Top 20 Apps Every Shopify Apparel Brand Needs in 2022

E-commerce apparel is blowing up. With nearly a third of all e-commerce sales in US coming from apparel and accessories alone, there’s never been a better time to start an online apparel business. D2C ecommerce apparel brands like Fashion Nova, Gymshark, and Steve Madden are killing the game, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars in sales each year.

But it's getting more and more competitive, with big box retailers driving up ad CPMs and Apple's privacy cuts hurting advertiser ROAS. As a Shopify apparel brand owner, you’ll need the right tools to optimize your digital marketing and remain competitive in the e-commerce apparel industry. Here are the top 20 apps you need as a Shopify apparel brand to maintain an edge and win.

1. Loox (Product Reviews)

One of the biggest problems customers face when purchasing online is making sure they can trust a brand. As an apparel store owner, showing off satisfied customers who are wearing and loving your products is a powerful way to generate user social proof and build your credibility as an e-commerce store.

Loox is the most powerful review app we’ve seen so far. The feature we love most is its placement flexibility: you can highlight product reviews across your store at any point of purchase, such as while the user is browsing your collection, on a product page, and even at their cart. You’ll also be able to schedule customizable review request emails and discounts after closing a sale, create beautiful product review galleries with both photo and video content, and even create lookalike audiences from your happiest customers. Loox also integrates Klaviyo and Omnisend, the most popular email marketing platforms.

Cost: $9.99/month - $299.99/month (14-day free trial)

*Note: Based on monthly review request email limits, most Shopify owners would fall into the $299.99/month plan (unlimited email requests).

2. AfterShip Returns Center (Returns)

Returns are a major pain of the e-commerce industry — online returns are 2 to 3 times more frequent than brick and mortar stores. 67% of online buyers say they check the returns policy before making a purchase, and 92% of consumers say they’ll buy something again if returns are easy. As a Shopify apparel brand owner, you’ll want to provide a clear and hassle-free return experience that will keep your customers coming back.

AfterShip Returns Center is our choice of returns app for all Shopify brands. You'll be able to quickly filter through and accept/reject return requests, and set your returns window, non-returnable product types, and the number of returns per order allowed. Curate a straightforward and smooth return process for your customers with automated return emails that include shipping instructions and labels, and let shoppers choose the most convenient returns method for them with settings for USPS rates, return labels of popular carriers, and drop offs at multiple locations.

Cost: Free - $199/month

*Note: Speak to sales for a custom price if you need a plan with 4,800+ returns/year.

3. Kiwi Size Chart & Recommender (Size Chart)

The number one reason for returns of online orders is sizing: 55% of consumers cite fit issues as the top reason for returning an online purchase. As an e-commerce apparel brand owner, finding an advanced and flexible size chart app to accurately represent the fit of your products can either make-or-break your next sale.

With Kiwi Size Chart & Recommender, you’ll be able to create custom size charts with images/videos and for specific items, leverage advanced apparel recommenders to help your clients choose the right size, import size charts from image, web page, and excel files, and utilize automatic unit conversions based on a buyer’s geo location.

‍Cost: Free - $12.49/month (Annual Plan Available)

4. Instagram Feed, Story & TikTok by Socialhead (Instagram Feed)

With 1.22 billion visitors each month, it's no surprise that Instagram has become the world’s digital catwalk. Apparel brands everywhere are leveraging Instagram’s powerful and intuitive digital marketing tools like story swipe-ups, product tagging, and hashtags to reach customers directly and launch the next big fashion trend. As a Shopify apparel brand, a flexible Instagram feed app is vital to fully tap into all that Instagram can offer.

Instagram Feed, Story & TikTok by Socialhead is our favorite Instagram tool for apparel brands. This app allows you to create Instagram feeds with clickable product tags so customers can shop the look and swipeable Instagram stories that take clients directly to the sales page and increase the visibility of your product. You’ll have the flexibility to import and display both image and video content in customizable feeds that also integrate with TikTok, the number one most downloaded app in 2022.

Cost: Free - $49.90/month

5. Attentive (SMS)

SMS is the perfect way to reach customers with new styles, colorways, and limited-time promotions. Unlike email, SMS has a 100% open rate so it’s a much more efficient way to update customers — just be conscious that SMS is a more personal touchpoint so you should only send when you have something new or exciting to share with your customers.

