All the Shopify apps we use and what we spend on Minimalism

Yes, the technology behind Minimalism is built with Shopify . Those of you who have been reading our blog for a while know that we started with Wordpress and that we migrated to Shopify . After a year and a half we can confirm that we are delighted with the platform, it gives us flexibility, speed and independence. It makes technology important but not a headache.

Since we started the project, we have encountered technological and design “challenges” that we have gradually overcome, without having any idea how to program and without writing a line of code . The basic Shopify platform has many limitations, but you will always find a developer who has created an app for what you need to do in your store. Of course, you will have to spend a good amount of time trying out various apps, reading reviews, installing them and seeing that they work well and adapt to what you need.

Three recommendations after testing, installing and purchasing more than 25 different apps:

1. Always make a backup of your code before installing anything . This is highly recommended.
2. It is important that they have support , make sure that the reviews speak well of it. In many cases it is key that the developer helps you make the app work as you need.
3. Be careful when messing with the code , we (and especially I) have managed to destroy a large part of the website by trying to change little things. It is important to read the documentation of the apps, they are usually very useful.
4. If you don't use an app, remove it from your store. The more apps you have installed, the heavier your website will be, the slower your code will be, and the longer it will take to load the store.

WHAT APPS DO WE USE AND WHAT ARE THEY USED FOR?

Weglot Translate . One of the best apps we have, it allows us to translate the entire website into the language we want. At first we didn’t trust this type of app much because the translations tend to be “like Google Translate”… that is, of poor quality and without concordance between the sentences and the words. But no, it works very well and allows us to quickly launch tests in a certain country. Mind you, this doesn’t mean that we don’t have to go over the entire website in case there are any errors. We pay €40/month.

Gempages . If it's already easy to create a website or landing page with Shopify, this makes it even easier. We use it to create product landing pages, which is where we direct paid traffic from Instagram and Google. It's a very easy-to-use page builder with many customization and design options. Our home page is created with this app. We're delighted. We pay €20/month.

Product Bundles, by Bold . After trying several apps to create product bundles, we chose this one because it is one of the few that perfectly solves the problem of synchronized stock. From this app we create the products in bundles and set a price for them, but these bundles are connected to our main stock of individual products. It also allows you to create widgets for the product bundles to add them as related products. We paid €20/month.

Quick Announcement Bar . The typical app to place a message at the top of the website. We chose this one and not others because for €5/month it lets us filter the message we send to customers depending on the country where they visit us or the page they are on. It works very well for us and has a good level of customization. It has allowed us to launch different offers and discount coupons depending on the country for many months. We pay €5/month.

Quaderno . We recommend this Spanish app (we spoke to the CEO on LinkedIn on a Sunday) for everything related to invoicing. It helps us save time when someone asks us for an invoice and when we have to file the quarterly VAT declaration. We pay €29/month.

Zendesk . This app helps us to have all the queries, doubts or complaints in a single management platform. We try to answer all the emails in less than 4 hours, without this app it would be much more complex. We pay €150 per year. €12.5/month.

GeoIP Country Redirect . The name says it all, with this Shopify app we can display our different websites depending on the country so that payment is made 100% in local currency. We pay €7/month.

Custom Javascript . With this app you can add JS code to your store in a simple way and without knowing much about programming (like us…). Sometimes it can help you out of a tight spot. Free.

We also use other free apps like Facebook Marketing, Mailchimp (note that on May 12th they announced that they will stop providing service for Shopify), Google Shopping and Databox to connect these services to our store. The apps are free but we pay for subscription services separately, like Zendesk.

In total we spend €133.5 each month on Shopify apps.

We hope this post is useful to you and if you have any questions about any of the apps or services mentioned above, you can write to us or comment on this post. We are happy to help and provide value.

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