7 Shopify apps to recession-proof your business
10min
7 Shopify apps to recession-proof your business
November 1, 2022
Commerce Trends
If browsing through the Shopify App Store feels like you’re searching for a needle in a haystack you’re not alone. There are over 6000 apps in the App Store across 6 different categories. That’s a lot of time spent browsing! Discovering apps that will provide the best solutions, features, and pricing is no easy feat. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of seven Shopify apps critical to support your sales, operations, and customer experience during a recession.
7 Shopify Apps you need this recession:
1. Sezzle
App description:
Based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Sezzle is a Certified B Corp on a mission to financially empower the next generation. Sezzle’s #1-shopper-rated Buy Now, Pay Later product enables millions of shoppers across the United States and Canada to take control of their spending, be more responsible, and gain access to financial freedom.
Serving more than 47,000 online merchants and over 10MM shoppers, Sezzle allows shoppers to make their purchase today with 4 payments over the following 6 weeks, interest-free! Sezzle also offers customers the option to reschedule their payment once for free, and the max fee for late payment is $10. Sezzle is the financially responsible solution to Buy Now, Pay Later.
What's in it for merchants? Increased conversions, AOV, and shopper frequency. The best part? Sezzle takes on all the risk of fraud, chargebacks, and repayment. It's a win, win, WIN.
Main Features:
- Reach millions of Sezzle users and turn them into customers.
- Splitting payments into four installments leads to larger orders, increased basket sizes, and higher AOVs.
- We assume all credit risk. You get paid in full immediately.
- Your shoppers receive no fees when they pay on time
“I have had multiple customers reach out and thank me for offering Sezzle and explain that if I hadn't offered Sezzle that they would have been unable to purchase as much as they did or even purchase at all.”
– Ashley O, Customer Quote
Pricing plans: Sezzle charges merchants a processing fee, based off the order volume. There are absolutely no sign-up or set-up costs! Please reach out to sales@sezzle.com for more information.
Learn more about Sezzle:
- Sign up here: https://sezzle.com/signup
2. Okendo
App description:
Okendo is a customer marketing platform that empowers brands to grow faster and more efficiently by building stronger customer relationships. Okendo products allow brands to build trust, showcase community and drive more conversions using authentic customer ratings, reviews, surveys, and visual UGC. Okendo is trusted by 7,000+ of Shopify’s fastest-growing brands including SKIMS, 1st Phorm and Magic Spoon.
With Okendo Reviews, brands can leverage social proof and enable customer advocacy, without hindering the performance and speed of your website. Additionally, Okendo Connect allows brands to host on-site, post-purchase, post-review, and shareable link micro-surveys, giving them all the tools they need to gather insights around marketing attribution, NPS, market research, zero-party data, and more. With the combined power of Okendo’s suite of integrated solutions, brands can better understand their customers, combat rising acquisition costs, and tackle privacy concerns to turn one-off transactions into customers for life.
Main Features:
- Automated review request emails using a range of sending triggers and channels to maximize review generation.
- An extensive range of high-impact onsite display widgets to showcase user-generated content at strategic locations throughout the buyer’s journey.
- Push reviews and UGC to Google Search, Google Shopping, Facebook, and Instagram to drive qualified shopper traffic.
- With over 50+ integrations, seamlessly sync Okendo reviews data to your existing tech stack, including Klaviyo, Attentive, Meta, Gorgias, and more.
- Collect actionable insights into customer preferences, behaviours, and experiences at key moments throughout the buying journey using the power of “in-moment” surveys and contextual targeting.
- A single, centralized record of all messages, interactions, profile data, UGC, and survey responses for every contact.
“Okendo really does have it all – super innovative feature set, great pricing, but most importantly, a team that really cares about giving their users an awesome experience.”
– Zane de Sabré, Co-Founder, Maison de Sabré
Pricing plans:
- All plans are based on Shopify order volume:
- Growth: $119/month, up to 1,500 orders per month
- Power: $299/month, up to 3,500 orders per month
- Advanced: $499/month, up to 10,000 orders per month
- Enterprise: a customized plan with enterprise-level service
Learn more about Okendo:
- Schedule a demo here.
