Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) is right around the corner! If you’re a Shopify store owner/marketer, by now, you should be busy prepping your site for the sale. For that, you’ll need efficient apps to make things easy for you. In this blog, we’ve rounded up the best Shopify apps to help you with your BFCM sale this year.
Must-have apps for your Shopify store during BFCM
PageFly - set up new pages
If you want to set up a separate page dedicated to your BFCM sale, or any other new page on your Shopify site, check out PageFly. The drag and drop builder of the app makes it extremely easy to set up new pages. Creating a dedicated page for BFCM can have many advantages:
- You can highlight discounts, deals, and all announcements related to BFCM on this page
- You can bring traffic to the BFCM page via marketing campaigns on other channels such as social media, paid ads, etc.
- Moreover, your existing customers will know where to go for BFCM updates
PageFly can help you:
- Publish high quality pages
- Kick-start new pages easily with pre-made sections
- Display images, animation, video, etc. types of content
- Show reviews, ratings, badges, etc. on the new pages
- Include countdown timers, low stock indicators, etc. to boost BFCM sales
Back in Stock - Restock Alerts - send restock notifications
It's a BFCM sale and so, products will definitely get sold out on your site. But you don’t want to disappoint interested, potential customers. Do you? Your best bet - capture their details to send them a restock notification on their preferred channel. With Back in Stock - Restock Alerts you can notify subscribers through email, SMS, web push and Facebook Messenger.Here’s how this app can help you:
- Recover sales that could otherwise be lost
- It’s set-up is quick and easy
- It allows customization of different features
- It seamlessly integrates with other apps on your Shopify site
Pre-order Today - set up pre-orders
One way to beat your competitors during the BFCM sale is to pre-launch your sale discounts. Allow shoppers to pre-order and secure your sales. Your go-to tool to set this up on your Shopify store is the Pre-order Today app. Here’s how Pre-order Today can help you during BFCM sale:
- You can sell pre-order, coming soon, out of stock products
- It has flexible and customizable features - tagging, discounts, badgers, etc.
- It allows you to automate pre-order buttons for stocked-out products
- If you face any issues, you have excellent customer support to help you out
Appstle Subscriptions - subscription solution
Subscription-based sales models can work wonders for certain types of products and brands - especially those that offer products that customers buy repeatedly. Want in on the advantages of subscriptions during BFCM? Appstle Subscriptions is here to help you. Here’s how the app can make a difference to your eCommerce store.
- Set up subscriptions for products and services that are bought repeatedly
- Simplify recurring purchases for your customers
- Inventory forecasting makes management easy for you
- Offer tiered discounts to different segments of customers
TextChat - live chat
BFCM is a busy time. Shoppers are in a frenzy as they want to buy a lot of things and not miss out on good deals. But many shoppers might struggle to make quick purchase decisions. These are situations when you can rely on TextChat to engage shoppers, chat with them and help them to make their purchase decisions.Here’s how TextChat can be advantageous:
- You can manage live chat with your shoppers on your phone via SMS
- There’s no requirement to hire customer service agents
- You can have real-time conversations with shoppers and increase sales
- The app comes with customizable widgets to enhance the experience
QuickReply - WhatsApp marketing
If it’s BFCM sales time, you can imagine, shoppers are going to be spoilt for choice. They might be simultaneously shopping on multiple sites and hence, abandon their shopping carts without buying. To recover these abandoned cart sales through email or SMS would be a slow process. But what if you could reach them on a faster channel - WhatsApp? That’s what QuickReply can help you do.Key features of QuickReply:
- You can respond to common shopper queries on WhatsApp
- Reach customers via a faster channel like WhatsApp, which is hard-to-miss
- Use automated messages or seamlessly transfer to human agents as and when needed
Appfox - build mobile apps
Nearly 56% of eCommerce conversions take place over mobile devices. Mobile is one of the most preferred mediums for online shopping during BFCM sales, as people can buy things on the go and not miss out on good deals. To increase conversions during BFCM, you can build a mobile app with a comprehensive tool like Appfox.Here’s what Appfox can do for you:
- Build apps for iOS and Android easily, without a code
- The app has ready-to-use features and customization capabilities
- It has push notification features to increase engagement and conversions
- It syncs the mobile app with your online store in real-time
Wiser - product recommendations
BFCM is a hectic time for customers as there are so many products and offers that they might want to explore. Today's customers expect brands to help them discover products. And that’s where Wiser comes in. It helps you share personalized recommendations with your shoppers to drive more revenue from them. You can recommend new products to upsell, share recently bought together recommendations, and/or show related products as recommendations. Here’s how Wiser is helpful:
- It helps share AI-based product recommendations
- It can help you boost the AOV and sales during BFCM
- You can customize the product recommendation section
- The app has manual recommendation features that help in personalisation
VideoWise - video marketing
More than 50% of customers want to see more videos from brands they support. And there are many reasons for this: videos help shoppers understand products better and faster. Brands can share important information such as BFCM deals and discounts more effectively via video compared to text or static images. What is more, shoppers can also see customer reviews through videos. To include video marketing in your BFCM marketing plan, meet VideoWise. The app makes making and sharing videos on your Shopify store a breeze.Some ways VideoWise can help:
- Easily upload or embed videos from other channels in your Shopify store
- Create shoppable videos; make it easy for shoppers to shop via videos
- Include social proof in the form of customer reviews in video format
- Increase shoppers’ time on site and conversion rate
SMSBump - SMS marketing
SMS has a 98% open rate. Being an instant and a more personalized channel for marketing, it can help boost BFCM sales through various marketing strategies. But you don’t have to perform all SMS tasks manually. You’ll need an app like SMSBump. The app helps you automate tasks such as cart abandonment recovery, automated chats, etc. through which, you can nudge customers to make purchases.Here’s how SMSBump can be a game changer during BFCM:
- Share your BFCM marketing messages via SMS
- Reach customers instantly; boost open rate
- Run different campaigns such as cart recovery, thank you messages, upsell, flash sales, etc.
