5+ Best Shopify Automation Apps to Save Time and Money

Posted by Terry Wingfield Pocket

Whilst automation is a hot topic, there is an area of automation that is gaining traction rapidly, and that's eCommerce automation.

With the level of work involved in running an eCommerce store, you’ll at some point come to the conclusion that some tasks may seem to be laborious and time-consuming.

Those time-consuming tasks equate to money! At every opportunity, you’ll need to evaluate, and at times, reevaluate to understand if there is a better solution to what you're undertaking.

If it can be automated, automate it!

Can you Build a Fully Automated Shopify Store?

No, you cannot create a fully automated Shopify store. The technology is not quite there yet.

You’ll always need to take product shots, manage inventory, write and edit copy, write blog posts, setup ads, and more.

To solidify and clarify that a little further, google “How to fully automate a Shopify store”, and what you’ll often find are ads associated with questionable sources offering to build an automated store for $100.

You may even come across clickbait blog posts demonstrating how to build an automated store, but once you read through these, you’ll notice that it’s not quite fully automated.

If it was truly automated, you'd need to have unique product descriptions, and images, right? From an SEO perspective, you’d need to stand out, thus not using the same copy that every other store uses.

When a tech startup builds a system to build fully automated stores, the SERPS will not be plagued with clickbait blog posts, scammy dropshipping videos, and questionable ads.

If your ambition to create a fully automated store is based on a "guru" promoting the idea of a store that makes money by itself, or a hands-off approach to creating and maintaining a Shopify store, it’s not going to happen just yet.

You still need to take product shots, implement SEO, add/manage inventory, handle customer service, and most importantly, implement and execute a marketing strategy.

However, you can most certainly automate processes to save time and money.

Let’s take a look at key processes that can be automated:

Posting products to social media
Posting blog posts to social media
Sending emails when a particular action occurs
Add products to other sales channels when a product is added to Shopify
Export reports and sales figures
Sending digital birthday wishes and post-purchase personalized messages
Sending physical post-purchase personalized notes
Sending personalized direct mail
Creating Shopify Labels
And pretty much anything related to an order can be automated to export data, import data to a third-party service, and send notifications.

All of the above is the tip of the iceberg, but before you start automating processes, measure and quantify first. Start by analyzing what is time-consuming and then proceed to implement an automation.

Best Shopify Automation Apps

1, MESA: Automated Workflows

MESA is a Shopify automation platform designed to help you focus on what’s important, your business.

With ready-made templates covering tasks, and workflows, you’ll most certainly save time and money. MESA delivers a code-free process to get up and running in the least amount of time, not to mention 24/7 support to ensure you get the most out of the service.

2, WithMinta: Automated Product Videos

Automatically created product videos, with automated social media posting, top the charts when it comes to automation apps.

A hands-off approach to automated social posting “can” increase engagement, and followers.

WithMinta solves social automation with integrity, and professionalism, bundled into an attractive UI, with a heavy focus on UX.

Features include:

Social Calendar
Video catalog
Video editor
Manual sharing option
Power-ups
Brand kit
Automatically created videos
Automated social posting

Price: 7-day free trial, with the following plans:
- Free plan
- Pro plan at $35 per month
- Advanced plan at $55 per month
- Enterprise plan at $499 per month
Number of reviews: 530+
Rating: 5 stars

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3, Arigato Automation

Arigato was designed to make the lives of Shopify store owners much easier with custom workflows, and pre-built automation templates. Like many other automation services, Arigato aims to save you time and money by automating routine tasks.

Popular workflows:

Email customers using rule-sets
Send order data to Google sheets
Send store owner notifications based on rule-set
Automatically manage products based on rule-sets
Automatically manage customers based on rule-sets
And much more

Most common actions:

Send emails
Send SMS messages
Capture payments
Set/edit product fields
Set/edit order fields
Subscribe to Mailchimp
Add order tags
Remove order tags
Send Slack message
Unpublish/Publish product
Update product fields
Update customer fields
Create a Trello card
Publish product
Add customer tags
Delete resources
Add data to Google Sheets
Shopify API & HTTP Requests
Custom Actions
And much more

Price: 14-day free trial, with the following paid plans:
- Basic plan at $15 per month
- Shopify plan at $25 per month
- Advanced plan at $40 per month
- Plus plan at $100 per month
Number of reviews: 160+
Rating: 4.9 stars

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4, Outfy: Automate Social Media

Outfy ‑ Automate Social Media solves one problem, and solves it well! Outfy with a staggering 1220+ reviews automates social media posting with state-of-the-art tools.

Like many automation services, outfy saves your time by posting content to top social sites, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Youtube, and Tumblr automatically by offering functionality to create Create Product collages, videos, and gifs.

Price: 7-day free trial, with the following plans:
- Free plan
- Starter plan at $15 per month
- Pro plan at $30 per month
- Ultimate plan at $60 per month
Number of reviews: 1220+
Rating: 4.8 stars

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5, Mechanic

Mechanic, an affordable, but yet powerful Shopify automation app, allows you to automate the most demanding, and time-consuming tasks in a fraction of the time.

With over 300+ automations, and a Shopify flow integration you'll be sure to save time.

Most common automation tasks:

Email customers when tagged
Request a review after order fulfillment
Cancel and close unpaid orders
Manage customers based on rule-sets
Manage products based on rule-sets
Manage orders based on rule-sets
And much more

Price: 15-day free trial, with the following paid plans:
- Basic Shopify plan at $9 per month
- Shopify plan at $29 per month
- Advanced Shopify plan at $99 per month
- Shopify Plus plan at $199 per month
Number of reviews: 117+
Rating: 4.9 stars

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6, Shopify Flow

Shopify Flow was designed and implemented by Shopify itself, to combat the ever increasing demand for automation.

With an initiative UI, you can create automations for the buyer experience, Customer management, inventory, order management, promotions, loyalty, and risk and fraud management.

Shopify flow is growing rapidly, with additional apps added weekly.

Price: Free to install, and consumption based charges
Number of reviews: 34+
Rating: 3.7 stars

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The Takeaway

Whilst eCommerce automation can save you a lot of time, it also comes at a cost. You’ll need to measure which area of the business comes first. Take it, step, by step before implementing automations.

To summarize we've briefly covered:

The best Shopify automation apps
Is It possible to build a fully automated Shopify store

What next:

Learn how to increase Shopify traffic
Shopify traffic but no sales? 14+ conversion tactics to try
Learn how to blog for business to build trust and authority
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Additional Shopify Resources

With Shopify being one of the largest eCommerce platforms on the market means you’ll never be short of resources to learn how to build a profitable eCommerce business.

Kanteneo aims to be the best Shopify blog on the market, but you may require additional resources to help you on that journey. Below we’ve listed a top-selling Shopify book by Veronica Jeans to help you learn how to launch a profitable business.

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Author

Terry Wingfield

A techy at heart, with over 10+ years of software engineering skills, and 5+ years experience in ecommerce, retention, and personalization.

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We are Kanteneo, we help shopify store owners build an epic brand, build trust, increase revenue, and increase Shopify traffic through the power of video, and our Shopify blog.

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