3. Refersion
App description:
Refersion is a first-in-class affiliate and influencer marketing software that enables ecommerce brands to cultivate relationships that significantly increase reach and revenue. Providing the means to build, manage, automate, streamline, and scale low-risk, high-ROI affiliate marketing campaigns and strategies, Refersion is a holistic performance marketing solution for ecommerce brands.
Through Refersion, ecommerce brands can discover, recruit, and onboard top-performing industry affiliates, influencers, publishers, and brand ambassadors to help promote the brand’s products. Additionally, Refersion provides a complete suite of tools for managing affiliate marketing campaigns, tracking affiliate and campaign key performance metrics, paying affiliates in a timely manner, and even managing affiliate tax information like W-9 and 1099s. Refersion seamlessly integrates with all major ecommerce platforms, most popular marketing applications, and even the Amazon marketplace.
Main Features:
- A searchable network of over 3.6 million affiliates from which brands can recruit
- Custom campaign creation tools
- Dashboard summaries, individualized dashboards for affiliates or brand partner, and custom dashboard options
- Custom affiliate commission rates
- Multiple payment options including Refersion Pay, PayPal, store credit, gift cards and more
- Access and manage tax information like W-9 and 1099s
- 2,000+ app integrations, including integrations with Amazon, Shopify, and other major platforms
“Refersion was essential in supporting the immediate growth of our affiliate marketing program – working with Refersion allowed us to see everything in one place and scale our program beyond what we imagined it could grow to be.”
– Ana Montilla, Social Media and Influencer Marketing Manager, Verb
Pricing plans:
- $99 per month for up to 50 monthly order conversions
- Enterprise-level plans available
Learn more about Refersion:
- Sign up for a 14-day free trial of Refersion
- Request a custom demo here.
4. ReturnBear
App description:
ReturnBear helps brands make their inventory more profitable by enabling easy drop-off returns, as well as the fulfillment of new customer orders from returned inventory.
We take care of the entire return journey for you. Our branded returns portal automates refunds, exchanges, and store credits, so you can focus on growing your business instead of managing every return. But we don’t just stop at shipping labels! We offer the only package and label-free drop-off network in Canada, making returns easier for your customers and more cost-effective for your brand. We’ll also receive, inspect and prepare all of your items for resale or donation. Let us handle all your mail-in returns domestically so that you never have to worry about processing them yourself.
Save up to 40% on return costs and receive 99% of returned items in re-sellable condition after ReturnBear's quality control process. Brands using ReturnBear convert up to 72% of returns into Exchanges or Store Credit. That's a lot of retained revenue!
We’re a Carbon Neutral Club-certified workforce, proudly made in Canada, and our white-glove service will get your brand set up, integrated, and running in as little as two days.
Main Features:
- End-to-end white glove return management solution
- Fully branded and customizable return portal
- Convenient drop-off network across Canada (*US coming soon)
- Automated returns, exchanges, store credits (+bonus), return policies, business rules, and more
- Self-serve admin dashboard and analytics
- Full-service item inspection, quality control and re-packing
- Micro forward-fulfillment (have us store and send your inspected and re-packed returns to the next customer)
- Pay-per-return pricing
“We use ReturnBear to handle all of our returns. They make returns EASY for us and our customers. Prior to ReturnBear, it was a messy process and resulted in frustrations for our customers. Since using ReturnBear: our return related customer service tickets have gone down, customers receive refunds in a timely manner, and our warehouse team doesn't have to sort through returned merchandise to sort and put back. The team at ReturnBear are fantastic, they are very responsive and listen to our needs.
– 47 Brand Canada
Pricing plans:
To learn more about how you can automate and make returns more convenient for you and your customers, reach out to our team for a demo !
5. Govalo
App description:
Govalo enables Shopify merchants to do more with one of their most profitable sales channels - gifting. Our all-in-one platform gives merchants the power to design a more effective, strategic approach to gifting and store credit, which will boost acquisition, customer satisfaction, and retention all at once.
