10 best Shopify tools for time-savvy manufacturers in 2024

There are tons of great Shopify tools around these days — the question is, which ones are best for you? 

You don’t have to answer this question as we’ve done the leg work for you by gathering the most useful and rewarding apps for manufacturers. With the explosion of e-commerce came a massive influx of online tools for modern manufacturers. For example, it would have been an ordeal trying to sort something out as basic as a new business card back in the day.  

Now, this sweeping online eruption of Shopify tools has brought about a solution for almost any problem your business faces. 

They can help you: 

• Get it up and running
• Boost traffic to your store   
• Make your business operations a little bit smoother 

You can run your online store without them of course — but with them on your side, you can step up your business management. Don’t underestimate what impact a brand-new logo, easy pay stub printing, and SKU generation can have for you when you implement a Shopify app.

All this is why we have trawled through the Shopify tools on offer to cherry-pick the apps that do the most for you with the least required input.   

1. Shopify SKU Generator

SKUs (Stock Keeping Units) are codes that uniquely identify each of your products. 

It’s a vital piece of the puzzle to make sure you’re managing your inventory properly. Making your codes consistent and clear means that anyone in your business can tell which product they’re dealing with at a glance. Your stock rooms will be flowing much easier when every product is identifiable on sight. 

If you don’t have SKUs implemented, you can get started here.

This Shopify SKU generator made by Katana is simple but effective. It lets you enter in your variants and product name, and in return, gives you an SKU you can start using straight away. 

2. Google Analytics

Gathering analytics for investigating your Shopify store’s performance is essential — this is where Google Analytics steps in to help you. 

Analytics gives you the tools to understand where your store’s online visitors spend most of their time. With this, you can focus on boosting your hot products and trimming the fat of what’s holding back your business. You can dive straight into working on your marketing strategy and making sure that you’re making the most of your online traffic. 

You’ve spent all this energy getting people to your site. It would be a shame to lose them. 

Google Analytics allows you to set up goals to see how you’re doing, and the program will let you know every time you hit them. 

It could be anything from clicking on a product page or signing up for your newsletter. The great thing is that you can turn Google analytics on for your store directly from your preferences section. No apps are needed whatsoever.

There’s a good reason that the best Shopify stores make full use of Google analytics to stay ahead of the competition, and as long as your store does not go over five million impressions a month, then it’s going to be free to use too.

3. Hatchful Logo Maker

A professional-looking logo can make all the difference in creating a strong first impression that keeps visitors on your website. 

If the logo doesn’t match the quality of your products, then people can be put off quickly. Hiring a graphic designer can be an expensive affair, and unless you got the know-how yourself, there aren’t too many places to turn. Thankfully, Shopify has made their logo maker, Hatchful — best of all, this tool is free and super easy to use. 

You simply enter the name of your business, slogan and then choose where you would be using the logo.

The maker then comes up with a whole selection of logos for you that’s right on the money. Even if you don’t find one that suits you to the tee, you can still use them as templates or ideas to step up your branding game. 

4. Image Resizer

Playing around with images and graphics can be a time-consuming pain if you don’t have the suitable software and skills.

You can use the Image Resizer to simplify the process of adjusting your image sizes to three easy to understand sizes and resolutions:

• Compact (1024 px x 1024 px)
• Medium (2048 px x 2048 px)
• Large (4472 px x 4472 px)

They’re ideal for use with your Shopify store, social media, or even your monthly newsletter. The only limitation is that you can only process up to 6 images at a time, so if you have large batches of images to go through, it could take you a while.

5. Burst Photos

This is a great Shopify tool for manufacturers who need access to a library of images for their site. 

Introducing Burst, which has a great selection of royalty-free images which you can use for your store. Use them for each of your different collections if you sell clothes or to spruce up the design of your bare-boned online store. Where you get your images from might not be the first thing that comes to mind when setting up your online store, but it’ll push its way to the front at some point. 

Of course, taking quality product photos is important, but it doesn’t make your store any more attractive to just stick with the bare minimums.

If you need pictures, this is an absolute must-bookmark of the free Shopify tools at your disposal.

6. Slogan Maker

Getting creative with your slogans can be a fun and revealing exercise. 

Trying to find a witty way to write out the essence of your business’s attraction in one sentence gets you thinking about the direction of your brand. But there is also such a thing as writer’s block. Or the dreaded wall, as some prefer to call it. You know you’re there when slogan ideas for your backpack-making company start ending up as cheesy puns like — Bag Yourself Bags of Deals.  

