Shopify is one of the most powerful selling platforms available. With countless built-in features and integrations, you can create a fully customized store with a lightning-fast checkout experience that keeps customers coming back again and again.
Sounds great, right? The drawback of having so many features is that many Shopify users feel overwhelmed and simply stick with the basics. While you can still create a store with basic themes, there’s a whole lot more you might be missing out on.
In this article, we’ll explore some of the best – and most overlooked – features you don’t want to skip in your Shopify store.
Ready to set up or optimize your Shopify store? Brandography offers full Shopify development services to get your store up and running. If you already have an ecommerce store and want to migrate to Shopify, we’ve got you covered there, too. Connect with us and learn how we can take your store up a notch.
10 Shopify Features You Don’t Want to Sleep On
1. Quick-Pay Options. Getting a customer through the checkout journey is hard enough as it is. You can avoid losing precious sales in the critical moment by enabling easy payment methods on your checkout page. Giving customers the option to check out with Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Buy with Prime makes the process effortless. Better yet, why not enable Shop Pay? This feature enables customers to log in to your store and check out using the Shop App for a seamless shopping experience. Shop Pay isn’t just convenient, it boosts conversions by up to 50% compared to traditional checkout methods, surpassing other quick-pay options by 10% or more.
2. Upsells and Post-Purchase Offers. What if you could effortlessly encourage customers to add one more quick item to their cart, even after they’ve checked out? Shopify’s pre-purchase and post-purchase upsells are one of the easiest ways to amp up your average order value (AOV). You can also use apps such as Zipify or ReConvert to upsell items. ReConvert offers a one-click upsell, AI-powered upsell funnels, and a drag-and-drop checkout builder that amplify your overall checkout experience while boosting sales.
3. Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) Apps. Being able to split a purchase into multiple payments is sometimes the deciding factor for a customer, especially if your AOV is on the higher end. Using an app like Affirm is a simple way to let customers finance their orders. You can also offer this through Shop Pay Installments, which is powered by Affirm. Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) apps are a great way to boost conversions.
According to a study from Affirm, 45% of shoppers would have delayed their purchase without a BNPL option, while another 29% wouldn’t have completed the purchase at all.
4. Product Subscriptions. Set it and forget it. If you sell products with a high rate of repeat purchases, consider offering your customers the option to subscribe. Shopify’s subscription feature lets you choose which products and variants you want to offer on a subscription basis. Apps like Recharge Subscriptions offer even more powerful subscription features. Recharge works seamlessly with your existing checkout and gives you a customizable subscriber portal that lets you maintain brand consistency, all while converting more one-time customers into subscribers.
5. Back-in-Stock Alerts. One of the quickest ways to improve your customer experience (and cut back on customer service tickets) is with in-stock alerts. While Shopify itself doesn’t currently have a built-in feature for this, many apps allow you to set up stock alerts. All your customers have to do is enter their information, and they’ll instantly receive a notification when you receive more inventory.
6. Abandoned Cart Automations. You forgot something in your cart! Messages like these can be extremely effective for getting customers to return and complete their purchase. And best of all, you don’t need to sit down and email everyone who leaves a cart behind. Shopify makes it easy to set up abandoned cart notifications and bring those customers back. Abandoned cart flows are responsible for the highest average repeat purchase rate (RPR).
Given that the average abandoned cart rate is more than 70%, these automations are a must-have for recapturing those sales.
7. Heatmap Apps. Ever wonder what your customers are actually looking at on your product pages? Installing apps like Microsoft Clarity or Hotjar will provide valuable insights into customer behavior, helping you hone in on what’s working and what’s not. We’ve found tools like these help our clients understand which areas of their website are the most important. With this data, we can optimize your site design and landing pages to make the most impact on your customer experience.
8. Sticky “Add to Cart” Buttons. Installing a sticky button app makes it easier than ever for customers to fill their cart. With this feature turned on, the “Add to Cart” button will follow them wherever they scroll on the product page. Shopify doesn’t currently have a native feature for this, but many apps offer sticky button capabilities.
9. Affiliate Programs. Affiliate marketing is a great way to reach more customers and build brand trust with a wider audience. Shopify Collabs is a built-in feature (available on most plans) that allows you to connect with influencers. You can also choose from dozens of third-party affiliate apps that integrate with Shopify and allow you to track referrals easily.
10. AI-Driven Merchandising. If you want to stop overthinking your data and customer behavior, try an AI merchandising app that does it for you. These apps analyze customer behavior to organize your products and filter your collections in a way that grabs customers’ attention and drives sales. AI Shopify apps can also create dynamic discounts that are personalized based on customer behavior.
With so many features to offer, a lot of Shopify users get overwhelmed with the choices and overlook some of the best optimizations. You can still run a functional store without these Shopify integrations. However, leaving these optimizations on the table could be a huge missed opportunity for your business.
Boost Your Shopify Store with Brandography
Need help integrating these features with your Shopify store? Want to migrate an existing store to Shopify? The Brandography team would love to help! Schedule a 1:1 meeting with us to talk through your goals and take your eCommerce store to the next level.