Using Govalo, merchants can create more personalized, streamlined gift products that focus on delivering what their customers are looking for when purchasing a gift. Offer customers an enhanced gift card experience, with the ability to add a note, send it directly to their recipient and select the date to send it. Take your gifting strategy a step further with gift subscriptions, making it easy for customers to purchase a subscription and for recipients to redeem and manage it. Alongside a wealth of other gifting features, our analytics and other tools, such as open tracking and event timelines, make it easy and clear to understand how your customers interact with gift products.
As well as our gift-related features, Govalo also offers a simple, easy-to-navigate store credit dashboard. Your team can quickly issue and manage store credit, leading to a more efficient customer support experience and improved returns and exchanges process.
Govalo is quick and easy to set up, meaning you can enhance your gifting experience within minutes. Reinvent your gifting strategy, and watch your sales soar.
Main Features:
- Give customers an enhanced, personalized gift card experience - Add a gift note, select a delivery date, and send it directly to the recipient.
- Provide an alternative with our out-of-stock integration - When enabled, our out-of-stock feature displays the option to purchase a gift card when a product is unavailable. Useful during busy gifting seasons or when a product goes viral!
- Customize your gift products- Create multiple gift card products, add multiple images, customizable gift card UI as well as balance look-up and redemption tools.
- Streamline your approach to gift subscriptions - Integrate Govalo with Recharge or Bold to offer customers a better gift subscription experience. No hand-over is required; the recipient can redeem the subscription at their leisure and create/manage the account as any regular subscriber would.
- Solve common gifting issues with giftable products - When a customer doesn’t know which size to buy, or where to send a gift, allow them to send a product as a gift. This sends an email to their recipient to select their preferred products and details, after which the original customer gets a pre-filled checkout ready to purchase.
- Easily issue and manage store credit - Improve customer support interactions and offer a more flexible, profit-retaining approach to returns and exchanges.
“Fantastic app! I needed gift cards ASAP over the holidays, and it could not possibly have been easier to set up using Govalo. In a matter of minutes, we were live. The app is slick, intuitive, and works exactly like it says it will. Our customers love it too!”
– Curie, Customer Quote
Pricing plans:
- Govalo is free to try for 7 days.
- Essential - $0 per month, with 2.9% of total gift card value.
- Premium - $79 per month, plus 2.25% of total gift card value.
- Enterprise - $399 per month, plus 1.5% of total gift card value.
To learn more about Govalo and start improving your gift strategy:
6. Abra
App description:
Abra makes discounts work the way you've always wished they did. It supercharges marketing campaigns by auto-applying discounts to ensure more customers reach checkout from every email and campaign.
Abra allows you to quickly create campaigns without the need for landing pages or custom coding and gives you a simple magic link that lets you share your discount anywhere on the internet you connect with customers.
Main Features:
- Auto-applied discounts that eliminate the need for discount codes
- Pop-up banner that reminds customers of their offer
- Dynamically updated pricing that reflects discounts on applicable products
- Magic links that automatically applies your discount for any customer that clicks it
“Literal magic! This app does the thing I have wanted to do for so long. Connects your discount campaigns from ad/email/social all the way through the online store right to the checkout. Fewer lost discounts = fewer lost sales!”
– Pika Layers, Customer Quote
Pricing Plans: Free for the first $250 in sales, plans start at $49/mth.
Increase conversions with auto applied discounts - YouTube
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Increase conversions with auto applied discounts Abra
Abra10 subscribers
Learn more about Abra:
- Download the app here
7. Jebbit
App description:
Jebbit is the Shopify quiz app for merchants who are looking to increase lead capture, conversion rates and average order value. Jebbit quizzes empower Shopify and Shopify Plus merchants to ask customers targeted questions and gather first-party data, with no coding required.
The Jebbit quiz app utilizes conditional logic rules so quiz results become instantly shoppable with a product recommendation. Shopify merchants can launch shoppable quizzes to their target audience anywhere a URL can be shared - website, email, paid media placements, SMS and any social media channel. Shopify merchants can leverage customer profile data by integrating with Klaviyo and Attentive to further personalize the customer journey without ever needing to touch a line of code.
Main Features:
- Reduce search abandonment by syncing product recommendations directly to your Jebbit experience from your Shopify catalog. No manual or time-consuming CSV uploads!
- Increase average order value by presenting multiple products to consumers + add multiple products to the cart straight from the product quiz.
