11 Shopify apps that will match the upcoming trends of 2021

Published in

GoBeyond.AI: E-commerce Magazine

11 min readFeb 17, 2021

Getting started in 2021

It feels like yesterday that we were celebrating the start of 2021. January has moved by very fast and before you know it it’s March. With every start of the new year new challenges arise. Of course it is without saying that every Shopify merchant is trying to stay ahead of their competitors. One thing that can help is searching online for new trends that can help you with this. Moreover, it is a good idea to search for new useful Shopify apps that you can implement on your website. However, you only have 24 hours in a day and those things can take a lot of time. That is why we will help you with this, by organizing and summarizing the 11 best Shopify apps that will help you improve your e-commerce website. Not only that, they also match the upcoming trends of 2021 from the Shopify article of Oliver Lindberg. Now, without stalling you any further here is the top 11 list of best Shopify apps that will match the upcoming trends of 2021.

1. Improve online purchase paths — QuickBooks

Now, with COVID-19 more and more people buy and sell their products or services online. This is the main reason that you should optimize your online purchase paths. Some examples are good search and filtering options; a fast loading webpage; and a unified inventory management. One app that can help you with inventory management is QuickBooks. Their main features are:

Matching inventory with your Shopify webshop;
Manage your customers’ orders and automatically reorder products, so that you will never run out of products. This will make your inventory more efficient;
Organizing your inventory and stock from all your products that are placed on different online platforms (e.g. Amazon and Ebay), and are stored in different locations/ countries.
Customisable B2B eCommerce Platform.

Unfortunately there is no free version of this app, but it is worth it! Moreover, you have a 14 day free-trial.

2. Conduct rapid customer research — HubSpot CRM

The most important thing for every business is that your products or services meet your customers needs. In other words, you should know your customer through and through. However, mind you that this is not something that you only need to do once, because your customer’s needs constantly change. That is why it is very important to conduct rapid customer research to identify the motivation and purchase behaviour of your target customers. HubSpot CRM helps you with this task. Some interesting features that they offer are:

Organizing and collecting online store data, such as products, contacts, and orders.
Creating reports based on the collected data, e.g. the average order value and abandoned cart recovery.

This app is free, but you also have a premium version where you can pay for additional features (e.g. segment your customers or automate ecommerce campaigns).

3. Bring in-store experiences online — ARspar Technologies

With the current lockdowns a lot of companies are forced to sell online. This has one big disadvantage: customers are not able to see the product before purchasing it. Luckily there are technological developments that can easily help you create this ‘in store experience’. One promising solution is using augmented reality, which enables your customers to see your products in their own room. For example, if you sell a carpet this means that customers can estimate the size of the carpet and see whether the colour matches their room. One app that offers Augmented reality for your webshop is ARspar technologies. The most important features from this app are:

Order models with your product photos and models will be automatically integrated on your website
Customizable action buttons(e.g. Checkout, pay, add to cart) in AR view
Let your customers experience your product in their room and directly pay with AR. This will boost customer engagement.
Track your customers’ behaviour and orders, so that you will not see abandoned shopping carts

This app allows merchants to reduce abandoned shopping carts and product returns. You have a 14 day free-trial and 1 free model of your product. Unfortunately there is no free version of this app, but it is worth it!

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4. Integrate more personalization and loyalty programs into omnichannel marketing — Smile

Omnichannel marketing can be defined as offering customers the same shopping experience on different channels, e.g. online (through the phone and laptop) and offline store. Nowadays, customers buy products through multiple channels, so it becomes more important to deliver the same shopping experience. One example are loyalty programs, where you reward or thank your customers both online and offline for buying something at your store. An app that helps you with this is Smile, which is an app with the following features: app that gives your customers points, referrals and VIP rewards. The most important features are:

Loyalty points program: where customers earn points for buying something, leaving reviews or creating an account. This will definitely increase your sales and turn new customers into loyal customers. The points can be spent on nice rewards, e.g. free gifts or discounts on products.
Referral program: with the points you encourage your customers to recommend your Shopify store to their friends. Moreover, Smile makes this process easier with referral links and emails. Lastly, you can monitor and analyse the referral traffic and sales.
VIP program: we all know that people like status and exclusivity, that is why a VIP program works. Especially, because being a VIP has its perks!
Customization: you are able to customize the loyalty program, e.g. you can decide how and when customers get their points or rewards.

The app has a free version and a few premium versions. The difference is that with the premium version you have, e.g. a full design customization, no Smile.io branding, access to the VIP program, and an advanced analytics dashboard.

5. Connect using social commerce — Facebook channel

As said before, people buy their products everywhere. Not only that, they also get inspired and search online when they want to buy something. That is why it has become both easier and necessary to connect with customers on social media platforms (e.g., Google, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter) using social commerce. To make this integrating with those platforms easier, the app Facebook channel can be used. Some interesting features are:

Automatically synchronize your Facebook account and products you sell, so that you can promote and sell them on Facebook and Instagram.
Reach new customers through Facebook and Instagram channels by using the free and paid advertisements/ marketing tools available.
Managing your products, e.g. solve product issues, track ad activity, and view approved products.

