Best Shopify Apps That You Must Install Now
This list is built based on function, ease of use, and value. These are apps that do not clutter your site. Instead, they help you manage your marketing campaigns and help you make sales.
We will discuss:
- The best types of apps and why you need them
- 16 of the best Shopify apps
In the end, I encourage you to try them all. Test the free versions and see how you can use them to choose winning products, develop a marketing plan, showcase your products, and manage your SEO.
Top 16 Best Shopify app:
16 Best Apps for Shopify
- Dropship.IO – best for finding winning products
- Spocket – best for location-based product search
- AutoDS – best for automation
- Chargeback.IO – best chargeback prevention app
- Booster SEO & Image Optimizer – best for automating SEO
- Tapita: SEO & Speed Optimizer – best for speeding up your store
- Judge.ME – best for customizing review widgets
- Loox – best for photo reviews
- Pebblely – best app for clothing products
- CreatorKit – best for making videos
- ChatGPT‑AI Product Description – best for bulk writing
- Yodel: AI ChatGPT Descriptions – best for SEO and copywriting
- Chatty: Livechat Helpdesk, FAQ – best for order updates and chat FAQs
- Sendbird AI chatbot – best for customized chat
- Yotpo Email Marketing & SMS – best for sending text messages
- Omnisend Email Marketing & SMS – best for autopilot marketing
Product Research and Spy Tool
1. Dropship.IO – best for finding winning products
Dropship.IO is a product research tool and a competitor spy tool. However, these are not the only services you can get if you sign up for an account. You can also analyze ads, track sales of products, and choose winning products from the portfolio.
Although it is not a Shopify app, it is one of the most important tools you need to succeed in operating a Shopify store.
Dropship.IO Features
- Product Database – find winning products with this tool through keyword searches and filters. The beauty of this tool is that it tracks sales from dropshippers, not suppliers. With it, all you need to do is type keywords and narrow your search based on niche, monthly sales, revenue, etc.
- Tracker – you can save and track both product and supplier. If you do, you will see the daily performance of a product or a competitor. You will have visibility on product revenue and units sold.
- Ad Spot – this feature is your gateway for finding winning ads on Facebook. You can filter or search for ads based on several criteria. Once you find a winner, you can replicate that ad in your campaigns.
Dropship.IO also has a supplier list and a dropshipping university. The supplier list gives you access to suppliers you can trust, while the university has lessons that will help you become a successful dropshipper.
Best Supplier Apps
2. Spocket – best for location-based product search
Spocket allows you to find products and suppliers, and also import the products to your store. One useful function you will find in Spocket is the location-based filter. You can find products according to where the product or supplier is located.
Spocket Features
- Automated Dropshipping – you can integrate Spocket with Shopify, WooCommerce, and other selling platforms. The automation happens when a customer places an order in your store. Spocket will process the order automatically (you do not have to place the order yourself).
- Global Suppliers – most supplier databases take their lists from AliExpress. Spocket has more to offer in the sense that you can fund suppliers located in the UK and other parts of Europe. It means that you do not have to rely on Chinese suppliers for dropshipping.
- Integration – Spocket integrates with many selling platforms. Some examples are BigCommerce, Wix, Ecwid, eBay, and even Amazon. You can use one Spocket account and integrate it with multiple sales channels.
Spocket is an ideal tool if you need a supplier research tool that comes with importation features. It takes only one click to transfer product details from the supplier to your store. If a supplier changes the price of an item, your store will also automatically reflect that change.
3. AutoDS – best for automation
AutoDS is a supplier app that allows you to automate your dropshipping store. In addition to their supplier database, they also offer print-on-demand services.
AutoDS Features
- Integration – you can integrate AutoDS with many platforms on top of Shopify. Some of these platforms are Facebook, Etsy, Amazon, Wix, eBay, TikTok, and more.
- Branding – they have a system where you can customize your logo. The suppliers will take into account your branding efforts, and the packaging of the products will carry your brand name.