With Attentive, you’ll be able to design highly customized and on-brand pop-up units, create personalized SMS messages, send immediate and scheduled campaign messages, build deeply customizable SMS automations, and target specific users based on past behavior. Attentive has a highly intuitive user interface and integrates with most email marketing platforms.

Cost: Speak with a representative to get a price quote (No Free Trial)

6. ​​Swatch King ‑ Variants Options (Swatches)

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Variety is a must for every apparel brand. Whether it’s a dress that you offer in multiple colors, or a bag that comes in several different styles, showcasing every option of what you offer is an important part of ensuring your clients find what they want and make the purchase. Color Swatch apps allow you to display color and style variations of the same product so they are easily previewable by your customers.

Swatch King ‑ Variants Options is the all-in-one color swatch solution for apparel brands. This app gives you the flexibility to create custom swatches that fit your needs and group separate products as variants on the product page, which help your shoppers find the right variant quickly. Our favorite features are its bulk import/export of swatches, which allow you to upload swatch images and colors in bulk, and its multi-language translation integration, which makes the app compatible with any language-translation features you have.

Cost: $14.90 - $49.90/month (30-day free trial)

7. Klaviyo (Email Marketing)

With stats like a $42 average return on every $1 spent on email marketing, it's no wonder email marketing is the tried-and-true promotional method for e-commerce brands. As a fashion brand, you’ll need an email marketing platform that allows you to create charming and native templates and show off stunning product visuals to captivate your customers with every email that lands in their inbox.

Klaviyo is the gold standard of email marketing software for ecommerce. While some other apps offer email automations like cart abandonment, Klaviyo will integrate directly with your product feed and allows for much more customized and personalized email flows. Klaviyo also integrates with most review apps, loyalty programs, and fulfillment platforms so you can create consistency between all of your brand’s email messaging.

‍Cost: Free - $20/month

8.  Wishlist Plus (Wishlist)

Wishlists are one of the big advantages of owning an online apparel brand. They not only allow customers to keep track of products that might be out of stock or that they aren’t ready to order but reduce cart abandonment and allow merchants to alert clients such as when their wishlist items go on sale.

With Wishlist Plus, you’ll be able to leverage powerful campaign tools like wishlist reminders and price drop/restock alerts, completely customize and integrate the wishlist native to your store, sync wishlist activity so your clients can access their wish lists across multiple devices, collect email addresses with pop-up units, and utilize metrics like the number of times an item is bookmarked to inform your promotional activity.

Cost: Free - $99.99/month (30-day Free Trial)

9. Smile: Loyalty & Rewards (Loyalty & Reward)

Marketing to existing customers is just as important if not more than acquiring new ones — brand loyal customers purchase 90% more often than new customers and are far less expensive to retain. Rewarding your customers for loyalty is a powerful way to drive sales from your existing customers and build long term loyalty.

Smile: Rewards & Loyalty is the most powerful and comprehensive loyalty app out there. Smile allows you to reward your customers with loyalty points for placing an order, joining your loyalty program, leaving a review, referring others, and more. Smile integrates with Klaviyo and Mailchimp, so you can set points expiration dates and send your shoppers reminder emails to use their rewards. Additionally, Smile’s user interface is highly developed and offers countless customization options for rewards panels and widgets. Smile also has tons of resources and videos to help you optimize your usage of the app.

Cost: Free - $599/month

10. Back In Stock - Restock Alerts (Back in Stock)

With stellar marketing tactics that bring customers to your store site, the last thing you want is your customers leaving empty-handed and disappointed because the item they want is out of stock. Back in Stock apps help you recover lost sales by notifying interested shoppers when the product they want has been restocked.

Back in Stock ‑ Restock Alerts by Appikon Software Pvt Ltd allows you to send email, SMS, Facebook Messenger & web push reminders to customers who have subscribed to receive updates on an out-of-stock item. Your customers can customize restock alerts with advanced variant combinations (color, style) and even conduct pre-orders with the app’s “Coming Soon” feature. Additionally, the app supports multiple languages and allows customers to receive restock alerts for only a specific location.

