I want to help you build a sustainable, profitable handmade business that makes you consistent income and sales. I only ever teach or recommend marketing, social media, pricing, production and branding tips that I’ve personally used successfully in my own 7-figure handmade businesses.
I'm Mei, from Los Angeles!
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I want to share with you my current top 5 Shopify apps that either help me make money or save me a ton of time!
I use a lot of different apps for my Shopify site, and that’s one thing I love about using Shopify for my handmade shop.
I know a lot of people complain about Shopify because after you get a store setup, you have to add on all these extra apps to really make your store do what you want.
But I see that as a good thing because Shopify’s app store is so comprehensive.
Anything you want your shop to do, there’s probably an app for it.
This is a huge drawback with most of the other website builders that are Shopify competitors.
They usually have a much smaller app store so you can never really get your shop working exactly the way you want.
My first favorite app that I’ve used for more than a year now is called Klicky.
Klickly is paid advertising for your shop’s listings, and the awesome thing is, you don’t pay anything until you’ve made a sale.
It’s completely commission-based. What’s really cool about it is customers buy your products directly from within the ads.
It’s all done for you, so you never have to learn how to do ads.
They promote your products on really big websites like Vogue, InStyle, and ESPN.
Setting up Klickly was super easy to do, and because they have Shopify integration, your product listings sync with Klickly automatically.
You can select what products you want them to promote, and then you decide what kind of commission you want to pay Klickly when they make you a sale.
Of course, they say the higher your commission, the more they’ll show your ads to people. In the last 30 days as of this post, I’ve made $1500 and spent $461 for a return on ad spend of 3.3x’s!
This is really good for me, especially since there’s no upfront cost, which makes it risk-free!
I don’t have to go through the trouble of managing my own ads with their service.
That might sound too good to be true for you, and here’s “the catch”.
Klickly has an application process so if you want to work with them, they need to make sure that they can do a good job selling for you first.
If you’re just starting out and you’ve got no traffic and sales, it’s probably not going to work for you.
They need your existing data to know how to advertise for you, so you do need to do your own leg work in the beginning.
My next favorite app is ReCharge.
ReCharge is a complete system I use to manage my entire Necklace of the Month Club.
They handle the recurring payments, and integrate with my Shopify store, so customers can checkout with both regular products and my subscription at the same time, in one cart.
People don’t have to click off your site to buy the subscription on a different platform.
This is not only better for conversions and gives people that seamless experience, but it’s also more efficient for the business owner to keep customer and sales records all in one place.
ReCharge also creates facing links where they can do self-service account management.
For example, charging their credit card on file, changing their address, pausing or canceling their subscription.
You can set up discounts, see reports, analytics, and you can create any kind of subscription you want.
It’s super powerful and flexible and to me, it’s the best subscription app on Shopify.
I make thousands of dollars every month from my subscription product, it’s recurring consistent income, and I wouldn’t have done it without this app.
This is more of an app that I love for logistical reasons.
Order Printer lets you print packing slips from your Shopify orders.
I know you can do that without an app, Shopify already has a feature for that, but Shopify’s built-in packing slips don’t look great and they’re really hard to customize.
Order Printer is totally free to use, however they do have packing slip templates you can buy for a one-time fee.
The reason we use Order Printer is my assistant that packs and ships all of our orders doesn’t have access to our Shopify store.
So in order for her to know what orders we’ve got and who ordered what products, I send her a list of packing slips with all that information.
She then prints them out and even includes it in each shipment.
I’ve also found that my customers really appreciate having a list of what’s in their package.
My products are often bought as gifts for other people, so it’s handy to have that information directly in their package.
I’ve designed my packing slips to be super on brand, and have a lot of relevant information.
I like to include some messaging on there that encourages people to reach out if they have any issues with their order.
Or if they’re happy with it, then we encourage them to send us photos of them wearing the jewelry.
The packing slip is also where my assistant hand writes a thank you note to each customer, and we’ve found that our customers really like that special touch.
For multiple product options and correct inventory tracking I use Advanced Product Options.
This app gives you unlimited ways to offer variants on your products.
Shopify already does this, but they have a limit to what they can do.
I do a great deal of sales selling customized products.
For example, I offer a set bundle of three necklaces and you get to choose what three charms you want, for a lower bundled price.
Or for my charm bracelets, you can choose what charms you want.
I also sell bookmarks and earrings like that.
Let’s say I have 50 different charm designs. Selling earrings as one listing and allowing people to choose what charm they want, is easier for me to manage than having 50 separate earring listings for each charm design.
I only offer one listing where you can “make your own earrings”.
The customer can choose from a drop down menu of 50 charm options, what design they want, and whether or not they want a Swarovski crystal to go with their earrings.
The way that my inventory system is set up, I needed to have each of those individual charms on the drop down menus, to be associated with a SKU.
I also need that to count against that SKU’s inventory.
For example, I have a waffle charm that Leslie Knope wore in Parks and Recreation.
I also have:
All of those different waffle products have the same SKU because they are all technically the same charm design.
Advanced Product Options is the only app I’ve found that can do this for me so that my inventory stays accurate at all times.
This is an app I don’t particularly love but I’m glad I’m using it TaxJar.
TaxJar helps keep my sales tax organized so I don’t have to worry about that on my own.
This is especially useful for you if you’re already making a good deal of sales because it used to be that you only needed to collect sales tax if a customer buys from the same state you’re in.
I used to live in Minnesota. If a customer who lives in Minnesota buys from me, I have to collect sales tax from that customer, and I have to pay that sales tax to the state.
Now, with the recent nexus law change, you’re responsible for paying sales tax in any state that you have a nexus in.
How do you know if you have a nexus in a state?
It’s hard to keep track of, because every state has a different way of defining that.
So TaxJar has all that information automatically within their app.
They can keep updated sales tax percentages and can automatically file sales tax returns for you.
All of that is super useful for me, because it saves me a ton of time from having to do all of that manually.
It also makes me feel good knowing that it’s being taken care of, and I’m being compliant.
Please don’t actually ask me anything about sales tax because I’m not an expert on that, but that’s why I have TaxJar.
They make it all so easy for me.
So there you have it. Those are my top five favorite Shopify apps at the moment.
If you have some of your own favorites that I didn’t mention, please share them with us in the comments below.
Don’t forget to check out my YouTube Channel for more great handmade business tips!
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Thanks for the super helpful information! I do not have a Shopify store yet, but I will. I especially appreciate your mentioning TaxJar. I didn’t know about the change to the sales tax law. I will look that up right now.
I’ve had my mockup stock shop on Shopify for a few years and can’t believe I’ve been doing without these apps! Such a wealth of resources-thank you for sharing!
Hi Mei, with Advanced Products, is it applicable for when you have one SKU that could be on multiple listings? For example, a soap I carry can be purchased on it’s own, in it’s own product listing > in a soap bundle on another listing > in a lavender gift set on another listing…etc. etc. Or is it mainly if you can change configuration in the one single listing. I.e. waffle design listing but choose earring, necklace or ring format? I recently watched your inventory apps video and that’s the issue I have too!