This is where Shopify’s Slogan Maker comes in to save the day.

Just type in a word that you would like the slogan to contain, and the generator will come up with up to a thousand ideas for you. Even if the perfect one is not there, there’ll be plenty of ideas for you to work from. 

7. Kit Marketing Automation

Kit is a brilliant Shopify tool that gives you insights into your current marketing efforts. 

Unless you have a dedicated marketer, it’s always useful to have a Shopify tool to help you reach your target customers, especially when you’re so busy manufacturing quality products. Kit Marketing Automation by Shopify for their clients — which means you. It takes a lot of the tediousness of social media marketing away by writing, building, and even posting the ads for you. 

In the same way, it can also help with your email marketing by sending out custom-built emails to make sure old customers stay involved, and new customers come back for more.

Plus, you get insights into how your marketing efforts are going, alongside tips for new directions you could be going in. There’s a good reason that it’s one of the most popular Shopify apps out there. The cool thing is that you communicate with Kit via the messaging platform of your choice: Messenger, SMS, or Shopify Ping.

Kit helps you take your marketing to the next level with simpler and way more accessibility on the go.

8. Business Card Maker

You might think that it’s a bit weird for a Shopify store owner to need business cards. 

Well, even if you only sell online — the power of face-to-face marketing cannot be understated. Shopify encourages sellers to consider in-person selling to increase: 

• brand awareness 
• customer experience 
• up-selling potential 

A personal touch can be especially powerful these days that personalization in products is fast becoming the crucial X factor. 

This free Shopify tool helps you quickly create a unique business card that you can print to your heart’s desire — Business Card Maker can get you started. You can put in as much info as you want, and there’s space for a logo too. 

Just like the logo maker, this is going to save you more money on graphic designers. 

9. Pay Stub Generator

It’s highly unlikely that you’re going to be making your products and doing all the business operations simultaneously. 

If you are, you might want to consider getting some helping hands and looking for signs of burnout. But when you do get that help, you’re going to need to give pay stubs to your new team. Whether they get paid daily, weekly, monthly, or even annually, this Pay Stub Generator Shopify tool will help you make pay stubs on the fly.

Enter company, employee, income, and deductions information, and you’re good to go.

The only thing is that it gets sent to your email rather than being available to download on the spot. But considering it saves on unnecessary and complicated software to help you do this — worth it. 

10. Shopify Themes

Having a high converting Shopify theme is one of the main considerations when designing your Shopify store. 

The Retina theme offers an Instagram feed and an advanced blog feature so you start building up your brand in the virtual realm. One of those subtle Shopify tools that might not have initially be on the top of your list but will be soon enough. Technically, themes aren’t a Shopify tool, but they come with features to help your store. 

Every Shopify theme you choose for your online store will bring about a bunch of different options to enhance your business.

It’s important to choose the correct theme because it will provide you with the tools to boost your sales and drum up your brand. Some of the themes, like Canopy, come with the option to create quick buy options and a homepage gallery. Perfect for the maker with plenty of products on offer, maybe not so much for the single high-value luxury producer.

Check out this article about the best Shopify stores, which also includes the 8 best Shopify themes.

The most important Shopify platform of all

All these awesome apps are available for your disposal, and most of them are free Shopify tools.

Well, it’s certainly a starting point, and you should try to use all the tools available to you. It is especially considering the competitive nature of the manufacturing world. Every little change you make can have a drastic knock-on effect.

This is why you should also consider the most important platform of all — Katana Shopify Inventory Management Software.

This all-in-one system for managing your Shopify inventory helps you manage your purchasing, manufacturing, and sales in total harmony. Katana supports manufacturers so they can stay focused on growing their business, so you won’t be paying for lots of overlapping and confusing tools to remain in control of your manufacturing business.
That means a direct spotlight on things like:

1. Fully functional Shopify Order Management System
2. Integrating with useful software like Quickbooks
3. Finished products and raw materials inventory management
4. Moving on from tedious inventory Excel sheets
5. Having your entire order fulfillment cycle in one place
6. A visual color-coded platform for quick decision making

You can check out how Katana works in the video below.

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Make sure to get the most out of the Shopify tools at your disposal, especially those we’ve pointed to here. They’ve all been chosen for ease of use and for having the most impact on your manufacturing business with the least amount of input required.