For years now, millions of direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands have sold their products on Shopify. The ecommerce platform is simple yet powerful—which explains why Shopify is the fastest-growing online store builder with nearly 4 million active websites.
But for DTC brands that want to edge out the competition, they need a bit more than just an online store. That’s where Shopify integrations come in.
You can use these integrations to level up your operational processes like POS, supply chain management, accounting, and reporting.
Here’s how.
Shopify integrations are a practical way to grow your ecommerce business while simultaneously increasing your profit margins.
But that’s not all these handy tools can do. Some Shopify integrations even help minimize waste, reduce errors, streamline processes, and improve inventory insights.
One of the primary perks of Shopify integrations is their ability to avoid wasting your brand’s precious resources. How, you ask? These tools make it simple for your team to take tedious tasks off their plates.
That’s because these integrations reduce the people power needed to manage things like your inventory – saving you time and money.
Automating these operational tasks via integrations means your team spends less energy overseeing sales and product movement. And you can then funnel that newly freed-up working capital and energy into growing your business.
Shopify integrations and their automated workflows can also reduce those pesky mistakes in your ops processes.
For example, when your team manually enters inventory data from Shopify into your enterprise resource planning (ERP) tool, there’s always a chance that errors will crop up (fixing these errors is typically super costly and inconvenient for your brand).
But Shopify integrations eliminate manual or duplicate entries while consolidating data into a single source of truth.
This prevents frustrating errors that come with manual data entry—like dual entry—so you can keep accurate records and be more confident when deciding how to run your brand.
It’s important to keep it simple (where possible) when it comes to your processes. Streamlining your operations is key to running an efficient and profitable DTC brand. And Shopify integrations can work wonders across multiple departments and functions.
As you know, some Shopify integrations eliminate tedious and time-consuming manual data entry, curbing inventory accounting and recordkeeping mistakes.
This speeds up the information exchange between you and your vendors, as well as you and your customers. And it translates to healthier relationships for your brand.
But other Shopify integrations help your brand cover its bases and ensure your products reach the right audiences.
For instance, retailers can also use Shopify integrations to give customers a more seamless checkout experience (with a little help from payment integrations) or meet customers wherever they like to shop (thanks to online marketplace integrations) without all the extra work.
Using integrations for your data means you’ll have the details needed to reach your business goals.
That’s to say, Shopify integrations help you get the insights you need to make smart decisions for every stage of your funnel, supply chain, and order fulfillment process (think: marketing, ordering, receiving, shipping, and so on).
In many ways, better insights are the foundation for operational excellence and the long-term success of your retail brand.
In that way, setting up just a few key Shopify integrations gives you the visibility and product knowledge you need to scale sustainably and reach an even wider customer base.
Now that you know some efficiencies you can enjoy with Shopify integrations, where do you look for the best tools to level up your business?
Don’t sweat – we’ve taken care of the legwork. Below, you’ll find 11 top options across your business’ most important functions.
When Shopify merchants connect to Cogsy’s end-to-end purchasing platform, they generate 40x more revenue and save an average of 20+ hours a week (on average).
That’s because Cogsy provides Shopify merchants access to a wealth of predictive inventory intelligence.
The Cogsy-Shopify integration automatically syncs the most important inventory information, including:
For example, when Cogsy and Shopify work hand-in-hand, you get tailored replenishment recommendations.
Not only do these notifications streamline your purchase order workflow, but they ensure each PO has the right products and quantities at the right time to maintain optimal inventory levels.
Cogsy will then track your incoming shipments so you always know where your inventory is.
But say there’s a kink along the supply chain, and your shipment gets delayed. Don’t fret – if you stock out, you can seamlessly switch to selling on backorder with Cogsy. That way, you don’t miss out on potential revenue.
In fact, brands like Caraway that trust Cogsy to sell on backorder see conversion rates for backorder products that are almost identical to when they sell those same products in stock.
Pricing: Plans start at $49 per month
Shopify stores can use the Stripe integration to accept debit and credit card payments from Shopify customers at a low, convenient price point.
Essentially, Stripe provides an easy way to process payments for your online Shopify store.
This integration also helps Shopify merchants automatically transfer funds (and reduce errors, in turn). And it also increases the number of countries where online brands can operate and sell.
Pricing: Plans start at $10 per month
Hike was designed to operate as a cloud-based point of sale (POS) system for Shopify brands selling online and offline.
Because Hike has built-in inventory sync, all your in-person and online sales automatically update in Shopify. That way, you’ll have an easier time maintaining stock-level accuracy.
You can even use Hike’s sales reporting to manage inventory turnover and pinpoint your stores’ busiest times of the day.
Pricing: Plans start at $59 per month
Webkul’s Multi Vendor Marketplace app makes it easy to convert your Shopify store into a fully functioning marketplace.
Rather than leaning entirely on other sales channels, Webkul allows other sellers to sell via your site. And you get a cut of the commissions.
