Setting up an online store for your business is now easy owing to e-commerce platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce. But to scale your online store, you need to equip yourself with the right tools that enable your processes and make a positive impact on your bottom line.
In this post, we’re sharing some of the best plugins to supercharge your online store – from SEO and inventory management to customer engagement and marketing.
Best Shopify and WooCommerce plugins to supercharge your store
While there are thousands of plugins available to e-commerce businesses, here are the ones that have proven to help brands grow:
1. SEO plugins
About 67% of online shoppers start their buying journey from the search engine. This is where it becomes important for online stores to optimize their web pages and content to be discovered for the right searches. Here are the best SEO plugins:
- Yoast SEO – Available for both Shopify and WooCommerce, Yoast is a popular SEO plugin for its ease of use. It helps optimize product pages, manage meta descriptions and offers real-time analysis for keyword usage and readability.
- Plug In SEO – Only available for Shopify stores, this plugin can help you check the store for SEO issues and also provide tips on fixing them. This includes meta tags, keyword optimization, broken link detection and more.
2. Shipping and inventory management plugins
Over 70% of online shoppers would search for an item elsewhere if unavailable with a brand. That’s exactly why businesses need to streamline operations to prevent stockouts (and overstocking). Here are the best plugins to automate updating, tracking and alerting on stock levels:
- ShipStation – Available for both WooCommerce and Shopify, ShipStation allows stores to sync orders from Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Walmart, NetSuite, and other channels. The plugin offers real-time inventory sync, shipping automation, bulk printing, and warehouse tools streamline fulfillment.
- Inventory Planner – This plugin helps both WooCommerce and Shopify stores easily update product inventory, syncing stock from multiple suppliers and warehouses. You can also set rules to automatically add or remove products based on stock availability to keep your listings up-to-date.
3. Customer engagement plugins
Another important set of plugins are those that can keep online shoppers engaged while they browse through your site. This typically includes encouraging the first interaction and then nudging a repeat purchase. Here are some plugins that help:
- Tidio – Tidio offers live chat and chatbot services to both WooCommerce and Shopify stores. The plugin helps you provide real-time support with the help of automated responses for common queries and custom workflows to offer shopping assistance.
- Smile.io – This plugin helps Shopify stores set up a loyalty and referral program on the store. It helps set up points, VIP tiers and other rewards to keep customers coming back. WooCommerce offers many similar plugins for the same.
4. Marketing and sales plugins
The best way to succeed in a competitive market is to stay on top of your audience’s minds. This is where marketing plugins come in to help boost visibility, conversions and customer engagement to drive sales. Here are some we recommend:
- OptinMonster – The very first plugin to get your marketing and sales engine going is to capture consumer intent. OptinMonster comes with customizable templates for lightbox popups, floating bars, coupon wheels, inline options, yes/no forms, welcome mats, scroll boxes and more to set up across your store.
- Omnisend – The marketing plugin offers email and SMS automation to both Shopify and WooCommerce stores. From offering the best WordPress popup plugin to capture customer details to pre-built automation workflows for welcome, promotions, cart recovery, post-purchase follow-ups and more, Omnisend makes it possible for stores to personalize and run targeted campaigns.
5. Payment and checkout plugins
The checkout process you set up on your store can make or break your sale. This is where using plugins that streamline the steps to completing a purchase payment come in handy. Here are some plugins we recommend:
- WooCommerce Stripe Payment Gateway – A plugin that integrates with Stripe as a payment option, allows you to accept credit cards and digital wallets. It also offers PCI-compliant security features to keep the transaction experience seamless.
- Shopify Payments – Built within Shopify, this plugin allows you to accept payments without relying on third-party providers. This provides a seamless checkout experience at a much lower transaction fees.
6. Analytics and reporting plugins
As you start to promote your online store, it’s important to keep track of what’s working and what needs improvement. Here are the plugins we recommend:
- Google Analytics – Available to both Shopify and WooCommerce stores, this plugin offers detailed insights into traffic, customer behavior and conversion rates. It also lets e-commerce businesses set up tracking for product and transaction data.
- Shopify Analytics – Exclusive to Shopify users only, this plugin provides insights into sales, customer behavior and product performance without having to install a third-party solution.
Conclusion
Remember, the right plugins will help you run processes with ease and efficiency.
We recommend monitoring the impact of the plugins you install on your bottom line. This can help optimize the workflows and automations you set up through the plugins, or replace them with other custom solutions when required.
