Shopify Apps

9 Best Urgency Apps for Shopify to Boost Conversions [2024]

Last updated on

April 24, 2024

Using urgency, and scarcity are considered one of the most successful tactics to drive sales, and higher conversion rates for any business. Being used by numerous successful eCommerce stores, it not only allows them to tackle almost 70% customer abandonment rates but also helps them increase their sales. 

E-commerce stores created on other platforms make multiple changes to their websites to build urgency or scarcity, but for Shopify stores, it's just an app away. The Shopify stores utilize urgency apps to create pop-ups, countdown timers, display social proof, etc to build FOMO and drive their sales, conversion rates. 

However, with so many urgency apps available on Shopify, choosing the right one can be a time-consuming task. So to help you in your research, we curated a list of the 9 best Shopify urgency apps you can find in 2022. We hope this information will aid you in your quest to find the best app. Let's get started! 

What is Urgency, and why is it a no-brainer for eCommerce?

Urgency is simply a feeling of discomfort brought on by a perceived shortage. Urgency marketing is a time-based strategy used to develop a fear of missing out among the customers, which compels them to make the purchase within the limited time frame.

Adding urgency to your eCommerce business provides that extra push to your potential consumers. This is also true for those customers who have identified their needs and are ready to make a purchase but cannot do so for whatever reason.

When it comes to scarcity and urgency examples in the eCommerce industry, there is no great example than Amazon itself. Their use of an eCommerce market countdown timer acts as an excellent way to drive immense conversion and customers for them.

Amazon countdown timer

Another great way to understand this is by looking at Amazon’s low stock technique, where they announce that they only have a limited number of an item left in stock. This is another way of creating urgency in the interested customers, resulting in much higher customer conversion rates. 

11 Tested Techniques to build Urgency/Scarcity

When it comes to techniques to build urgency/scarcity in the e-commerce industry, the possibilities are limitless. There are also various tested techniques that many top-rated e-commerce companies use nowadays to boost their overall conversion rates. 

Here are the 11 selected techniques to build urgency/scarcity in e-commerce:

  1. Emphasize limited product stocks or end dates during sales: This is the most commonly used technique by e-commerce stores. This goes like this, you announce that you only have a limited stock of an item left, and it's about to run out. This highlights the scarcity of the product and creates a sense of competition, thus driving buyers to click on the buy button.
  1. Provide same-day or next-day delivery for orders placed before a specific time: This technique makes use of the innate desire of buyers for instant gratification. In this, you tell your customers that they can claim a same-day or next-day delivery for their product if they buy that product in a specific time period.

For example: Buy this item within 10 minutes to get a guaranteed one-day delivery.

  1. Limiting the duration for claiming a certain discounted price: In this technique, the customers are given a one-time discount on the items they are interested in for a limited time. This instills a sense of urgency in the buyer, making them more likely to make a purchase.
  2. Display the number of people that are interested: You can better build urgency if you display the number of people interested in the same product. This uneasiness in the customers makes them more likely to complete the transaction before others do. 
  3. Show how many people completed purchases in the last 24 hours: The eCommerce stores create scarcity by linking specific, tangible knowledge with the restricted availability of the stocks. One method among these is to display accurate stock levels. Another option is to notify shoppers of the number of people who made a transaction in the past 24 hours. This greatly influences user's attention, thus creating a sense of urgency in their mind.
  4. Selling limited-edition products with a limited quantity: Have you seen any brand selling limited edition products? I bet you'd have. The reason why you see so many brands selling limited edition products is to create a sense of exclusivity and immediacy. This creates a sense of urgency as the products are available for a short duration and in limited numbers.

Sure, it is a short-term approach, however regular releases of a limited number of products often yield good results.