Cost: Free - $49.99/month

11. Lookbook ‑ Shoppable Galleries (Lookbook)

With beautiful galleries and artistic photography, fashion magazines have always emanated a lifestyle of opulence and sophistication through apparel. As a Shopify apparel store owner, you don’t have to secure a spot in Vogue to create beautiful product galleries that show-off your products. Lookbook apps allow you to create gorgeous image galleries to help your customers visualize the lifestyle of your brand.

Lookbook - Shoppable Galleries by Expert Village Media Technologies is our number one lookbook app for creating elegant, shoppable galleries. The app’s most impressive feature is its tagging system, which allows clients to press on items in a gallery to easily view the product listing and add it to cart. A variety of layouts already exist, including collage, masonry, and slideshow views, but you can also customize your own layout with the CSS option. Overall, the app’s clean and stylish core features make it our winner for apparel brands.

Cost: $9.99/month - $32.99/month (7-day free trial)

12. UpPromote: Affiliate Marketing (Affiliate Marketing)

Influencer marketing has exploded. Long gone are the days where only traditional celebrities could endorse your favorite drink or perfume line — 7 out of 10 teens trust influencers over traditional celebrities, and influencer campaigns reportedly earn $5.68 for every dollar spent. As a Shopify apparel brand owner, building an influencer marketing strategy is vital to staying relevant amongst younger audiences.

With UpPromote Affiliate Marketing, you’ll be able to effectively attract and build strong relationships with influencers to help you market your products. Each influencer is given an affiliate link or code to promote, and you can create unlimited affiliate programs with different commission offers. One of our favorite features is the UpPromote Marketplace, which is the app’s own network of potential ambassadors that you can use to attract influencers.

Cost: Free - $139.99/month (14-day free trial)

13. ReConvert Upsell & Cross sell (Upsell & Cross sell)

Part of maximizing your customer lifetime value is optimizing each sale. Upselling and cross selling are powerful tactics to increase revenue streams and personalize the customer experience. With sales to existing customers being 60-70% more likely than targeting new customers, Upsell and Cross sell apps are a must-have for any apparel brand owner to maximize their average order value.

ReConvert Upsell & Cross sell is the one-stop-shop for all upsell and cross selling tools. The app allows you to customize your thank you page with upsell and cross sell tools like ai-product recommendations, coupon codes for the next order, pop up discounts, reorder buttons, and urgency timers. With the advanced funnels systems, you can use triggers to match the right product upsell to a certain customer. You can also collect key information like customer birthdays and feedback on the post-purchase page to help you retarget your marketing.

‍Cost: Free - $29.99/month (30-day free trial)

14. Product Filter & Search by Boost Commerce (Product Filter & Search)

Online shopping can feel like an endless scroll of choices, and customers need smart, advanced filters to help them narrow down their options. It can be a pain for customers to navigate the many collections, brands, and styles your apparel store offers. Product Filter and Search apps allow your customers to create advanced filters and smart searches to find the exact product they want.

Product Filter & Search by Boost Commerce is the go-to product-filter app for all Shopify brands. The app allows you to create custom filters for different collections and search results pages, while existing filter options include everything from collections to product types to sales and so much more. You can also choose how visible (if at all) you want low/out of stock items and old-fashioned items to be. Smart search auto-suggests searches, and you can upsell and cross sell items based on product rankings. Finally, key analytics like popular search queries and ‘no results’ cases allow you to adjust your filter and search tools.

Cost: $19/month - $69/month (14-day free trial)

15. Buddha Mega Menu & Navigation (Mega Menu)

You spend so much time and effort curating different collections and developing a variety of options for your apparel store, but figuring out how to make these options accessible to your customers can be just as difficult. Mega Menu apps allow you to display several expandable menus from just one dropdown in your store’s navigation.

Buddha Mega Menu & Navigation has both clean and robust core functionalities and added flexibility that makes navigation smooth and easy for your clients. The app has 4 submenu types that allow you to organize your store by collections, products, and/or tabs to fit your specific navigation needs. Special features include the ability to create blogs and banners, set up custom and video widgets, and use live countdown icons to optimize your promotions. Further, the app allows you to separately design your mobile and desktop menus to maximize accessibility.

