Too Many Shopify Apps? Let Make Templates Take Over

The Shopify App Store is a lively ecosystem. The number of apps you can use to complement (or even supplement) your store functionalities has rocketed up and it’s close to 7,000 at the time of writing this article.

It’s not too hard to see the reasons behind the rising number of Shopify apps.

First of all, there are 1.7 million merchants on the platform, which translates into a wide array of specific needs that call for solutions.

Then, there’s the Shopify API, which acts as the backbone for the majority of apps in the marketplace.

This attracts plenty of developers who, driven by opportunity, create and launch apps to satisfy the rising demand.

But as the available apps pile up, so do costs for store owners.

The average Shopify merchant uses 6 Shopify App Store apps, and this number will likely grow in the upcoming future.

Those who get ahead in terms of productivity, automating the repetitive and reducing operational costs get an edge against the competition, and apps are a direct path to accomplishing these goals.

Many Shopify users believe that this will inevitably translate into paying more, but it doesn’t have to be that way. 

In this article, we are going to present you with more affordable alternatives for Shopify apps.

They all rely on the official Shopify API and are built using Make, which means that you can get them up and running for a fraction of the original cost.

Let’s get to it!

Note: You will need a Make account to use these templates. If you don’t have one yet, please register for free.

1. QR code generator

Seemingly a recent convenience, QR codes have made our lives easier since 1994. Full disclosure: We love them!

If you own or manage a Shopify store, you’ll love them too.

Printed labels with QR codes attached to your products facilitate quick inventory checks and updates.

You’re never gonna have to guess the product name and manually search for it again. All you need is a 10$ barcode scanner or your smartphone.

If you happen to have a brick-and-mortar store as well as an online store, QR codes come in handy in the checkout process, or when fulfilling an order.

Similarly, you can create loyalty/membership customer cards and easily identify customers when they visit your store in person.

So, how do you create QR codes in the first place? The answer is a simple automation triggered by new Shopify products that you add to your store.

The template below does that for you on a recurring basis and requires zero input from you after deployment.

Similar solutions available on the Shopify App Store cost $9/month (free trial available).

2. Data exports

Your Shopify store’s data is a valuable asset. Having it readily available is important, and not just for backup purposes. It helps you create reports, launch campaigns, and make decisions.

Shopify knows that and lets you export your data in a CSV file.

However, this is not exactly convenient, is it?

First of all, we are talking about CSV files. You’d probably prefer a more straightforward export to a spreadsheet or database. The second problem is that it won’t let you export everything.

Take, for example, collections.

The more products you offer in your store, the higher the chance you have to group and organize them in collections. Otherwise, chaos ensues.

Make can help you with that: You can export orders, products, customers, or abandoned carts. In addition, you can do one-time exports, or schedule to add new items to your database on a regular basis.

There’s no need to pay any extra Shopify app, as Make will take care of these tasks for you, on your own terms.

Similar solutions available on the Shopify App Store start at $20/month (limited free plan available).

3. Blog imports

Although Shopify is primarily an ecommerce platform, it offers a blog too.

In the end, organic, SEO-driven traffic to your website is important, and a blog can get that for you.

If you create good content, search engines will notice and they’ll reward you by placing your websites higher in the search results.

Needless to say, transitioning from a blog article to a store (i.e. turning the reader into a customer) is smoother if both have the same look and feel.

Now, it’s hard for this to happen when the content is on different domains.

The old way of fixing this is by copying and pasting content from one site to another, but that’s not very practical, is it?

If that’s your case, we have two templates that’ll fix this for those of you who still have a WordPress blog and want to migrate the content into a Shopify blog.

The first one simply imports your WordPress blog to Shopify, while the second one attaches the featured image as well.

Similar solutions available on the Shopify App Store cost $9.99/month.

4. Confirmation email attachments

What do these things have in common?

• Terms and conditions

• Warranties

• Rights of withdrawal

• Return/refund policies

• Instructions

• Other company policies

• Other legal texts

Yes, many companies send at least one of these documents to customers after their purchase. In fact, it’s a requirement to do this in a number of European countries.

The problem is that Shopify won’t let you attach a file to its confirmation email, so it makes sense to create another email with the necessary documents and information as an addition to more generic Shopify emails.

Fear not, you don’t need a developer (or an app) to do this automatically. It’s actually a piece of cake with Make.

Similar solutions available on the Shopify App Store cost $10/month (limited free plan available).

5. Custom contact forms

“Contact Us” pages are generally among the most visited pages on any website. Don’t pay attention to it and you’re at risk of being seen as unreliable.

The contact pages usually include a form so customers can let you know what’s bothering them.

As you probably know, Shopify lets you create a basic contact form. The problem with it is that you can’t add (or remove) any fields, and the email notification goes only to a single email address - the one associated with the Shopify account.

This is problematic in a number of ways.

Say that you want more freedom with the fields, notify a person that isn’t the store owner, or even go as far as to route customers’ queries to different departments depending on the form responses.

To achieve this, you can create your own form and embed it on the Shopify page.

We used Google Forms (because it’s simple and free) but you can do that with any form you like. Just look for an “Embed” button and paste the script to the Shopify page (don’t forget to toggle the HTML view).

If needed, play around with the form width and height so it fits your page nicely.

Now the form is online, you (or anyone else) will be notified about each new submission.

That way, you can reply to customers’ queries in a timely manner. Because - and let’s be honest - if you don’t, they’ll find another store that does.

Similar solutions available on the Shopify App Store start at $19/month (free trial available).

6. Auto-tagging

If collections are a great way to organize products in your store, tags can be similarly useful for your Shopify admin page.

Tags convey a small, but important piece of information about an order, product, or customer (there’s more but these three are the most used) in an accessible way without having to open the actual record.

Plus, you can use them to create filters and quickly bring up records with similar attributes, or make bulk changes.

You can even go beyond that and use Shopify tags to process orders, build workflows, and segment your products or customers.

But who has the time to add tags manually? It’s 2021 - use our template and let Make do it for you. The template will show you how to add tags to each order as well as to orders that meet certain criteria only.

After this, you’ll be ready to create your own automatic tags. Remember, the template shows tagging of orders but you can auto-tag products, customers, or other Shopify components in a similar fashion.

We have one more helpful template for you.

Shipping is a mistake-prone process, and that’s a fact we have to live with. But telling your customers they should contact a carrier after a delayed delivery is not nice. After all, they paid you, and you should be the one doing that job.

Even better, you can proactively reach out to a carrier and investigate when you see a fulfilled order that’s still not delivered after a couple of days in your Shopify admin panel.

If you’re a Shopify user, you know it’s not that easy. This template will automatically tag all delivered orders, so you can filter those without the tag and quickly see any shipping delays.

Similar solutions available on the Shopify App Store cost $10/month.

Conclusion

Shopify apps are helpful extensions to your store. But with each new app in your stack, the overall package can also get expensive.

Our advice is to review your apps and see what you’re using them for, and to what extent. Maybe you’ll realize there’s an easier and more affordable solution available.

On top of the solutions displayed above, we feature over 200+ (and counting) Shopify templates that you can make use of. In the end, we believe that you will benefit from having all the solutions you need in one place instead of having to deploy multiple different apps to improve your store.

We also encourage you to create your own solutions by relying on our 89 available Shopify modules, which you can connect to 1,000+ apps using our visual builder.

Each Shopify store comes with unique problems that can be solved by creating unique workflows that respect your overall processes. And Make can help you tackle these - ultimately, the only limit is your imagination.

Happy automating!