- Present a personalized product selection from your product recommendation quizzes with Dynamic Product Feed. A great way to create curated gift guides to your quiz takers.
- Seamlessly pass customers' information from quiz results pages back into Shopify customer profiles and sync contact information across Shopify, Klaviyo, Attentive to create personalized email & SMS communications based on your quiz takers' results.
- Reporting & Insights Get In-depth metrics on captured leads, engagements, views and completion rates with Jebbit’s Reporting and Analytics. Integrate with Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and Facebook Pixels for further tracking.
“We have a complicated product offering for new users, and our quiz with Jebbit has helped us drive strong conversion with new users who usually need a bit of guidance to get started. The support team is extremely helpful and has helped us find workarounds for nearly all of our use cases. It feels really white glove…”
– P.Volve, Customer Quote
Pricing Plans:
- FREE up to 500 lifetime engagements
- $49/month up to 200 engagements/month
- $249/month up to 1500 engagements/month
- *Note there are tiers in between for users that need additional engagements per month
- *Two week free trial of the Enterprise plan is also available
2021 Product Recommendation Quiz for Shopify - YouTube
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2021 Product Recommendation Quiz for Shopify Jody Edgar — 30 Years of Shipping
Jody Edgar — 30 Years of Shipping10.4K subscribers
To learn more or add Jebbit to your Shopify store:
Conclusion
While some external factors cannot be controlled, there are still things you can do as a merchant to prepare for the recession, like integrating a strong set of apps within your store to keep your business running smoothly and scaling smartly. On average, successful Shopify stores use 5-7+ apps to help them manage and operate their store. This list of apps we’ve provided above will help you increase sales, retain customers, improve customer experience, and manage your post-purchase experience, giving you more time to work on your business growth and less time worrying about the economy.
Table of Contents
About ReturnBear
We’ll manage your returns from start to finish with RMA software and end-to-end reverse logistics.
About ReturnBear
ReturnBear is the #1 end-to-end E-commerce returns management platform for brands selling internationally. Get access to a network of return points, preferred cross-border shipping rates, and an automated RMA platform that lets you recover inventory and issue refunds faster. Better returns for you and your customers.
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\ \ Unboxing Trump's Tariffs \ \ For ecommerce brands selling cross border, get free RMA with returns management handled for you. Returns software and reverse logistics services.](/content/reports/unboxing-trump-tariffs/index.html)
\ \ 5 Ways to Improve Your Return Policy and Keep Customers Coming Back \ \ A well-crafted return policy can be powerful tool for increasing sales, boosting customer loyalty, and reducing operational headaches. It’s one of the first things customers check before making an online purchase and in some ways it can be a make or break it point.](/content/reports/5-ways-to-improve-your-return-policy/index.html)
\ \ Unboxing Trump Tariffs \ \ For ecommerce brands selling cross border, get free RMA with returns management handled for you. Returns software and reverse logistics services.](/content/unboxing-trump-tariffs/index.html)
\ \ Return Season! Turning post-peak returns into revenue. \ \ What Happens After the Shopping Frenzy? Navigating the Post-Peak eCommerce Returns Landscape. Discover best practices for streamlining international returns, managing costs, and enhancing customer satisfaction](/content/webinar/returns-season-webinar/index.html)
\ \ Improving Your Return on Returns \ \ Make your returns more profitable With ReturnBear. Save time, reduce costs, and retain sales with our end-to-end returns services, drop-off network, and forward fulfillment to your next customers.](/content/webinar/manifest-improving-your-return-on-returns/index.html)
\ \ Slash Returns Before the Rush \ \ Listen to parcelLab’s Larry Thoma and a panel of industry rockstars from HexClad, ARMRA, Order Protection, and ReturnBear as they dissect the daily challenges retailers face with ecommerce returns and how they can gear up for the holiday rush.](https://parcellab.com/webinars/peak-season-prep-slash-returns-before-the-rush/?utm_source=returnbear)
\ \ Navigating the Future of Supply Chain \ \ Make your returns more profitable With ReturnBear. Save time, reduce costs, and retain sales with our end-to-end returns services, drop-off network, and forward fulfillment to your next customers.](/content/webinar/navigating-the-future-of-supply-chain/index.html)
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