Online stores are selling this, that, and everything under the sky! It’s become extremely easy for people to follow their passion to sell products online. In fact, new online stores are getting started almost everyday.One of the things making opening and running online stores simpler is dropshipping. Around 27% of online retailers are using dropshipping, and it earns 50% more profit compared to stores that run on the traditional model of keeping their own stock inventory.Wondering what exactly is dropshipping?

What is dropshipping?

Dropshipping is a method where the online store does not keep its own stock inventory. Instead, when a store sells a product, it purchases it from a third party and the third party ships it to the customer directly. The seller (dropshipping store) does not have to handle the product.How does dropshipping help? In the traditional model, where stores have their own stock inventories, they might not be able to have too many products, but dropshipping gives the flexibility to sell a range of products.Infact, you can stick to a niche or you can offer different types of products. It’s completely up to you and your target market.But managing dropshipping manually would be nothing less than a nightmare!To be able to run a dropshipping store successfully, you need a few Shopify apps that make it easy for you. Here, we’ve put together a list of the best dropshipping Shopify apps for your online store.

15 best dropshipping Shopify apps to help your store run efficiently

1. Oberlo - product sourcing app

One of the biggest tasks for dropshipping stores is the need to find products. Most Shopify stores prefer Oberlo for that. It helps you find products from various suppliers, wholesales, and retailers. It also adds products to your store, handles them, and ships them for you. It’s a dropshipping expert app.Here’s how it works: When a customer places an order on your Shopify store, it gets synced to the Oberlo system. This is where everything from packaging to shipping is taken care of. You don’t have to worry about anything.

2. Back in stock - restock notification app

It’s possible that products on your site get sold out. Studies show that retailers lost around 50% of intended sales because of out of stock products. So, when customers browse those products on your site, you don’t have to lose sales if you have Back in Stock - Restock Alerts.For dropshipping models, this app helps immensely -- by knowing the number of shoppers who’re waiting for the product, you can know the demand and hence place orders to your third party sellers.The app allows shoppers to sign up for restock alerts via a channel they prefer - email, SMS, web push or Facebook Messenger. One of the top dropshipping Shopify apps, it makes recovering lost sales easier than you could have imagined.

3. Pre-order Today - manage pre-orders, restocks app

Dropshipping gives you the option to sell products that you really like. So, for example, if you know of a to-be-launched product/service that you want to offer in your store, you could do so. This means, you can start selling products before they are available in your inventory.Appikon Pre-order Today allows you to automate this entire process - from swapping ‘Add to Cart’ button to ‘Pre-order’, to pre-order tagging and discounts, too. It also helps sending alerts to subscribers. With this app, you can capture purchase interest for coming-soon products, grow your email list, and increase sales.Example:

4. Boost Sales - cross-selling, upselling app

Being an online store, you don’t have the opportunity to interact with your customers face to face to recommend products, like you’d do in a brick-and-mortar store. But there are ways in which you can upsell and cross-sell. That’s what Boost Sales does for Shopify stores.The app displays pop-ups when items viewed or added to the cart can be complemented by other items in your store. What is more, not only does it allow you to schedule cross-sell and upsell items, it also analyses the store data to come up with customized recommendations to shoppers. It’s one of the best free Shopify apps for dropshipping stores to boost conversions.

5. Personalized Recommendations - product recommendation app

When online shoppers see so many products on your site, they might find it difficult to choose what to buy. Psychology says human beings are wired to act like others -- in short, what we see others purchase, impacts our purchase decisions. And that’s what the app Personalized Recommendations helps you do -- it shows shoppers what other shoppers purchased.The app helps you with automated widgets such as ‘Best Selling Items’, ‘People who bought this also bought’, ‘You might also like’, and ‘Frequently bought together’. These widgets help your customers make purchase decisions, upsell, cross-sell and increase your sales.

6. Checkout Boost - incentives app

Who doesn’t like a discount or something free, right? When a store offers a discount to shoppers, they feel motivated to make a purchase and not miss out on the offer. Online stores employ different types of incentives to lure shoppers - free shipping, shopping voucher, discount, buy 1 get 1, free gift, etc.To manage your incentives program, you need a smart app - Checkout Boost. It helps your store offer incentives to shoppers in exchange for social shares, entices shoppers with exit-intent pop ups taking them back to the cart, etc.. The result: a boost in checkout rate and conversions.

