eCommerce tools are software created to help enhance and maintain a website’s functionality and capabilities. It can include systems like apps, platforms, and plug-ins that help businesses manage their online stores and create a better customer shopping experience.
If you can offer a smooth shopping experience for your customers, you’re more likely to see an increase in conversation rates. However, with the many available tools, which is best for your business?
Based on the most talked about and best-reviewed eCommerce tools out there, as well as chatting to some of our industry friends, we’ve created a list to consider that fits into the following categories:
– Tools to build and host an online store
– Process and website optimisation tools
– Reporting and analytics tools
– SEO tools
eCommerce store platforms:
Before thinking of other tools that could make your online store a success, choosing the right eCommerce platform first is important. An eCommerce platform is a content management system (CMS) and commerce engine, including core business functions, such as managing products, registering purchases, and managing user relationships.
Some of the best tried and tested eCommerce platforms include:
Shopify: Shopify is an eCommerce platform that unifies all of a store’s commerce into one place. Shopify offers impressive features, including paid and free themes, marketing tools, SEO and analytics tools, a shopping cart with 100 payment gateways, and multi-channel selling.
Wix: Wix is an online platform that offers a series of tools for creating professional websites in a quick and easy way. The main features of Wix include its cloud platform, Wix templates, it’s versatility, hosting capacity, and its easy to use interface.
BigCommerce: BigCommerce offers some diverse advantages, including its easy usage, aesthetically pleasing design options, various payment methods and currencies, smart solutions, robust security, and the ability to use the Syncee application.
WooCommerce: WooCommerce helps business owners create a store specific to the available products. Advantages of using this eCommerce platform include its product flexibility, customisation options, secure gateways, and its interactive community (including advanced WooCommerce and support forums).
Squarespace: Squarespace is a hosted solution, meaning that it runs on its own servers, and you don’t have to pay for hosting services to use it. According to the platform’s reviews, its advantages include its ease of use, the templates and aesthetics available, customisability, efficiency, SEO and marketing tools, extensions, analytics, and security and reliability benefits.
Process and optimisation tools:
Now you’ve selected your eCommerce platform, it’s time to think about optimising your website to suit your business needs and the most appropriate processes. This includes considering factors such as personalisation, customer service, merchandising, and shopper experience.
Salesfire: Salesfire is a Conversation Rate Optimisation (CRO) platform that offers intelligent personalisation and onsite search solutions. Salesfire aims to underpin every touchpoint of your customer journey to create a seamlessly personalised experience by engaging customers at pivotal moments of their buying journey to increase sales, conversions and revenue. The platform offers various plug-and-play solutions, including search, overlays, visually similar, recommendations, and digital assistants.
Segmentify: Segmentify is an eCommerce personalisation platform supported by Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to increase conversion rates and online revenue. Segmetify shares the six ways AI benefits eCommerce businesses through using its platform, including virtual assistants and voice commerce, eCommerce personalisation, searchandising (smart search), eCommerce automation, retargeting potential customers, and efficient sales process with customer relationship management (CRM).
Klevu: Klevu is a search and discovery platform aimed at powering the navigation experience of online retailers by leveraging advanced semantic search, natural language processing, merchandising, and multi-lingual capabilities, ensuring customers can find exactly what they’re looking for, regardless of query complexity.
Rebuy Engine: Rebuy Engine is another personalise tool that uses AI and predictive machine learning to analyse a store’s sales data and customers’ purchasing behaviour to increase sales with upsells, cross-sells, and follow-ups automatically. Its omnichannel personalisation solutions include intelligent personalisation, product recommendations, automated retention, marketing links, Shopify script editor, and reporting and analytics.
Gorgias: Gorgias is a help desk designed for eCommerce stores, providing multichannel customer service from a single app. The platform allows businesses to centralise customer interactions across email, social media, live chat, voice, and SMS.
Analytics and reporting tools:
By implementing an eCommerce analytics tool, online stores will be able to make informed decisions that could potentially increase sales and reduce costs.
Google Analytics: Google Analytics is a powerful tool used as an industry standard for website tracking and measurement for years; and bonus, it’s free! The latest version of Google Analytics, GA4, offers some advantageous features for eCommerce businesses. Some benefits of using GA4 for an eCommerce store include:
– Easy to use and navigate
– Seamless integration with Google Ads
– Predictive insights into how customers interact with your online store
– Ability to identify unique users across all devices
– Power to track mobile app events and conversions
– Design custom funnels
– Cross-domain tracking setup
– Reporting features that allow businesses to track sales performance over time and compare to industry benchmarks
Sweet Analytics: Sweet Analytics combines your customers, product, marketing, and browsing data within a single platform to allow business owners to take control of marketing. Features available with Sweet include:
– Customer data
– AI and machine learning
– Marketing integrations/connectors
– Marketing attribution
– User behaviour analysis
– Growth mode forecasting
Hotjar: Hotjar is a UX product experience insights tool that gives online stores gives insights into behaviour analytics and feedback data. Hotjar supports business owners in empathising with their customers through tools such as heatmaps, session recordings, surveys, and a feedback widget. Some reasons to use Hotjar for your website include:
– Clear and visual data points about what’s happening on your site
– Helps you get some of the contexts about why customers behave as they do
– Gives immediate product experience insights
SEO tools:
SEO tools are a great way to understand how your eCommerce store is performing and to highlight any areas for improvement or growth.
- SERanking: SERanking is a basic all-in-one SEO tool ideal for smaller eCommerce businesses. Its top features include:
– Keyword research
– Backlink analysis
– Keyword ranking tracking
– Competitive analysis
– Site audit
SEMRush: SEMRush is known for being an all-rounder, as it offers its users a wealth of features such as:
– Keyword research
– On-page SEO
– Competitor analysis and PR monitoring
– Market analysis
– Content marketing, creation, optimisation, distribution, and analytics
– Local SEO
– Ranking tracking
– Social media management
– Link building
– Paid advertising
– PPC keyword research
– Website monetisation
Ahrefs: Ahrefs is a great tool that can support eCommerce stores with keyword research, competitors analysis, link building, content creation, and full site audits. Key features of Ahrefs include:
– A content explorer tool which allows businesses to discover top-performing content in your industry and to find relevant link prospects
– The ability to track key metrics such as health score, domain rating, referring domains and backlinks, and organic traffic and keywords
– The power to compare your website performance with others in the industry
Moz: Moz is one of the top eCommerce SEO tools available. If you’re in the SEO space and you haven’t heard of Moz, where have you been? It gives users access to a plethora of research tools and resources that eCommerce businesses can use to understand their SEO and inbound marketing as a whole. Some of its SEO solutions include:
– Domain analysis
– Keyword explorer
– Link explorer
– Competitive research
Final thoughts
Whether you’re just starting up your eCommerce business or you’ve had your store for years, it’s essential to understand the role that eCommerce tools play in the success of your online store.
By implementing the right eCommerce tools for your business, you can streamline, organise and automate the processes of running and growing an eCommerce shop.
If you’re an eCommerce business and have no idea where to start with what tools to implement, get in touch with the Wild PR team to see how we can help you better understand how to grow your eCommerce brand.
For more insight on raising your online visibility and brand profile, check out our news section and portfolio for recent results and advice.
Written by: Mollie Thorpe, Junior PR Account Manager – Wild PR
Published date: 28th April 2023