What is the alternative to the discontinued Kit App on Shopify?

Seal-Extrusions
Excursionist
12 0 42

Had an email from Shopify saying the "Kit" app is being removed and will end on August 31st? is there an alternative to this or any reason why its being removed? Its such a handy little app' I use it all the time?

Replies 112 (112)

Brie
Shopify Staff
571 48 113

Hey, @Seal-Extrusions!

The app is being sunset as most of it's marketing capabilities are now built directly into your admin (it was built in a time when this wasn't the case). You should be able to find everything you need for marketing without the use of the app - I'd recommend walking through our help docs on how to utilize the marketing sections of your admin:

Feel free to let me know if you have any trouble with the Marketing section of your admin or if you have any questions. Cheers!

Brie | Social Care @ Shopify 
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fmcl
Tourist
6 0 10

@Brie Thanks for this - I'd be interested to know what you recommend to use as an alternative to the automated 'thank you' email that Kit sends out?  I can't see this in the marketing functionality on Shopify

Thanks!

Seal-Extrusions
Excursionist
12 0 42

@Brie "Thanks for this - I'd be interested to know what you recommend to use as an alternative to the automated 'thank you' email that Kit sends out?  I can't see this in the marketing functionality on Shopify"  I would also like to know what you suggest, the automated thank you email gets a lot of response for me from customers and also with Kit I get reminder messages sent to me to post updates or adverts etc? 

 

Stu

AshlynD
Excursionist
18 0 29

@Brie Another function that I use often is the priority products list - I use it to set up FB posts for the week. The recent best sellers and slow moving inventory product groupings are also very useful.  Is there a similar function elsewhere in the marketing section?

noodlenz
Tourist
3 0 1

Hi, i dont suppose you have found a great alternative to Kit.. it has only just dawned on me that my thankyou emails have gone

AshlynD
Excursionist
18 0 29

Unfortunately, no. There is no good alternative to Kit.

hacketyapps
Shopify Partner
38 2 5

Hi @noodlenz, if you need to send thank you emails and see reports of who received/opened the email, then our app Engagely can help with that.

We're also currently working on supporting flows for email and SMS. We'd like to eventually offer something similar to Kit, @Lokah_Luv we're always thinking about what you said, be able to create flows without having to go in the admin... eventually we'll get there!

Lokah_Luv
Excursionist
18 0 26

@hacketyapps YAY!  Thank you for taking our ideas into consideration!  Looking forward to seeing what you create next!  

Brie
Shopify Staff
571 48 113

Hi, all! 

@fmcl - You can find many alternatives to the thank you email in your admin - you can use the basic order confirmation email that Shopify sends out, however if this isn't satisfactory you can use Shopify Email manually or a different email marketing app of your choice for automations. 

@Seal-Extrusions - You can schedule email marketing updates via the same methods mentioned above, and to schedule ad campaigns you can do this all from the new Facebook channel. 

@AshlynD - I'm afraid "best sellers" and "slow moving inventory" groupings aren't available when creating an ad in the new Facebook channel, however it will help you to create an audience and you can always look at your Shopify Analytics to gain those same insights if you need them.

Hope that helps! 

Brie | Social Care @ Shopify 
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Patrick_Draper
Tourist
11 0 22

Hey, I'm in the same boat here, trying to find a replacement for Kit's 1st & 2nd email sequence. 

@Brie, I have been looking into Shopify Email and haven't been able to figure out how I could replicate what Kit is doing with those 2 emails. I don't want to use the order confirmation email as the personal thank-you that customers get through Kit. I dug into the possibility of customer segments and then using Shopify Email, but I don't see a clear path to just have new customers receive that same email. 

Can you elaborate on how specifically I could do that? These 2 emails have gotten a very positive response, as others have said on this thread, and I haven't found a similar setup either through Shopify Email, or through our email marketing app, Omnisend. The category of 'new customer/1st order' seems hard to create. 