- Multiple Warehouses – the company and its partner suppliers have warehouses from all over the world. What this means for you is that you can choose products based on the warehouse location, which can make your shipping times faster.
AutoDS is an all-in-one dropshipping tool. You can use the system in multiple stores, which means you are not limiting yourself to Shopify only.
Chargeback Prevention
4. Chargeback.IO – best chargeback prevention app
Chargeback.IO is a program that prevents chargebacks from happening. A chargeback is a dispute, mostly a claim that the purchase made with a credit card is fraudulent.
If you are the merchant, a dispute like this has reputational and financial harm to your business. At worst, the payment processor may start holding your money or even blocking you from receiving money.
Chargeback.IO Features
- Integration – you can connect Chargeback.IO straight to the system of your payment processor. It takes only a few clicks; no programming or coding is required. You can connect Chargeback.IO with Braintree, Chargebee, Recurly, Shopify, and more.
- Detection – the system could predict if a transaction paid to you is likely to end in a chargeback. If so, you will receive a notification before it becomes a chargeback. From here, you can choose how to act on this potential problem.
- Automation – you can set up the tool in a way that it automatically issues a refund for potential chargebacks. You do not have to wait for it to become a dispute before you act. Once the system issues a refund, no chargeback can happen anymore.
Chargeback.IO is a fundamental requirement for operating a Shopify store. Although it is not a traditional app, it does integrate with Shopify Payments. With this tool, you can maintain a positive financial reputation in the eyes of credit card issuers.
SEO Application
5. Booster SEO & Image Optimizer – best for automating SEO
Search engine optimization is difficult. There is a lot you need to do, and you may miss some aspects of it. To prevent any SEO mistakes, use Booster. It not only provides SEO insights, but it can also automate the entire process.
Booster Features
- Complete SEO – the tool analyzes not on your product pages but your entire store. Then, it will give you insights as to how to improve your SEO standing. This includes suggestions on how to speed up your website, what alt texts to use, what words to use on meta tags, etc.
- Google Featured Snippets – with Booster, you will receive recommendations, or best practices, that will help you improve your chances of being featured on Google Snippets. This feature is important if you regularly write blog posts.
- Google Reviews Integration – you integrate Google Business with your store. If you receive Google reviews for your product, you will have a better chance of appearing on Google Shopping’s search results.
Booster also provides SEO recommendations for your product titles and product descriptions. In addition, you will learn how to improve your URL structure, which will impact your search engine optimization efforts.
6. Tapita: SEO & Speed Optimizer – best for speeding up your store
One thing that many website owners may not know is that load speed is critical to search engine optimization. Google or other search engines won’t recommend your website if it is slow.
Tapita Features
- Web Performance Insights – you can run a diagnostics test to see why your pages are loading slowly. You will see stats and scores like cumulative layout shift, large contentful paint, etc. All these will tell you where there is an opportunity to improve your website loading speed.
- Scan SEO Errors – there is a dashboard where you can find errors in your pages. For example, you will see which pages have no meta titles, descriptions, multiple canonical URLs, and more.
- Templates – you can create templates for your meta titles and descriptions. Doing so will help you save time in managing your SEO per page.
Tapita is great for SEO because it deals not only with on-page but also off-page SEO. With faster loading speeds, your site visitors can have a great experience. As you know, slow loading speeds make people go away, and you do not like that happening to your store.
Product Review App
7. Judge.ME – best for customizing review widgets
Shopify does not offer a lot of features when it comes to product reviews. Because of this, it is important that you use a review app like Judge.ME. Not only can you collect reviews automatically—but you also have the option to customize how your review widgets look like.
Judge.ME Features
- Customizable Widgets – you can change the color of your review stars and even design the review widget as a carousel. By default, you cannot do this with Shopify. What you can do with this feature is to make your review appear more user-friendly, especially to potential customers.
- Review Management – you can go to your dashboard see product reviews and reply to them. You no longer have to go to each product page to see if you have a new review.
