Ready to take your online store to the next level in 2020? If you operate an ecommerce store through the platform BigCommerce, chances are you’ve spent hours researching the various apps on their marketplace.
Online shopping provides consumers a convenient and less expensive way to purchase goods. Why is this important? By 2021, it’s expected that there’ll be 230.5 million online shoppers in the United States alone, positioning the country as the leading ecommerce market.
While there’s vast opportunity for online retailers to enter the marketplace, ecommerce stores also need to keep up with consumer demands to stay relevant.
Between marketing, store maintenance, customer service, and more, ecommerce marketers have a lot to consider when creating a seamless experience for customers. By providing a positive buyer journey from start to finish, you have more of a chance to earn customer loyalty and stimulate repeat business.
Depending on your business needs, there are countless apps to choose from that all promise to help your business run more efficiently and increase your bottom line. So what are the top BigCommerce apps for sales and conversions? How can you provide your customers with the best experience? Read on for a list of the most essential apps that’ll boost your ecommerce ROI.
What is BigCommerce?
Before jumping into the best BigCommerce apps, it’s important to understand what BigCommerce is and how it helps grow online businesses. BigCommerce is a SaaS ecommerce platform that lets business owners and marketers create an online store with built-in features like payment management, shipping options, security, and more.
With competitors like Shopify and Wix, BigCommerce boasts an average annual growth of 28% for its clients. Additional features include:
- Scalable platform for businesses looking to expand
- Built-in integrations and third-party apps to fulfill most consumer needs
- Multi-channel selling through Facebook, Amazon, Etsy, and more
- Search engine optimization tools to grow your store organically
BigCommerce has four pricing plans, starting at $29.95 per month, and offers a 15-day trial period for new online shops to try before committing to the platform.
Top BigCommerce apps for sales and conversions to help grow your online store
Investing in the right technology and services as an ecommerce store is crucial in the ever-changing competitive landscape of online shopping. Not only will this provide customers with a positive buying experience to promote repeat business, but it’ll also help ecommerce marketers cut down on time-consuming tasks.
Read on to discover some of the top BigCommerce apps that’ll boost sales and conversions in 2020, as well as how you can optimize your time, so you can focus on other important business matters.
1. CM Commerce
CM Commerce is a comprehensive email marketing platform that’s trusted by over 20,000 ecommerce business owners and entrepreneurs throughout the world. With the ability to create high-performing automation workflows, you can develop an email series for every stage of the buyer’s journey. This includes welcome emails, abandoned cart emails, and review invitations. The CM Commerce platform also allows marketers the ability to send segmented emails based on your customer’s purchase history, demographics, and preferences to ensure your emails are sent to the right people, at the right time.
Additional app features:
- Develop on-brand templates, receipts, and even coupons to drive results
- Nurture your clients with marketing automation technology
- Give your customers an easy way to upload photos and reviews
- Create powerful newsletters to nurture and convert customers
Price: free trial for 90 days, $9.00/month recurring.
Source: CM Commerce
2. QuickBooks Online
Tired of spending time on manual bookkeeping and accounting errors? Bookkeeping is both a time-consuming task if you go at it alone and expensive if you hire it out. This is where Quickbooks Online steps in to run everything in the background and send the data to your accountant during tax season. Quickbooks Online is the preferred accounting software of many ecommerce owners and entrepreneurs seeking to streamline their accounting in a cost-effective way.
Additional features include:
- Manages sales and income by creating invoices to track sales by customer
- Monitors your bills and expenses
- Runs profit and loss, balance sheet, and statement of cash flow reports
- Calculates and runs payroll
- Takes online payments
- Automatically syncs orders, products, customers, and refunds
Price: free, pricing plans offered
Source: Quickbooks Online
3. Facebook Ads Extension
With the Facebook Ads Extension, you can open your business up to millions of potential customers to increase your conversion rate and brand awareness efforts. The app allows ecommerce marketers to advertise products, website visitors, and increase sales.