Any advice on how to do so is much appreciated

Seguno_brian
Tourist
4 0 4

Hi @Patrick_Draper@Seal-Extrusions, and @fmcl,

Brian here from Seguno Software. We also loved Kit for our users and even had a Kit Skill integration that we're replacing next week.  However, we have a solution built into our Email Marketing app for your 1st and 2nd purchase Thank you emails. Our New and Repeat Purchaser automations are available for all users (free plan available) and can send automatically to any subscribed customer after they make their first and second purchases. These emails are completely customizable and can even include your signature to give it a more personal touch or be expanded into a multi-email series for each thank you. 🙂

We have a ton more features and automations available in the app, and if you have any questions, please send an email to help@seguno.com, and we'll get right back to you!

Thanks!
Brian

Brian, Customer Success | Seguno: Email Marketing Inside Shopify | seguno.com
madebytidy
Visitor
1 0 0

Hi Brian,

I just added Seguno to our shop, my main issue with it is that the 1st and 2nd purchase emails only goes out to subscribed customers which pretty much renders it useless as we've found that most customers are not interested in subscribing. Are you planning on adding automated responses for non subscribers, if not I'll remove the app. 

Regards,
Paul

 

hacketyapps
Shopify Partner
38 2 5

Hi @madebytidy,

You should give Engagely a try to send thank you emails. You can send emails 1 hour to 72 hours after a customer pays for or receives and order.

Reports track which customer received, opened or complained about the email. The app is free, you just need to pay for emails you send.

BestSkinWithin
Visitor
2 0 1
I endee up removing Seguno it just didn’t do what I needed even from a
marketing perspective
AshlynD
Excursionist
18 0 29

Is there any chance of Kit app users voting on whether the app should be discontinued? Or, could we at least have a one year extension while Shopify duplicates Kit’s features?

SarahNague
Visitor
1 0 1

I agree! I’d love to keep using it!

fmcl
Tourist
6 0 10

@Brie thanks for this - we don't want to use the order confirmation email as this email has a different purpose.  For us it's the Kit 'thank you' email that works very well.  As far as I can see with Shopify email there is no way to automate a thank you email as it looks like I have to pick specific subscribers, is this the case? thanks

Patrick_Draper
Tourist
11 0 22

Hey Everyone on this thread, I have an update on this, specifically in relation to the 'thank-you' email sequence in Kit. These are very important to our business. 

After digging into Shopify Email and not figuring out an actual replacement, I called Shopify and received a follow-up email. They said the same thing as was mentioned here, yet when I looked again, couldn't figure it out, and asked for specific clarification, they said it's actually NOT POSSIBLE! They pointed me to a paid 3rd party app instead. 


Pretty disappointing that they are removing this in the first place with no workaround, then tried to make it seem like there was one, and then asking me to pay for it. 


As a paying customer, I expect Shopify to not remove functionality without a replacement, so I would like to see an extension of the timeline on Kit until there is one. 

Seal-Extrusions
Excursionist
12 0 42

@Brie Maybe you could give us some sort of guidance with this? My follow up email system is extremely important to me and I get a very good response rate from my customers from it regarding their experiences dealing with us and information on what they are using our products for, many send us pictures etc off the back of the follow up emails. So what do we do?

AbraCoffee
Tourist
3 0 7

Hi! Same problem here. Any solution @Brie?

Patrick_Draper
Tourist
11 0 22

Shopify responded to me and said NO, they are not providing a solution.  They are just pulling functionality with no replacement. 

They only suggested paid alternatives in the form of email marketing solutions. Even those (outside of having to pay for something Shopify was providing), in my experience with Omnisend, won't replicate this feature because it's hard to create the exact customer segment 'new customer' or 'second time purchase' without lumping in a whole lot of others or repeating the email for every purchase. 