- Automatic Review Collection – this app eliminates the need to send manual emails to collect reviews, you can program this app to send emails to customers a few days after they have purchased the item. It is up to you to determine how soon you want the app to send this email, and what text or message it contains.
Judge.ME offers several apps, but the review app is by far what they are popular for. In addition to the features above, you can also share your Shopify reviews on other channels, such as Facebook and Google.
8. Loox – best for photo reviews
Loox is a product review app that makes it possible for your customers to leave photos. This is critical because buyers today need social proof with images. Traditional text reviews are no longer reliable.
Loox Features
- Integrations – you can integrate Loox not only with Shopify but also with Google, Omnisend, Shopify Flow, and many more. What this means is you can create automation workflows that Loox will apply to your Shopify store.
- Product Reviews – you can position the product reviews on the product page, the home page, or even a dedicated page. This positioning feature makes it easier for you to show your social proofs to site visitors, therefore also increasing the possibility for a prospective customer to make a purchase.
- Customer Referrals – you can encourage your customers to become your affiliate marketers. If they want to promote your product, they will get a special link for it, and you can reward them for it.
Loox also allows you to create a sidebar where you can show your best product reviews. On top of that, you can program the app to show a pop-up where a site visitor can easily see existing product reviews.
Photo and Video Maker
9. Pebblely – best app for clothing products
Pebblely is an AI tool that creates photos from your products. You only need to upload your product photo, and the AI will create a new background and also “set the stage” for your digital product photography.
Pebblely Features
- AI Models – most clothing product photography from suppliers do not have models. If they do, you may not like the photography style. With Pebblely, you can ask the AI to generate an image of a model wearing your clothing product.
- Background Removal – the tool can remove not just plain backgrounds but also complicated ones. This tool is free, and you can use it without any limitation. After removing the background, you can now generate a new image, aiming your product to stand out.
- Multiple Settings – you can generate images in different aspect ratios and bulk. It means that you no longer have to resize the photos, and you do not have to wait that long for the AI to generate photos.
You may be in a niche with low competition, but you are competing just the same. Your competitors are likely using the same product photos. If they do, yours can get lost in the sea of social media content. Pebblely is what you need to make your product stand out from other dropshippers.
10. CreatorKit – best for making videos
CreatorKit is like Pebblely, but it can also create AI-generated videos that you can use for your ads. You can remove backgrounds, edit photos, ask the AI to generate an image from scratch, and many more.
CreatorKit Features
- AI Actors – there are AI “humans” in CreatorKit that can act in your script. These are the “people” who will present your products. You can type a prompt to instruct these robots, and they will act like real human beings. The AI models look so good it is nearly impossible to tell that they are AI.
- AI Video Ads – it is up to you if you want to use the AI models for your video, or if you only want to use still images and turn them into a video. The best thing about this feature is that you can prompt the AI to create a video based only on a URL.
- AI Clone – you can use their AI to create a clone of yourself. Although they already have a database of clones, you have the option to use other real people for cloning.
CreatorKit is one of the best AI generators not only for product photography but also for videos. They offer a free plan, but this plan does not include the AI Video Ads feature. You need to pay $99 monthly for it.
AI for Product Description
11. ChatGPT‑AI Product Description – best for bulk writing
There are many ChatGPT plugins, and this is one of the best for writing product descriptions. Use it to change product descriptions from your supplier and make yours more enticing.
ChatGPT‑ AI Product Description Features
- Bulk Writing – you can ask the AI to review your product list and write a description for each. This feature is what will save you a ton of time. Once done, you can go through each description and edit as necessary.
- Languages – the app supports over 15 languages. This feature is highly beneficial if you are an international dropshipper.
- Prompting – the program does not write descriptions in the same way. There is a prompt box where you can give it specific instructions on how you want it to write the product.
This program also takes into account SEO, but it is not the plug-in’s main specialty. For SEO and copywriting, I recommend Yodel, which we will discuss next.
