Ecommerce is something that has been around for a while now. It started off as a solution to ordering books and then went on to become a fully formed retail channel with its own industry players. Ecommerce doesn’t see any sign of slowing down either. And it’s no wonder why that is the case: today, online retail makes up 10% of total retail. It’s just not going anywhere. Why should it? We have faster internet speeds and more people who prefer to shop for their goods online than ever before.
I run a startup called SavoApps and I’m always on the hunt for tools that will improve my business. I’ve been able to save a ton of money by using free tools and if you have a startup, then you can do the same. In fact, one of my favorite tools for early stage startups is ConvertKit — and it’s a free ecommerce marketing tool! Not only do they give you super valuable insights into how your sales funnel is performing, but they also help you convert more traffic into sales.
Looking for the best ecommerce tools to help you get off the ground? Or maybe you already have an Etsy shop and just want to stay in the game as a startup! Regardless of where you fall on that spectrum, it’s worth taking a look at this post. It’ll help you find free and paid solutions for email marketing, analytics, reporting, and many other needs.
Ecommerce tools for startups can be really valuable for those who do not have enough time or experienced staff to optimize their ecommerce business. From my experience, I can tell you that it is almost impossible to build a solid e-commerce business without some advertising and promotion on the Web. Luckily, there are plenty of free and paid solutions which can save both money and efforts. Let’s see what ecommerce tools startups need.
Startup Tools
Active Campaign
ActiveCampaign is now used by over 60,000 organizations of all shapes and sizes.
ActiveCampaign is an email marketing automation tool which simply enables you to create drip emails that will boost your subscriber interaction, interests, demographics, history, and more.
You can use Active Campaign as a CRM and marketing automation software. You’re going to like this email marketing automation software in terms of email deliverability, affordability, customer support, and integrations.
Pros:
- Excellent customer support
- Flexible and versatile
- Advanced features
Cons:
- The learning curve is a bit challenging.
- There are some glitches reported by some users.
- The forms feature isn’t sufficient and not customizable enough
Pricing
The minimum price plan costs $9/mo with annual payment for 500 contacts. The highest price plan is the Enterprise plan costing $229/mo.
G2 Rating: 4.6 out of 5
Hubspot
There are 48,000 small companies that use Hubspot which means it is ranked as one of the top email automation tools. In order to support your email marketing campaigns, it provides
- all-in-one CRM
- email marketing automation
- landing page builder platform
Probably the most advantageous part of HubSpot is its analytics. You can track your email campaigns in terms of conversions. But what about pricing?
Well, you should consider that it’s very affordable in the first place, costs about $50/month. However, the pricing can quickly get out of control. For example, if you want to add bonus features and grow your email list, you may have to pay $2,000/month annually. So, better be careful.
Pros:
- Ability to customize the user experience based on behavior
- Great user interface
Cons:
- Prices are too high for most startups.
- Not HIPAA compliant
Pricing
The starter plan for HubSpot Marketing Hub costs $50/mo.
G2 Rating: 4.4 out of 5
Wix
A direct competitor to Squarespace, Wix provides businesses and individuals with a similar drag-and-drop experience. Like Squarespace, you have the ability to choose from a number of themes and layouts that you believe align best with your business brand and from there customize them to your liking. Wix also has an ecommerce platform completely devoted to entrepreneurs and small businesses looking to sell their products digitally.
It appears that Wix has invested a little bit more into their ecommerce capabilities than Squarespace as their marketing copy and positioning has placed them in competition with platforms like Shopify. They clearly have a desire to be your one-stop-shop for web services as well as your online store. With Wix Payments, you can manage all of your business transactions and accept secure online payments all from one dashboard. In comparison to Squarespace, it looks as though Wix has the more robust ecommerce platform overall.
Although many of these tools made it easier than ever to build a website by yourself, there is always the option to outsource the creation to a professional. The biggest factor that many professionals will have an upper hand with is the aspect of conversion optimization. There are a number of small details and nuances to web and landing page building that if leveraged correctly can increase the probability that users will purchase from you.
Conversion optimization may have a substantial, long-term, net positive on your business profitability that (if the right professional is chosen) will offset any costs for creating the website over time.
Some of these details include how the site navigation is oriented, the persuasive language used, the way that your shopping cart element is optimized, as well as overall aesthetic appeal.
Drip
Being an email drip campaign software, Drip has a simple and user-friendly interface. You can use email gathering technology, drag and drop elements, and pre-made templates in your emails.
If you have an e-commerce company then this email marketing software is great for you. For basic email marketing automation, it has affordable pricing options! For example, you should pay $49/month for 100+ contacts. You can streamline the drip email process with this app.
Pros:
- Smoothly handles large data
- User-friendly interface, dark mode available
- Ability to create unique responsive HTML email templates
Cons:
- Slow customer support
- Analytics and reports are average.
- Inability to re-edit workflows
- Not storing events for recall so, for example, in Zapier you have to continually refresh
Pricing
Starting at $19/mo for 1,500 contacts
G2 Rating: 4.4 out of 5 starts
Google Docs
This very famous editing and collaborative platform help you write content on the go and keep track of it. Businesses can use it to write content together, or share for editing and publication with ease. It also allows you to change formatting, track changes, and add images.
You can access Docs from anywhere. All your ideas and documents are stored in a cloud. With a simple login from your email ID, you can seamlessly write and edit from wherever you are. All you need is a stable internet connection- but you can even get Docs to sync new additions offline!