Additional features include:
- Connect your product catalog to develop dynamic listings
- Remarket to your website audience using the Facebook pixel
- Measure the results of your ad with extensive reporting features
Price: free, ecommerce stores set own budget depending on the ad
Source: BigCommerce
4. Yotpo Reviews
Did you know displaying your customer reviews can increase conversions by 270%? More and more online shoppers treat online reviews like a recommendation from someone they trust, which is why asking for reviews and utilizing them will drive more traffic to your website and boost sales. Yotpo Reviews helps ecommerce stores generate photos, reviews, and other user-generated content to help increase conversion rates.
Additional features include:
- Generate more reviews with an in-mail form
- Create mobile-friendly communications so users never have to leave their email app
- Integrate with all your social media platforms
- Build a community Q&A page to interact with customers immediately
Price: free, additional packages available
Source: BigCommerce
5. LiveChat
Consumers in 2020 want answers, and they want them immediately. How many times have you reached out to a company only to get a response many days later? It’s frustrating and can turn off potential customers forever. With the BigCommerce app LiveChat, online stores can offer a chat feature for customers to get their questions answered. A live chat option not only helps the customer’s experience, but it also provides a higher conversion rate.
Additional features include:
- Transfer questions between customer service agents
- Pre-program common questions and answers
- See what customers are typing, regardless of whether or not they hit “send”
Price: $16/month
Source: LiveChat
6. Sellbrite
Tired of constantly updating all your selling platforms? Sellbrite is a multi-channel listing platform that streamlines your inventory throughout different sales channels, like eBay, Walmart, Amazon, Etsy, and more. With a simple interface, Sellbrite’s technology allows ecommerce marketers to prevent overselling, simplify listings, and optimize fulfillment needs. You can sync as many sales channels as you want and have access to multi-warehouse support.
Additional features include:
- Bulk listings your full inventory and save listing templates
- Revise, relist, and monitor all listings
- Sync all inventory quickly from all sales channels
- Fulfillment by Amazon
Price: $49/month for the basic package
Source: BigCommerce
7. Optimizely
The ability to A/B test your ecommerce store’s appearance allows you to better understand how your consumers interact with your website, which can result in higher conversion rates. Optimizely helps ecommerce marketers test the color of their “buy now” button, the design of the checkout page, the value proposition, and more to create a better customer experience. Otherwise, it’s a shot in the dark hoping something will stick and result in a purchase.
Additional features include:
- Personalized marketing campaigns to impact the entire buyer’s journey
- Detailed performance metrics for each element you test
- Full A/B testing capabilities
Price: pricing is customized to match your needs
Source: Optimizely
8. ShipStation
Shipping is one of the most important aspects of your ecommerce store. Online retailers must be able to quickly and reliably ship orders out to customers, or otherwise risk negative reviews and lose future business. ShipStation is software that allows you to import, manage, and ship your orders on all selling channels. With ShipStation, you have access to discounted shipping rates, branding tracking pages, and international capabilities.
Additional features include:
- Intuitive interfaces and dashboards to streamline shipping
- Automate every step of the shipping process
- Cloud-based and mobile capabilities
- Self-service returns portal
Price: $9.00/month
Source: BigCommerce
Wrap up
BigCommerce apps are ideal for ecommerce stores looking to convert more customers, decrease time-consuming tasks, and save money by avoiding hiring outside developers. However, the right BigCommerce apps to increase sales and conversions boil down to who your audience is, what kind of store you have, and what capabilities you’re currently using.
Overall, you need to think about what your customers need and how you can better enhance their experience on your website. A customer who’s had a positive experience with your brand is more likely to purchase from you again and recommend your products to their friends.
When looking to invest in new BigCommerce apps, consider apps that:
- Allow you to personalize every stage of the customer’s buying journey
- Decrease time-consuming tasks like accounting and shipping
- Connect you to multiple platforms, so you can advertise at the right times
- Offer users an enhanced customer service experience
- Provide detailed analytics and reports, so you can continue to improve
If you’re ready to improve your ecommerce website, check out CM Commerce. CM Commerce allows you to communicate with your customers throughout their most important moments with your store. Try it for free!