The Best FREE Shopify Apps

Shopify provides a great basic framework for creating an e-commerce store. They provide great customer support and an easy to use framework at a good value. But after opening up shop, you may realize that the basic Shopify framework doesn't support all the features you want it to right out of the gate. And Shopify never intends to. In all honesty, that would probably make the framework too complicated and bulky for their average user anyway.

So, Shopify makes up for this by having an open app marketplace for add-ons and features for very basic things to solving much more complicated problems. Many of these apps have one-time charges or monthly fees that tack on to your Shopify bill, and it's up to you to decide if it's worth the money for that feature.

I, myself, am more of a DIY-er and learned enough of Shopify's liquid code (it helped that I already had intermediate HTML/CSS knowledge) in order to make a lot of customizations to my code myself in order to limit my reliance on paid Shopify apps. To this day, nearly 5 years into running NebraskaBison.com on Shopify, I still do not use a single paid app.

However, I wanted to take some time today to go through some of the FREE apps available on Shopify that make my site and my conversions better.

All of these apps can be found through the Shopify App Store.

1. Product Reviews

This is an app made by Shopify that allows you to have a review form / widget on all of your product pages. It is easy to install and has customizable options for colors and wording. Product reviews are essential for ANY store to use -- both for SEO benefit and building customer trust -- and this is a simple, workable, FREE solution.

Furthermore, it can be worked to show the full widget on the product page -- as shown on the right -- but it can also show the star reviews only while on the collection page.

2. Review Companion

There are a lot of paid options for managing reviews out there -- and one of these may be a better solution for you. Review Companion is a bare-bones app to work alongside Product Reviews to send emails to customers asking them to review their order.

I do not use this app on a regular basis, but do use it from time to time. You simply go in and it gives you a list of your orders and you select which ones you would like to send the email to. This is not an automated system (to my knowledge), and requires manual effort. But in my experience, it has helped me generate extra reviews on my products when I do send the emails.

3. Tawk.to

This is a completely free Live Chat app for connecting to your Shopify store. My customers do not often choose the live chat option for communication, most seem to like the actual phone call, however, those instances where it is used, have been simple and seamless for me.

Installation of this app is very simple and it provides both a desktop dashboard and mobile app for connecting to this app. Anytime a live chat is sent through my site, the message will come directly to my iPhone and iPad.

Furthermore, I am able to schedule hours automatically where the live chat box is switched off, so that live chat isn't an option while I'm sleeping. 

This shows the tawk.to live chat app and AddThis sharing bar (see below). The live chat app is contained to a smaller icon until the user clicks it to bring up that window.

This app keeps logs of all your previous chats as well as data and reporting. You can even have multiple 'agent' accounts to be able to answer chats. I highly recommend this as a live chat app and have never paid a dime for it.

Another thing I like is that it shows you who is on your site at the time and what pages they are going to. You can see all this information within the chat as well.

Unfortunately, I did get complaints from mobile users about it getting in the way while they were trying to browse my site, so I only have it turned on for Desktop users.

4. Order Printer

One thing that did surprise me about Shopify was that there's not immediately a simple way to print an invoice or packing slip. Order Printer fixes that by allowing you to do both. The app even gives you customizable options. If you fulfill your own orders, this app is certainly a must for printing your packing slips.

5. Digital Downloads

This app is also made by Shopify and is a completely free add-on. If you have content that is available as a digital download -- think ebooks or pdf content -- this app gives you an easy way of handling those orders. Through NebraskaBison.com, I offer a couple of free pdf recipe downloads to encourage email signups. This app allows the customer to purchase the item (in my case, they just fill out the information without paying) and then it automatically fulfills the item through email. I literally have nothing to do after setting it up as everything is handled for me!

It makes me wish I could think of something to offer on my site as a Digital Download that I could charge for...

6. MailChimp

And finally, that brings MailChimp. MailChimp isn't always going to be free for you, but their free version lasts long enough to get you established before you have to start paying, and you can't very far without a good email marketing service.

MailChimp is free for accounts with up to 2,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month -- like I said, once you get to that many emails (as long as you're getting them in a healthy, good for business way), you can probably afford to start paying for email anyway.

MailChimp has done a good job recently of integrating better with Shopify through their automated workflows, abandoned checkout emails and product recommendations.

They let you make emails in advance and schedule when they'll go out and they provide excellent reporting on how your emails perform -- all on an easy to use framework.

7. AddThis Sharing Tool

This app puts a simple social sharing widget on all pages of your site, making it easy for people to share a page on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. It's a simple widget to add to your site & blog, and if you're content is worth it, it should help you generate more traffic! Originally, I had actually added this to my site through instructions from the AddThis site, however, it appears now they have their own app making it even easier.

8. Customer Reorder. 

That little green button gives an order summary and chance
to go to checkout with the same order.

I literally found this app while writing this article and at the off-set, it appears awesome! I downloaded it immediately. This app allows you to provide an easy way for customers to simply repeat a past order without having to go through the whole process again. 

Installation was a breeze and it integrates seamlessly. I gave it a try to make sure everything was in order, and it all was incredibly easy to navigate. I can't wait until my regular customers notice this new little present for them! I'll probably even announce it in my next email campaign and on my social feeds. 

If you sell in a category that people buy over and over again, this app looks like the real deal for making your customers' lives easier.

Now, it may be easy to get sucked into the wormhole of "Oh, if I just get this app, then things will really take off" and start paying for a lot of apps that you don't need or aren't going to help you. The number one thing to establish before you start taking on lots of apps is just that your website is in good working order and will convert when you have visitors.

However, these eight free apps are a good place to start.