20 of the Best Retail Apps to Seamlessly Run Your Store

Retail has come a long way. In just the last decade, we’ve gone from clunky cash registers and being buried under a never-ending pile of paperwork to using a single gadget to sell anywhere.

With today’s evolving retail technology, retailers can run their entire store with nothing more than a tablet or smartphone. 

Using a mobile device, a robust point-of-sale software like Shopify POS, and a few retailer apps, merchants can process transactions in their storefront or on the go at pop-ups, markets, fairs, and festivals.

In other words: you’re able to manage your retail business from anywhere, at any time. 

But which retailer apps will help merchants the most with day-to-day tasks? This guide shares 21 of the best retail apps that’ll save you time and money. 

Note: Although most of these retailer apps are free to download, some are free to use and others require a paid subscription plan for use after a free trial period.

Best apps for managing your store

Shopify POS

Pricing: Free

Accepting payments and selling your products offline and online shouldn’t be a hassle. Shopify Point of Sale (POS) seamlessly integrates with your ecommerce store so your products, orders, and customers are always in sync—regardless of where you’re selling.

Merchants can also take advantage of robust reports and easy integration with all the necessary hardware to make running your store easier than ever.

This app is great when I am selling at craft shows and other on-site galas! Easy to use and helps me keep track of items sold.

Staffy

Pricing: Free 

Track employee working hours using Staffy’s POS system. It’s ideal for coffee shops, retail stores, and restaurants that need to manage the schedules of several team members 

The hardware comes with a mobile app for staff to tap in and out. You can also schedule their working hours, track employees’ sales commission, and approve timesheets. All of that data gets imported into payroll.

Dor

Pricing: Free

Do you know how many people visit your retail store each day? Uncover those insights with Dor. Its thermal-sensing camera hooks onto the entrance door of your retail location and tracks how many people visit.

The best part? Dor integrates with your Shopify POS equipment so you can compare foot traffic with real revenue. You’ll uncover insights like the time of day purchase-ready customers visit—even what weather causes an uplift in retail sales.

magicplan

Pricing: Free

One of the most important decisions you’ll make about your storefront is your store layout. But it’s often difficult for merchants to envision how you’ll optimize your space. That’s where magicplan can help. 

Using augmented reality, merchants can create professional floor plans simply by taking pictures. Use magicplan to generate complete job estimates, view your space in 3D, plan DIY projects, or furnish your space.

Xero

Pricing: Free

When it comes to running your business, your bottom line needs to be top of mind for your retail store to thrive. With the Xero app, accounting functions and financial reporting help you gain revenue transparency. 

Merchants can perform a number of key financial functions right from their mobile device, including viewing all accounts, creating and sending invoices, automating order exports, and a great deal more. 

DocuSign

Pricing: Free

Need to sign a document without wanting to print it first, then sign it, scan it, and finally email it back? With the DocuSign app, merchants can prepare and send documents for signature, complete in-person signing, and get instant visibility into document status directly from their smartphone or tablet.

That means it’s easier for retailers to go paperless while still accessing a quick and secure way to sign contracts and send off vendor agreements for a signature.

HERO

Pricing: $99/month per location.

The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the way consumers shop. Caution over visiting stores means people are shopping online. Hero brings those beloved real-life store experiences online.

With Hero, online shoppers can ask questions about a product, see a 360-degree view of it, and check availability—all without having to visit a store to see it in the flesh. 

Sesami

Pricing: Free

Do you offer appointments to customers? Whether you’re doing Zoom consultations or arranging an in-store private shopping experience, Sesami’s retail app makes it easy to schedule them in—without double booking.

Sesami integrates with Google Calendar and Zoom, along with Shopify POS. That means you can schedule appointments with customers wherever you are—both online and offline.

Filljoy

Pricing: From $19/month. Free 14-day trial available.

If the price of your products depends on their weight, you’ll need Filijoy. It’s a retail app that works with a scale so you can weigh an item, calculate its price, and charge a customer through your Shopify point-of-sale system. 

It’s a must-have app for grocery stores, pet food retailers, butcher shops, and any other businesses that price items based on weight. 

Best apps for discoverability

Shop

Pricing: Free

The checkout page is arguably one of the most important pages on any retailer’s website. These days, consumers want fast and easy checkout processes. Shop Pay delivers that. It stores a customers’ purchase history (including their credit card information) so they can checkout at the click of a button…even if they’ve never ordered from you before. 

Shop Pay is the fastest and best-converting checkout process you can give your customers. Sites using Shop Pay have a 1.72x higher checkout-to-order rate than those going through regular checkouts.

(That’s especially important if you’re relying on mobile commerce. The checkout-to-order rate on mobile sites using Shop Pay is 1.91x higher than traditional checkout.)

