Running a successful retail business often means juggling various roles simultaneously. From managing inventory and sales, to customer engagement and payment processing. The multitude of tasks can be overwhelming. But, thankfully, the advent of numerous retail apps and software products designed for retail can significantly simplify this multi-faceted process.

So, we've picked out our selection of the essential apps for retail stores, whether you're on the high street or running an online store (or both, of course. This is the 21st century after all).

These retail apps have been specially designed to focus on different aspects of a retail business, thus giving you a holistic set of tools to manage your store more proficiently.

Price Range: $20 - $299/month
Free Version Available?: No
Brief Synopsis: An e-commerce platform for businesses of all sizes.

Being one of the best-known retail apps globally, Shopify needs little introduction. It offers everything you need to set up your online store and sell products, but also allows you to manage your in person retail store.

In fact, you'll find everything you need to get set up, including:

In person sales/bricks and mortar store sales

Integrating payments from Google Pay, Apple Pay and other online payment processing services

With a comprehensive set of e-commerce tools, coupled with its intuitive interface, Shopify is a favorite retail app among many brick-and-mortar businesses expanding their reach online. And its mobile app is equally efficient, letting you manage your business from anywhere, anytime.

Shopify also features a seemingly endless list of integrations and apps to make it easier than ever to run both your brick and mortar store, and your online retail business.

Price Range: 2.99% + $.30 per transaction
Free Version Available?: Yes
Brief Synopsis: A "buy now, pay later" service.

Retail apps like Klarna are reshaping the shopping experience by providing customers with a more flexible payment alternative, which enables retailers to win over more trade. By choosing Klarna at checkout, retail customers can purchase products immediately but pay for them over time, interest-free.

This payment option can help to incentivize larger purchases, improve cash flow, and potentially increase your store's conversion rates.

Plus, Klarna integrates seamlessly with many e-commerce platforms, making it a solid choice for retail businesses looking to offer more payment flexibility. A Klarna mobile app is also available for an easy, personalized shopping experience.

Price Range: Free
Free Version Available?: Yes
Brief Synopsis: A customer feedback review platform.

In an era where online reviews significantly influence purchasing decisions, Google Reviews is a must-have retail app for your business. By actively seeking customer reviews and responding to them, retailers can build credibility and enhance their online reputation.

Accessible through Google My Business, this app allows you to engage with your customers and gain insights on areas that need improvement. Make sure to keep your Google business profile up to date as this is how customers will find you through Google Maps, leave you reviews, and find crucial information such as opening times or even images of your products.

Having a strong presence on Google My Business and Google Reviews can ultimately drive more traffic to both your online and physical stores.

Price Range: 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction
Free Version Available?: Yes
Brief Synopsis: A payment gateway for businesses.

PayPal for Business is another popular retail app that facilitates seamless payment processing. Trusted by millions of businesses worldwide, it offers flexible payment options that simplify the buying/selling process.

From invoicing to payment tracking and account management, PayPal offers a comprehensive toolset to manage finances properly. Plus, the mobile app makes it convenient for retailers to manage transactions, send invoices, and track sales right from their smartphone.

Price Range: $15 - $99/month
Free Version Available?: Yes
Brief Synopsis: A social media management tool.

Being active on social media is more essential than ever for retail businesses. That's where handy software and mobile apps like Buffer jump in. Offering a platform for scheduling posts, tracking performance, and managing all social accounts under one roof, it can streamline your social media strategy and save you a lot of time.

You can manage pretty much all the important social media accounts, from Facebook and Instagram to Pinterest, TikTok and even Mastodon. Sorry, no Truth Social here though.

Besides its robust web version, Buffer's mobile app makes it effortless to manage your social media strategy on the go. What's more, the free version is pretty feature packed, allowing you to manage 3 social media channels under one account.

Price Range: $20 - $45/user/month
Free Version Available?: Yes
Brief Synopsis: Customer relationship management software.

Understanding and managing your customer relationships are critical for any retail business. Zoho CRM is a multifunctional retail app designed to help businesses track lead progress, manage customer accounts, and provide top-notch customer service. Basically, all the things you might need to do in your day to day retail business, you can probably manage it using Zoho CRM.

Zoho actually offers a comprehensive suite of tools for a wide range of business operations. This includes providing helpdesk support (to level up your customer service), tools to manage inventory, a suite of tools to manage your sales process, and even options to use their POS system.

However, most retail businesses will find the CRM is perfectly suited to their daily demands.

With its mobile app, you can manage your CRM on the go, ensuring you stay connected with your business anytime, anywhere.

Price Range: $29 - $159/month
Free Version Available?: Yes
Brief Synopsis: An employee management tool.

Managing your team is obviously one of the essential functions of any business, and there are numerous retail apps which can help. Connecteam makes managing your team schedules and shift patterns much less hectic.

Whether it's communication, scheduling, time tracking, or task management, this is one of the best retail apps for efficient management for your whole team. For small businesses, the free package is excellent and feature packed.

And even for larger or medium sized businesses, the pricing plans are very accessible, which is probably the reason why they're the industry choice for employee management.

Price Range: From $199 per month
Free Version Available?: No
Brief Synopsis: A pricing and marketing automation suite.

