There's a lot of work involved with running a shop. Inventory comes and goes as products come in from suppliers and go out to customers, orders come and go as customers make them and they get fulfilled, and there's also the matter of picking, packing, labelling and shipping.

Bizelo eRetail Centralized Inventory Management (or CIM for short) is an app that helps you get on top of all this work. With it, it's a lot simpler to stay informed about your inventory, know when you're low on stock and what your packing costs are and pack, label and ship orders. It's available in the Shopify App Store right now.

We chatted with the people at Bizelo about their eRetail CIM app and asked them some questions. Read on to find out more about their app, in their own words.

We're pleased to announce the first four projects to be funded by the Shopify Fund, our million-dollar fund to encourage developers to build apps on Shopify's ecommerce platform. We've put together a video to announce these projects; you can either watch it above or keep reading to find out who the "First Four" are.

Wouldn’t it be nice to put a Buy Now button for your products anywhere on the web?

It’d be even more awesome if you could embed product previews or entire collections in forums, your Tumblr and Wordpress blogs, or wherever else you’d like it to appear. Now you can.

Introducing Shopify Widgets: embed your products anywhere. Like these great looking Shopify shirts :)

Find out how to use these for your shop after the jump.

Group deal promotions are popular with bricks-and-mortar stores and can bring many new customers through the door. The Gainify app, which is available right now at the Shopify App Store, brings the power of group deals to your shop in an simple to use package, and gives you analytics so you can see how well your promotions are doing.

We talked with the people behind Gainify and asked them a few questions about their app, and we've shared their answers in this article. 

One of the 100-plus apps in the Shopify App Store is Custard, which lets your customers talk – as in voice, not “chat” as in typing or email, but actually talk – to someone in your shop. Custard lets customers start a voice call using only the computer they’re using to browse your shop without the need for a phone or extra software. They just click the “Click to Call” button. Sometimes it’s nice to hear a human voice, and being able to talk to someone and ask questions can be the difference between your customer heading somewhere else and making that sale.

We talked with the people behind Custard and asked them a few questions about their app, and we’ve shared their answers in this article.

If you go into certain elevators, you might notice an indicator on the panel that reads “Help is on the way”. In the event of an emergency, someone at the other end lights it up to let the passengers know that assistance is forthcoming.

Assistly, one of the 100+ apps in the Shopify App Store adds a customer service help desk to your Shopify shop so that customers can easily reach you when they’re having problems, and so that you can reassure them that help is on the way. We had a Q & A session with the people behind Assistly about their app and we’re sharing their answers in this article.

Every day we hear from several retail, brick and mortar stores looking to expand their reach beyond their physical storefront and sell their goods online. The timing has never been better. Shopify, coupled with Vend and Xero software, is the ideal solution for retailers looking to sell both online and offline, and easily keep track of it all.

Shopify gives you a beautiful looking online storefont, with a shopping cart allowing you to securely accept credit card orders online. Vend is a web-based POS (point of sale) and stock management system designed to work from anywhere on computers, phones and tablets. Finally, Xero is your bookkeeper. It automatically imports your sales from Shopify & Vend, connects to your bank to get all your bank transactions, plus handles your bills & expenses. This trio of software is all you need to run your store both online and offline.

Here are two video case studies that will show you how easy it can be for traditional retail stores to start selling online:

Taylor Stitch Case Study

If you have trouble viewing the video please click here.