Shop’s mobile app also gives customers real-time order tracking and a list of bestselling products from the shops they follow. Retailers have the power to manage the entire post-purchase journey using push notifications to drive future sales. No wonder it’s the third most popular shopping app in the US.

Google My Business

Pricing: Free

A third of US consumers use the internet to find local businesses on a daily basis, using queries like “groceries near me.” The vast majority (76%) of those local searches result in a purchase within 24 hours. 

Google My Business’ mobile app helps you to reach those local shoppers and drive them to your brick-and-mortar store. With it, you can customize your business listing on the go and:

• Update your opening hours
• Post special offers and in-store flash sales
• Share customer photos

Google channel

Pricing: Free

Search engines are the first port of call for 48% of online shoppers when they’re looking for product information. The Google channel app allows you to pay to reach them, so you’ll appear in the list of top results, even if your organic SEO strategy doesn’t get you there. 

With this app, you can list products for free on Google Shopping. You can also run Google PPC campaigns and adjust budgets, without leaving your Shopify dashboard. 

Facebook channel

Pricing: Free

Capture the billions of consumers actively using social media with this retail app. Facebook channel integrates with Facebook Shops and Instagram Shopping, so your inventory is accurate and up to date across both. 

Facebook channel also helps retailers build an audience. You’ll be open for business on two of the biggest social media platforms in the world—and manage those orders through your Shopify storefront.

SMSBump SMS Marketing

Pricing: Free

There are several ways to communicate with existing and potential customers: email, social media, and live chat, to name a few. SMS marketing, however, trumps all of them when it comes to open rates, with 42% of business text messages being opened.

SMSBump is a great app to send those messages to your audience. The platform is GDPR and TCPA compliant and integrates with your POS. That means anyone who enters their phone number in-store or online can automatically receive SMS marketing messages. 

Best apps for inventory management

Stocky

Pricing: Free

Inventory management is one of the trickiest things about running a retail business. Stocky shows you what you have in stock, what’s running low, and which items need replenishing. 

Stocky also shows your bestselling products in its app dashboard, alongside how many are left in stock. It’ll help you spot any upcoming shortages, so your most popular products are always available to purchase. 

Low Stock – Back in Stock Pro

Pricing: Free

Experiencing a stockout? Low Stock is a Shopify app that shows a reminder button for products that are out of stock. A customer enters their email address and gets a reminder (or push notification) when it’s back and available to purchase. No more lost sales. 

Freshly Commerce

Pricing: Free

Retailers who sell perishable goods need to keep a closer eye on their stock. Food and drink items, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals all have expiration dates and can’t be sold once that date arrives.

Freshly Commerce highlights the perishable goods with upcoming expiration dates. You can use the insights to prioritize which products need selling first, and fulfil orders using the first-expire, first-out (FEFO) method. Freshly Commerce also helps you track recalled products based on their batch number, should you need to. 

Best apps for conversion and retention

Smile

Pricing: Free

Not only is it important to introduce your brand to new customers, it’s also important to find ways to keep existing ones. That’s where loyalty programs can help. According to data from Nielsen, 84% of consumers are more likely to choose retailers that offer a loyalty program.

Sold on the idea? Smile is a retailer app that offers merchants a comprehensive customer loyalty and referral program. Reward your customers with points, discounts, gift cards, or coupons for various activities like:

• Referring a friend
• Social shares and follows
• Purchases
• Birthday rewards

Change Commerce

Pricing: Free

The cost of a product is still important to 44% of consumers. But more people say other attributes like being environmentally friendly (71%), socially responsible (68%), and giving back to the community (68%) are most important. 

Change Commerce is a simple mobile app that supports these causes. It asks customers whether they’d like to round up the cost of their order to the nearest dollar, with those extra cents going toward a charity the retail business supports. 

Gift Reggie

Pricing: From $9 per month. Free 30-day trial available.

For merchants with products that make great gifts, one of the ways to encourage gift-giving is with a registry. But creating your own gift registry or wish list solution from scratch can seem a bit daunting to stretched-thin merchants. Instead, try Gift Reggie.

Gift Reggie is a retailer app that allows your customers to create a custom registry of your products and share it with their friends and family.

Find the right apps for your retail store

Shopify apps can unlock new functionalities that optimize your site for a better customer experience and more sales. 

While the apps above are some of the best free apps available in the Shopify App Store, there are plenty more: including email marketing, product upsell, and time management apps, to name a few. It all comes down to finding the best app that suits your unique needs.

Visit the Shopify App Store to browse even more retail mobile apps by use case, and share your favorites in the comments. Happy selling!

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