Cost: Free - $9.95/month (14-day free trial)

16. Disco Growth Network (Ad Exchange)

With the costs of digital advertising rising year after year, we know Shopify sellers are looking for cheaper alternatives to market to their target audience. That’s why Ad Exchange apps, an up-and-coming app category, are a necessity for every Shopify apparel brand owner. Ad Exchange apps get you to partner with similar stores, like other clothing brands, and share your networks. By posting ads for each other on your store sites, you bring in high-quality traffic for virtually no cost.

Disco Growth Network is by far the most developed and elegant Ad Exchange app on the market. It places stylish ads on Thank You pages or post-purchase emails, bringing in new shoppers from stores like yours at the end of the purchase process. Disco Growth Network also leverages its affiliate networks with loyalty incentives and audience sharing: Shoppers of the network are rewarded Disco Cash that they can use to redeem discounts at any Disco shop, including yours. Plus, you can request a custom-built Lookalike Audience using data across their network to improve your paid campaign performance.

Cost: $50/month + $0.50 per conversion from a Disco Partner (Free to Install)

17. Live Shopping & Video Streams (Live Shopping)

Live stream shopping has blown up in recent years — not only is the industry expected to be worth $35 billion in the US by 2024, but apparel and fashion brands are the leading category, accounting for 36% of livestream shopping events. As a Shopify apparel brand owner, creating an interactive experience for your shoppers with live shopping is crucial to demonstrating your trendiness as a brand and securing your spot in the digital future.

Live Shopping & Video Streams is the most cost-worthy live streaming app for small to medium sized apparel brands. The app offers core functionalities like in-show product promotion, add to cart, and live chatting, and analytics like your audience list and peak time. The app has useful in-show capabilities like the spotlight feature which allows you to pull up and highlight the item you’re currently showcasing for your audience.

Cost: Free - $99/month + $0.049 extra per live attendee after the free audience limit (50hrs - 100hrs)

18. Boutiq (Personal Video Shopping)

There’s one thing brick-and-mortar retailers do best, and that’s the personal shopping experience. Personal Video Shopping Apps allow online sales associates to assist shoppers one-on-one through video call, providing clients with a customized shopping experience with the human-quality of in-person shopping.

Boutiq is our definitive pick for personal video shopping apps for Shopify apparel brands. The main feature that sets it apart is its on-call client information, which allows sales associates to view a client’s purchase/browsing history, metrics, and recommendations so associates can curate a truly personalized shopping experience. It also has an incredibly easy-to-use and intuitive user interface and installation process, and allows you to personalize call links to specific hosts for commission purposes.

Cost: $50/month - $750/month + 3% - 2.5% of Sales + $1.50 - $1.00 per extra hour above monthly hours (50hrs - 1000hrs)

19. Free Gifts BOGO buy x get y (Free Gift)

Everyone likes the word “free,” and offering a free gift with purchase is a surefire way to instantly attract customers to a certain product or collection. As a Shopify apparel brand owner, you might further promote your brand with totes or keychains or let customers sample a new collection of accessories.

Free Gifts BOGO buy x get y is our favorite free gift app for its user-friendly gift process and variety of offer options. The app offers various types of offers, including buy one get one, buy X get Y, free gift with purchase, and many more, and additionally allows you to customize each offer with the number of items and gifts purchased. You can allow customers to choose from a variety of free gifts, create special offers that require URL access, and even run and prioritize multiple offers at a time.

Cost: $29.99 - $89.99/month (7-day free trial)

20. Printful: Print on Demand (Print on Demand)

In a sea of clothing brands, catering to a niche audience can be your key to success as a Shopify apparel store owner. Print on demand apps allow you to focus on designing an original product without handling shipping and inventory and minimize risk by only charging when you get an order. You’ll want to find a print on demand app that is deeply customizable and gives you access to high-quality apparel.

Printful: Print on Demand is our pick for apparel brands due to its durable products and customization capability. Printful is the print-on-demand leader for high-quality materials and printing services. One of our favorite tools is Printful’s custom mockup maker that allows you to generate designs on all kinds of apparel products. Printful also allows you to order samples at a 20% discount so you can check the quality and look of your product before you start selling.

Cost: Free - $49/month