7. Sales Pop - social proof app

When you go to restaurants, seeing other people inside gives you a sense of assurance about the restaurant you chose. Doesn’t it? Similarly, when shoppers see other people buying from your Shopify store, they gain confidence.That’s what the Sales Pop app can help you with. It displays social proof such as --‘1 customer from Boston bought this’ or ‘250 pieces sold’ - to build trust, and motivate shoppers into making purchases. The app displays recent sales and abandoned cart pop ups automatically to help boost your store’s sales.

8. MailBot - email marketing app

Online stores have to work hard to make sure their customers keep coming back to their store. Email marketing is one of the most effective channels to bring customers back. 72% of consumers say they use email to engage with brands and prefer personalized messages.And that’s exactly what MailBot is designed for. It’s one of the must-have dropshipping Shopify apps for online stores. It generates highly personalized follow-up emails for different customers, based on their purchase and browsing history on your site. The result: increased conversions and customer retention rates.

9. Plug in SEO - SEO optimization app

Your dropshipping store may have the best products but it’s pointless if it doesn’t show up when shoppers are searching for products online. And how do you make sure your products show up on search engines? The answer is SEO optimization. At least 43% of all eCommerce traffic comes from search engines.The Plug in SEO app is a one stop shop for all of your Shopify store’s SEO optimization needs. It fixes broken links, optimizes product pages, collections and about us pages, meta title and description, image all text, etc. It scans and fixes all SEO issues; boosts ranking, traffic and sales on your stores.

10. Countdown Timer + Cart Timer - urgency timer app

It is scientifically proven that urgency, loss aversion and fear of missing out (FOMO) cause psychological triggers in the human brain, and prompt quick actions. And you should make use of this tactic for your dropshipping store.The Countdown Timer + Cart Timer app will help you. It creates a sense of urgency by adding a countdown timer on any page. For example, it adds a checkout timer to the cart page, which helps in reducing abandoned carts. The app also has a feature to display a discount timer for every new visitor on your site.Example:

11. Quick Facebook Chat - Facebook live chat app

While shopping on your dropshipping Shopify store, shoppers might have questions that they want you to answer. Customers prefer a human touch; seek help and guidance to shop. So, being an online store, how do you offer that to your customersFacebook Messenger - Live Chat - the app integrates a Facebook live chat to your website so that your customers can ask you any questions while shopping and get answers in real-time. The result: you can answer their questions and nudge them towards making a purchase, increasing your conversion rates.

12. Mobile Converter - mobile optimization app

79% of people have made a purchase through their mobile in the last six months. That’s the kind of comfort consumers have developed for shopping on their mobile devices. And so, you just can’t afford to ignore mobile optimization of your dropshipping store.Here’s where the Mobile App Builder‑MageNative app for Shopify can help you. It lets you convert your Shopify store into a mobile app so that you can cater to your shoppers who access your site through mobile devices.

13. BEST Currency Converter - dynamic currency converting app

If your dropshipping store caters to shoppers in different countries, you definitely need to display prices in different currencies. Even if you don’t cater to multiple countries, it’s helpful to display prices in different currencies, because a lot of your shoppers might prefer to see prices in a specific currency.That’s where you can use the BEST Currency Converter app. It converts prices instantly into more than 160 currencies. This helps to decrease cart abandonment rate and makes the shopping experience easy for customers.

14. Product Reviews - display customer review app

87% of buying decisions of shoppers are based on research and trust. Reviews written by other customers are a big part of this. Incorporating customer reviews can make a huge difference to the conversion rate on your dropshipping Shopify store.To manage your customer reviews, you can use the Product Reviews app for Shopify. It allows you to add customer reviews features to your product pages. What is more, it adds SEO-friendly review scores, and increases the conversion rate of reviewed products.Example:

15. FAQ Page & Accordion - question & answer app

As a dropshipping Shopify store, you have to make your customers’ shopping experience easy and seamless. There are a lot of questions that are commonly asked by customers, such as the shipping policy, return policy, payment options, damaged good returns policy, etc.Instead of making customers reach out to you for answers to their questions, you can have a dedicated Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page to help them out. The Shopify FAQ Page & Accordion app will come to your rescue. It creates the FAQs page for your site, optimizes it for SEO, and allows visitors to search FAQs, among its other features.

Which apps are you using for your dropshipping Shopify store?

There are many Shopify apps that can make your dropshipping store experience better. But you don’t have to install all the apps at one go. Try some of these best dropshipping Shopify apps as and when there is a need. Because it’s also important to keep your store lightweight so that it loads efficiently and your customers have a smooth shopping experience.