So they are leaving us hanging here

AbraCoffee
Tourist
3 0 7

So sad. =(

I'm trying to use Mailchimp automations to replace it, but doesn't works very well because it has a mandatory footer that makes email very impersonal.

fmcl
Tourist
6 0 10

Thanks for this  - its a shame.  One option would be to use something like Zapier to set up a link between Shopify and your gmail/email system so it triggers an email to send everytime someone purchases

AbraCoffee
Tourist
3 0 7

Thank you for your suggestion, @fmcl! I found a solution using Zapier.

I created the following 2 automations in Zapier:
Thank you first order - Trigger: New Paid Order in Shopify + Action: Filter - Only continue if Customer Orders Count Exactly matches 1 + Action: Send Email in Gmail.

Thank you second order - Trigger: New Paid Order in Shopify + Action: Filter - Only continue if Customer Orders Count Exactly matches 2 + Action: Send Email in Gmail.

Hope it helped you all! Any questions or more sugestions, let us know!

Luke25
Tourist
8 0 14

Why didn't you just choose to charge a small monthly fee for it.  You could've made a killing AND kept everyone happy...seems like a silly decision to me.

AshlynD
Excursionist
18 0 29

@Luke25 I contacted Shopify support to suggest that they make the app a paid app, but didn’t get a very helpful response. It’s really sad because this was a fantastic, powerful little app. I would have paid a fee to keep it.

Lokah_Luv
Excursionist
18 0 26

I have to tell you the big difference is this:  kit was an all-in-one app that allowed us to send emails, facebook posts & send texts with only one stop into single app and I could do it ALL from that single app and the app would ask me if I would like to run store reports too!   KIT WAS AMAZING and the number ONE reason I loved my shopify store.   Now the new issue (looks like many others are having same issue) is we have to go to an admin that is clumsy and go to this app and that app to do the multiple things ONE app did for us.    Kit saved me hours of time and made it easy and convenient to market my store.  I just gave up  this year, and basically have done nothing via the store (email marketing or text marketing or even thank you texts...nothing.... )and have just taken photos and posted them on facebook.  Nothing like I used to when I had KIT.  KIT was awesome!  I miss it terribly and so does my schedule. truly I just don't have time to learn and fiddle with new apps  and kit streamlined that entire process for me.  Add and app> integrate with KIT> and viola... it was all set and ready to go.  I loved it.  please bring it back.  

Irene_Otto
Shopify Partner
18 0 12
Isn't there anyone that can create an app like kit that we could use?
Diggybatty
Visitor
1 0 2

I am so disappointed Kit is going away. I use Kit every day. Kit saves me a lot of time completing daily tasks: completing my page posts, email marketing, running business reports and, sending thank you emails. I want to thank Kit for all his help! He was my close companion in this journey for the past 3 years!

Lokah_Luv
Excursionist
18 0 26

@Diggybatty I agree!  Kit was like the active and helpful business partner we could all use.  I hope that someone at Shopify sees how disappointed we all are and will a return kit or make us something close to kit.  

niallb
Shopify Partner
21 0 17

Very disappointing. It seems Shopify is more interested in the kick backs from 3rd party subscriptions than the needs of their loyal customer base. I contacted support guru earlier and they just kept trying to sell me third party apps.

It's the same with the Amazon app. Free in the US but only via 3rd party apps over here in Europe. Check the threads for that and you'll see it's coming up on 7 years and still nothing done. 

hacketyapps
Shopify Partner
38 2 5

I have an app in review at the moment Thank You Emails that will take care of sending thank you emails. My app sends thank you emails to customers after their 1st purchase and it sends another different personalised thank you email if they make a 2nd purchase just like Kit did.

