Shopify Essentials: Top 13 Free Apps For Your Shopify Store!

Starting your e-commerce business or Shopify store requires many important checks and tools. It is important to use the right app for the right purpose, to streamline your business. With thousands of apps available on Shopify, a Shopify store owner needs to filter out the best app for their business. 

Navigating through these apps is difficult and takes a lot of time, so here is a guide to the 13 best free apps for Shopify in 2024, meticulously selected to cater to various crucial aspects of your e-commerce venture. 

One of the most compelling advantages of the Shopify platform is its expansive App Store, offering an abundance of tools across diverse categories. Whether you are looking to maximize your marketing ROI, streamline customer support, track orders seamlessly, or enhance store functionality, there's a free app tailored to meet your specific needs.

Within this curated list, you'll discover many categories, each vital for optimizing your Shopify store's performance. So, whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur seeking to revamp your store's strategy or a budding e-commerce enthusiast, join us as we explore the top free Shopify apps of 2024, poised to revolutionize the way you do business.

Category - Subscriber Growth

Privy 

Privy is a top Shopify store app that helps merchants grow their email list, reduce cart abandonment and increase sales via target campaigns and pop-ups.

Main Features:

• Email capture: To capture more visitors’ email addresses and grow email lists this free Shopify app allows the creation of customizable pop-ups and forms.
• Cart abandonment recovery: For customers who abandon their carts Privy app allows merchants to send automated emails to remind and encourage these customers to complete their purchase.
  

OptiMonk 

OptiMonk is a free Shopify app that promises high-converting pop-ups that do not annoy visitors. The app features more than 200 templates that can be customized with an easy drag-and-drop editor, countdown timers, notification bars and personalized offers based on shopper’s carts.

Main Features:

• Advanced Targeting: Show personalized messages and offers based on visitor behavior, location, referral source, and more.
• A/B Testing: Test different messages, designs, and offers to identify the most effective combinations for driving conversions.
• ‍Onsite Retargeting: Re-engage visitors with personalized messages and offers based on their onsite behavior.

Category - Marketing

The ConvertWay

The Convertway is an easy-to-use SMS & WhatsApp automation tool on the Shopify app store designed to enhance marketing and retention strategies for Shopify merchants.

The Convertway helps in growing your subscriber base and converting visitors into buyers. It also helps in creating & scheduling SMS & WhatsApp marketing campaigns using smart segmentations and increasing repeat orders with automated flows like cart recovery, feedback and upsell and customer win-back. The Convertway ensures customer satisfaction with real-time order updates via SMS and WhatsApp, making it essential for e-commerce success.

Main Features:

• SMS & Whatsapp Marketing: The Convertway simplifies marketing efforts with 300+ pre-approved SMS and WhatsApp campaign templates.
• Smart Segmentation: With The ConvertWay you can create intricate customer segments for highly targeted SMS & Whatsapp marketing campaigns.
• Gamification: The ConvertWay drives customer retention with dynamic scratch cards and increases your repeat orders effortlessly.
• Automated Flows: You can set up automated flows to recover abandoned carts, upsell, cross-sell and welcome customer & encourage them to complete their purchases.

‍Klaviyo

Klaviyo is an all-in-one eCommerce marketing platform offering customizable email templates, advanced segmentation tools, and robust analytics. It integrates seamlessly with Shopify, providing SMS & Email marketing, abandoned cart recovery automation and subscriber growth tools.

Main Features:

1. Email Marketing: Klaviyo allows you to send personalized Email campaigns using their shopping behavior.
2. Automation: Klaviyo automates customer journey interactions, from post-purchase thank-you messages to abandoned cart reminders.
3. Segmentation: With Klaviyo, you can create segments based on various criteria such as past purchases, engagement level, or demographic information. 
4. Klaviyo AI: Klaviyo's new AI assistant forecasts key metrics like next order date, lifetime value, and churn risk, empowering you to anticipate customer needs and tailor marketing efforts effectively.

Also Read: Klaviyo App Review: All You Need To Know

Category - Drop-shipping

Printful

Printful is an on-demand service that allows you to access everything required to start selling custom items and accessories online. Printful offers the opportunity to use a drop-shipping method for selling which makes work easier and we don’t have to hold any inventory. Printful also guides various simple lessons such as demand service for printing and building a digital empire. 

Main Features: 

• Quality: Printful provides high-quality products that are expertly made for both endurance and style to make an impression on your customers. 
• Print on Demand: You can transform your designs into high-quality products on demand, eliminating the need for inventory.
• Custom Branding: Elevate your brand presence with custom-branded packaging, leaving a lasting impression on your customers.
• ‍Packing Slips: Keep orders organized and professional with customizable packing slips, ensuring a seamless unboxing experience for your customers.

Oberlo

Oberlo is a free drop-shipping app commonly used to find online selling products and automate the fulfillment process.

Main Features:

• Order fulfillment: The Oberlo app also ensures timely delivery and shipment tracking features to help both e-commerce businesses and customers.
• Sourcing: This top free Shopify app offers a feature to browse through different products from suppliers and adds them to the merchant’s Shopify store in just a few simple mouse clicks.
• Inventory management: Oberlo also tracks merchants’ inventory levels & notifies them when products are running low or out of stock.