The best part is that the app itself is totally free. The amount you pay depends on the amount of paid ads or marketing tools you use.

6. Rethink marketplaces — Google, Amazon & eBay Cloud

With platforms like Shopify it has become easier for merchants to build and manage the shopping experience that they desire. To better explain to you what is meant here some examples are given: directly recommend and sell products to customers; enabling customers to follow brands they like; using big sales channels like Walmart or Amazon to sell your products; collaborate and promote your products through the editorial marketplaces; and tap into the trend of delivery apps. One app that can help you with this is the Google, Amazon & eBay Cloud. Some features are:

Making multi channel sales possible on Google Shopping, Amazon and eBay.
Organizing all orders on the multiple channels.
Making it possible to set different titles, prices, inventory and product details per channel.
Synchronizing the inventory, prices and product details on all channels.
Selling is possible in all countries with different currencies.

This app has a 14 day free trial, but after that you have to pay monthly. There are different premium options, with different amounts of order options.

7. Diversify payment options — Split

Back in the days people only bought products with cash or by card. However, it is expected that the usage of digital wallets is going to grow. Moreover, cryptocurrencies are becoming a legal payment method. That is why it will become important as an online Shopify webshop to offer multiple payment options. Lastly, with the growth of the sharing economy more customers are splitting the bill. One app that can help you with this is Split. Features that they offer are:

Making it easier for customers to split or share payments, which will increase your sales. it allows them to use different credit cards and allows credit card/ PayPal split payments.
Synchronizing your orders and payments to keep your inventory and transactions up-to-date.

They make this possible without using commissions or payment fees. The app has a free plan where you can split up to 50 orders a month. Furthermore you have a few premium versions where you can split up more orders a month.

8. Value ethical ecommerce — Offset

As an online company it becomes very important to focus on the environment. Especially because almost all online shops have to deal with shipping emissions. Luckily more and more consumers are willing to pay a small price for this. Moreover, these customers are looking for businesses both offline and online that meet their environmental needs. That is why Offset is a great app for those companies that want to do something for the environment. Some features are:

It automatically calculates the shipping emission costs and adds it to the price. In other words it makes your shipping emissions carbon neutral. In other words it minimizes the carbon footprint of your Shopify business.
It makes it easy to calculate your monthly costs.
It is a community platform where you can see how other Shopify businesses manage their shipping emissions with their app.
It monitors your impact, e.g. you are able to see the shipped orders and shipping distance on the Offset dashboard.

It is free to install the app, but you have to pay a small fee between 0.005 to 0.10 dollar per order.

9. Develop creative advertising strategies — Traffic & Easy Ads

There are different ways to diversify yourself from competitors, e.g. products, marketing campaigns, brand image, etc. Especially marketing campaigns have become a way to creatively express yourself as Shopify company. Luckily, this process has become easier, and almost everyone can animate, edit videos or use 3D or CGI models in their advertisements. However, this makes managing your advertisements also more important. The Traffic & Ease ads app will help you with this. Some interesting features are:

Managing all ads on Facebook, Instagram, and Google, which leads more customers to your store.
Let algorithms make a high-converting advertisement for you. You only have to decide which images, texts, and target group you want to use.
It enables you to show your products on websites from other users, and show their products on your webshop.

The best part of this app, is that it is free to use!

10. Ensure performance is optimized on every level — Plug in SEO

To stay ahead of your competition you should optimize your business performance. What is meant by this is that your store should have a high conversion rate. A good way to look at your store’s performance is by using Google Analytics, which can measure your page loading speed. Besides this it is also important to optimize your online visibility. This means that you need to work on your search engine optimization, so that your customers are able to find you when they search for companies in your business area. To help you with this difficult task the Plug in SEO is developed, to increase your ranking on different search engines and drive more SEO traffic to your store. Features that are useful are:

It finds out what needs to be fixed and helps you fix them, e.g. SEO issues, headings, image tags, 404 broken links, and filenames.
It provides you with a dashboard to organize and check for SEO problems.
It improves your page titles and descriptions to increase your SEO.
It has a keyword tool.

Like many other apps, it has a free version and a premium version. The premium version comes with a more powerful SEO control and more support.

11. Pay attention to headless commerce — Headless

More Shopify businesses use headless commerce, meaning that they seperate the front and backend of their ecommerce application. In other words, the customer-side is separated from the technical side. This offers them more flexibility, freedom and options to create a better customer experience. However, mind you that this means that you can not use Shopify theme customizer and some Shopify apps anymore. Moreover, it takes more time to build and maintain the front-end of the ecommerce application. One app that can help you with this is Headless. Some features that are useful are:

Get JSON products and collections so that it becomes easier and faster to use javascript.
Make your product search faster with a single identifier or array.
Get objects on your webpage faster (within 100ms).

There is a free version of this app and a premium version that offers you more features (e.g. free for local development).