12. Yodel: AI ChatGPT Descriptions – best for SEO and copywriting
What makes Yodel different from other product description apps is that it takes into account both SEO and copywriting. It writes meta descriptions and uses the appropriate keywords. As such, you can expect your products to have better rankings in search engines.
Yodel: AI ChatGPT Descriptions Features
- SEO – the tool will use keywords that fit your product. It will generate meta titles and meta descriptions on top of product descriptions.
- Bulk Writing – you can prompt the AI to write up to 10,000 product descriptions all at once.
- Content Creation – the tool can also write blog posts and social media posts. Its function is similar to writing product descriptions. You give a prompt, and it will generate a blog post, complete with the right SEO titles and meta descriptions.
Yodel is an excellent addition to your Shopify apps if you are active on social media. It has a wide variety of uses, not just SEO. In addition, it offers an analytics tool that determines.
Chatbots
13. Chatty: Livechat Helpdesk, FAQ – best for order updates and chat FAQs
Chatty is an AI-powered chatbot that can help you convert site visitors into customers. It can answer questions and also build a relationship with your customers.
Chatty Features
- FAQ – you can build an FAQ section that the chatbot can show to your site visitor. It is a fast way to offer service for the most commonly asked questions. Instead of the site visitor navigating through your website, all they have to do is click on the chat button to find answers.
- Customization – you can customize the chat box and make it look like other chat messaging apps like Facebook and WhatsApp.
- Live Chat – you can install the app on your phone, making it possible for you to respond to chats while you are away.
Since Chatty integrates with Shopify, it can answer customer queries about their orders. Once they ask. Chatty will pull data from Shopify and provide that order data to the customer.
14. Sendbird AI chatbot – best for customized chat
Sendbird makes it possible to build an AI chatbot even if you do not know how to code. With Sendbird, you can create a unique chatbot, customize it, make it learn with Sendbbird’s learning models, and more.
Sendbird Features
- AI Knowledge Source – you can use various sources like Google Drive, your files, URLs of pages, and many others to train the chatbot you created.
- Integrations – you can integrate the Sendbird AI chatbot with Shopify, WordPress, SalesForce, and Zapier. If you are dropshipping in multiple channels, you need only one chatbot for all of them.
- Languages – you can choose from more than 80 languages, making it easier to reach out to customers and convince them to buy. This feature makes it possible for your website to look local, especially if you have an automated website language converter.
Sendbird also has a feature where you can automate work. For example, you can program it to start a conversation with a site visitor. This will prompt the site visitor to ask questions, which your chatbot can answer.
Email Marketing
15. Yotpo Email Marketing & SMS – best for sending text messages
Yotpo is not just a typical email marketing app. You can use it to send text messages to your customers, ask them to subscribe, and encourage them to create user-generated content.
Yotpo Features
- Integrations – you can integrate Yotpo with several platforms like Shopify, Google, Facebook, and many more.
- Campaign Flow Manager – you can create email and SMS campaigns, and set a program on when they will be sent out, including who they will be sent out to.
- SMS – once your customers buy items from you and they give you their phone number, you can use that to send them messages for your promotions.
Yotpo also offers a loyalty program feature. You can create a loyalty rewards system for your customers. For example, your customers can accumulate points. Once they have enough points, they can swap that with cash or goods.
16. Omnisend Email Marketing & SMS – best for autopilot marketing
Omnisend is one of the biggest email and SMS marketing platforms. You can use it to automate your campaigns, build a subscriber list, and create a customer journey from site visitor to customer.
Omnisend Features
- Email Marketing – it takes only three steps to automate the email marketing segment of your campaigns. These steps: build your list, automate the process, and send the campaigns based on subscriber characteristics.
- SMS – you can send text messages to your customers globally. You will receive free SMS credits to jumpstart your campaigns.
- Web Push – this is a pop-up that appears in the browser of people who abandoned their carts. It is useful for increasing your conversion and reducing your abandonment rate.