Plus, the Webkul app is multilingual and omnichannel compatible –- making it easy to sell from virtually anywhere.
Pricing: Plans start at $10 per month
Brands can use the HubSpot for Shopify app to merge their online store data into their customer relationship management (CRM) tool.
Basically, this integration allows you to sync up all your customers, products, and deals—which HubSpot then turns into powerful marketing signals.
This integration also lets business owners analyze relevant Shopify data right in HubSpot. This includes reports for average order value (AOV), customer lifetime value (LTV), and abandoned cart recovery.
Not only can these reports help to refine (or redirect) your ecommerce strategy, but they can also help you make more informed purchasing decisions.
Pricing: Plans start at $45 per month
Route connects with millions of online stores and 600+ shipping carriers worldwide (like Amazon, FedEx, and UPS).
The app sends shipping notifications with real-time status updates on every delivery from your Shopify store. In that way, Route brings product tracking to life.
And when merchants have a good handle on their tracking info, they increase customer LTV and decrease operational costs. It’ll also help you meet your customers’ needs by offering faster shipping times at better rates than your competitors.
Pricing: Plans start at $199 per month
With this email marketing integration, you can automatically send customer information and order data from Shopify to your Klaviyo account.
This allows your ecommerce store to create targeted campaigns, generate product recommendations, and more.
Klaviyo also has automated workflows to remind customers about products they previously showed interest in. Think: Abandoned cart emails or re-engagement promotions.
Your store can either customize these workflows or choose from a selection of pre-built templates.
Pricing: Plans start at $45 per month
Spocket helps Shopify stores fulfill their dropshipping dreams by eliminating the hassle of managing inventory, packing, and shipping.
Plus, it’s one of the most trusted dropshipping apps available, with more than 25,000 retail brands using it.
Spocket offers fast delivery (and attractive pricing), so you can stand out in the dropshipping market.
The Spocket team also provides 24/7 customer support to help you build and grow your dropshipping business with added ease and efficiency.
Pricing: Plans start at $24 per month
Modern retailers can connect their Shopify storefronts to the QuickBooks accounting platform to track income, manage expenses, and even maximize tax deductions.
With the help of Shopify QuickBooks integration, all your order, inventory, customer, and shipping details are automatically updated to protect the accuracy and integrity of this data.
Other perks include managing your money on the go, automating recurring payments, and one-click reporting for your income, expenses, and outstanding invoices.
Pricing: Plans start at $15 per month
Vitals is a marketing and sales app specially curated for Shopify merchants.
Along with creating seamless workflows (for instance, you can drag and drop information from Vitals to the Shopify admin), this platform also allows you to import, gather, and highlight featured product reviews.
This is a great way to increase conversions and give new customers more confidence in your brand.
Shop owners can also leverage unlimited cross-sells and upsells by offering product bundles and volume discounts. Doing so will directly increase your brand’s AOV in the short and long term.
Pricing: Plans start at $29 per month
With Report Pundit, your ecommerce store can gather insights on all Shopify orders, refunds, taxes, and cost of goods sold (to name a few).
These customized reports are delivered in minutes and serve as an excellent resource for monitoring your brand’s revenue, overhead, and profitability metrics.
Another benefit of Report Pundit is that it can build simple to complex reports to track and analyze purchasing trends.
Like Cogsy, you can view, filter, or sort order data instantly for any data range—giving you complete visibility into everything going on with your product listings.
Pricing: Plans start at $9 per month
If you’ve read this far, you might wonder: Do I really need all 11 integrations to run a successful DTC brand?
The short answer is: no – you don’t need all these tools. (Some, like Stripe and Hike, achieve similar goals.)
Still, there are a few systems you definitely don’t want to operate without.
Cogsy is one of those must-have software, but the rest will depend on your brand’s unique needs.
For instance, companies typically work with either Klaviyo (if they only need email support) or HubSpot (if they need sales and CRM support on top of email).
Determining which software will be the right fit comes down to what you need.
Want to start with Cogsy? Try it free for 14 days.
These days, thousands of Shopify integrations claim they can elevate your brand’s marketing efforts, product tracking, customer relationship management, and so on.
But the number of integrations your brand actually needs depends on your business objectives and financial goals. Some brands might fill unlock growth with only 1 or 2 Shopify integrations, while others may need 10+ to keep their retail operations running smoothly.
Shopify integrations can transform your ecommerce business by boosting sales, improving your marketing strategies, and streamlining your supply chain. A few of the most common Shopify integration services include Cogsy, QuickBooks, Klaviyo, HubSpot, and Stripe.
Log into the Shopify App Store to integrate apps with your Shopify business. Then, search for the app you want to install (for instance, maybe Cogsy for purchase order management). On the app listing page, click “Add App.” And finally, from your Shopify admin, authorize the integration to sync your data by clicking “Install.”