We are just here to weigh-in on third party website integration choices

Rather than burning the calories of building software from the ground up, website owners have the luxury of plugging-in third party integrations that cover everything from payment gateways to inventory management systems.

Although the code for these integrations can be tweaked (and often should be), the heavy lifting is done to quickly optimize e-commerce sites and provide a fluid user experience. After all, once you have brought the traffic all the way to your website you cannot afford to lose their business due to shoddy options and performance.

There can be a massive variance of numbers of integrations used on a site, from the minimalist of an ESP and a couple must-haves to the grand, larger sites running 20 or more. No matter which option you choose, make sure you are ensuring that third party integrations are 100% critical before bringing them on. Ultimately, fewer integrations mean a faster site, which everyone likes.

The options can be dizzying, with countless integrations vying for your attention. Which of these e-com lifesavers are leaving our experts with positive impressions? We asked Kevin Dugan, VP of Agency Services what integrations he and his team have been impressed with recently. Here are three options that he tips the hat to:

Automatic Discounts by Tabarnapp

We’ve been using the “Automatic Discounts” app by Tabarnapp to give our customers on Rastellis.com (using Shopify) a gift with purchase for certain qualifying orders.

During certain promotions, when customers meet a certain subtotal threshold in their cart, they are shown a popup to add (or choose) their free gift. From there, they have the option to check-out or continue shopping. We utilized this app every day for our “12 Days of Gifting,” during which we gave away a new product every day through the Black Friday/early December rush. We’ve found that giving customers a free product (or the option to choose one of multiple options) is a much better conversion driver than a percentage or dollar off their order, even if the economics end up being the same in the end. Customers really love getting a high-quality freebie, and it has been a massive part of our success over the last few months.

Out of Stock Notifications by Amasty

For Mitchell & Ness, a great addition to the e-comm site has been the Amasty Out of Stock Notifications for Magento 2.

We built the functionality to only allow an out-of-stock signup on certain “evergreen” products - primarily our authentic jerseys. When a customer’s size isn’t available, instead of seeing an “Add to cart” button, they see “Out of stock. Get notified,” which brings them to a page to sign-up for notifications for when their size is restocked.

We integrated with this extension to allow customers to sign up to be notified when certain high demand products have been restocked in their size. Since launching this functionality in September, we have generated 60,000 signups for notifications and generated over $300,000 in revenue from the back in stock emails that this extension sends.

Recharge

Revisiting Rastelli’s, we integrated Recharge and built a custom subscription app to sit on top of that.

Recharge is a recurring billing app in the Shopify marketplace which allows sites to sell products on a subscription basis. Giving customers the option to buy Rastelli’s amazing meat as a one-time purchase or as a recurring delivery on a subscription gives the option to choose what works best for the customer.

Customers can choose to buy a product one time or add it to a new or existing subscription on their account (and save 5% on that). Our custom-built app allows customers to be much more flexible with adjusting their subscription - they can add one-time products to their next shipment, change their delivery schedule and more.

A good roster of website integrations can make an ecommerce site truly shine, enhancing the customer experience and lowering the barrier to sales conversions. If you want some advice on choosing integrations, an evaluation of your current stack, or assistance on working out the kinks of third-party API’s, give DMi a shout and let us help!