10 Useful Shopify Plugins for the Smallest Budgets

For people running stores on Shopify, especially newbies, they probably would have limited budget resources that they want invested in the most cost-effective apps, widgets or plugins. And if it is free and can help with ROI, then why not! Here is a list of 10 Shopify plugins – either cost-effective ones or free ones that generate revenue at no cost.

• smile.io – loyalty program
  

This referral app makes it easy for you to work you loyalty program. In under 10 minutes you can set-up your points-based loyalty and referral program to give customers incentivised rewards motivating them to shop more. A good marketing tool.

• Mailbot – e-mail automation
  

There are other services, like MailChimp or Mailjet, for e-mail marketing. But Shopify’s automated e-mail marketing app integrates smoothly into your system because it can actually track the behaviour and interest of your customers with the recorded activity logs in the app, and then automatically create and send personalised mails with various templates to choose from to follow-up based on customer behaviour.

• Recurring Orders – (self-explanatory name)
  

This is useful if you sell subscription products. You can provide recurring subscriptions for a single product or for the entire cart. Each month the app automatically generates bills for your customers without you having to do anything.

• Sufio – automatic invoices
  

Doesn’t matter if accounting is Greek to you. You have this app to automatically generate paperless yet professional looking invoices and thank you notes to customers after transactions. You can customise the invoice not just to capture and include all business information related to the transaction (e.g. VAT or GST) but also add your company logo in the letterhead, and links to your social media pages.

• Returns Manager – (self-explanatory name)
  

With 91% people considering good return or exchange policies before making online purchases, this is a killer must-have tool. You can create different return rules for as many groups or products as you please. Customers are happy and hassle-free because they don’t require an account with you to do this. You save time and effort managing returns with this portal. And now you can directly market to customers making returns.

• Yotpo – on-site reviews
  

Because the best optimisation for SEO is user generated content. Secondly, when making a purchasing decision, about 90% of customers are influenced by online reviews. This social approval can be leveraged to drive sales. With this app, customers can quickly leave feedback for you without much effort from on-site as well as in-mail reviews. The app has a free basic plan, and custom paid plans for advanced features like social integration, community Q&A etc.

• Aftership – shipment tracking
  

Waiting without news makes one anxious. When customers can track their orders from the moment it is dispatched, it makes them feel more in charge and less helpless. Aftership is an efficient argus-eyed app – it auto-tracks all shipments from over 335 different courier services, displays the tracking results at your store, and notifies customers at different stages (e.g. transit, delivered, exceptions etc.)

• SEO Image Alt Text Optimizer – optimised images
  

It isn’t sufficient to optimise your text content. Your images need to be optimised as well for search engines. That’s what alt attributes are for. It lets Google know what the image is and what its function is on that page. Search engines drop your site like a hot brick when they detect keyword spamming in alt text. Instead, this app will help write alt text for you. This app automatically syncs every day, ensuring all your product images are alt-text optimised to be SEO friendly, and then improves search engine traffic.

• Bulk Discounts – manage discount sets
  

This app helps you generate thousands of unique discount codes in a few clicks. That means you can decide on the multiplicity of codes (single use, limited use or unlimited use with an expiration date), add custom prefixes to each, track how many have been used, calculate conversion rate based on discount sets, and delete or export discount sets.

• Personalized Recommendations – dedicated to product recommendations
  

Show the right product to the right customer at the right time. Product recommendations are made based on buyer behaviours. First timers will be shown recommendations based on shopping patterns of other customers with similar choice. Repeat customers will be have recommendations tailored to their own browsing habits of the past. You get 5 types of widgets to set up relevant recommendations – customers who bought this also bought this, best sellers of the store, recently viewed & featured recommendations, recommendation based on cart, and a special upsell pop-up when they choose an item from a recommendation widget.