This is Why You Should Do Shopify Integrations within the Headless eCommerce Approach [Examples]

Shopify is one of the leading e-commerce platforms, serving more than 1.7 million businesses worldwide. It has all the essential features allowing you to run your online store, but still if you want to go totally custom in the headless commerce approach, you should know more about Shopify integrations, and how they extend the functionality of online stores.

To optimally customize and improve the performance of Shopify stores, enhancing the customer journey, you may need to integrate it with various third-party tools.

And this is the subject of today’s article. We touch on the following main issues:

• What are Shopify integrations and why are they worth using?

• What is Shopify API and Shopify SDK?

• Shopify integrations in the headless approach

• Examples of great Shopify integrations

What are integrations and why should you use them in your Shopify store?

Shopify can be integrated with various third party apps, microservices and systems which allow it to add extra functionality to the store – like payment, shipment, architecture, design, marketing, store management or analytics tools, and so on.

The third party app gains access to your Shopify data in this case and works together with it. You can manage them in your Shopify dashboard.

This may, for example, serve the purpose of:

• Adding customer reviews

• Publishing products in the social media

• Improving the SEO strategy or getting advanced analytics of marketing campaigns

The specific examples will be presented further in the article.

Thanks to a Shopify integrations, you can:

• Enhance customer management

• Inventory management

• Order processing, business, and sales processes

• Make the resources utilization more efficient

The choice and number of integrations depends on the merchant’s requirements, but 41.2% of them use from 1 to 5, while 35.3% use from 6 to 10 integrations.

You can choose Shopify apps from Shopify App Store, featuring over 7.5 thousand of them. We discuss this subject in detail in our blog post about Shopify app development.

There are also numerous external tools outside the Shopify store that can be integrated with this platform, such as payment or shipment solutions.

Shopify API and Shopify SDK

Before we list recommended integrations, let’s take a look at how a single integration can be linked with your Shopify website.

In general, it’s the API and the SDK (software development kit) that grant one application access to another app’s data.

API acts as an intermediary between the Shopify platform and third-party solutions. Shopify developers regularly update their APIs so the whole process is smooth and secure.

It’s worth highlighting that there are many types of it, such as Shopify Admin API, Storefront API, Partner API, Payments Apps API, and so on – and each one of them is used in different cases.

SDK, on the other hand, is a specific tool used mainly by professional Shopify developers. It is a lightweight library providing eCommerce functions to any website – it is able to retrieve products from the eCommerce system and handle carts and checkouts.

What are the types of Shopify integrations?

Shopify integrations may represent many types, such as integrations with other eCommerce platforms, or integrations with microservices:

• Payment systems

• Product database management tools

• CRM

• ERP

• POS, and so on

We will break down this division further while providing the specific examples.

What are the benefits of Shopify integrations for the online store?

Integrations with various tools can prove very useful for online store owners for many reasons. First, they help save time and money, because you can automate the activities that otherwise would be done manually.

What’s more, this also helps to avoid errors and duplication of data.

Shopify integrations can provide extraordinary customer experience, which means higher conversion rates.

Thanks to Shopify integrations, you also get smarter insights, because of different tools working together in harmony, adding to the value of the whole sales and customer support ecosystem.

Are there any cons of Shopify integrations?

You should consider the monthly cost of apps, and the most advanced ones can be fairly expensive. Shopify integrations aren’t built-in – you have to install them for the channels you want to sell across.

There is also a threat that they could interfere with one other instead of working harmoniously, so an experienced developer may be of help.

A Shopify integration in the headless approach

There are at least two ways you can do integrations for your Shopify store: a traditional liquid Shopify development and headless Shopify development. As the second isn't wide-known yet, we need to feed you with at least basic info here.

Let’s start with a brief reminder what headless eCommerce is – in this approach, the front-end layer, or the “head” is decoupled from the back end, aka the “body”.

The same goes for Shopify – it can move away from the traditional monolithic approach to a solution, where the front-end design is separated from the back-end functionality.

Thanks to such a solution, merchants can provide buyers with smoother and richer, tailor-made, and truly omnichannel experience. Read our blog story about headless Shopify to better understand the subject.

Benefits of headless Shopify integrations

Headless Shopify allows for very easy integration with various microservices. The communication with them is performed safely via the Shopify API (you don’t have to directly use the Shopify App Store resources).

This doesn’t affect the performance of a website and gives more freedom when it comes to the architecture, scalability, and time to market.

API integrations can be also easily used on different carriers and are compatible with them (which is not that obvious in the “classic” approach).

Good examples may by kiosks, POS, smart mirrors, as well as smartwatches, or other wearables. It means that in headless commerce you can transform any device to your sales channel.

Because of that, the headless Shopify is by far the best approach to implement the integrations. It radically improves the performance, marketing and usability of the store, leading to a boost in sales and engagement.

Some examples of the best Shopify integrations for an online store

Enough about the theory! Let’s take a look at practical examples of the best Shopify integrations.

Of course, in this article we could name just a few, while in reality they are numerous.

Integrating Shopify with other eCommerce platforms

It is possible to connect your solution with the resources of many other platforms. Here are some of the most popular ones:

Amazon

Integration with this global marketplace allows it to synchronize the merchant’s store with orders made on Amazon. The whole process is completely automatic, and you don’t need any external software.