Omnisend integrates with many platforms, not just Shopify. If you are dropshipping on other platforms like WooCommerce, Wix, and others, you can use the same Omnisend account on all of them.
Important Types of Apps to Have on Shopify
Not all Shopify apps are important, and I would advise you not to clutter your dropshipping store with them. There are, however, a few app types that you need to succeed.
These app types are:
- Product Research and Spy Tool
- SEO Application
- Product Review App
- Photo and Video Maker
- AI for Product Description
- Chatbots
- Email Marketing
Let us discuss each one.
1. Product Research and Spy Tool
A product research tool can help you determine which products have the most demand. A spy tool gives you insights into the sales performance of your competitor.
Here are the main benefits of a tool like this:
- Know if there is a demand for a particular product
- See how many units a product sells daily or monthly
- Find the sales estimates of your competitors
- Determine what apps your competitor use; you can even see their suppliers sometimes
Product research and spy tools are the most important programs you should have. It is also the one you need to spend the most money on, especially when you are just getting started.
2. SEO Application
Search engine optimization is not dead as many people claim it to be. Although you may use keywords in your product titles that people are likely to type when looking for a product, there is a lot you can do with your product descriptions, tags, etc.
This is where the SEO app comes in. It can tell you how to improve your product title, meta description, image alt text, and product description.
The ultimate purpose of a search engine optimization app is to get guidance on how to do SEO the right way. The result is that your product is more likely to appear in search engine result pages.
3. Product Review App
Not all e-commerce applications like Shopify or WooCommerce have an extensive product review system. They typically do not even allow your customers to leave a photo of the product they bought from you.
This is why you need a product review app. You can customize the star ratings, allow buyers to upload photos and videos, and more.
4. Photo and Video Maker
Most product photos from suppliers are bland. They also do not upload or offer videos that you can use for marketing. The solution to this is an app that can the product photo and then create a video from it.
A photo editor can:
- Enhance your product images
- Allow you to replace the product background
- “stage” a product photo digitally like you would in the physical world
A photo app can significantly improve how your products look, making your product pages professional. The video app makes it possible for you to create a video, which you can use for your marketing efforts.
5. AI for Product Description
Not all of us can write copy like professional marketers. It is a good thing to know that there are machines now that can write. All you need to do is ask them to write product descriptions.
In addition to the writing capability of the main AI tools, you can add programs to them, or plug-ins, designed to write:
- Advertising copy
- Product Description
- On-page copy
- Landing pages
I do not suggest that you copy-paste the entire thing that these machines put out. My recommendation is for you to read them and edit them as you deem fit. If you need to learn more about product page copy, read our tutorial on How to Write Product Descriptions That Sell.
6. Chatbots
While you can use Facebook Messenger as a default chatbot for your customer inquiries, it lacks the power of artificial intelligence.
Chatbots are a must for your dropshipping store. You can program them to answer more complicated questions. Chatbots can help you save a lot of time and money. Instead of hiring an employee as a customer service representative, just pay an AI provider a small monthly fee.
7. Email Marketing
While some people advocate that email marketing is dead, it really isn’t. People still read their emails, and you must give them a reason to read your messages.
If done right, you can use email marketing as a sales driver. However, you would have challenges doing it without an email marketing tool.
Your primary goal when sending emails is not to advertise or announce your products. You want your email subscribers to get value from you. In time, they would trust you and make a purchase.
Summary: There are seven main apps that you need to install or use in your dropshipping store. It is not a good idea to install so many apps, as some of them can derail your success.
FAQ: Best Shopify Apps
What apps should I get on Shopify?
The priority apps you should get are product research apps, photo and video apps, and SEO apps.
What is the most successful store on Shopify?
No one can tell because sales data are private.
What products are best for Shopify?
The best products are those that have a high demand and are always in demand no matter the season.
How to choose a Shopify app?
Read the reviews to understand the experiences of the users. It is also a good practice to install the app and judge it yourself. Most apps have a free trial so just uninstall if you are not happy with the service or performance.