Top Shopify Apps Every NZ Store Needs (Updated 2025)

Knowing what Shopify apps to use can make or break the success of a Shopify store, and we often get asked by stores ranging from $0 to $10m+ in sales what Shopify apps they should be using. With experience working with over 200 Shopify stores in New Zealand, we have compiled a list of all the apps we often see Shopify stores in New Zealand using or would recommend based on factors like loading speed, overall app quality, or novelty.

Please know this list is not exhaustive, we have focused on what apps a Shopify store would generally need regardless of their industry vertical, but certain types of stores or selling strategies may have apps in their specific verticals that are essential to them. If you liked this article, let us know and we might update it with specific industry apps too! If you have any questions or need help finding apps for your Shopify store, feel free to reach out.

Table of Contents

Storefront Apps

Storefront apps are the apps that your customers see when interacting with your website. These apps shape the overall shopping experience of your website, so picking the right ones can help boost your conversion rate.

When selecting storefront apps to use, be careful to avoid installing too many apps or poor quality apps. One common problem we see with stores is too many apps or too poor quality apps slowing down the whole website, and a slow website is a major driver of abandoned carts.

Here are a few standout storefront apps we see over and over:

Smile (For loyalty & referral program)

Most Shopify stores can benefit from a loyalty and referral program. A loyalty program gives you an edge over other stores with similar offerings, and gives customers a reason to keep on purchasing from your store instead of shopping around on competitor sites.

When designing your loyalty program, remember that it’s easier to add benefits than it is to take them away. Start with a reasonable but conservative offering, such as $20 off for every $200 spend (“200 points”), and then add more selling points to your loyalty program based on feedback and engagement.

We often recommend Smile because it has a generous free tier for smaller stores, and supports a lot of different types of loyalty & referral systems such as points programs or VIP programs.

JudgeMe (For product reviews)

Social proof is a major driver of conversion rate, and nothing gives social proof quite like authentic customer reviews. Because of this, a critical element we look for in a reviews app is the ability to automate emails asking customers for reviews, which is where JudgeMe shines.

JudgeMe is our favourite app because it works very well out of the box, has a very generous free plan, and on it’s paid plan it has a number of useful integrations like Google Shopping (for displaying your product reviews on Google Ads).

Another notable mention for review apps is Loox which does in our opinion video reviews better and looks prettier out of the box, but less customisable and no free plan.

ZigPoll (For customer surveys)

Customer feedback and insights is absolutely crucial to improving your Shopify store. Using Zigpoll, you can ask the right questions to your customer after checkout to get valuable feedback from real customers.

Surveying can also help you better understand details about your customer, such as what their concerns are, where they come from (which helps you allocate budget for advertising), and your brand sentiment.

We love ZigPoll because it has a free plan (that will be a recurring theme with the apps we recommend!), and does plenty of different types of surveying like questionnaires or NPS scores.

Notify Me! (For back in stock alerts)

Running out of stock does not have to mean losing a customer. Back in stock alerts let people sign up for a quick notification when a product is available again, keeping shoppers interested without any manual follow-up.

Notify Me! stands out for how easily it adds a “Notify Me” button to your product pages. When inventory is available again, it sends out email, SMS, or push notifications to everyone waiting. Many New Zealand stores (especially clothing stores) use this to recover sales they would have missed, and we like that is has a free plan.

Another notable mention is if you’re already using Klaviyo for email marketing, you can also use Klaviyo for it’s built in back in stock feature.

Instafeed (For Instagram feed and UGC)

Showing Instagram content directly on your store adds social proof and visual appeal to your store. It also helps funnel website traffic to social media to boost your Instagram following, and shows that you are a real & authentic business.

Instafeed is a free app that makes it quick and easy to display an Instagram feed on your homepage or other website pages. You can also use this app to feature user generated content (UGC) on your website.

Wishlist Plus (For wishlists)

Wishlists help convert casual browsers into serious buyers by letting them save items and return later.

Swym Wishlist Plus has a free generous plan to get you started and is quick to integrate into your own website.

Frequently Bought Together (For cross-selling)

Upselling, cross-selling, and bundling is key to increasing your average order value. Smart recommendations and product bundles keep customers engaged and can help move slow stock or combine loss-leaders with high-margin inventory.

The right app will do most of the work in the background, showing relevant offers without distracting from the checkout process or cluttering your store.

There are a number of cross-selling apps you can choose from, but we recommend Frequently Bought Together for it’s features and ease of use.

Another popular option is Essential Upsell & Cross Sell which has less customisation options but the added benefit of being free, and we like free!

Shopify Inbox

A live-chat these days is an expectation on Shopify stores that want to be successful, not a “nice to have”.

Realistically though, you don’t have the staff resources or the time to watch a live chat all day, so you need a solution that mixes some level of AI or automation with a good chatting experience.