  1. Provide "surprise" deals and flash discounts: Offering flash discounts or time-limited "surprise" promotions is another tested technique used by many successful e-commerce businesses. The premise for delivering discounts is to provide value and excitement to your customers. This is a good strategy to stimulate purchasing, especially outside the peak periods. The key point to remember here is to notify shoppers of the special discounts on your product pages.
  2. Run pre-releases and pre-orders for various popular items: Pre-releases perform extraordinarily well, especially when there has been a lot of anticipation for a new product. This technique is perfected by many e-commerce stores to boost their sales and create a sense of urgency in the customer's mind. You may rapidly generate scarcity by offering a limited number of units before the official release date. This helps in increasing the temptation of potential clients, thus increasing the overall sales conversions.
  3. Display the most recent buyer: Notifying the shoppers about the most recent purchases is another psychological way to tempt the shoppers. Usually, stores display these alerts on the product pages with text info like “Ariana from Texas has just purchased this!”. This action becomes far more credible and powerful since it is linked to a person. It also generates a shopping frenzy, which encourages customers to make a purchase.
  4. Using a countdown timer on product pages: Countdown timers or bars are another proven methodology to build real-time scarcity. Widely used by businesses across the world in diverse niches, countdown timers are used to heighten response to scarcity and create a sense of urgency. If implemented properly, countdown timers can increase sales of a business by almost 2x.
  5. Providing a limited-time sign-up offer: Offer your customers a limited-time sign-up offer. Providing shoppers a discount offer valid only for a limited time not only creates urgency among the shoppers but also gets them to join your mailing list. You can later send upsell, and cross-sell offers to these signed-up users, thus increasing your AOV.

Let's Review the 9 Best Shopify Urgency Apps

1. Social Proof & Urgency FOMO

by Fomo

Social Proof & Urgency FOMO by Fomo

Fomo is the original social proof app. Leveraging buyers’ ‘fear of missing out,’ Fomo creates the online equivalent of a busy store or restaurant, showing prospective shoppers that other people trust your business. Display orders, product reviews, and any other customer behavior in real-time, right on your storefront.

Fomo integrates with over a hundred popular apps to display sales, reviews, newsletter signups, live visitor counts, social media activity, and more. Show social proof messages via animated notifications or text placed strategically throughout your site. Build credibility with prospective shoppers and increase conversions with social proof notifications.

Key Features

  • Unlock your store's potential by connecting hundreds of apps you already use.
  • Customize your notification themes to stay on brand.
  • Equipped with language translation and geolocation features.
  • Connect Google Analytics to track and measure ROI.
  • Place social proof strategically near the "add to cart" button with Fomo Inline.
  • Track and measure Fomo’s performance with a detailed attribution dashboard.
  • Display live traffic, build custom webhooks, etc.

Rating: 4.8/5.0

Price: Plans are as follows: STARTER plan for $19/month, ESSENTIAL plan for $39/month, and a PLUS plan for $79/month. A EXPERIMENTAL plan i.e. free and a 14-day free trial is also available.

Shopify app link

2. Upsell & Cross Sell ‑ Selleasy

by LogBase

Discount with countdown timer

Selleasy being an upsell and cross-sell app also gives you a plethora of features that you can use to build urgency and scarcity. The app gives you the ability to build cart page upsell funnels. You can display an initial offer and based on whether the customer accepts or declines, the app can be configured to show another upsell or downsell. To build fear of missing out “Fomo”, you can include discounts with countdown timers. 

Don't worry about the setup, the app offers free installation and setup guidance over a Zoom call.

Key Features

  • Build Fomo by showing discounts with countdown timers.
  • Display Amazon style frequently bought together bundle on the product page.
  • Setup bundle discounts to go for the bundle instead of a single product.
  • Increase AOV using automatic product recommendations.
  • No annoying pop-ups to enhance the customer shopping experience.

Rating: 5.0/5.0⭐

Price: Plans are as follows: TIER I (Free), TIER II ($6.99/month), and TIER III ($12.99/month). A 30-day free trial is also available. 

