26 Best Retail Apps to Manage Your Store

Take tedious tasks off your plate and run your business from anywhere using these 26 must-have retail apps.

Over the past decade, cash registers have gone from clunky machines spitting out piles of paper to simple, small gadgets able to sell anywhere. With today’s evolving retail technology, retailers can run their entire store with nothing more than a tablet or smartphone. 

Using a mobile device, a robust point-of-sale software like Shopify POS, and a few retail apps, merchants can process transactions in their storefront or on the go at pop-ups, markets, fairs, and festivals. In other words: You’re able to manage your retail business from anywhere, at any time. 

But which retailer apps will help merchants the most with day-to-day tasks? This guide shares 26 of the best retail apps that will save you time and money, broken down into four subcategories. Most are free to download and use, while others require a paid subscription plan after a free trial period.

9 best apps for managing your retail store

1. Shopify POS
2. EasyTeam POS Staff Management
3. Dor
4. magicplan
5. DocuSign
6. Klarna For Business
7. Sesami
8. Filljoy
9. Shopify Marketplace Connect

1. Shopify POS

Best for: In-store and online sales integration. 

Pricing: Free.

Accepting payments and selling your products offline and online shouldn't be a hassle. Shopify Point of Sale (POS) seamlessly integrates with your online store so your products, orders, and customers are always in sync—regardless of where you’re selling.

Merchants can also take advantage of robust reports and easy integration with all the necessary hardware to make running your store easier than ever. Take advantage of the Shopify POS mobile retail app to manage your business from anywhere, anytime. 

2. EasyTeam POS Staff Management

Best for: Employee scheduling

Pricing: Free for self management, $30/month for teams.

Track employee working hours using EasyTeam’s POS system integration. It’s ideal for retail stores that need to manage the schedules of several team members. 

The hardware comes with a mobile app for staff to tap in and out. You can also schedule their working hours, track their sales commission, and approve timesheets. All of that data gets imported into your payroll software.

3. Dor

Best for: Foot traffic counting and analytics

Pricing: Free to install, $99/month for analytics, plus a $200 one-time fee for hardware.

Do you know how many people visit your retail store each day? Uncover those insights with Dor. Its thermal-sensing camera attaches to the entrance door of your retail location and tracks how many people visit.

Dor also integrates with your Shopify POS equipment so you can compare foot traffic data with revenue. You can uncover insights like the time of day purchase-ready customers visit—even what weather causes an uplift in retail sales.

4. Magicplan

Best for: Retail floor planning

Pricing: Ranges from $9.99/month to $89.99/month, with free trial available. 

One of the most important decisions you can expect to make about your storefront is store layout. But it’s often difficult for merchants to envision how to optimize their space. That’s where magicplan can help. 

Using augmented reality, merchants can create professional floor plans by scanning the room with their smartphones or tablets and customizing with pictures. Use magicplan to generate job estimates, view your space in 3D, plan DIY projects, or furnish your space.

5. DocuSign

Best for: Secure electronic document signing 

Pricing: The app is free to download; e-signature plans range from $10/month for individual use to $40/month per user for teams.

With the DocuSign app, merchants can prepare and send documents for electronic signature—completing contracts, employment paperwork, and other forms—and get instant visibility into each document’s status directly from their smartphone or tablet.

That can make it easier for retailers to go paperless while still accessing a quick and secure way to sign contracts and send off vendor agreements for signature.

6. Klarna For Business

Best for: Flexible customer payment solutions

Pricing: Varies based on products and market.

Klarna For Business’s marketing solutions bring store experiences online for virtual shopping. With Klarna, online shoppers can ask questions, see a 360-degree view, and check the availability of a product—by communicating with store experts via live video and chat. 

7. Sesami

Best for: Appointment booking for Shopify

 

Pricing: Ranges from $19/month to $299/month. Free 30-day trial available.

Do you offer appointments to customers? Whether you’re doing Zoom consultations or arranging an in-store private shopping experience, the Sesami retail app can schedule them in—without double booking.

Sesami integrates with Google Calendar and Zoom, along with Shopify POS. And you can schedule appointments with customers wherever you are—both online and offline.

8. Filljoy

Best for: Selling products by weight

Pricing: $25/month. Free 14-day trial available.

If your product pricing depends on weight, then you may benefit from using Filljoy. This retail app offers the capability to integrate with a scale, so you can weigh an item, calculate its price, and charge a customer through Shopify POS.

Businesses that can leverage this tool include grocery stores, pet food retailers, and butcher shops, among other businesses. 

9. Shopify Marketplace Connect

Best for: Multi-channel sales management

Pricing: Free to install. First 50 marketplace-synced orders per month are free. 1% fee per additional-synced-order, capped at $99/month. 

Want to expand your customer base and sell online more effectively? With Shopify Marketplace Connect, you can easily link product listings across top marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, Walmart, and Etsy. Manage your listings and inventory in Shopify with real-time marketplace sync and sell in all regions and categories with built-in currency conversions, all with a single app. 

