Online retailers are always looking for ways to exceed their customers’ expectations. With most online shopping now happening on mobile devices, it’s important for merchants to deliver fast, engaging experiences optimized for mobile. Because AMP guarantees consistently fast webpages, it’s becoming an increasingly popular framework for eCommerce.
Shopify Apps add functionality or features to Shopify stores, like plugins or extensions do to other platforms. Apps built to support AMP provide an easy way to launch a lightning fast, mobile optimized AMP version of a store that users love.
The best AMP Apps for Shopify are able to easily create many page types, including product, collection, home, and blog pages. They’re free or low cost, and come with reliable support. Some integrate with third party apps, meaning AMP versions of stores will not lose critical functionality such as product reviews. These Apps generate pages can be cached and served nearly instantly when accessed through Google Search.
The most popular AMP Apps have been installed thousands of times and have received 5 stars in 87% of user reviews. AMP by Shop Sheriff has great user reviews, and has been able to grow quickly because of their focus on user experience. “Merchants using our app, as well as their customers who get to experience the AMP pages, all love the experience,” said Shop Sheriff founder Stephen Gardner. “We’re extremely proud to have 98% 5-star reviews, and maintain a 5.0 average star rating on Shopify.”
Out-of-the-box, top Shopify AMP apps provide beautiful eCommerce templates for product, category, home, blog pages, and more, which merchants can further customize. Above is a GIF of a user seamlessly customizing their AMP pages using the AMP App by AMPify Me.
Testing the AMP versions of these stores using PageSpeed Insights show industry-leading performance scores over 90, with pages being fully interactive in just seconds. Data show that users are more likely to bounce from a page that takes longer to load, and users view more pages on fast loading websites, leading to more engagement and higher conversion rates.
For the app creators, it’s all about using technology to improve retail experiences online. “We’re committed to building technology that makes it easy for retailers to succeed online,” said Jana Filipovic from AMPify Me, a leading AMP App. “Our customers, and even users of our free products, are able to drive increased engagement and conversion rates using AMP.” Their focus on great product and user experiences have enabled AMP by AMPifyMe to grow very quickly. Over 13,000 stores have installed their App since launch in May 2018!
Shopify noted in a recent blog post that AMP by Shop Sheriff and AMPifyMe were leaders in the category of successful apps that improve mobile performance. “By helping merchants take advantage of this mobile-first opportunity, these apps were able to find success on our app store.”
Top Shopify AMP apps have a WYSIWYG editor that enables merchants to customize the look and feel of AMP pages to deliver feature rich, lightning fast user experiences. Above is the editor from Shop Sheriff.
Google recently conducted a detailed review of the most popular AMP Apps for Shopify, analyzing the apps across 5 critical characteristics. If you’re a Shopify client considering AMP, consider these when choosing a provider:
- Price & Support – How much will the app cost at the service level that’s appropriate for you, and will you get quality support for that investment?
- Ease of Use – How much work is required to set up the AMP version of your shop? How intuitive is the app’s user interface?
- Quality of AMP pages – How good is the user experience on the AMP version of your shop?
- Integration with Google tools – How easy will it be to ensure the AMP versions of your pages are cached by Google and any issues are surfaced?
- Third party integrations – Which of your other apps can be integrated out-of-the-box? Which can be integrated with a little more work?
Apps provide an easy path for merchants to adopt AMP on Shopify, creating a lightning fast, mobile optimized version of their pages that can help meet users’ rising expectations. Check out our review on amp.dev to see which AMP App might be best for your Shopify store.
Posted by Chris Sater, Web Product Partnerships, Google