MicheleYSW
Visitor
2 0 5
Interested!
Lokah_Luv
Excursionist
18 0 26

@hacketyapps Yes I have that too with the shopify email app.  The difference is with Kit I could change the email before it was sent and add more personal messages to it too.  (relating to a specific human and not a general human) and I could do this without having to login to shopify> go to admin>apps>open app>open email> change email>send.  First, kit asked me would I like to send a TY email, I would reply  yes please, then Kit completed the rest in just 2 simple steps, preview email > send. (and from my phone!  no need to open shopify, and no need to open admin)  It took me 2 seconds instead of 3 minutes.  Saving me loads of time and still being personal with my clients.  That was the power of kit. Kit cannot be replaced with apps...kit was an assistant... not just a simply email or text app.  She was how I communicated with clients, did my social media and run shopify reports from one easy to use app.  This  app asked me questions on what would I like to do  and allowed me to ask her questions too. Hey kit, can we text this client? she would say,   Sure what would you like to say. and my text app was opened right to the CLIENT!  So easy.  🙂 

hacketyapps
Shopify Partner
38 2 5
Thank you for the extra information very helpful! The way my app
currently works, is you have to log into admin once, use the default
personalised templates provided for 1st time customers and repeat customers
or you can edit the message/template to your liking at any time and then
turn on auto-send.

Once auto-send is turned on, it automatically sends thank you emails
without having to approve them before sending.

So really you only need to log in once into the admin to set everything up
and then the rest is automated to send emails.
Lokah_Luv
Excursionist
18 0 26

@hacketyapps Yes, I see that.  It looks like you are developer,  I would love to chat with you about possibly doing what kit did and how it worked and how it helped us.  KIt integrated with many shopify apps and I could access all basic functions from that app.  I would pay for an app that did what kit did!!!  What kit did was allow  to run business reports,  make facebook ads, send texts to groups or individuals, i could chat with people who were on my site and I could do everything i needed for one day of business without having to login to shopify admin and apps at ALL!   Right now I have to login to text or send an individual email, login and search for the report, login and look for facebook app and maybe set up a new default text template for future use.  Kit was a set and ready and I could run all my to do's for my store in 30  minutes.  Now Its taking close to 2 hours because of all the extra steps we have to take to run everything.  It's a real mess and they gave us nothing to replace kit, nothing close to it all.  If you could help figure something out, that would be AMAZING! 🙂 Please feel free to message me to talk more about this if you are interested in developing this kind of biz solution for shopify users. 

Lokah_Luv
Excursionist
18 0 26

UPDATE: I had an uplifting convo with support today. 🙂 

It seems that they didn't realize that we needed a single app that did multiple functions for our businesses. They thought businesses used KIT mostly for the chat function.  However there are those of use you used KIT to the fullest extent recognizing its awesomeness beyond a simple chatbox.  

Currently they are looking to see if these changes maybe possible  and with your help (meaning contact support via email or chat and tell then you need this too because this is also what KIT did) Please message support if there are other things you used KIT for. Support informed me we have to let them know for a change to occur in the system. 

1.  Shopify email app would be better if it also integrated as a dedicated SMS offer ability to send SMS campaigns and tiered SMS automations as well as text clients from a report. 

2.  Shopify email had the ability to created tiered Email and SMS automations.  Let's use the  abandoned checkout feature as an  example:  Send one email 6 hours after customer abandons cart.  Then if customer takes no action send a second one 48 hours later.  If customer takes action the next tiers of automations begin.  Thank you >  order confirmation and shipping details> after items has been receive by customer thank you and we look forward to shopping with you again. Or, if they don't take action we can have a third abandoned cart mail that offers a discount or asks what we can do to help them find what they are looking for. 

3. Shopify email adds an integrated search feature to find clients or groups of clients to text/email  personal messages to. 

4.  The ability to sync Shopify email with sales reports so we can also send personalized email or text messages to clients.  ( yes, I realize there are automations for  this but what KIT allowed me to do was choose between the automated version or write my own version, and I more often than not selected to type a new message into a pre-made template I created instead of using the automated version).  

5.  This may already exist (not sure the Shopify email app is confusing to me) -  convert emails into marketing campaigns for facebook and instagram

6.  An alternative to all the above is to find (cost effective) apps that already have these features and allow us integrate apps within the shopify email app so we can have a one stop app!!