Grammarly
This marketing tool for an eCommerce business is the best way to get content to proofread so it’s clean and understandable. You can set contexts for writing too. This means that the tool will analyze your content differently based on the context- business, academic, casual, and more.
You can add it to Chrome as an extension so it works on Google Doc. As a business, you can buy a premium subscription for unlimited checks! The free trial is excellent to see how the tool works.
Canva
Canva is a graphic design tool website with features to access photographs and fonts. It includes templates for design presentations. Also includes templates for various social media formats. Pictures can be edited with filters, stickers, icons, shapes, and fonts.
Canva is not only easy to use but is available for free. To join, just sign up with an email id. The website has a blog to learn the basics. Businesses can use Canva for fun info-graphics. These are great to share on blogs and other social media platforms.
Toast for restaurants
Given that the restaurant industry was arguably hit the hardest by the COVID-19 impact. Many local restaurant owners need to start thinking digitally amidst looming lockdowns and further restrictions on in-person services. One of the restaurant-specific companies out there doing a lot to help the restaurant industry is Toast.
If you own or operate a restaurant you may be familiar with Toast’s robust point-of-sale technology. However, given the ever-evolving industry conditions, many restaurants are seeing a lot of their revenue through online orders. Toast has streamlined this process for restaurants by offering their Digital Online Ordering suite. This tool allows restaurants to take orders directly from customers without having to rely on the commissions of alternative services. Customize your digital brand and presence with a mobile-optimized experience your customers will love while your staff spends less time on the phone. For more information on Toast’s digital ordering platform see here.
Sendloop
Sendloop is really one of the best marketing automation software on the market. It has an easy-to-use interface that doesn’t require IT. So, you can customize your emails with a simple drag n-drop email builder. It offers more than 80 free email templates with some unique features.
You can refine a drip campaign by targeting the right people.
Sendloop enables you to track your customers’ movements on your site. By using this email automation software, you can run highly-effective email marketing campaigns.
Pros:
- Drag and drop feature
- Provides WYSIWYG Email Editor so you can edit fast and easily
- Analysis track report
- Great technical support
Cons:
- A bit expensive as it charges for subscribers not plans
- The interface is a bit over-siimplistic
- Lacks mobile-optimized emails
Pricing
Service cost based on the number of subscribers. You can calculate your service cost from their website. The minimum cost is $9/mo for 500 subscriber and unlimited emails.
G2 Rating: 4.3 out of 5
Customer.io
Customer.io, is one of the best email marketing automation software in the market, has a user-friendly interface. You can customize your messages very easily. Also, it allows you to target messages to your customers and integrate it with your mobile app or website to provide real-time stats.
It comes with bonus features such as,
- in-context conversations
- conversion tracking
- A/B testing,
- customer profiles
It’s free for 400 monthly email credits to 200 people. However, the payment increases depending on your growth.
Pros:
- Reasonable pricing
- Easy to set up
- Managing users, events, and attributes is simple
Cons:
- No option to export data
- Reports lack deeper analytics insights
- Challenging learnig curve even for an experienced user
Pricing
Starting at $150/mo for up to 12,000 profiles
G2 Rating: 4.2 out of 5
Slack
It is a website where discussions about projects, announcements, and projects can be shared among the users. The users can communicate in channels, organized by a team or project. Conversations, chat rooms, and files can be searched and information about other users can also be learned.
Slack is a free tool, where the user can sign up and join pre-existing organizations or create their own workspace. Slack is also one of the best customer experience tools for eCommerce business.
Analytics tools
The analysis is a key element of the growth of e-commerce. In fact, the analysis is central. It can do everything for you: from optimizing the copy of your CTA to determining the quality of the traffic that reaches your website. Therefore, any marketing professional should be guided by numbers. Here are some great services to use.
Google Analytics
Increasing your conversion rate into e-commerce is a big challenge no matter what you sell. Google’s enhanced e-commerce provides merchants with a broader view of metrics. In simple terms, the platform is much more powerful than it was before. Google Analytics users now have the ability to track traffic every step of the funnel. It is to identify the weak points that lead to the abandonment of the basket or the points of friction in the payment process.
Coupler.io
Coupler.io is a data integration service that helps with data synchronizing between platforms you use for your e-shop or collecting crucial data in one place. If you already keep records in databases or spreadsheets, this tool will also help, for instance, you can use Airtable export to Excel or other connections. To use Coupler.io, you don’t need coding skills, and the free plan is also available. Gather and evaluate your store’s data to find weak points in performance and to improve business processes from financing to marketing.
Optimizely
It is a reference software that allows you to perform A / B tests for your website or mobile application. Its interface is WYSIWYG, which means you can use this tool without having to put your hands in code. Optimizely is a recommended tool for split-testing your landing pages, product pages, forms, etc. This is a software that all marketers should have in their toolbox. Service offers packages (rather expensive), but you can test it with the free trial period of 30 days.
Conclusion:
E commerce tools can help your online business or startup to grow quickly. Some free ecommerce marketing tools are available on internet. Before you start marketing your ecommerce website, you need to know the best free marketing tools which help you reach more customers by spending less.
Ecommerce is the way for startups to get into the game. It’s low cost, with a lot of freedom from inventory and staff commitment. An ecommerce website enables you to sell products online and reach a whole new group of customers. With that said, don’t let just anyone build your ecommerce site, because there are 700,000+ WordPress plugins available, and that means it can be challenging to choose the best ones.