10 Shopify Apps Every New Store Needs After Migration

You just migrated to Shopify and your store looks clean, loads fast, and checkout finally works without duct tape. Then reality hits: half the functionality your old WooCommerce or Magento store had — the review widget, the abandoned cart flow, the loyalty points, the upsell popups — is gone. Shopify's core doesn't ship with any of it. You're not done migrating. You're just done with the easy part.

Store owners who skip this step lose the revenue bump migration was supposed to deliver. A bare Shopify install converts worse than the "outdated" store you just left, because you stripped out the exact features that were driving add-to-cart and repeat purchases. The fix isn't complicated, but it is specific: install the right apps, in the right order, without turning your new store into the same plugin-bloat mess you just escaped.

Here are the 10 apps that matter in the first 30 days, why each one earns its spot, and where store owners typically go wrong installing them.

1. Reviews and Social Proof

If you migrated from WooCommerce, you likely had a reviews plugin like WP Customer Reviews or Yotpo feeding star ratings into your product pages. That data usually doesn't migrate automatically — you need an app to both import historical reviews and keep collecting new ones.

• Judge.me or Loox — both handle photo reviews, review requests via email, and star-rating rich snippets in Google search results
• Import your old reviews as CSV before you delete your old store — most review apps accept bulk import
• Turn on automated review request emails 14 days post-purchase; this alone recovers 60-70% of the review volume stores lose during migration

2. Email and SMS Marketing

Your Mailchimp or Klaviyo integration on WooCommerce doesn't carry over cleanly. Shopify's ecosystem has native-feeling options that sync customer and order data automatically instead of through a janky webhook.

• Klaviyo — the standard for stores doing $50,000+ in monthly revenue; strong segmentation and abandoned cart flows
• Shopify Email — free, built-in, fine for stores under $20,000/month that don't need advanced automation yet
• Rebuild your abandoned cart sequence on day one — this is typically 5-15% of lost revenue for stores that migrate and forget it

3. Upsell, Cross-Sell, and Average Order Value

Magento and WooCommerce merchants often had upsell logic baked into custom plugins or theme code. On Shopify, that logic needs its own app, and it's one of the fastest wins available post-migration.

1. Install a post-purchase upsell app (ReConvert or Zipify OCU) to add a one-click offer on the thank-you page
2. Add cart-level cross-sells for complementary products — "customers also bought" style recommendations
3. Set a free-shipping threshold bar tied to your average order value, not a guess — check last 90 days of order data first

Stores that add a post-purchase upsell flow in the first month typically see a 3-8% lift in average order value with zero additional ad spend.

4. Customer Support and Live Chat

If you ran a helpdesk plugin like WooCommerce Helpdesk or a custom Zendesk widget, you need a replacement that ties directly into Shopify order data — so support agents can see order status without switching tabs.

• Gorgias — pulls order, shipping, and refund data straight into the chat window; the standard for stores over $1M/year
• Tidio — lighter, cheaper option for stores under $500,000/year that still want AI-assisted replies
• Set up automated responses for the top 5 questions you got on your old platform (order status, returns, sizing) before launch day

5. Loyalty and Retention

New Shopify stores lose repeat customers in the first 90 days more often than they lose new ones — usually because the loyalty program that existed on the old platform simply vanished during the switch.

• Smile.io — points, referrals, and VIP tiers; migrates existing point balances if you export them before cutover
• Loyalty Lion — better fit for stores running subscription or high-frequency repeat purchase models
• Email existing customers about their migrated points balance within the first week — silence here reads as "the program is dead" and kills re-engagement

6. SEO and Page Speed

Migration is the single biggest SEO risk in a store's lifecycle. URL structures change, redirects get missed, and page speed can tank if the new theme is heavier than the old one.

• Plug in SEO or Yoast-style Shopify apps to manage meta titles, descriptions, and structured data at scale
• TinyIMG or Booster for image compression — bloated product images are the #1 cause of slow post-migration store speed
• Audit your 301 redirects manually against your old sitemap — apps can generate them, but they don't catch every edge case, and a missed redirect is a lost ranking

How to Install Without Bloating Your New Store

Every app on this list adds a script to your storefront. Install all ten in one afternoon and you'll trade a slow WooCommerce site for a slow Shopify site — same problem, new platform.

1. Install one app per category, not three "just to compare"
2. Check each app's impact on page speed using Shopify's built-in speed report before and after install
3. Uninstall trial apps completely — leftover code snippets from uninstalled apps are one of the most common causes of slow migrated stores
4. Re-test checkout and cart flow after every app install; conflicts between apps are common and easy to miss

The Real Work Is in the Setup, Not the App Store

None of these apps fix a broken migration on their own. They assume your product data, customer records, and order history moved over cleanly, your theme is built correctly, and your redirects are in place. If any of that groundwork is shaky, adding apps just adds more moving parts to a foundation that isn't solid yet.

This is exactly where most DIY migrations fall apart — not in picking the wrong app, but in launching on infrastructure that wasn't audited first. TheDeki handles both sides: the migration itself and the post-launch setup that makes a Shopify store actually outperform the platform you left.

Book a free migration consultation with TheDeki and get a straight answer on what your store needs before you spend another dollar on apps.