Shopify’s own app, Shopify Inbox is the best option for most stores because it’s free, integrates extremely smoothly with Shopify (as you’d expect), and has a level of “smart” answers that can help solve a lot of the basic customer requests without requiring any work.

If you’re looking for some even smarter options, other popular live chat apps are Gorgias and Tidio.

Shoplift (For A/B testing and conversion optimisation)

If your store is doing at least $100k a year in sales or more, you need to start investing in split testing.

Split testing, also called A/B testing, is where you show different versions of a page, page element, or offer to your customers and track which one performs better. This takes the guesswork out of optimising your store by giving you an empirical result based on real data, regardless of external factors.

If you’re at the size of store where you’ve started to have meetings with agencies or other types of experts, you have probably received a lot of conflicting advice and suggestions for your website. The reality is that nobody knows what will work and what doesn’t on your website until it’s tested, and a split testing tool will help you know with certainty what the right direction forward is for your website.

Shoplift starts at $99 USD/month, so not cheap, but as far as value goes it’s going to easily pay for itself if you use it properly. We like this app for it’s quality, range of options, and ease of use.

qikify Checkout Customizer (Cross-selling for Shopify Plus users)

Unfortunately this suggestion is for Shopify Plus stores, but it’s so powerful that we didn’t want to leave it out.

Much like our recommendations for cross-selling on product pages using an app like Frequently Bought Together, Shopify Plus users also have apps to cross-sell right on the checkout page, which in our testing has proven to be very effective.

We like to use the app qikify Checkout Customizer which costs $99 USD/month but can easily pay for itself. Aside from cross-selling at the checkout, you can also use it to display other information on the checkout like trust badges, free shipping progress, and support links.

A special mention on page builders

In short, we do not suggest using them. Page builders can often be seen as an attractive option for building a visually appealing store, but most of the time we see page builders drastically slow down stores, product visual glitches due to bad code, and overall lead to lower conversion rates. The built in customisation options of Shopify as it is have become very good, we recommend instead selecting a theme that works for your brand and using the customisation options available within the theme.

Analytics & Information Apps

Analytics and reporting apps help you see what’s really happening in your store. The right tools cut through the noise and turn data into clear insights you can actually use.

Most Shopify stores have plenty of raw data, but the challenge is turning it into something actionable. These are the apps we see New Zealand stores use to keep on top of what matters.

Google App (Analytics Integration)

It’s probably no surprise that the most common analytics app we see being installed is for Google Analytics. While other competitors to Google Analytics have started to appear, Google Analytics is probably still the best general purpose analytics app for Shopify stores.

To install it, we recommend simply using the official Google app.

HotJar (For heatmaps and recordings)

Technically this is not a Shopify app, but we often see stores using HotJar for analysing customer behaviours.

HotJar helps you produce heatmaps and customer recordings, so that you can see for yourself how customers are interacting with your website.

We often don’t recommend leaving an app like HotJar on all the time as it can affect site speed, but it’s a good value add to run on your store after major updates to get ideas on what gets clicks & what website elements needs revision.

Smart Logs (For admin activity tracking)

If you have multiple staff or people (or third party apps) with access to your Shopify backend, it can get difficult to diagnose issues or mistakes with clarity. Installing an app like Smart Logs before disaster strikes will give you access to critical information to stay on top of what happened and when to help you find solution & fix mistakes faster.

Marketing

Marketing apps help attract new customers and keep your brand visible. The best tools make it easy to connect with people across email, search, and social media.

For most New Zealand stores, automation and simplicity go a long way. Here are the marketing apps that help local stores grow without adding unnecessary effort.

Klaviyo (For email marketing)

Email marketing, you would have definitely heard of it and experienced it at this point. Email marketing is critical for Shopify stores because you need as many channels and touchpoints with customers as possible to keep them engaged (and keep your store top of mind).

Klaviyo: Email Marketing & SMS is easily the highest-rated email marketing app for Shopify stores, it’s not cheap but what you get in terms of automation, customisation, segmentation, and analytics definitely justifies the price tag.

If you cannot justify the cost of Klaviyo right now, another option is Shopify Email, but we recommend upgrading as soon as you start making some sales.

Marketing Pixels & Advertising Apps (Google, Meta, TikTok, SnapChat, Pinterest)

Like we mentioned when discussing Klaviyo, as many channels & touchpoints as possible is critical to the success of your Shopify store. To this end, you should hold active accounts and connect as many social media platforms as possible. For most stores, the best ones to be on are Google (for Google Ads), Meta, TikTok, SnapChat, and Pinterest.

Each of these platforms have their own free integration with Shopify, so we recommend connecting them to leverage the full suite of analytics and targeting. Even for small stores, we also recommend advertising on each of these platforms, even if it’s just as little as $5/day. This is because advertising on these platforms gives you access to even more analytics and customer data, which you can use to improve your store and offering further.

