The factors that make Shopify apps worth paying in social commerce

With the events that happened during 2020, social commerce has become more and more popular. It attracts not only customers but also merchants, businesses, and start-ups. In order to succeed, those businesses would need apps and factors that make Shopify apps worth paying.

The social commerce status before and after Covid-19

Social commerce commonly refers to an e-commerce term combining the activities of selling and buying that take place on social media. As social media global influences dramatically grow, social commerce is rising to become the first-rated immense and wealthy market with unlimited selling potentials.

Especially, when global users have spent an average of 142 minutes per day surfing social media. There is also an estimated 1.8 billion people worldwide who purchase products online in 2018. 

After the global impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic have changed the consuming trend and buying behavior forever. Since most retailers have to shut down the brick-and-mortar stores across the globe, the world has embraced social commerce, and 85% of consumers around the world are buying online more than ever due to the lockdown.

It can be assumed that Coronavirus has left social commerce or social selling huge opportunities to lead the shopping market around the world, and its capabilities are unstoppable. In 2020, it is forecasted that global social commerce would continue to gain a 16.5% increase in growth rate and $3.914 trillion in sales worldwide.

According to the very good signs from 2.05 billion online shoppers in 2020, it is the right time for all brands and startups to jump into the social commerce market.

What roles do factors that make Shopify apps worth paying play in social selling?

With the jump in technology and social media platforms nowadays, people have multiple choices to start their first social selling business. Considering Shopify as the typical platform, it is a perfect place to start. Since it provides a hosted solution for newbies, people can step into this social commerce industry effortlessly with almost zero upfront cost.

Anyone can establish a Shopify store, upload, and sell products online to customers across the globe. However, the reality is not a fairy tale story where you can make every dream come true that easily.

“A great ship asks for deep water”. 

The faster and stronger social commerce is rising, the more businesses rush into social selling to make profits. That fills the marketplace with a vast ocean of competitors and challenges especially Shopify is the third-largest online retail platform in the U.S after Amazon and eBay.

Social sellers struggle to find their own places or attract their own customers within more than 1,000,000 global active opponents on Shopify. Regardless of the countless challenges that businesses face during the processes of running and scaling a social business.

There will always be heavy workloads to handle each day only to keep the Shopify store operating normally, but there will never be a guarantee of success. The question remains “Does it mean there is no place for small social commerce stores?”. 

In fact, even a giant, a grand or small merchant suffers from the same obstacles as social commerce starters. However, large-scale businesses have their own teams to take care of every stage from store operation to customer service, and marketing, etc. So, they face fewer problems than small businesses do.

Fortunately, some small businesses figure out that they cannot handle social selling alone without helping hands, and they are definitely Shopify apps.

These applications are built to benefit the merchants in some aspects. They also help merchants leverage the advantages of social media to sell better eventually. 

However, we are not going to sing you to sleep with a bunch of theories, statistics have proved the crucial roles of Shopify apps in social selling or social commerce.

According to the Shopify statistics, the Shopify app store is packed full of more than 2,400 useful applications, 87% of Shopify merchants, especially the small ones leverage these tools to extend their stores to full functionality. In 2020, more than 12 million apps were installed each month. It is also estimated that one average merchant uses at least 6 apps.

In brief, Shopify apps are the huge advantages the platform provides for small and grand merchants to grow and scale businesses. And, they only need to select the proper tools to use.

Store owners can obtain both free and paid apps easily on the Shopify app store with various choices of features and functions.

Which factors that make Shopify apps worth paying?

A free app is way too easy to download and use because store owners no need to pay for the functionality or worry about how it actually works or not, and they can also get rid of the app anytime without cost waste.

The paid apps are on the contrary. Every paid app will enable you to add varied helpful features to your Shopify stores with the proper fees. There is prejudice or misconception that most store owners are not willing to spend money on Shopify apps because they have enormous free options at their fingertips.

However, the statistics from the Shopify app store proved the contrary fact. Fast forward to 2020, among 2426 applications built by 1323 developers, 74.8% of paid apps are downloaded and used while it is only 25.2% for free apps. This means that merchants are more likely to choose paid apps over free apps.

To make store owners find Shopify apps worth paying, developers must assure these fundamental factors are included in their apps.

Efficient solutions for existing problems

To be straightforward, the first reason for social commerce merchants to pay for an app is how well it solves their problems. The store owners wouldn’t care whether your app can add how many new features to their stores. Social sellers only focus on their facing troubles. If a Shopify app can actually resolve their main concern, they are willing to pay for it.

Besides, most Shopify good apps are offering free user service or trial days with limited functions in some aspects. If the merchants find your apps beneficial for their business, and they also get tired of the annoying limits, they won’t hesitate to spend some money on a good tool.

Easy to use, easy to buy

Regardless of how great your applications are, social sellers are only willing to pay for a tool that is helpful, handy, and easy to use. It seems to be challenging for developers to build a technical app with both deep specialty and simple usages.

However, among more than 2426 available competitors on Shopify, the easier to use you make your app, the easier to get paid for it.

Continuous support service

Besides the quality and key features, good 24/7 support service before and after the get-app is the inevitable factor contributing to an app’s value. Sooner or later after merchants get apps, they will flock to developers with queries about functionality and bugs or problems while using apps.

Continuous and timely support service will make the apps along with the development team trustworthy. Once an app gains trust and user satisfaction, social sellers will definitely pay for it continuously. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, a Shopify app, which craves for getting paid from social commerce business, must meet certain crucial requirements below:

• Solve existing problems efficiently.
• Onboard with ease.
• Proactive customer service.

These factors that make Shopify apps worth paying are the keys but do not leave it up to chance. Developers should get the point to know exactly where to start and what to do for their applications to be helpful, handy, and cost-effective.

On the other hand, social commerce merchants should be aware of these factors as well. By doing so, they can pick the right apps and pay for the cost-worthy ones.