Omnia Retail is a retailer app that serves as a comprehensive pricing and marketing automation suite. In short, it's a tool to help you monitor the market and ensure your prices are competitive vs your specified competition. This helps retailers save time, and drive more profits through smarter pricing and marketing decisions, without having to go snooping around their competitors stores while covertly taking snaps of their price labels.

This software doesn't have a mobile app but the web version's capabilities, like dynamic pricing and integrated marketing, make it a vital tool for competitive retail businesses.

Price Range: $59 - $499/month
Free Version Available?: Free
Brief Synopsis: Efficient inventory and shipping management software.

As a retail business, managing your inventory and shipping can be a massive undertaking. Retailer apps like Ordoro are designed to take this burden off your shoulder by automating your inventory and shipping tasks, and even emailing suppliers when stock is low.

Ordoro allows you to manage and update stock in real-time, print shipping labels, and integrate all your sales channels for seamless operation.

Although there's currently no mobile app, its comprehensive web platform is packed full of useful features that help streamline operations.

Price Range: 1.55% in store/1.4% + 25¢ per transaction online
Free Version Available?: No
Brief Synopsis: A full-service payment processing tool.

Square is an all in one solution for payment processing, making it easy to accept payments both online or in-store using the POS system. In fact, there are different ways to manage your point of sale, with various options from handheld POS devices to apps on your mobile phone or tablet.

What makes Square a preferred choice among many retailers is its easy setup and user-friendly interface. You can accept every type of payment quickly and securely, both online and in-store. Plus, Square’s robust mobile app makes it simple for businesses to run their operations from anywhere.

Price Range: $11 - $62/month
Free Version Available?: No
Brief Synopsis: An online accounting software for businesses.

Xero is a powerful retail app that makes accounting tasks a breeze. This cloud-based software offers a robust range of features including invoicing, inventory management, expense tracking, reconciling bank transactions and seamless integration with over 700 other business apps.

With real-time financial data at your fingertips, you can make informed decisions swiftly, as well as track your sales performance and download essential sales data.

Plus, with its mobile app, you can check your cash flow, make payments, and send invoices on the go - making Xero a worthy investment for retail businesses.

Price Range: $10 - $20/month
Free Version Available?: No
Brief Synopsis: A tool for collecting customer signups offline.

SignUpAnywhere is a resourceful retail app designed to help you build your email list, win more loyal customers and make signups easier. It offers offline collection of customer signups directly from your store, and a simple way to build a strong customer database without needing an internet connection.

This retail app is perfect for collecting information at a POS terminal, trade shows, events or anywhere else where you interact with customers. As modern marketer knows, a business' success is often in its mailing list, which can help to drive more online purchases or even attract more shoppers to your store.

Having this mobile app means you can gather valuable customer data anytime, anywhere.

Price Range: Starting at $500/month
Free Version Available?: No
Brief Synopsis: A tool for displaying user-generated content.

TINT is an awesome digital signage app that collects everything your customers are saying about you and puts this content into a stellar display. This makes finding content from your social media presence to share in your retail store really easy, and also puts all of your social media engagement to work.

Because what use is it sitting online if no one sees it? Social content dates quickly: with TINT it stays visible and front of mind all year long.

With TINT you plug in which channels you want to collect content from, such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. You can also add filters, select hashtags and moderate content before it goes out. This makes a huge difference to in-the-moment campaigns and ensures your retail store always looks great.

If you’re not sure whether you can share the update, you can even get an automated reply you can send out to ask.

TINT is more of a desktop experience, that you then launch on an iPad or tablet. But trust us, it’s worth it.

Price Range: $2.50 - $8/user/month
Free Version Available?: No
Brief Synopsis: A tool for scheduling, attendance, and communication.

Another useful tool for streamlined workforce management, When I Work simplifies employee scheduling, time tracking, and team communication, helping you save time and reduce labor costs.

The mobile app features allow you and your team to check schedules, request time off, and communicate effectively from anywhere, fostering a better work environment.

While there is no free version, just a free trial, the monthly pricing is lower than Connecteam, which might appeal to cost minded large and medium sized businesses.

Price Range: $9.99 - $16.66/month
Free Version Available?: Yes
Brief Synopsis: An augmented reality app for floor plan creation.

MagicPlan comes as a unique retail app giving you the power to create professional floor plans using your smartphone camera. It leverages augmented reality technology to measure and draw your retail space, helping you plan your store layout effectively.

The mobile app provides retailers with an interactive way to visualize merchandising displays and maximize selling space, thereby enhancing the customer shopping experience.

Price Range: $20 - $30/month per screen
Free Version Available?: Yes
Brief Synopsis: The best tool for managing digital signage content.

Digital signage has become one of the most important elements for retail companies to highlight their offers and display key features and benefits of their products. ScreenCloud is the leading choice for digital signage software, allowing retail business owners and managers to create and manage their digital displays with ease.

ScreenCloud offers an extensive range of integrations and apps. While there is no dedicated mobile app, the web-based platform offers an intuitive interface to manage and update your digital signs from anywhere.

So whether you're managing a single retail store, or multiple locations, you can connect and network your signage to get your message across.

ScreenCloud offers a free trial, so check it out.

Managing a retail business requires many different disciplines. With these best apps for retail businesses you can easily manage your shop or retail space.

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Essential Apps for Retail Businesses

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