8 best retail apps for discoverability

1. Shop
2. Google Business Profile
3. Google & YouTube app
4. Facebook & Instagram channel
5. TikTok
6. Shopcodes
7. Shopify Email
8. Yotpo Email Marketing & SMS

1. Shop

Best for: Fast, high-converting checkout

Pricing: Free, with Shop Pay.

The checkout page is arguably one of the most important pages on any retailer’s website. These days, consumers want fast and easy checkout processes. The Shop app delivers on that with Shop Pay. Shop Pay is a wallet that automatically fills in a customer’s saved email, payment, and shipping details so they can check out at the click of a button. 

An external study showed that Shop Pay successfully converts at checkout at an accelerated pace. Sites using Shop Pay have a 1.72 times higher checkout-to-order rate than those going through regular checkouts. 

Shop’s mobile app also gives customers real-time order tracking and a list of popular products from the shops they follow. Retailers have the power to manage the entire post-purchase journey using push notifications to drive future sales.

2. Google Business Profile

Best for: Managing online business presence

Pricing: Free.

Twenty-one percent of US consumers use the internet to find local businesses on a daily basis. For example, a search query may be “groceries near me.” 

The mobile app for Google Business Profile helps you to reach those local shoppers and drive them to your brick-and-mortar store. With it, you can customize your business listing on the go, as well as:

• Personalize your listing (such as identify it as a women-owned or Black-owned business)
• Update your opening hours
• Post special offers and in-store flash sales
• Share customer and business photos

3. Google & YouTube app

Best for: Advertising on Google

Pricing: Free to install, but you must fund your ad campaigns.

Search engines are the first stop for 30% of online shoppers when they’re looking for products. The Google & YouTube app allows you to pay to reach them with paid ads, so you’ll appear in the list of top results, even if your organic SEO strategy doesn’t get you there. You are also able to sell items from your Shopify store through YouTube, giving you another way to connect with shoppers.

With this app, you can list products for free (with a Google Merchant Center account) on Google Shopping. You can also run Google PPC campaigns and adjust budgets, without leaving your Shopify dashboard. 

4. Facebook & Instagram channel

Best for: Selling on Facebook and Instagram

Pricing: Free to install, but you must fund your ad campaigns. 

Capture the billions of consumers actively using social media with these retail apps. Facebook channel integrates with Facebook Shops and Instagram Shopping, so your inventory is accurate and up to date across channels. Leverage the Instagram channel as a marketing opportunity to generate interest for new products and create custom product pages. 

Both the Facebook and Instagram apps help retailers build an audience. That’s because you are open for business on two of the most popular social media platforms globally—and can manage those orders through your Shopify admin.

5. TikTok

Best for: Advertising and selling on TikTok

The TikTok app on Shopify makes selling on TikTok easy. Build TikTok ads in minutes by uploading images or videos. Install the TikTok Pixel in one click to measure performance. Sync your product catalog and you’re ready to create engaging TikTok ad campaigns. The app lets you manage and track new orders by selling directly via TikTok Shop, if you’re located in the US and UK. 

6. Shopcodes

Best for: Creating QR codes for products 

Create QR codes for your products in minutes with Shopcodes. Your customers can scan a Shopcode with any smartphone camera and buy your products quickly and easily. Integrate Shopcodes into your packaging or marketing materials and track conversions and traffic through Shopify Analytics.

7. Shopify Email

Best for: Email marketing within Shopify

Pricing: Your first 10,000 emails each month are free. After, pricing starts at $1/1000 emails per month.

Shopify Email is an out-of-the-box email marketing tool that helps you acquire and engage customers. Create branded emails in minutes with a drag-and-drop editor, and choose from sales-ready templates to showcase your products directly from your store. Shopify Email will automatically pull your logo, images, prices, and descriptions into your template to make the emails unique to your brand. 

When you're ready to send your email, choose from Shopify's automation templates to send the right email at the right time to targeted customer segments. You'll find email templates for all types of campaigns, including:

• Abandoned cart
• Checkout
• Drip campaigns
• Newsletters
• Welcome emails
• Winbox emails

The best part? Your first 10,000 emails each month are free.

8. Yotpo Email Marketing & SMS

Best for: SMS marketing

Pricing: Free to install; plans range from $19/month to $199/month.

There are several ways to communicate with existing and potential customers, including email, social media, and live chat. SMS marketing is a top performer when it comes to open rates.

Yotpo is a highly-rated app to send out those messages to your audience. The platform seamlessly integrates with your POS and includes features such as the capability to personalize your ecommerce campaigns, customer segmentation, and SMS templates to support your conversion efforts.

5 best retail apps for inventory management

1. Stocky
2. Ordersify: Restocked Alerts
3. Freshly Batch Inventory
4. Faire
5. ReturnZap

1. Stocky

Best for: Inventory management

Pricing: Free to install and included in Shopify POS Pro subscriptions. 

Inventory management can be a tricky task when running a retail business. Stocky shows you what you have in stock, what’s running low, and which items need replenishing. 

Stocky also shows your best selling products in its app dashboard, alongside how many are left in stock. This tool can help you spot upcoming shortages, so your most popular products are always available for purchase. 

2. Ordersify: Restocked Alerts

Best for: Restock notifications

Pricing: Free plan available; paid plans range from $9.99/month to $39.99/month.