Etsy

It is a global marketplace where many small shop owners sell their goods. The integration provides very personalized order management, smart automation of sales, selling multiple stocks at various locations, bulk updates, and real-time inventory. What more could you ask for?

eBay

This integration provides many automated functions enhancing sales management: for example, bulk product uploading, multi-stock inventory, real-time synchronization of data, and so on. You also have access to a global shipping program on the platform, and customizable templates make it look and feel like your brand.

Shopify CRM integrations

Using a CRM (customer relationship system) with your Shopify is a great solution for bigger businesses.

The benefits of a CRM are numerous – let’s just list better cross-selling and up-selling opportunities, improved relationships with customers, analytics, and automation of repetitive tasks.

HubSpot

It is a very popular CRM featuring vast possibilities of managing sales and marketing funnels, which lets you set up unique product workflow pipelines. Thanks to the integration, you can control the conversion rate and spot any possible problems.

Salesforce

Salesforce is a big hub for all sales-related activities. It is a cloud-based solution that lets you comprehensively care about all customers’ needs, as well as analyze and improve your results.

Shopify payment-related integrations

Many Shopify merchants want to have better payment conditions than those offered by default, and also take advantage of different payment options.

PayPal

It’s one of the leading market solutions for online payments, but usually charges fees while your customers use it. The way to avoid it is to use a plugin connection.

Stripe

A fully cloud-based payment solution provides better security and almost unlimited scalability, so Shopify Stripe integration is a fit for both larger and smaller businesses.

Seal Subscriptions

This app from the Shopify App Store can help you sell products or services in a subscription model, thanks to auto-charging subscriptions, and recurring orders. You can also migrate your customers from other platforms and give them discounts.

Ultimate Trust Badges

This tool allows you to make your store a trusted and reputable place. You have a wide access to many badges’ designs you may add to your site footer, product pages, cart page, or other pages.

Shopify social media integrations

This type of integration allows you to reach new customer segments in the social media, and, on the other hand, direct your existing customer to your social channels.

Facebook & Instagram shopping

The most popular social networks are a must when it comes to online sales. Thanks to this integration, you can advertise your products among potential customers and analyze your current ones. You also can sell your products via Facebook and Instagram marketplaces.

Pinterest

It is an online platform serving the purpose of pinning collections of inspiring pictures. If your products look magnificent, showing them on Pinterest seems a very good idea, leading to enhanced interest with your offer.

Shopify design-related integrations

Many external tools allow you to enhance the design side of your store.

PageFly

It supports your ideas with over 100 high-converting templates, and other customization possibilities, all handled with an intuitive editor. You can create multiple page types, such as landing, coming soon, product, pricing, and collection pages.

Customily

It allows for advanced customization of product pages and descriptions, featuring realistic previews, photo editing, free graphic libraries, and design tools.

Fontify

This tool lets you add custom fonts to your shop.

Shopify marketing integrations

It’s a vast category that may embrace different types of tools, so we just show a few exemplary ones here.

Judge.me

This application allows store owners to serve product reviews in the store: automatically collects them, displays them in different ways, and engages the reviewers.

Buy Button

This smart solution makes it possible to add a “Buy now” button on external pages, such as blogs.

Transcy

The AI-powered tool lets you translate the store content to several different languages.

Smart SEO

This app is a way to implement some SEO-friendly practices into your store. It allows you to optimize images and alt tags, optimize the performance, or provide the right keywords.

Shopify email integrations for online stores

As a traditional and proven tool, mailings are a vital part of marketing activities, and Shopify integrations give a chance to include them into your store.

Sendinblue

This comprehensive tool processes over 100 million emails per day. It includes all the essential tools needed to create and customize automated email and SMS campaigns, as well as transactional emails, chat campaigns, and landing pages.

Seguno

The solution provides a pre-built library of automations and integrates with Shopify marketing tools. It also allows the use of Canva, a popular graphic editor, for preparing email designs.

Shopify ERP integrations on a Shopify account

ERP stands for enterprise resource planning. It is a system which connects and integrates all business processes, such as finance, manufacturing, supply chain, sales, procurement, marketing, and many others.

Integrating an ERP directly to Shopify is recommended especially for bigger enterprises, as it lets them control the store on many different levels and automate some tasks.

The benefits include availability of accurate and relevant data, real-time inventory, dynamic and customer-specific pricing, or automated financial audits.

Shopify POS integrations on a Shopify account

You can connect your eCommerce platform (in this case Shopify) to a point-of-sale (POS) system, which enables you to sell products across multiple channels, because the product, inventory, sales, and customer information are shared between both systems.

Thanks to such an integration, you can manage your online and retail stores in the same place, which makes it possible to have the most accurate information from both sources. A good example is the Point of Sale app from Shopify.

The wrap-up: enhance your eCommerce store to extend a customer base

The list of tools you can integrate with your online store is almost infinite, and you can find a solution to every need.

They all share a common goal of facilitating and enriching the pre-sales, sales, and post-sales processes both for you, and your customers, which translates to better conversion rates.

Using Shopify integrations in the headless approach lets you enjoy a truly omnichannel experience.

At Naturaily, we are experienced Shopify experts, so we will choose the most accurate integrations (choosing them optimally in a given budget) according to your current and future business requirements.

Just contact us, and we will come up with an offer tailored to your needs.