BigCommerce is one of the fastest-growing e-commerce platforms.
Shark Tank’s successful brands like The Pink Lily and Lime Crime both use BigCommerce to power their stores.
After switching to BigCommerce, many online stores see an increase in their conversion rates, faster order processing, and a superior user experience.
The platform offers reliability, stability, and security.
There are some BigCommerce apps you should install if you really want to enjoy the platform.
In this article, I’ll reveal ten BigCommerce apps you should start using today.
1. GrowthFunnel
Email is the most powerful way to reach people who have shown interest in your products or services.
More than 34% of the people worldwide use email. That’s about 2.5 billion according to a report by the Radicati Group. That number is expected to increase to 2.8 billion in 2018.
We use emails to connect with families, friends, and strangers. Email is a big part of our lives.
I receive hundreds of emails per week.
The number one thing people do online is use email.
You can reach prospects via emails.
Start collecting emails on your BigCommerce online store.
One of the best ways to collect emails on BigCommerce is to install GrowthFunnel in your store.
This is very easy to do.
Quickly sign up for GrowthFunnel here if you haven’t done that already. We offer you a 14-day free trial.
After doing that, login into your GrowthFunnel dashboard account and click on the little arrow pointing down at the top-left side of the screen.
You’ll see “Add new site.” Click on it.
Type your website URL and select the timezone you want to use on your GrowthFunnel account.
After doing this, you’ll have a code snippet you can paste on the header of your site.
You’ve installed GrowthFunnel after you’ve done this.
The next step will be to start creating conversion funnels in GrowthFunnel.
Through funnels, you’ll begin collecting prospects’ emails and names.
GrowthFunnel integrates well with popular email marketing service providers like MailChimp, ConvertKit, AWeber, and others.
GrowthFunnel shines in letting you personalize your popups and messages for visitors in their first and subsequent visits.
When you combine GrowthFunnel with any email providers, you can track who opened your emails, which links they clicked, and recognize them in their next visits.
GrowthFunnel won’t only help you recognize people who have visited your store. It will also address them by their names.
Just imagine how much sales that personalization will generate for your BigCommerce store.
2. Printful
If you own a drop shipping business that sells t-shirts, posters, and other print products, Printful is more than just an app for you.
You may find other business model available in the market that provide print on-demand.
BigCommerce automatically sends your orders to Printful.
Printful prints and deliver the order. No stress except for marketing.
You don’t have to worry about keeping inventory, as orders are sent based on demand on your BigCommerce store.
Here are some of the products merchants who use the Printful app sell:
- T-shirts
- Sweatshirts
- Phone cases
- Posters
- Framed posters
- Canvas
- Mugs
- Totes
- All-over t-shirts and tank tops
- Cut & sew sublimation products: leggings, dresses, skirts
- Socks
- Pillows
- Embroidery on hats and beanies
- Towels
Printful allows you to create mockup images of your product with their mockup generator.
They don’t outsource your work.
Everything is printed at their fulfillment centers in California, North Carolina, and Latvia (Europe).
BigCommerce merchants who use Printful have made more than $4.9m. You can join them if you sell print related products.
3. Signifyd
Except it’s a phishing scheme or hacking, if you accept a fraudulent payment on your online store, you’ll be held responsible.
Many online stores have had to deal with fraudulent transactions. It happens every day online because credit cards or financial details get stolen.
Hackers sell credit card numbers to other scammers who use them to buy products online.
Victims may not know that scammers are using their cards to purchase things because they don’t check their statements thoroughly.
When they finally discover that some people are using their cards, they report the merchants where those purchases were made.
That is why you must conduct due diligence before processing an order.
Don’t send products if the card details don’t match the buyer’s name and shipping address on the credit card company’s file.
Use tools to track customers IP addresses.
Don’t process orders from an IP address from a country known as a base for scammers.
But if your site is hosted on a managed solution like BigCommerce, then you don’t have to worry about all these.
A BigCommerce app like Signifyd will protect your online store from fraudulent payments.
Make sure you install Signifyd today.
4. Optimizely
Optimizely is an A/B testing tool that helps you find the most effective way to increase your revenue.
The software displays several different versions of your web page to visitors, and measure which version drives the most sales.
You never know if your site is performing to its fullest potential until you conduct a series of a/b tests.
Your site may not be getting enough clicks and conversions as it should.
Here’s how a/b testing works.
Looking at the image above, variation A is the clear winner.
Use A/B testing to test some changes on your site before making it permanent.
Maybe you want to change the product image, or copy, an A/B test will tell you if the new version converts better.
If your store receives a lot of traffic, you can also test many changes at a time.
5. Omnisend
Customers are looking for a personalized omnichannel experience, and they’re rewarding the brands that deliver it.
you can use email, SMS, Facebook Messenger, push notifications and more in the same workflow.
Omnisend makes omnichannel marketing easy for BigCommerce merchants.
6. Rare.io
Email marketing is 40% more effective than social media.