AI Blog Agent (For blog writing)

Blogging is important to help build up your website authority and SEO rankings. You should aim for at least one blog post per week, and using a good quality AI blogger can help automate this if you don’t have the time to do it yourself.

For AI blogging, we recommend our own app AI Blog Agent because we produce some of the most professional AI-generated blog posts in this space with internal linking, and our free tier offering up to 3 blog posts PER WEEK is easily enough for most stores. Our features also include automating generating blog posts based on & featuring your own products, so that the blog posts produced are more uniquely your own content.

TripleWhale (For multi-attribution)

If you are a larger store with an advertising budget of $20,000 a month or more, you need a multi-attribution app like TripleWhale

What a good multi-attribution app does is it aggregates all of the data from your marketing & advertising platforms into one central place, and then produces a clear picture of your true return of ad-spend without platform bias.

If you work with big budgets for advertising, you would have experienced this platform bias first hand. Your advertising and marketing platforms all over-estimate their performance and attribute too many sales to their own platform, so much so that if you were to add up all the attributed sales they say they generated last month, the combined total will be more than your actual sales. This is why a multi-attribution app like TripleWhale is useful to show accurate and transparent reporting on what works & what doesn’t.

Admin Apps

Admin apps keep the behind-the-scenes side of your store organised. These tools handle the day-to-day work, like order management, staff permissions, and bulk updates.

Most New Zealand stores use admin apps to save time and reduce manual errors. The right setup means fewer headaches and smoother operations as you grow.

KiwiSprout Rural Shipping (For rural shipping rates)

If you have rural shipping rates on your Shopify store, you need an app like KiwiSprout Rural Shipping to ensure customers select the correct (rural) rates at checkout.

Unfortunately Shopify has no concept out of the box for what is and isn’t a rural address, meaning that if you have both rural and non-rural rates on your Shopify store, your customers are likely seeing both. In our experience, every store with this model has the problem of people every month selecting non-rural when they should be selecting rural, either out of an honest mistake or just being cheeky, but this costs Shopify stores time and/or money fixing this problem.

What KiwiSprout Rural Shipping does is simple, once set up it makes your rural customers see only rural shipping rates, to avoid them selecting the wrong shipping rates at checkout. You can read their full guide for setup here, it only takes a few minutes to set up.

Shopify Bundles (For curated and discounted product bundles)

Like we touched on before, offering bundles can increase your average order value. Bundles let you present complementary products together, and often sell them with a small discount for incentive.

Shopify Bundles is a free Shopify-made app that lives inside your admin and makes it easy to create fixed bundles or multipacks. Inventory updates happen in real time and on the order screen the bundle will be split up into it’s individual parts, so it plays nicely with third party inventory apps like LightSpeed and Cin7.

Stores in New Zealand use it to group related products, like skincare sets or starter packs, to push their average order value higher.

Shopify Flow (For backend automation)

Shopify Flow helps you automate repetitive admin tasks by using simple logic blocks with no code required. You choose a trigger, set a condition, and Flow handles the action.

It can tag loyal customers, hide out-of-stock items, send staff alerts, or pause risky orders. You also get access to dozens of templates ready to install. Flow runs inside Shopify’s admin, so it stays fast and reliable.

The most common use-case we see for Shopify Flow is automating manual payment capture. By setting up a flow to only automatically capture orders without any fraud risk, and flag the ones with risk, you can save a lot on Shopify transaction fees.

Brands we work with save hours each week and avoid manual mistakes. Flow is free on all Shopify plans and scales from basic stores to bigger operations.

Rewind Backups (For data recovery/protection)

To protect your backend data, we recommend an app like Rewind Backups to store a backup copy of your products, customer data, themes, etc. Keeping backups of this critical data ensures in the even of getting hacked or other digital disasters, you retain your important store information.

Knockout (For hiding out of stock products)

If you run a store that keeps low-stock inventory such as clothing outlets, you need an app to hide out of stock products so that your website isn’t clogged with out of stock products in your shopping experience.

Knockout is an easy way to do this. You can either manually hide your out of stock products with the app in bulk, or use the paid plan to automatically hide products the moment they go out of stock (and republish when they are back in stock).

Other Apps

Notion (For documentation)

While not a Shopify app, I still wanted to give Notion a shoutout for helping organise your tasks, information, & teams. We have used Notion for 5+ years now and can confidently say it’s probably the best project management & information sharing app out there.

Storetrends (For app spying)

If you see a Shopify store and you want to know what apps they’re using, a quick and free way to do this is with Storetrends. Simply paste the app URL, press “Analyze”, and after a couple of moments it will tell you all the apps it detects the store using.

Sadly it generally cannot tell you what backend apps are being used, because the tool only has access to the store’s frontend, but we’ve found this very useful for finding what apps other stores are using.

And that’s all of our app recommendations! If you have any questions or need help finding apps for your Shopify store, feel free to reach out.

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