerful Merchandising Tools: Engage shoppers with smart product displays through filter page, search bar, and search results.
• Customize Filter Designs: Edit font, size, color, and/or preview.
• Merchandising: Promote a specific collection using any product option (title, price, vendor, etc.).