I’m sure you’re eager to look for competitive advantages on Shopify. And Shopify custom apps can be the right answer for you. But before digging into how they can help you succeed, let’s start with…
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The importance of competitive advantages
Competitive advantages determine whether or not a business could succeed – Shopify businesses included. Having a competitive advantage gives you your own unique strengths and set you apart from the thousands or even millions of other businesses out there.
The number of Shopify merchants has been growing rapidly for the last few years and will continue to do so for years to come. This leads to the fact that creating a whole new competitive advantage to stand out will be very difficult.
However, this doesn’t mean that it can’t be done. Today, we’ll explore one of many approaches to obtain a competitive advantage, specifically Shopify Custom Apps, so that a Shopify Store Owner like yourself could have a better chance at succeeding on Shopify.
3 ways to gain competitive advantages with Shopify Custom Apps
Add custom functionalities to your web store
In a particular product category, assuming all participants have similar products, setting yourself apart from the rest is not easy. You could alter your branding or even your products and services, but we all know that it’ll be very expensive and time-consuming. Therefore, one approach many Store Owners take involves adding some small, incremental details to their stores through the usage of apps. This change, even though insignificant, could add a pinch of differentiation to the whole store.
There’s a problem to this, however. The majority of apps being used for this purpose are public apps. They are available to everybody, which essentially defies the original purpose. Maybe you could purchase the most expensive plan of an app to get features that others can’t, but it will still be ineffective if there are other Store Owners who could buy it as well.
So how do you solve this problem? The answer is Custom apps. Custom apps work exactly like public apps, with the main purpose being to provide extra functionalities. Except that, this time, only you will have those functionalities.
Custom apps can give you a feature that only you use, a solution that only you know and a competitive advantage that only you possess.
In addition, you can be exposed to a one-off payment for custom apps, which is reasonable for your financial plan.
To sum it up, custom apps can give you a feature that only you use, a solution that only you know and a competitive advantage that only you possess.
Integrate with third-party platforms
You might have already known this, but there are many other platforms that could assist with Shopify. All these platforms do not act as a whole new foundation for your eCommerce business, but rather work to enhance your original Shopify operation. Popular platforms include shipping, payment, accounting, marketing, CRM, ERP, etc.
Let us give you an example. Imagine that you are a Store Owner based in the Middle East for instance. The amount of businesses conducted through Shopify is not as popular here, which means that customers here often struggle to buy your products. To help them & to save money on delivery, you’ve decided to choose a third-party shipping platform from this area, specifically MIDEAST Shipping, to support your business.
Through the usage of a Shopify Custom App that connects your stores with the platform, you could automate the shipping process very easily. The app automatically connects to the platform’s server, choose a shipping option based on the orders and schedule the shipping process accordingly. Notification about the order as well as its shipping option will be sent to you – the Store Owner and your customers for confirmation.
There are many other usage of a Custom App, this is just one of the many ways you could stand out in the Shopify business.
Conclusion
Custom apps can do many things, from adding custom functionality to integrating with third-party apps and platforms. Any of these approaches, in whichever way they are done, could change many Store Owners’ business prospects and allow them to operate in a league of their own.
Could you be one of them? Could you thrive as a Shopify Store Owner with the help of Custom Apps? We don’t see why not. All you need now is a simple idea for an app and a development team motivated enough to take on the challenge.
So why don’t you come to us? We at HappyPoints have launched our own Custom App Development Service, and are now ready to assist Store Owners with any request they put forward. Don’t hesitate to visit us here or send us an email at [email protected]. We will get back to you as soon as we could, so no worries!
