Running an online store can be challenging, but with the right tools, you can make it a lot easier. From building your website to managing marketing and shipping, the right ecommerce tools can help you streamline operations and boost sales. In this article, we will look at the top 10 ecommerce tools you should be using right now to take your online business to the next level.
Key Takeaways
- Shopify is a leading ecommerce platform that makes it easy to build and manage your online store.
- WooCommerce is a flexible and customizable plugin for WordPress that turns your site into a powerful ecommerce store.
- BigCommerce offers robust features for product marketing and SEO, making it a top choice for growing businesses.
- Omnisend is an excellent tool for omnichannel marketing, helping you reach customers through multiple channels.
- ShipStation simplifies the shipping process, making it easier to manage orders and deliveries.
1. Shopify
Shopify is a powerful all-in-one tool that helps businesses establish a strong online presence. It’s accessible enough to make it easy for beginners to set up or move their business online. Shopify’s features include storefront design and customization, store management, marketing and SEO, and analytics. Furthermore, Shopify stores are designed to be mobile commerce ready with a built-in mobile commerce shopping cart. This feature lets your customers browse and make a purchase using their mobile devices.
Aside from letting you create an e-commerce website, Shopify also offers a range of solutions for businesses at different stages. For new e-commerce businesses, it gives access to branding tools for building your brand. Once you’re ready to start selling, find apps to help you sell online or use Shopify Checkout for seamless one-click checkouts.
For businesses looking to retain and nurture customers, Shopify offers tools for integrated marketing, customer engagement, and customer segmentation. This e-commerce tool also has solutions that can help you manage and scale your business more effectively, such as Shopify Shipping and the Shopify Fulfillment Network.
Key Features:
- Detailed analytics and marketing reports
- Unlimited products and bandwidth
- Fraud analysis
- Add brand assets
- Manual order creation
Channels:
- Online marketplaces like Amazon
- Social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok
- Email and SMS (Shopify Starter)
Pricing:
For new e-commerce businesses, Shopify offers the Basic Shopify plan, which starts at $29 per month, billed annually. It also offers Shopify Lite, a plan designed for merchants who are planning to sell in-person or add a “Buy” button to their website. It starts at $9 a month. It’s worth noting that you can’t build an online store using Shopify Lite. For $5 per month, you can access Shopify’s Starter plan, which lets you quickly build a simple e-commerce store and promote your products across social media channels or other channels that let you share a link to your products.
Shopify is a leading ecommerce platform that empowers anyone to sell online, sell at a brick-and-mortar store, or anything in between. The platform offers a professional online storefront, payment solutions, and a POS application to power retail sales.
2. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a powerful, open-source eCommerce plugin for WordPress, ideal for medium-sized businesses to large enterprises. It allows you to transform any WordPress site into a fully functional online store. WooCommerce is free to add to any WordPress site, but you may need to pay for hosting, domain, and other services.
WooCommerce offers a high level of customization with its extensive range of extensions. You can sell products, accept bookings, and even manage subscriptions. The platform supports multiple payment gateways and provides a seamless ordering system.
Key Features:
- Extensive documentation for user guidance
- Multi-currency and multilingual content support
- Option to add Jetpack tool for improved security and access to tax and shipping services
- Allows customers to create in-store accounts
WooCommerce also integrates with various sales channels like Google Shopping, Etsy, Pinterest, Facebook, and Google Ads. This makes it easier to reach a broader audience and boost your sales.
WooCommerce is the best e-commerce solution for those who are looking to build and manage a highly customizable and versatile online store.
While WooCommerce is free, the costs for additional plugins and services can add up. However, this also means you have more control over your budget, allowing you to choose only the features you need.
Service and Support:
Support for WooCommerce is mainly through documentation and community forums. For more specialized help, you can hire a WooExpert, which costs around $90 per hour.
Pros & Cons:
Pros:
- Free to use
- Highly customizable
- Supports multiple payment gateways
- Extensive range of extensions
Cons:
- Requires separate hosting and domain
- Steep learning curve for new users
- Additional plugins can be costly
3. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a cloud-based ecommerce platform that allows businesses to create their own customized online stores. It offers a range of features such as integrated payment processing, built-in marketing tools, SEO tools, and analytics capabilities.