Shopify app link

3. Urgent Shopper & Stock Counter

by Today's Project

Urgent Shopper & Stock Counterby Today's Project

This app is fortified with a barrage of features. These features include its ability to show demand for products, view the number of shoppers, and remaining inventory. Showing the number of shoppers viewing your products helps you leverage both social proof and demonstrates credibility.

With its color customizer, you can easily customize it in accordance with your store’s aesthetics. Its shopper counter provides real-time updates, which helps in building customer trust. Also, its ability to show the time and location of the last purchase comes very handy when it comes to the social proof and credibility of your products. 

Key Features

  • Ability to show demand for products.
  • Includes a color customizer to easily match your theme.
  • Leverages Scarcity by showing stock levels to compel customers to take action.
  • Real-time shopper counter updates for increasing trust.
  • Shows time and location of last purchase for Social Proof and Credibility.

Rating: 4.9/5.0

Price: Plans are as follows: PREMIUM PLAN for $4.95/month. A 7-day free trial is also provided.

Shopify app link

4. Ultimate Scarcity Pro

by Softpulse Infotech

Ultimate Scarcity Pro by Softpulse Infotech

This app utilizes a countdown timer to help Shopify stores to maximize their revenues by encouraging customers to buy their products/services. It is considered one of the best scarcity apps for Shopify stores. With this app, you can easily construct and change the look and feel of your countdown timer to complement your store perfectly. You can also utilize a variety of pre-made layouts and themes to catch the attention of your clients.

You can generate a discount code and schedule it accordingly to be displayed. This makes it possible to get it in front of your consumers to create a feeling of urgency, tempting them into making a purchase. You may also display the overall number of visits to your business as well as the total number of quantities sold with ease. 

Key Features

  • Multiple countdown templates to choose from.
  • Attractive inventory bar with various customization options.
  • Ability to display a widget on the product detail page showcasing the total number of visitors, sold quantities, and more.
  • Cart reservation bar for displaying a countdown bar on top of a cart with a cart reservation message.
  • Ability to display recent sales popup/notifications to store visitors with various customization options.

Rating: 4.2/5.0

Price: Plans are as follows: PREMIUM plan for $8.99/month. A STANDARD plan is also available for free.

Shopify app link

5. Urgencer ‑ sell with urgency

by LaraLancer

Urgencer ‑ sell with urgency by LaraLancer

Display social proof from real-time site visits to instill a feeling of urgency among the shoppers and increase your sales, and conversion rates. Also, the customers will be prompted to purchase swiftly and with a strong sense of urgency when browsing your product pages. This is due to the fact that the app not only displays the number of real-time shop visitors but also displays the visitors by your clients' locations, and urgent texts.

Also, these urgency messages are completely customizable to complement the design and concept of your shop. It is also fully compatible with all Shopify themes and devices and requires only one click to install, so you don’t have to worry about much.

Key Features

  • Highly customizable with one-click installation.
  • Compatible with all Shopify themes and devices.
  • Displays social proof from real-time visits to your site.
  • Helps in increasing sales by creating a sense of urgency and trust for customers.

Rating: 4.8/5.0

Price: Plans are as follows: BASIC plan for $2.99/month, a PROFESSIONAL plan for $4.99/month, and a SHIPIFY PLUS plan for $7.99/month. A 3-day free trial is also available.

Shopify app link

6. Urgency

by Appifiny

This app is well-known for being one of the finest approaches to enhancing conversions by establishing effective timers to create urgency among customers. The app does this by displaying your customer's current promotions. After installing the app, you may assign various timers to all products, select products, or even select all products in a single collection.

The application is also fully customizable, which comes quite handy to meet your store and brand requirements, as well as better match the color palette of your store. It also helps in reducing the number of abandoned carts and provides free upgrades to your users. This app is considered ideal for flash sales, seasonal sales, special discounts, low-stock products, product debuts, and new product drops.

