By Owen Fay . Posted on January 11, 2023Are you planning to build an eCommerce site for your business? Starting an eCommerce site from scratch can be daunting.
As soon as you’ve picked the products and services written on your business plan, the next thing that you need to do is to design and launch a highly functioning site.
But that isn’t all. Your eCommerce site shouldn’t work in isolation. It should be able to connect with various tools that will help you run your business effectively.
What is Ecommerce Business
At its core, eCommerce is the process of purchasing and selling online goods. Although it refers to selling any physical product online, it can also be any commercial online transaction.
The projected revenue of the eCommerce industry is expected to hit 6 trillion by 2024. Moreover, more than 2 billion people are now shopping online. That’s why it’s essential, more than ever, for eCommerce companies to look for new ways for how consumers can buy goods and services.
Furthermore, eCommerce transactions could either be business-to-business (B2B), customer-to-customer (C2C), and business-to-customer (B2C.)
Furthermore, eCommerce is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world. Because of the rapid growth of the eCommerce industry, it’s incredibly vital for businesses to have a more systematic approach when it comes to their strategies.
What Are the Tools That You Should Be Using?
There are several tools that eCommerce businesses should use when starting their business. These tools often make smooth transactions from offline to online operations.
E-commerce tools are essential to succeed in the industry. They allow a business to track performance, enhance customer satisfaction, and even streamline operations. Know more about how to start your own eCommerce website.
Tools to Use in Setting Up Your E-commerce Website
Here are the top five tools that every business owner needs to have to successfully launch and grow their online store:
1. E-commerce Platform
An eCommerce platform is pretty handy, especially for start-ups. Still, even if you’re an established business, having a solid online presence on other eCommerce platforms isn’t out of the picture.
After all, what is e-commerce without an independent web presence? This is precisely what most eCommerce sites offer- a separate web presence in the eCommerce niche.
Another benefit is that companies can, to a large extent, guarantee the safety of their funds and that of their customers.
Here are examples:
- Shopify: This all-in-one eCommerce platform provides a wide range of eCommerce tools, such as a site builder, built-in marketing tools for executing successful digital marketing campaigns, multi-channel selling, and more. Among its many features, it also offers guidance and resources on how to generate sales on Shopify, making it a preferred choice for both beginners and experienced sellers looking to optimize their online stores.
- Wix: Wix covers the basics, such as web hosting, domain name registration, and customizable templates. It tracks and accepts online payments. It also comes with more advanced features like analytics tools and inventory management.
- BigCommerce: This platform is created for enterprise businesses. It provides web hosting, customization options, multi-channel selling, and SEO analytics tools.
- WordPress.com: Not the easiest web builder to use, as you need to be familiar with basic coding. Thus, this works best for bloggers who already have some technical confidence. To convert your WordPress site into an Ecommerce site, you need to install WooCommerce which is absolutely free, you just need to buy WooCommerce Hosting which starts at minimum of $12. It offers plenty of features and high-quality blogging tools with a sensible price tag. If you’ve built your site on WordPress, make sure to get a WordPress maintenance plan.
2. A/B Testing Tools
A/B testing tools let you test two different versions of the same content. This could be a combination of colors, images, texts, etc., based on some goal.
Similarly, A/B testing tools are also handy for:
- Product pages: You can have different images, prices, and descriptions. One of the simplest things you can do is utilize colored backgrounds for your products. However, the possibilities are virtually endless.
- Collection or browsing pages: This allows you to move items from the top to the bottom of the collection. It is a fantastic way to know what resonates most with your customers.
- Cart or checkout pages: This could be a particular layout that leads to higher checkout rates.
Here are examples:
- Poll the People: A leader in usability A/B testing, this tool allows you to create customized tests to know your users’ needs and expectations, allowing you to gain valuable insights into your prospects in minutes.
- Adobe Target: Adobe Target provides easy integration with Google Analytics, generating reports you can use for switching up marketing offers, personalization, and UX testing. It also takes you into a three-step experimentation process where you can develop different variations and target audience segments. It lets you customize your goals and settings as well.
- Optimizely: This allows you to A/B test to offer highly personalized and targeted messaging to your site visitors. It also allows you to gather valuable insight into your experiments’ effectiveness and then use that data to know which content will and will not convert.
- Circuit: Circuit is a multi-stop route planner that can boost route efficiency, help you scale easily, and simplify the route planning process.
3. Shipping Services Tools
These tools are essential for start-ups and small businesses. Manually delivering your products to customers can be challenging. That’s why you should cater to a global audience. These service tools allow you to decrease the burden and stress involved in the delivery.
Moreover, having a reputable delivery service can allow you to follow enterprise-level hosting solutions at every delivery process step.
- Shipwire: This fulfillment platform fulfills orders directly to customers, retail, and dropship channels. When you integrate it with your shopping cart and marketplace, these tools offer logistical support, allowing national and international shipping.
- Veeqo: Veeqo is like a one-stop shop for order fulfillment. It provides real-time inventory updates, order management, and forecasting tools, helping you prepare for the future.
4. Digital Marketing
Many small businesses think they don’t need to spend a lot of time and money competing with other online businesses. As a result, many want to take things slow and stick to at least one or two forms of advertising, thinking they’re gradually evolving their business as time passes.