Why Choose BigCommerce: BigCommerce provides powerful marketing tools that help users promote their products or services more effectively online. It includes built-in email marketing functionality, enabling users to send out promotional campaigns directly from the platform. Additionally, it supports loyalty programs, allowing businesses to reward customers for repeat purchases or referrals. Features like coupons and discounts make it easy for businesses to boost sales by offering incentives to customers.
Standout Features & Integrations
BigCommerce offers a variety of standout features, including:
- Customizable templates
- Built-in SEO
- Marketing tools
- Shipping & fulfillment
- Inventory management
- Reporting features
- Mobile-friendly design
- Responsive checkout
- Multiple payment gateway options
- Extensive third-party integrations
- 24/7 customer support
Integrations include popular tools like LiveChat, ShipStation, Mailchimp, Quickbooks Online, Yotpo Product Reviews, and many more.
Key Features
BigCommerce is known for its robust tools for ecommerce, including:
- Almost 100% uptime
- Multi-storefront management using the BigCommerce dashboard
- Robust security features, including ISO/IEC 27001:2013 and PCI DSS 3.2
- Open APIs
- Multi-currency and multi-language support
- Cross-border fulfillment capabilities
- Sales tax automation via the built-in Avalara AvaTax software
Channels
BigCommerce supports a wide range of enterprise integrations and ecommerce apps, including sales channels like:
- TikTok
- Microsoft Ads and Listings
- Mercado Libre
- ChannelAdvisor
- Omnipro
Pricing
BigCommerce offers several pricing plans, billed annually:
- Standard: $29/month
- Plus: $79/month
- Pro: $299/month
- Enterprise: Contact BigCommerce sales for custom pricing
BigCommerce is a large-scale ecommerce platform that helps provide software services to retailers. It helps build online stores, optimize your store for SEO, and provide marketing services for businesses of all sizes.
BigCommerce is an excellent choice for businesses looking to build enterprise-level commerce websites. Its feature-rich platform and extensive integrations make it a smart way to scale your business.
4. Omnisend
Omnisend is a powerful tool for e-commerce marketing automation. It helps you not only with email campaigns but also with improving newsletters, boosting sales, and reducing cart abandonment. Omnisend’s automation features make it a top choice for e-commerce marketers.
Key Features
- On-brand email creation with templates and a drag-and-drop builder
- Pre-built automation workflows
- Segmentation capabilities
- Customizable forms compliant with TCPA and GDPR
- Comprehensive campaign and automation reports
Channels Supported
- SMS
- Web push notifications
- Google Customer Match
- Facebook Custom Audiences
Pricing
Omnisend offers a free plan, with paid plans starting at $16 per month for the Standard plan, which covers up to 500 contacts.
Omnisend is best for e-commerce marketers looking to streamline their marketing efforts across multiple channels.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- SMS marketing integration
- Contact sync for ads
- E-commerce integrations
Cons:
- No RSS feature, limiting blog connectivity
- Support can be slow
- Unlimited email sends only in the Pro plan
Ratings
| Feature | Rating |
|---|---|
| Features | 3.8 |
| Ease of Use | 4.7 |
| Support | 4.7 |
| Overall Score | 4.4 |
Omnisend is an excellent choice for e-commerce businesses looking to enhance their marketing automation and reach customers through multiple channels.
5. ShipStation
ShipStation is a powerful tool designed to streamline the ecommerce shipping process. One of its standout features is the ability to manage inventory and orders in one place. This can save you a lot of time and effort.
ShipStation integrates with many popular platforms, including Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Etsy. This makes it easy to connect your online store and start shipping right away.
Some key features of ShipStation include:
- Real-time inventory tracking
- Batch processing of orders
- Rate comparison tool
- Branded shipping labels and packing slips
- Multi-carrier shipping options
With ShipStation, you can handle all your shipping needs from a single dashboard, making your ecommerce operations more efficient.
If you’re looking for a reliable shipping solution that offers seamless integration with your ecommerce platform, ShipStation is definitely worth considering.
