Overview:
The eCommerce industry is booming and is showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Experts predict that the global eCommerce market sales are expected to grow to $6.54 trillion by 2022. This figure should make you realize that you are part of a huge market, with stiff competition. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced several eCommerce businesses across the world to come up with new ways to pivot.
If you are a budding startup, one of the wisest steps for you to know is that, before you go public, you should choose a set of eCommerce tools. Such tools are a must to grow and scale your eCommerce business. They also help you manage your online store with ease, keep you up-to-date with the required details, and aid in the functionality of your site.
The good news is, there is a ton of free and paid eCommerce tools available in the market that can help boost your productivity and make your online business more successful.
The bad news is, there is a lot to choose between and it just gets confusing and overwhelming to select the right tools for your business.
To kick things off, in this blog, we are going to give you some insights into a few helpful tools that can improve your business results.
- Email Marketing
Email marketing is still one of the most used and cost-effective marketing platforms. Marketing is all about converting prospects into customers, and when it comes to conversions, email marketing is the number one choice for businesses.
However, to run successful email marketing campaigns, you need to choose the right tool. MailChimp is a go-to email marketing tool for many eCommerce business owners as well as eCommerce development companies. It offers email Sign Up form creation, easy designing, and actual sending in one place. One of the main advantages of using MailChimp is its ability to automate most of your marketing tasks. MailChimp also offers easy integration with other eCommerce platforms, tools, and social media platforms.
- Analytics
Once your online store is up and running, would you like to know more about the online store and your visitors? Pick an analytics tool. The analytics tool will help you get an image of what is happening in your online store – from the location of your visitors to the most active pages on your site. This data can help you understand your customers’ behavior and needs.
When one thinks of analytics, the first tool that comes to mind is Google Analytics. It is the most popular analytics tool that is highly recommended for eCommerce business. Google Analytics can give you statistics on the number of visitors, their demographic, time of visits, and more. It also helps you know how many conversions you have had with regards to your set goal. Google Analytics can be integrated with any eCommerce platform.
- Payment Gateway
An important part of an eCommerce business is the payment process. The payment processing system plays a crucial role in improving your conversion rate. A few eCommerce platforms like Shopify and Shopee have integrated payment services, but eCommerce stores build from the ground up need to integrate a third-party payment gateway.
Fortunately, several third-party payment providers make online transactions hassle-free and easy to manage. PayPal is one of the most common solutions available today, and it can be easily integrated with any e-commerce platforms or website infrastructure and supports all payment methods. You can integrate it yourself or get the help of a company offering eCommerce web development services.
- Social Media Management
Social media presence has become a necessity for the success of eCommerce business. That being said, keeping social media profiles updated regularly is extremely important. Managing your business and updating your social media accounts will be time-consuming and will stress you out, especially for startups with a small team.
Luckily, there are social media management tools that make this task simple. One of the best social media management tool is Hootsuite. It is an easy-to-use platform that enables you to schedule posts for various social media accounts with just a few clicks. It does more than scheduling like team management, making it the best social media management tool.
- Customer Support
Irrespective of all the tools and services you use to make your eCommerce site successful, nothing is more important than your customers’ satisfaction. Proper customer service is important to satisfy the customers. Without customers, your eCommerce business is nothing but an expensive dream.
Instead of following the conventional customer support method and handling multiple customer calls, offering a live chat on your site can be an effective way to offer customer support. The best live chat app which you can rely upon is ZenDesk.
Zendesk tracks the customer experiences through an intuitive interface and helps in creating the best customer experience in your online store. Using Zendesk on your eCommerce site can give your business a real competitive edge over others.
- Photo-Editing Tool
An important part of your online store is the images you attach to them. If you’re not a graphic-savvy person, you will most likely be thinking of hiring an eCommerce website development company or a graphic designer to do the job for you. But, it’s rather easy to use a photo-editing tool or graphic design software to edit the pictures perfectly.
To start with, you can use Canva, which is an easy-to-use tool for making your own graphics, be it a product image or a poster or social media post. Canva has pre-existing templates and graphics for every topic or if you wish, you can make one from scratch, and every template or graphic is sized according to specification, especially if it’s for social media use.
Final Thoughts
If you use the proper tools and strategies for your startup eCommerce site, your rates of success will significantly improve. The above list is certainly not a complete list of the eCommerce tools available to you. The options are almost boundless. We have listed the most important tools that you could use even without hiring or getting the help of an eCommerce development company.
If you are not able to use all of these, using even one of them could make all the difference to your eCommerce site, and bring in more success. With the use of these right e-commerce tools, you can maximize your profits online, while ensuring the best shopping experience for your customers.
Author Bio: Annu Chauhan has been working in the IT sector for over four years. She is a professional online writer, and an expert in writing about eCommerce, digital marketing, mobile app marketing solutions, and cloud solution topics.