Category - Shipping & Order Tracking

Shipway

Shipway is the best free Shopify app for all your shipping and order tracking needs, that aims to provide an excellent customer experience for ecommerce businesses and retailers. With important features like - NDR management, Return automation, branded tracking and fraud detection. Using the Shipway Xperience app, you can offer proactive order tracking, real-time status updates via SMS, Email, WhatsApp and further collect customer reviews to gauge satisfaction.

Main Features:

• NDR Management: Gain real-time insights into NDR reattempts with Shipway’s automated dashboards, ensuring flawless delivery performance.
• Return Automation: Enhance your clients' return experience with Shipway's return automation, facilitating instant refunds via your website.
• Order Tracking Notifications: Provide customers with a dedicated tracking URL for each shipment, reducing inquiries and improving logistics efficiency.
• Branded Order Tracking Page: Elevate customer experience with Shipway's branded tracking page service, enabling order tracking directly on your webpage.
• Feedback & Review Widget: Ask customers for reviews post-delivery and measure satisfaction with Shipway's NPS feature, enhancing your feedback loop.

Aftership

Aftership is a free Shopify app that helps enhance customer satisfaction with effortless order tracking, real-time updates from 900+ carriers, and actionable insights. It helps make your customer’s post-purchase journey seamless with features like branded order tracking, order notifications and estimated delivery dates.

Main Features:

• Easy Order Tracking: AfterShip makes tracking orders easy for you and your customers, offering real-time updates from a whopping 900+ carriers worldwide.
• Customized Tracking Pages: Customize tracking pages with your brand's logo, colors and auto-translation, giving your customers a seamless tracking experience.
• Order Notifications: Keep your customers in the loop every step of the way with automatic email and SMS updates, so they never have to wonder where their package is.
• Delivery Insights: Get valuable insights into delivery performance with easy-to-understand analytics and reports, helping you make smarter shipping decisions.

Category - SEO 

Plug in SEO

Plug in SEO is a free app for Shopify stores that optimizes merchants’ Shopify stores for search engines and improves their search results ranking.

‍Main Features 

• SEO Audit: The Plug-in SEO app conducts a thorough audit of the merchant’s Shopify store and identifies SEO issues such as missing meta tags, broken lines, duplicate content, etc. 
• On-Page Optimization: To improve store visibility in search results Plug-in SEO app optimizes on-page elements such as tags, meta descriptions, headings, image alt text, etc.
• Performance monitoring: Plug-in SEO tracks its merchant’s search result store performance and receives notification for any issue or change required that can affect the store’s ranking.

Yoast

Yoast SEO is a top SEO tool for Shopify stores that solves all types of search engine optimization requirements for site owners and helps them improve their organic visibility in SERP.  It helps increase organic traffic to your Shopify store and optimize your content for a better search ranking.

Main Features:

• Technical SEO: To improve store visibility in search results Yoast SEO automatically removes conflicting code in your theme files and outputs its code cleanly
  Optimize Search Results: Yoast SEO lets you easily add and optimize SEO data, like the SEO title and meta description to optimize your search rankings and generate more clicks.
• Content Analysis: Offers in-depth content analysis, including readability, keyword density, and internal linking suggestions, to help you create high-quality, SEO-friendly content that resonates with both users and search engines.‍

Category - Live Chat 

Tidio Live Chat 

Tidio Live Chat app is another popular and customer-supportive top Shopify app that helps merchants provide real-time support to their customers through live chats, chatbots, and emails.

Main Features: 

• Live Chat: This Shopify app engages with website visitors via live chat, providing free assistance and solving their problems to finally improve customer satisfaction.
• Chatbots: The Tidio Live Chat app is available 24/7 to help merchant visitors and store customers by providing automated responses for the most common inquiries.

Category - Reviews

Smile 

Smile.io is a free app on the Shopify store that allows merchants to create customizable loyalty programs that increase repeat purchases and customer retention.

Main Features: 

• Loyalty points: The Smile app gives points to customers as a reward for purchases, referrals, etc; which is used to redeem discounts, free products and many other awards.
• Referral program: This Shopify app provides referral awards that motivate customers to refer their family, friend circle or acquaintance.

Yotpo

Yotpo is a comprehensive review and user-generated content platform that empowers businesses to collect, manage, and leverage customer feedback effectively. It is among one of the top Shopify apps, making it a valuable tool for e-commerce brands looking to improve their online reputation and drive sales through customer feedback. It also provides email & SMS marketing, subscriptions and referral services for e-commerce businesses.

Main Features:

• Customizable Review Requests: With Yotpo, you can tailor emails to get post-purchase feedback from customers to enhance engagement and drive repeat purchases.
• Review Moderation: You can manage and control which reviews are published, ensuring authenticity and appropriateness.
• Rich Snippets: Generate rich search engine snippets showcasing star ratings and key product information for improved visibility.
• User-Generated Content Display: You can showcase user-generated photos and videos alongside reviews, providing compelling social proof.

Conclusion

These are the best free apps for Shopify that help merchants optimize their Shopify stores, streamline operations and increase customer engagement through various resources. These top free Shopify apps help Shopify merchants enhance their store performance, attract new customers and increase revenue. 

The Convertway is one such Shopify app that helps you capture your visitors and increase your subscriber base, and conversions. With personalized SMS & WhatsApp marketing, intelligent segmentation, and actionable analytics, The Convertway elevates customer engagement, retention and drives results. Integrate The Convertway into your Shopify strategy for long-term success in SMS & Whatsapp marketing.