6. EngageBay
EngageBay is an all-in-one ecommerce tool designed to help businesses manage CRM, marketing, and sales. It’s perfect for small businesses and startups looking to grow quickly. With EngageBay, you can automate marketing tasks, manage customer relationships, and even provide customer support through live chat.
Key Features
- Marketing and sales automation
- Customer service capabilities
- 360-degree customer view
- Easy-to-use CMS
Channels
EngageBay supports multichannel campaign management, including:
- Websites
- Social media
- Direct mail
Pricing
EngageBay offers a free plan, and its all-in-one Basic plan starts at $12.74 per user per month when billed biennially. If you only need specific services like CRM and Sales Bay, the Basic plan starts at $11.04 per user per month when billed biennially.
Ratings
- Features: 4.0
- Ease of Use: 4.6
- Support: 4.9
EngageBay is a simple and affordable solution that has everything small businesses need to convert visitors into happy customers. With tools like marketing automation, help desk, and live chat, businesses can scale faster and more efficiently.
Standout Features & Integrations
EngageBay includes features like calendar management, contact management, conversion tracking, customer management, data export and import, data visualizations, external integrations, marketing automation, multi-currency, multi-user, password & access management, referral tracking, task scheduling/tracking, customer data forms, sales motivators, sales proposals, landing pages, pipeline management, A/B testing, API, chat, lead scoring, project management, call tracking, click-to-dial, sales automation, and ticket management.
Integrations include Stripe, Zapier, Xero, QuickBooks, and RingCentral.
7. Chargebee
Chargebee is a top choice for ecommerce businesses that rely on subscription-based billing. It allows you to automate subscription box billing and streamline order management. With Chargebee, you can handle subscriptions, billing, and payments in over 30 countries.
Chargebee offers a 14-day free trial and has plans starting from $249 per month. It supports 480+ recurring billing use cases, ensuring you can manage billing processes no matter what the future holds. You can set up automatic subscriptions, free trial periods, and even create unique monetization models to fit your product specifications.
Key Features
- 2-factor authentication
- Accounts receivable
- Billing/invoice
- Calendar management
- Data export and import
- External integrations
- Multi-currency
- Notifications
- Third-party plugins/add-ons
- API
- CRM integration
- Dashboards
- Multi-user
- Tax management
Integrations
Chargebee integrates with a wide range of platforms, including:
- PayPal
- Stripe
- Microsoft Dynamics GP
- Zoho CRM
- BigCommerce
- Google Analytics
- Mailchimp
- Refersion
- Avalara
- Slack
- GetAccept
- Shipstation
- Salesforce
- Friendbuy
- FirstPromoter
- ChartMogul
- ReferralCandy
- Xero
- QuickBooks Online
- ProfitWell
- PieSync
- TaxJar
- Baremtrics
- Sage Intacct
- Moxtra
- LeadDyno
- Freshdesk
- Intercom
- Zendesk
- HubSpot
- Groove
- Active Campaign
- Pipedrive
- Stitch
- Natero
- Klaviyo
Chargebee’s design and auto-billing and invoice-generating system make it easy to integrate and manage multiple webhook calls, which is a big plus for many users.
Chargebee is a reliable tool for managing your subscription-based ecommerce business, offering flexibility and a wide range of integrations to streamline your operations.
8. Funnel
Funnel is a top choice for omnichannel marketing data analytics. It helps you gather data from various sales and marketing channels and keeps it in one place for easy analysis. Funnel is perfect for businesses that need to track and analyze data from multiple sources.
Key Features
- Analytics and conversion tracking
- Dashboards for data visualization
- Data import and export
- Multi-site and social media integrations
- API for custom integrations
- Customer management
- Forecasting and referral tracking
Integrations
Funnel works with many tools, including:
- Google BigQuery
- Amazon Redshift
- Google Data Studio
- Google Analytics
- Adobe Analytics
- Facebook Ads
- Shopify
Why Choose Funnel?
Funnel lets you automatically collect and analyze marketing data from different sources, not just from your ecommerce website but also from social media accounts. This helps you create effective email marketing campaigns. You can segment data into useful categories like the number of products sold or new customers. It also has automatic currency conversion, making it easier to understand revenue from customers in different countries.