Experiencing a stockout? Ordersify is a Shopify app with features that include email customization as well as daily inventory reports. There are also low-stock and back-in-stock notifications, which can help you retain customers by keeping them informed. 

To receive automated alerts, customers enter their email addresses and get reminders via email or push notifications when inventory is replenished and the product is available for purchase. 

3. Freshly Batch Inventory

Best for: Expiry date tracking 

Pricing: Free plan available; paid plans range from $24/month to $199/month.

Retailers who sell perishable goods need to keep a close eye on their stock. Food and drink items, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals may include ingredients that can affect the quality of the goods sold.

Freshly Batch Inventory helps you track product batch details and expiration dates of perishable goods. It also supports demand forecasting, and as items approach expiration, you can mark them for automatic discounts. You can use these insights to prioritize which products to sell first and fulfill orders using the first-expired, first-out (FEFO) method. Freshly Commerce also helps you track recalled products based on their batch number. 

4. Faire

Best for: Wholesale marketplace integration

Pricing: Free.

Faire is a wholesale marketplace where retailers can find and buy new products for their stores. You can find unique, high-quality products from brands around the world to stock your shelves. 

Faire’s integration with Shopify means your products sync automatically to your product catalog. That way, you don’t have to spend time manually entering data and can focus on your business instead. 

5. ReturnZap

Best for: Returns and exchanges management 

Pricing: Plans range from $29.95/month to $179.95/month. 14-day free trial available. 

ReturnZap is a highly-rated retail app built for Shopify. It helps retailers automate returns, exchanges, and return shipping. You can build a branded self-serve return portal that’s integrated with your Shopify store. Plus, automate return labels for dozens of carriers in the US, Canada, Australia, UK, and EU. ReturnZap is easy and fast to set up and offers world-class customer support. 

4 best retail apps for conversion and retention

1. Smile
2. ShoppingGives - Donation app
3. Gift Reggie: Gift Registry
4. ReConvert Upsell & Cross Sell

1. Smile

Best for: Creating loyalty and rewards programs

Pricing: Free to install and use up to 200 monthly orders; paid plans range from $49 to $999/month, with additional charges above 7,500 monthly orders.

Not only is it important to introduce your brand to new customers, it’s also important to find ways to keep existing ones. That's where loyalty programs can help. According to one survey, loyalty programs drive 70% of US consumers to stick with a brand.

Smile is a retailer app that offers merchants the resources to create a comprehensive customer loyalty and referral program. Reward your customers with points, discounts, gift cards, or coupons for various activities like:

• Referring a friend
• Social shares and follows
• Purchases
• Birthday rewards

2. ShoppingGives - Donation App

Best for: Charitable donations at checkout

Pricing: 7-day free trial includes 20 Donation Credits, then 0.5% (half-of-one percent) + $29/mo thereafter.

ShoppingGives - Donation App is a mobile app that supports these causes. It helps with your social impact strategy by providing the necessary tools to ensure you’re in compliance when making nonprofit donations, managing those contributions, and enabling customers to choose from pre-set charities or pick a cause of their choice for their donations (with the brand donating a percentage, for example).

3. Gift Reggie: Gift Registry

Best for: Customizable gift registry service

Pricing: Ranges from $9/month to $40/month. Free 30-day trial available.

For merchants with products that make great gifts, one way to encourage gift giving is with a registry. But creating your own gift registry or wish list solution from scratch can seem like a daunting task. Instead, try Gift Reggie.

Gift Reggie is a retailer app that allows your customers to create a custom registry of your products and share it with their friends and family—introducing your brand to potential new customers.

4. ReConvert Upsell & Cross Sell

Best for: Post-purchase sales 

Pricing: Free for development stores. Paid plans range from $4.99/month to $14.99/month. 30-day free trial available. 

ReConvert is a popular upsell and cross sell app on the Shopify App Store. It works with your Shopify store to add one-click, post-purchase, and discounted upsells to your checkout and thank you pages. Easily build out and manage your checkout upsells with a drag-and-drop editor, offer product bundles, collect birthdays, and more with ReConvert. 

Find the right apps for your retail store

Shopify apps can unlock new functionalities that optimize your site for a better customer experience and more sales. 

While these apps are some of the best apps available (including those in the Shopify App Store), there are plenty more—including email marketing, product upsell, and time management apps. It comes down to finding the best apps that suit your unique needs. Visit the Shopify App Store to browse even more retail mobile apps by use.

Retail apps FAQ

What is a retail app?

A retail app is a mobile software that allows customers to browse products and shop seamlessly from their mobile device. For retail businesses, they are apps that enable retailers to run their stores efficiently.

What makes a good retail app?

A good retail app creates a native mobile shopping experience. It’s organized, making it easy to find products and collections. It allows customers to add items to their cart and complete the entire ecommerce checkout process, as well as track orders to see when they’ve been shipped and delivered.

Why should retailers have an app?

Retailers should have an app in order to create an even better mobile commerce experience for their customers. Even if you’re unable to afford the development of an app, a progressive web app (PWA) is a cheaper and more accessible version that allows customers to quickly and easily shop via mobile.