Having been among the first set of Shopify Partners to work with the Shopify eCommerce web store platform, the Seibert Consulting Group has been working with the Shopify software since 2004. The great flexibility of the Ruby programming language and the Rails programming framework for business software applications that was spreading in use at that time is what initially attracted the team to this new SaaS (Software as a Service) eCommerce platform.
Not everyone has knowledge of this information, but when you sign up for Shopify or Shopify Plus you actually get access to a huge number of apps that can integrate with your Shopify site and allow you to have more functionality, more flexibility and add some pretty cool features that might just be the difference between a few web store sales and a whole lot of online revenues. If you are a Shopify or Shopify Plus store owner, and you haven’t had the opportunity to visit the Shopify App Store yet, this article presents to you an overview so you can know what you’re going to get access to in the Shopify app store, and some good advice about how, why and when you should get Shopify apps and install them on your Shopify or Shopify Plus web store:
The first thing you should know about the Shopify App Store is that it is not something that is included with your Shopify membership. In other words, it has more in common with the themes page. There are free apps that are in the Shopify App Store but most of the apps in the Shopify app store are premium, paid apps. Of course, as always, you get what you pay for, so the free apps may not even be worth your time. However, some of the low-priced apps are really reasonable and have a lot of functionality built in. You would be surprised how many things you can do with Shopify apps.
The second thing to realize about the Shopify and Shopify Plus app store is that the app store, and the applications within that store, operate the same on both Shopify and Shopify Plus. You have access to the same apps, which is very convenient when our Clients choose to upgrade from Shopify to Shopify Plus. There is usually no need to refactor any of the code within the presentation layer of a Client’s web store when we transition them to Shopify Plus from a Shopify Standard Edition web store. Likewise, the plugin app architecture, usually complete with one-click installation procedures, allows the Seibert Consulting Group to migrate our Clients from other platforms like Adobe Magento and Salesforce Commerce Cloud over to Shopify or Shopify Plus easily, as their apps frequently will migrate over to the new Shopify eCommerce infrastructure with one click – and no expensive development work on integrations for our Engineering team to have to work on, so our Clients are very happy.
Shopify can be compared to WordPress CMS as far as the look and feel of the back-end user interface appears. If one were to compare Shopify apps to WordPress Plugins, they would be equivalent of the WordPress plug-ins, complete with their one-click installation procedures and simplicity of configuration and updating. Shopify apps can help you manage your SEO as well as add useful many functions to your Shopify or Shopify Plus web store such as allow you to add rich video and images for your product variations. Basically, anything that your Shopify or Shopify Plus web store doesn’t have natively integrated into it out-of-the-box, there is usually an app for it. Before you buy any Shopify apps, you definitely should look at the free ones just to make sure that the functionality that you want is not out there in the marketplace already for free. As more and more programmers and Shopify and Shopify Plus development agencies like The Seibert Consulting Group develop these Shopify apps, the quality of the free Shopify apps will likely rise, just as occurred with the WordPress Plugins and Themes marketplace.
So now you know a little bit more about the Shopify / Shopify Plus App Store. The Shopify apps available there can definitely add some functionality to your website and it can be worth investing in a good app that is increasing your sales. However, try to avoid Shopify apps that have a subscription fee rather than a one-time purchase. There aren’t many of these out there but if you use one, try to find a replacement as soon as you know the app is useful for you.
To find out more about Shopify or Shopify Plus solutions for your business, find out more about the Private Shopify & Shopify Plus Apps offered by the Seibert Consulting Group like Optimize Upsell, or to set up a free demo of the Shopify or Shopify Plus eCommerce platform, please contact the Seibert Consulting Group at 760-205-5251 or email the SCG team at hello@seibertconsulting.com.
