Bumping this thread to share the plugins I use (and for the record, I use the original Alidropship plugin):
*Sellvia - I have a love/hate feeling for this one. I understand it's a brand new program and improvements are still ongoing, but as of now, the fuctionality is way too rigid. That said, the concept is a good one and the products are selling in my store.
*Social Rabbit - Gotta be careful with this one, especially if you're using Sellvia. The implementation is great, but the execution is flawed (if that makes sense). For example, I still end up having to micromanage my social media pages because I will find new posts about products that I don't even have listed in my store. That's a huge no-no of course because it would be false advertising to customers who come across it, and it could lead to consequence as severe as your social media pages getting suspended / shut down if this happens + gets reported too often.
*Alishipping - No comment yet. I just purchased it
*Gift Box - No comment yet. I just purchased it
*Upsell - No comment yet. I just purchased it
*Bulk Discounts - No comment yet. I just purchased it
*Product Bundles - No comment yet. I just purchased it
*Purchase Upsell - No comment yet. I just purchased it
*Yoast SEO Premium - Very useful for adding the right keywords / metadata and measuring readability
*GDPR Cookie Compliance - Really only critical if you sell in Europe or the State of California, as by law you're required to disclose that you're tracking your customer's data and give them the choice to opt out. Failure to do this could put you in legal jeopardy (including the risk of getting your site shut down).
*Abandoned Cart - It actually works, as I was already able to recover one abandoned cart in my 1st week.
*Promo Banner - I have a love/hate feeling for this one as well. Banner definitely can serve an important purpose and I wanted to use a custom made banner. I did eventually get it uploaded in the right format, but it was extremely difficult & time consuming. It's very user-unfriendly if you're not using one of the default banner templates.
*Urgency - I shut this one off. Each market / audience is different, but in the US, consumers have gotten wise to this sales tactic and it comes across as spammy/scammy. Again, YMMV.
*ADS Mailchimp - Useful if you want to send remarketing material to your customers for repeat business if they subscribe for emails. Again though, depending on your market / audience, you gotta be careful with this one and not add them or send them messages without ther permission. Do note, you only get the basic (free) version of Mailchimp which will include the Mailchimp banner in all of your email messages.
*UpdraftPlus Backup/Restore - This one isn't necessary if you use a host server that automatically backs up your files for free (cPanel, come to find out the hard way, does this). But it's still yet another free option that's available if you want to regularly backup your website.
*HotJar - Some folks may have a moral objection to this one. But it does give you the ability to actually watch what your customers do on their website as it secretly records their sessions. Theres's a basic free version (which I have) and then a premium version). Honestly, I've only seen one of my videos. It's not my favorite plugin, but it can be useful if you want to get an idea of what may drive each of your customers to go through with a purchase or leave your website without a purchase. GDPR Cookie Compliance will also be a must in conjuction with this plugin if you do business in Europe or the State of California.
*WP Maintenance Mode - IMO, this plugin is a must if you want to add a low-effort, professional-looking touch to your website. Whenever you want to make changes / updates to your website, you can enable a custom message that all customers will see when trying to access any of your site's pages, letting them know the site is down for maintenance. I think it's better than sending them to a coming soon screen, 404 screen, or page can't be displayed screen. Also, I believe this plugin gives you the ability to inform customers when the site is scheduled for maintenance.
*WP Super Cache - This plugin is supposed to help you easily clean your cache, which I would assume helps to keep your site healthy. It's probably not a necessary plugin though.
*Wordfence - This plugin is supposed to keep your site secure from Malware. Although I have the basic free version, I'm pretty certain is one of only a few security plugins at bet that does a complete scan and gives you a full report of those results without having to pay a subscription fee.
*Header, Footer and Post Injection - This plugin isn't required at all if you're good at site development. For me, its main purpose was to help me easily link the Google Tag Manager to my site to track conversion data (it's very user-friendly for WordPress newbies). It is free of charge.
