A new customer-facing app from Shopify will help online stores win more repeat purchases and prevent drop-offs during checkout. This month the eCommerce platform launched Shop, an all-in-one app that combines the best features of the previous Arrive package tracking app and Shopify Pay.

According to Shopify, the app will help businesses sell more by making it easier for customers to buy. Based on our initial review of Shop, the app will be a useful tool for small- and medium-sized businesses who want to capitalize on the shift to native shopping apps but don’t necessarily have the resources or user base to warrant a branded app of their own.

Here are four benefits of the Shop app that we’re excited to help our clients take advantage of:

1. Tailored product recommendations based on past shopping behavior

Repeat purchases typically have higher margins and a much lower acquisition cost than new customer purchases. The Shop app helps win more of these all-important repeat shoppers with a personalized shopping feed that’s unique to the user.

Based on the user’s past browsing and purchasing behavior, the feed displays tailored product recommendations, sales, and new arrivals from the customer’s favorite brands. Within a single screen of a single app, the user can quickly see what’s new and most relevant to them from the stores they love most without having to visit each retailer’s website independently–which makes for quite a delightful user experience.

2. Ability to easily find and support nearby businesses

The ‘shop local’ movement has been gaining traction in recent years, and Covid-19 has only placed a greater emphasis on the urgency of supporting community businesses. Yet despite shoppers’ best intentions to support local merchants, it’s currently a challenge to find out who’s open, whether their hours have changed, who’s shipping, who’s offering curbside pickup, and so on.

The Shop app makes it easy for users to find nearby retailers and see what services they’re offering. Customers can check if the merchant is shipping quickly or opt for in-store/curbside pickup if they’d rather not wait for delivery.

3. Ultra-fast checkout

Nearly 25% of American shoppers say they’ve ditched an online order prematurely because the checkout process was too long or too complicated. With Shop, a lightning-fast checkout experience saves sales you might have otherwise lost due to abandonment.

It works by integrating Shop Pay, Shopify’s accelerated checkout application. Any time a customer shops in a store that uses Shop Pay, their details will be saved for instant checkouts in the future–not just at that retailer, but with any retailer who uses the interface. Shopify says its merchants have seen conversion rates among repeat customers improve by up to 18% after enabling Shop Pay.

4. Realtime order tracking

If there’s been any upside to Covid-19, it’s that eCommerce stores have seen a significant uptick in browsing and purchasing behavior. Data from a network of more than 6,000 brands showed a 21% year-over-year increase in online orders from March of 2019 to March of 2020.

All this online shopping means consumers are juggling purchase information from multiple stores, all of which use different carriers and different notification systems–in other words, a headache to keep track of. Shop gives customers accurate, up-to-the-minute shipping updates on everything they order from all merchants, in one place. This convenience contributes to a positive brand experience and the transparency helps build trust in a time when many shoppers feel left in the dark about the status of their orders.

How to start using the Shop app

There are two things you can do to take advantage of the Shop app: featuring your store and products in the feed, and enabling Shop features for your customers.

If you want to see your store and products featured in the Shop app, the first step is to check whether you’re already listed. Shopify is working on adding all Shopify brands to the app, so you may already be included without taking any action. If you search the app and don’t find your store, you can add yourself to the waitlist here.

The next step is to start offering Shop features, like instant checkout and realtime shipment tracking, for your customers. To do this, you must enable Shop Pay. You can turn on Shop Pay and set up other accelerated payment options in your payment settings. Note that you’ll need to be using Shopify Payments to enable Shop Pay.

Get expert help implementing Shopify features to grow your revenue

Shop is just one of endless Shopify applications available to help merchants like you convert more shoppers, increase your reach and improve your business efficiency. We can help you build a marketing program that fully capitalizes on all of the channels available, zeroing in on the ones that will make the biggest impact for your brand. Open the conversation by scheduling your complimentary consultation with us today.