- Use Shopify filters for customer segmentation; share targeted campaigns
- The app allows A/B testing to monitor and analyze performance
Loox - visual product reviews
The human brain registers visuals and videos 100 times faster than plain text. What does this mean for marketing? It means using visuals and videos can bring better results. This is true even for product reviews. When reviews have a visual element to them, they have a greater impact on shoppers. This is where Loox can help you during BFCM. BFCM is a hectic time when shoppers are in a hurry to shop. How about you show them video and visual reviews instead of text? You can use the Loox app to do so.Key features of Loox:
- Send review requests to customers and easily collect video reviews
- Use different types of review widgets - carousel, pop-up, grid, list, etc.
- Boost traffic by sharing videos on social platforms, Google, etc.
One Click Upsell - upsell and cross sell
Given the huge discounts and great deals during BFCM, it’s an excellent time to boost sales on your Shopify store. But just because you have offered discounts, it doesn’t mean your customers will keep buying from your site. You’ll have to get creative and nudge them to buy more from you. And that’s exactly what One Click Upsell will help you do. The app can help you increase your AOV through features that help you upsell and cross sell. What is more, the app can also help you test different offers.Here’s how One Click Upsell can help you:
- Increase sales with the help of in-cart and post-purchase upsells
- Share upsell recommendations throughout the sales journey at different touchpoints
- Use built-in split testing to assess performance of different offers
Ad Roll Advertising & Marketing - personalized ads
You may have the best offers and deals in your BFCM sale. But unless your customers come to know about it, it’ll be hard for you to make sales. That’s why you need to advertise your products and BFCM sale offers. How do you do that? Use Ad Roll Advertising & Marketing app.Here’s what all the app can do for your Shopify BFCM sale:
- Create dynamic ads of your Shopify store products
- Share ads on Google, social networks and other channels to boost reach
- The app also helps you combine your ads with email campaigns to improve reach
Dovetale - influencer marketing
BFCM is a time to make huge amounts of sales for brands. Brands can reach their existing customers via different marketing channels such as SMS, email, social, web push, etc. to inform them about their products and deals. But what about attracting new customers? 90% of marketers are of the opinion that influencer marketing is highly effective to attract new customers. Influencer marketing can also help brands reach new and first-time shoppers to their Shopify stores during the BFCM period. And there’s an app that can help you set up your influencer marketing campaigns - Dovetale.Here’s what you can do with Dovetale:
- Build an influencer marketing campaign, recruit influencers, etc.
- Send your products to influencers for trial and reviews
- Share discount codes with influencers and track sales from referrals
Alpaca Local Pickup & Delivery - manage pickup and delivery
It’s possible that some Shopify sites have a physical store or storage spaces in multiple locations. At times, customers might want fast deliveries or might want to pick up their orders themselves. Curbside pickup has become a popular method for eCommerce stores to deliver products faster. You can allow local pickups and deliveries for your BFCM sales, too. And there’s an app that will help you with it - Alpaca Local Pickup & Delivery.Here are some of its features:
- Customize curbside pickup based on customers’ preference
- Customize delivery rates based on locations
- Offer seamless, fast and more efficient deliveries to your BFCM customers
Currency Converter - convert currency based on location
If you sell to customers in different countries via your Shopify store, you’ll need to tackle an important factor - currency conversion. As a store owner selling across countries, you must realize that many shoppers face difficulties when buying from sites with prices mentioned in different currencies. You can make shopping easier for them by including a currency converter on your site. Use the Currency Converter app for that.Here’s how the app can help you:
- Easily add new currencies to your Shopify BFCM sale
- It converts prices automatically based on the customers’ locations
- Reduces customers’ frustration, reduces shopping time and improves experience
Ready to boost your BFCM sales with these Shopify apps?
These apps will not only make your Shopify BFCM sale more efficient, but also more exciting - both for your customers and you. The above list has some of the best Shopify apps that can effectively help you during BFCM sale. However, be mindful how many and which apps you add to your store. Avoid overcrowding your site. Add only those apps that are relevant to your industry and your customers.