Funnel stores data from up to two years back, ensuring you have historical data available for comparison and reporting purposes.
Pricing
- Free trial available
- Pricing upon request
Rating
- 4.5/5
If you’re looking for the best sales funnel software to use in 2024, Funnel should be on your list. It combines sales and advertising data to help you determine conversion and ROI rates. You can channel data to your preferred reporting tool to develop reports that your team can easily understand.
9. Aircall
Aircall is a cloud-based call center solution designed to help with your sales and customer support needs. It connects to your ecommerce platform to automatically display customer details when the phone rings, giving you a better idea of who you are talking to. This feature ensures that customers get routed to the correct department, preventing frustration and speeding up issue resolution.
Standout Features & Integrations
Aircall offers a variety of features including:
- API
- Contact management
- CRM management
- Dashboards
- Data import and export
- Multi-user support
- Scheduling
- Third-party plugins/add-ons
- Call disposition
- Mobile app
- Auto dialer
- Analytics
- Batch permissions & access
- Contact sharing
- Data visualizations
- External integrations
- Lead management
- Notifications
- Call recording
- Call tracking
- Call logging
Aircall integrates with numerous tools such as ActiveCampaign, HubSpot, Salesforce, Freshdesk, Odoo CRM, Intercom, Appy Pie Connect, Avoma, Bao, BigCommerce, BigID.me, Bloobirds, Callingly, Copper, eDesk, EvaluAgent, Front, Gmail, HappyFox, Help Scout, Kustomer, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Teams, monday.com, Pipedrive, and more.
Aircall is the best software for ecommerce platforms that rely on outbound calls to boost sales. It eliminates time-consuming tasks like logging calls so your team can focus on generating sales or helping customers with their concerns.
Pricing
- 7-day free trial
- From $30/user/month (billed annually)
Why Choose Aircall?
Aircall automatically assigns leads to team members, helping you capitalize on all your leads. It also supports call monitoring so team leaders can provide assistance and feedback to help new agents improve. The software eliminates manual dialing, saving your team valuable time.
10. Bazaarvoice
Bazaarvoice is a top-notch tool for managing product reviews in ecommerce. It helps you gather and manage customer reviews and ratings to find out which products your customers love. By analyzing these reviews, you can make your ecommerce site better and give users a great experience.
Key Features
- API
- Dashboards
- External integrations
- Customer support
- Review management
- Notifications
Integrations
Bazaarvoice works well with many other tools, including:
- Adobe Analytics
- Google Analytics
- Salesforce Commerce Cloud
- Magento
- IBM WebSphere Commerce
- SAP
Using Bazaarvoice, you can also highlight selected customer reviews on your ecommerce website to inspire other customers toward a purchasing decision.
Additionally, you can integrate social media content from TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest influencers to boost interest in your products. Bazaarvoice also lets you launch sampling programs that allow customers to try new products and drive user-generated content.
Conclusion
In today’s fast-paced online world, having the right ecommerce tools can make all the difference. From shipping and marketing to customer service and analytics, these tools help you run your store smoothly and efficiently. By choosing the best tools for your needs, you can save time, reduce stress, and focus on growing your business. Remember, the right tools are out there—you just need to find the ones that fit your goals. So, take the time to explore, test, and implement these top ecommerce tools to give your online store the boost it deserves.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Shopify?
Shopify is an eCommerce platform that lets you create and customize an online store. It also helps you manage products, payments, and shipping.
How does WooCommerce work?
WooCommerce is a plugin for WordPress that turns your website into a fully functional online store. It offers various features for product management, payment processing, and more.
What makes BigCommerce a good choice?
BigCommerce is known for its robust features that help with product marketing and SEO. It’s a great option for businesses looking to scale.
Why should I use Omnisend?
Omnisend is perfect for omnichannel marketing. It helps you reach customers through multiple channels like email, SMS, and social media.
What is ShipStation used for?
ShipStation is a tool that simplifies the shipping process. It integrates with various carriers and platforms to streamline order fulfillment.
Can EngageBay improve my landing pages?
Yes, EngageBay is great for creating responsive landing pages. It offers various templates and customization options to help you capture leads effectively.