Key Features

  • Ability to clearly show current promotions to your customers.
  • Lightweight and well optimized.
  • Fully customizable to match your brand or color scheme.
  • Supports all Shopify themes.
  • Free & fast customer support with free updates.

Rating: 5.0/5.0

Price: Plans are as follows: paid plan for $7/month. A 7-day free trial is also available.

Shopify app link

7. Sold Stock: Inventory Counter

by Sold Stock

Sold Stock: Inventory Counter by Sold Stock

You can use this Shopify app to display the total amount of sold and available stocks on your product pages. Acting as a social proof app, this dramatically increases your sales and earnings by instilling a sense of scarcity and urgency in your store visitors. It also presents social proof from recent transactions with a sales popup to improve the motivation of your buyers.

You may also use this as a fake inventory scarcity Shopify app to boost the number of things sold in order to appear big enough to gain the client's trust. This also serves to reduce the amount of stock remaining, thus making the product appear more scarce and desired than before. It also includes customizable text for distinct displays and a basic yet easy-to-use interface for easier usage.

Key Features

  • Simple, easy-to-use interface with customized text for unique displays.
  • Ability to automatically display your inventory and sales counts for building urgency and increasing sales.
  • Shares social proof from recent purchases to improve buyer’s motivation.
  • Ability to boost the number of items sold for acquiring clients' trust.

Rating: 4.4/5.0

Price: Plans are as follows: PROFESSIONAL PLAN for $10/month, GROWTH PLAN for $20/month, ADVANCED PLAN for $30/month. A free plan and a 7-day free trial are also available.

Shopify app link

8. While Supplies Last

by Ethercycle

Display low inventory notifications and show your clients how many people have previously added the item to their baskets. Instill a sense of FOMO in the minds of your customers, making them more eager to complete the purchase and effectively tackle high rates of browsing abandonment. 

Furthermore, its text, color, inventory threshold, and font size are all totally adjustable, which greatly aids in matching it with the aesthetics of your store.

Key Features

  • Fully customizable color, font size, inventory threshold, and text.
  • Ability to display low inventory alerts on products.
  • Helps to boost conversions.
  • Installs quickly and automatically in the majority of themes.

Rating: 4.7/5.0

Price: Plans are as follows: Paid plan for $14/month. A 7-day free trial is also available.

Shopify app link

9. Urgency Pack Ultimate

by KILATECH

This app comes with numerous custom features such as a custom notification message format and 100+ trusted badges to choose from. Apart from this, it also offers custom colors to help you better match it in accordance with your store. With its countdown timer with 4 different transition styles and custom sales timer text, it generates the required urgency needed to boost your sales conversions.

Aside from the urgency, the stock counter creates fake scarcity for the commodity. As a result, customers are more convinced to buy your products before they run out of supply. This app also offers various flexible visibility conditions such as sale only, tag only and product page only, etc. You can also do automatic or manual placements using this app, totally based on user preferences.

Key Features

  • Countdown timer with 4 number transition styles and custom sales timer text. 
  • Custom notification message format.
  • 100+ trusted badges with custom colors.
  • Flexible visibility conditions such as Sale only, Tag only Product page only, etc.

Rating: 4.8/5.0

Price: Plans are as follows: PREMIUM PLAN for $5.95/month. A FREE PLAN and a 3-day free trial are also available.

Shopify app link

Selecting the best Urgency apps for Shopify

Urgency apps tend to play a vital role in today’s eCommerce industry, making it much more important to choose the best one for your Shopify store. However, with so many alternatives out there to choose from, you may find yourself perplexed about which one is best for you.

We shortlisted these 9 best urgency apps for Shopify stores based on the App reviews, ratings, UI/UX, top features, customer support, and pricing. We also tried to give you an insight into what urgency is, and11 tested approaches you can use to create urgency/scarcity.

People also read:

  • 9 Best Social Proof Apps for Shopify [2022]
Written by
CP Saravana Kumar
Co-founder
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