But the thing is, the digital marketplace is exceptionally competitive, and word of mouth and online recommendations in the form of reviews and testimonials can drive traffic. Customers may also find it challenging to find your business online unless you appear in places that they relatively spend time with, such as social media.
Having to delay starting an online presence isn’t a practical approach. Instead, one of the best ways that you can ensure success is by promoting your business on a global scale. You can then target your product or service to attract relatively interested customers. Here’s a quick guide and predictions for digital marketing in 2023.
- Buffer: This simple-to-use social media platform is pretty straightforward to use. It allows your eCommerce store to schedule content on social media platforms- Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn ahead of time. It’s a fantastic way to boost your visibility online.
- Mailchimp: As you know, one of the most powerful marketing strategies that you can use in your arsenal is email newsletters, as it allows you to share updates, promotions, and share important information. Mailchimp is a handy tool that helps you streamline the marketing process by letting you build, track, and send email marketing campaigns.
5. Highly Reliable and Efficient Customer Care Tools
This tool is something every excellent eCommerce business couldn’t do without. It lets you stay in the good graces of the most critical elements of your business: your customers.
So, replying promptly and effectively to your customers is one of the best ways to keep them satisfied. It also helps you create that level of trust that’s otherwise impossible.
- Acquire: This platform helps your eCommerce store offer high-quality support and streamline workflows and customer information for customer support agents. This lets your representatives see queries on various digital channels and resolve issues more efficiently.
- Zendesk: This tool places support tickets from various channels- chat, email, or social media in a single place. You can easily access relevant customer data and troubleshoot support tickets more quickly.
6. Site Monitoring Tools
As an eCommerce business owner, you must stay on top of your game. Doing so lets your customers know what their target customers want and how they want it. With the help of eCommerce tools, you can easily monitor your site’s performance, manage inventory, analyze customer behavior, and so much more.
Moreover, many business owners are constantly looking for tools that will help them boost sales and stay ahead of their competitors. These eCommerce monitoring tools give you insights into site traffic conversions and customer feedback so that you can make good decisions regarding your online store.
The list of eCommerce monitoring tools may be too broad. However, we recommend that you choose one that has commerce analytics software. This gives you an in-depth insight into your customers. It includes everything from demographics, buying behaviors, and shopping patterns.
In eCommerce, you need to have these tools as they help you monitor your website and your competitors. This tool is handy for knowing the various aspects of your web page that needs modification. It is usually based on customer preferences. So, make sure that you know what they like and change, if necessary, the ones that they don’t.
- Google Analytics: Google Analytics lets you gather real-time data and insights on returning visitors. This allows you to collect data like how many people are on your site. Where does your traffic come from? How many people are engaging with your products right now?
- Uptime Robot: This is perfect if you’re looking for a simple tool that tells you whenever your site is down. The free account gives you 50 monitors, which is more than enough if you’re a small eCommerce site. It has 5-minute monitoring intervals from 12 locations worldwide and three months’ worth of log storage.
The Importance of Pre-Launch Testing
An eCommerce website can lead to traffic, users, and profits, but you need to make sure you optimize your business and the site before going live. Pre-launch testing is an essential step in the process of launching an eCommerce website. It helps to ensure that the website functions correctly, is easy to navigate, and provides a good user experience. By conducting pre-launch testing, businesses can identify and fix any issues with the website before it goes live to the public. This can save a lot of time and money and avoid any potential embarrassment or loss of customers.
Poll the People lets you get the basics right, like validating and comparing brand names and finding your logo. But the platform also lets you test the user experience of your website, its functionality, and overall design. With expert-built templates, a dedicated user panel, and robust results dashboards, you can get the best feedback from your target users.
Our automatic anti-cheating response rejection technology takes out the poor responses so they don’t appear in your results. On other platforms, you get about 80% of the responses you need. But, with Poll the People, you get 100% of the responses you need because we reject the 20% of bad responses before you ever see them. And best of all: You don’t get charged for rejected responses (unlike our competitors!).
Shipping Services Tools
These tools are essential for start-ups and small businesses. Manually delivering your products to customers can be challenging. That’s why you should cater to a global audience. These service tools allow you to decrease the burden and stress involved in the delivery.
Moreover, having a reputable delivery service can allow you to follow enterprise-level hosting solutions at every delivery process step.
- Shipwire: This fulfillment platform fulfills orders directly to customers, retail, and dropship channels. When you integrate it with your shopping cart and marketplace, these tools offer logistical support, allowing national and international shipping.
- Dropoff: This same-day shipping service is all about speed, reliability, and convenience. It’s like having a personal courier service. Just place your order and they’ll pick it up, and deliver it fast and hassle-free.
Final Thoughts
So there you have it. Running your e-commerce business allows you to regularly evaluate what you have to offer. It will enable you to always stay on top of your customer’s minds. However, this isn’t just about the prices. You still have to deliver an effortless experience and then help your customers every step of the way.
Using these eCommerce tools mentioned above allows you to streamline them all. For instance, tools like Poll the People will enable you to test your marketing assets with real people to gain helpful feedback.
In the same way, it’s also essential for you to focus on a more holistic marketing strategy. That way, it’s easier for you to drive more leads to your site, boost your conversions, and grow your ROI. Good luck!
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