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Online Tools to Help You Run Your Ecommerce Business

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By Emily Nelson - August 5, 2022- in Go-Getter Blog

Ecommerce business owners may love the flexibility and unlimited income potential of running an online business, but time is still finite. At some point, you run out of time to scale your online store the way you want while keeping the day-to-day running. 

It’s a common problem, and research shows that roughly 68% of small business owners’ time was spent operating their business, including dealing with day-to-day tasks and putting out fires. However, only 32% of the time was spent growing the business and developing long-term goals.

The good news is you can leverage online tools to help run your ecommerce business and find more time to scale, grow, and profit. Here’s our round-up of tools to help you streamline your process.

CustomCat’s POD Service

We may be biased, but CustomCat’s print-on-demand service is a game changer for online businesses. Upload your designs to our hundreds of products and customize them how you want. With no minimum orders, your business is empowered to sell just a few of one product or scale your ecommerce store into an enterprise business. 

CustomCat also easily integrates into platforms like Shopify, Etsy, BigCommerce, & more. It’s simple to get started as a newbie, or advanced sellers with a software developer can maximize our CustomCat API for the ultimate flexibility. 

Learn more about CustomCat’s POD integrations here

Design

Canva

Canva’s free tools are user-friendly enough for beginners but sophisticated enough to create professional-looking designs. Upload your product images into Canva to overlay text and design elements. Or create your own social media templates and Pinterest pins to help promote your business. 

If you work with a team, Canva allows real-time collaboration and real-time comments. They also make it easy to schedule social media content right from their software, so you don’t have to bounce around to other tools. Or you can upgrade to a premium version to access stock photos, videos, audio, and graphics in one place.

Unfold

Unfold is a tool for storytellers. With Unfold you can tell a visually appealing story of your brand ready to be shared on social networks within a few minutes.

Magisto

Magisto creates social media videos with just a few clicks. No editing skills are necessary. Magisto analyzes video and audio, and groups the important footage and audio together into share-worthy videos.

Instasize

Offering both free and paid versions, you can edit videos and photos on the go, using professionally designed filters, borders, and even beauty editing tools.

Figma

Design, prototype and collaborate efficiently on all your designs with this workflow tool. Sync up layouts, colors, fonts, and teams in one place.

Products & Mockups

Zakeke

The Zakeke tool allows shoppers to create their own designs on products through a powerful, easy-to-use product customizer.

Placeit

Placeit is a tool that brings your designs to life. It transforms your designs into high-quality mockups that you can use for your own marketing.

SmartMockups

Visuals are everything, sell more products with visually appealing mockup images.

Social Media

Planoly

If you’re trying to scale your social media presence, you need an online tool like Planoly. The platform helps you plan and schedule content across Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. It’s also helpful if you want to work with influencers to promote content or promotions for your online store. Unlike other tools, you can visually see what you’re posting on your Instagram feed before making it live.

Later

Print on demand ecommerce is primarily visually oriented, Later is an easy to use scheduling platform for Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and LinkedIn. With Later you won’t ever have to miss an occasion.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite has modified their software to support companies in reaching customers more effectively across social media platforms, enhancing customer support and gaining deeper analytics and consumer insights.

Email

MailChimp

Mailchimp’s email marketing platform helps automate your marketing services and manage your email list. You can create your own templates, design campaigns, automate responses, and send your customers and leads through a nurturing sequence leading up to your next sale. 

MailChimp also makes it simple to batch your email marketing tasks together. Set up campaigns for a month in an afternoon and schedule them to deploy when you need them to hit your customers’ inboxes. 

For Team

Trello

Whether you have a dedicated project manager or are doing it on your end, Trello saves tons of time while keeping your business organized. The tool creates Kanban-style boards that are ideal for list makers at heart. Create cards for your board and assign them to team members as needed. For example, you can create a card to remind yourself to contact a new vendor or pay an invoice and set a date that notifies you. 

HelloSign

HelloSign takes the pain out of signing documents and contracts online. Upload your document, set a legally binding e-signature and fill in dates or text. HelloSign will also email anyone you list to notify them to sign. It also works well for tax documents and other legal matters you need to send to your CPA, bookkeeper, accountant, or lawyer.

QuickBooks

Every ecommerce business needs a straightforward bookkeeping solution to stay organized. QuickBooks Commerce centralizes orders and inventory to your dashboard and shows the status of all your orders and sales channels. In a nutshell, your sales and inventory data are integrated together so you can make more objective decisions about your business and see the moving financial pieces from one location.

SEO

Zapier

If you do the same tasks over and over again, your business would benefit from Zapier. The tool works across 5,000 apps that help with everything from marketing to ecommerce. Zapier estimates they save its users an average of four hours a week.

Zapier uses “zaps” to create triggers from events you specify. For example, if you use Trello for project management, you can make a Zap to create new cards from every Shopify order. There’s also an automation to post failed PayPal charges to alert you on Slack, add new Shopify customers to a Mailchimp list, and get email notifications for new Stripe customers. 

Answer The Public

Answer The Public is one of the best tools to search for content ideas for blog posts. Find out what’s trending in just a few seconds.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a must-have tool for every online seller. It gives you a direct look at your website. Find out all the good deeds as to why and when people are coming to your website, and when they are leaving.

Other

Smile.io

One of the most effective ways to entice repeat business is by offering a loyalty program that ecommerce shoppers love. Smile.io motivates customers to make more purchases, follow your store on social media, and refer friends. You can extend points, perks, and exclusives to different tiers on your list. Smile.io also integrates with Mailchimp, Shopify, Wix, and other online tools that help keep your business running.

Shopify Free Tools

One of the benefits of Shopify is how many creator tools, apps, and integrations it offers. You can launch an email marketing campaign, check your inventory, or automatically prompt users to complete purchases from their abandoned shopping carts. Shopify has an app or plugin for just about everything–including CustomCat.

Get dozens of free tools to help your business grow quickly. Here are just some of the few to take advantage of:

  • Logo Maker
  • Business Name Generator
  • Slogan Maker
  • Pay Stub Generator
  • QR Code Generator
  • Terms and Conditions Generator
  • Business Card Maker

 

What are your favorite online tools for running your ecommerce business? Let us know by leaving a comment!

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