 

 

AshlynD
Excursionist
18 0 29

That’s great news! A few of the additional things I used Kit for were:

  1. Free and paid automated Facebook and Instagram posts based on:
    1. best selling items
    2. slowest moving items
    3. new items in my shop
    4. A few hand selected items
  2. running simple reports of my sales versus my advertising spend

Perhaps we could work together as a group to create a list of the helpful Kit features and each then contact support to request an app with those features.

 

 

Lokah_Luv
Excursionist
18 0 26

@AshlynD YES!  These were great functions that I am missing so much, too! 

hacketyapps
Shopify Partner
38 2 5

If you're looking to send thank you emails on the 1st and 2nd purchases, SMS integration to come soon too, you can look at Engagely

smartsips
Tourist
6 0 4

Do you have any audit trail/reporting available that we can see which customers/emails had the first and second emails sent to them?

Also, is there any scheduling of when these emails are sent out or does this app just send out these emails as soon as the order is paid? We would need a scheduler so we can run a batch the next day for any order that met the first or second order criteria. We would not want this email to be sent on order payment because they already receive the order confirmation email at that time and these first and second order emails are a way of reaching back out to the customer to thank them for their business.

Regards,
Frank

hacketyapps
Shopify Partner
38 2 5

Hi @smartsips ,

Currently there's no audit/trail reporting to see which customer received which email but that can definitely be added. Right now this is a basic app that just sends the thank you emails as soon as the order is paid for. 

The scheduler part is a really good point though, you're right. We can add that as our next priority np. Thank you so much for the valid feedback.

hacketyapps
Shopify Partner
38 2 5

Hi @smartsips,

I just wanted to let you know that we made some updates to Engagely

We included email auditing/reporting so that you can track/export all emails sent in the last 30 days. We track which template (new or repeat customer) the customer received, if it was delivered, opened or if the customer made a spam complaint.

You can also manage the queued emails that haven't been sent out yet like delete them before they get sent out.

You can choose when to send the thank you emails now. Either when the customer receives the order or pays for the order. The email can be scheduled  between 1h - 72h after the customer pays/receives the order.

Lokah_Luv
Excursionist
18 0 26

@hacketyapps hi!  I have a question about your service, who are the auto emails sent to? Do they have be subscribers? Or can it be someone who went to the store bought something without subscribing to emails and they can still receive the thank you’s and Information emails?   Also, will you be adding an sms feature in the future and possibly a phone app to do everything from one place? I think many of us on this feed miss the ability to communicate with clients from one place.  I am looking Into the apps you have suggested and I am excited to hopefully move forward with them! 

hacketyapps
Shopify Partner
38 2 5

Hi @Lokah_Luv,

The emails can be sent to any customer that has never subscribed with your store before. The app only checks if it's the customer's 1st order or 2nd order with your store that's it. They don't need to subscribe either. Also the From email the customer sees is the store email you provided in the template not ours.

We will be adding SMS and abandoned cart functionality soon too yes! Also I understand you would like a headless app instead of an admin embedded app which currently time-wise we don't support but it's on our roadmap for sure.

Thanks!

rosestewar
Visitor
1 0 1

Your app is excellent. I want to open my own start-up, and I am glad that I found your app now. I will add a reminder in task manager from okaapps.com  that I am using for not forgetting to download your app. I want to open my own forum, and an app that automatically sends emails to users is excellent. I thought that special software deals with this, but if downloading an app solves this problem, it is great. I have to deal with many issues before launching my forum, and I am happy that I can solve one of them now.

 

BestSkinWithin
Visitor
2 0 1

Keep Us Posted on this. I miss Kit

AshlynD
Excursionist
18 0 29

@Lokah_Luv you summarized the issue perfectly.

larussell
Visitor
2 0 6

I had the same question.  I would like to know if the marketing provided by Shopify includes sending 'thank you' letters.  They worked well.