Running an E-commerce Business: 7 Tools You Need

When the pandemic struck, it became too risky to go out. There was a danger of getting exposed to the coronavirus (there still is). People relied on online retail businesses to get their essentials. Thus, it’s not a surprise that for the past year, the U.S. online retail industry earned $565 billion in sales, which was 14% of the total retail sales ($4.038 trillion) in the country.

Having an online store was lucrative even before the pandemic, but even more so today. If you have an online store, you’ll need a lot of help, especially if your business is starting to grow. In this article, get to know the tools that can make business operational tasks easy.

You and your staff need automated processes to increase your online store’s efficiency at the back end of all of this. You’ll definitely need to invest in product management software for this as it will reduce your workload by setting rules to automatically generate production jobs based on minimum or maximum orders.

For Your Website — Website Development and Web Hosting

Entrepreneurs and business gurus always say that a website is an online home, a digital address for businesses. But more than just that, it shows that your business is a trustworthy, reliable brand.

For your online business, create a website using an online web builder. These tools can help you start with an online store, cloud storage, web hosting, and other web-building features. They’re easier to use compared to developing a website from scratch.

Web hosting that often comes with website builders has limited space. This can distort the images you’ll display on your website. It can even cause page loading to lag. Get a separate web hosting service instead.

If you’re just starting a website for a small business, choose a web hosting service that offers a shared hosting plan. Your server will be shared with other users, and the cost is cheaper. But if you already have an established business and a website with considerable traffic, migrate to a dedicated hosting site. You get your own server, so page loading is much faster.

For Your Online Store — E-commerce Platform

An online store is the backbone of any online business. It’s where you’ll display your products and showcase what you have to offer. For this, you’ll need an e-commerce platform.

An e-commerce platform should have an online store builder that will enable you to set up your store. It must have different themes that can highlight the style and design of your brand. It must be mobile-ready and scalable. There should be enough room for your store to grow.

For Orders and Deliveries — Order Fulfillment and Logistics Management

Of course, you need order fulfillment and logistics management tools to handle and manage orders and deliveries. You also need returns management software that can help you manage product returns from your customers.

For Money Matters — Payments and Bookkeeping

To accept and handle payments, it’s also important for your business to have a payment gateway API from Brassica. It must be able to accept all forms of payment — credit card, debit card, cash, and others. This can often be a feature of e-commerce platforms, too.

For payroll, sales, operational costs, and everything that involves money, you should have a comprehensive accounting and bookkeeping system such as Kruze Bookkeeping.

You can also try all-in-one payment and business tools for small businesses or enterprises.

For Social Media Accounts and Pages — Social Media Management

There are 295 million people in the U.S. who are using social media. You can’t target all of that. Your target audience is still there, however, and so should you.

Managing social media tasks such as growing your followers, overseeing all of your accounts and pages, and scheduling your posts can be challenging, though. Use a social media management app instead. It can help you manage your social media accounts in a single tool. You can also schedule posts to multiple accounts with it. And some apps have a real-time analytics feature that helps you gather data about the behavior of your target audience and the performance of your posts.

For Customers — Customer Support and Customer Relationship Management

While it’s important to have a customer support team, they can’t work if they don’t have the necessary tools. You can provide them with the hardware they’ll need, but you also need to have customer support and customer relationship management software.

For Productivity — Project Management and Scheduling

Aside from the aforementioned technologies, you will also have to use tools for email marketing, internal communication, graphic design creation, file storage, market research and analytics, and outsourcing. Having the right tools can make your business efficient and profitable as a whole.