Above, I mentioned how our tool, GrowthFunnel can help you collect emails on your website and personalize your messages to visitors at the same time.
To reap the full benefit of email marketing, you need a predictive analytics tool like Rare.io.
Predictive Analytics use your past and current data to predict future outcomes and trends.
It tells you what might happen in the future so that you can create a suitable plan or solution.
Predictive analytics uses your customers’ data like their personas, browsing history, shopping behavior, etc.
It uses these data to forecast their future actions.
When you know customers’ future actions, you understand better and create and present offers in a way that makes them buy on your website.
For example, let’s say your store sells dog food and you have a customer named Brian.
Brian bought dog food two weeks ago, and he’s ordering again today.
That tells you that Brian may buy two weeks after.
Armed with this information, you can contact Brian when it’s two weeks, offering him a sweet discount he won’t refuse.
Rare.io is the number one predictive analytics tool on BigCommerce.
7. Conversio (Formerly Receiptful)
Conversion helps you sell more through your receipts.
Shoppers spend an average 14.8 seconds on receipt emails.
The average attention span on emails is 8 seconds.
That means the average attention span on receipts is 185% higher than attention spans on emails.
You can use your receipts to leave a lasting impression on a web shopper.
Make the colors of your receipt match your brand’s color palette.
By doing that, you create an environment consumers are familiar with when visiting your store.
For example, Lyft uses their brand color on their receipts.
You can use your receipt to promote discount-based upsells and similar-based upsells.
The aim of using receipts to promote discount-based upsells is to encourage future and repeat purchases.
Conversio built a recommendation engine that takes care of which similar products to add to your receipts.
Here is how your receipt will be structured.
- Your logo
- Personalized “welcome” or “thank you” message
- A discount-based upsell
- The actual receipt data
- The Similar Products upsell
- Billing + Shipping Address and Order Notes (optional / where applicable)
- And the feedback module
And here’s how it’ll look like according to Conversio (formerly Receiptful):
8. AfterShip
Many online shoppers want to track their packages.
According to a survey, shipment tracking is the most wanted online shopping feature.
Shipment tracking can boost repeat sales because customers will be happy with their first buying experience with you.
You should provide shipment tracking to customers after their purchase.
Customers should know the estimated delivery date to expect their package.
They should be able to view the complete delivery details on your website instead of asking them to visit the site of USPS or FedEx.
Customers should know the exact location of their package at each time.
If it is shipped out for delivery.
Or, if it’s delivered.
Or, when there’s a problem with delivery.
AfterShip is a BigCommerce app that lets merchants offer shipment tracking to their customers.
The app supports UPS, FedEx, USPS, China Post and 350+ couriers.
Customers can track their shipments without leaving your store.
AfterShip automatically generates a tracking page for each customer upon completing their purchase.
The page has your brand logo, store URL, and Instagram pictures to improve sales.
9. Smile.io
Big companies spend a huge amount of money on customer loyalty programs.
What is a customer loyalty program?
According to HubSpot:
“A customer loyalty program is a rewards program offered by a company to customers who frequently make purchases. A loyalty program may give a customer free merchandise, rewards, coupons, or even advance released products.”
Existing customers spend 67% more than new customers.
When a customer is loyal to your brand, they’ll continue to buy your products and even refer their friends to your store.
You can set up a customer loyalty program that rewards loyal shoppers using a BigCommerce app called Smile.io.
Over 15,000 merchants are using Smile.io to reward their customers.
10. PayWhirl
The subscription-payment model is not limited to B2B industries.
People are willing to buy anything on a subscription plan these days.
Consumers now buy razors and makeup products on a subscription payment model.
Dollar Shave Club is a perfect example.
The subscription payment model also helps with gifting.
For example, when you buy something for someone, they are likely to forget after a few days or weeks.
But when you buy them something on a subscription basis, it helps you express your appreciation over time.
PayWhirl makes it easy to receive recurring payments on BigCommerce.
11. Reamaze
Anyone who’s serious about selling online should be ready to treat customers like their family members.
Apple, Amazon, and Zappos are built on understanding the customer and giving them what they want.
That is the reason why these companies are so successful today and continue to increase in worth.
If you want to get more sales and expand your business, provide an exceptional customer service that separates you from competitors.
Bad news travels faster today than ever before.
A poor customer service could cause your store to lose a lot of potential sales.
Warren Buffett once said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
That phrase is truer today than ever before because consumers have so many options to choose from.
On BigCommerce, you need an app that will help you deliver an exceptional customer service.
I recommend Reamaze.
Reamaze will quickly help you learn everything you need to know about your customers.
Their past orders.
Their order numbers.
And their return status.
You get all these without having to search your BigCommerce account.
Reamaze allows you to bring in your email, Facebook, Twitter, and even Instagram comments and messages into one place so you can interact with customers no matter where they are.
With an app like Reamaze, you can continue to delight customers with a great customer service experience.
Remember the first app I mentioned in this article:
GrowthFunnel.
It’s the place that you should start from.
