If used well, the Internet can be a brutal source of income and opportunity. But not everything is a bed of roses: to achieve success with an online project, it is important to feed it day by day and to know how to use the right resources. Do you have an online shop? We explain the eCommerce tools you need to make the leap to success.

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Types of eCommerce tools

If your budget is small, you can start with free eCommerce tools. Although their functions are rather more limited, they will help you to grow, gain experience and learn which aspects of the shop may require financial investment in the future.

Basic tools

You need a website. You may already have it, or you may not. Just in case, here are some possibilities:

Use platforms to create and manage websites. WordPress is one of the most widely used in the world thanks to its free and open source code, extensive plugin library and simple operation. But there is life beyond. For example, Weebly, Webnode o Wix, with their fantastic templates and unique functionalities.

But if you want to create a very small and free online shop, we recommend Jimdo (allows you to sell up to 5 different products) or Mozello (up to 10 products, with multilingual support).

Opt for specific eCommerce platforms or free CMSs, such as WooCommerce or Prestashop, or paid ones, such as Magento or Shopify.

Loyalty tools

As the manager of an online shop, your greatest weapon should be effective and long-lasting communication with your target group. Both to get to it and to keep it:

Lead capture: You can take advantage of tools such as Wish Pond, Leadformly, Hull, Datanyze or Bounce Exchange. The latter detects symptoms that the user is about to leave the website, and tries to catch it just before, for example, by launching a warning.
Social networks. In addition to the many specific functions offered by Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and the other social networks, there are platforms to automate the management of all of them and save a lot of time in the process. For example, Buffer or Hootsuite.
Tests A/B. You can use Google Analytics, which allows up to 10 variations of the same page. And also other tools such as VWO, Adobe Target, Optimizely or Moose. The latter offers a highly segmented comparative test with no version limit.
Email marketing. Newsletters have enormous potential to build customer loyalty and drive traffic to the website. To optimise your profits, it is highly recommended to use eCommerce platforms, for example:

Mailchimp. It has a free plan that allows up to 2.000 subscriptions and up to 12.000 shipments per month. It also allows A/B testing, template design, RSS-to-email, Facebook links, paid subscriptions…
JangoMail. Although its free version only allows you to send a maximum of 200 emails per month, it offers customisable templates, reports…
Campaigner Free. There is no limit to the number of e-mails, but you can send to a maximum of 500 contacts. It allows you to design templates, create email groups, manage contacts, track campaigns…

Shopping cart tools

Customer abandonment before making a purchase is usually due to a negative experience or to failures in the eCommerce portal: buttons that do not work, disabled links, programming errors, connection failures with the payment entity…

Tools are available to monitor this process in order to minimise errors. For example: Cashie and PayPal Buy Now Buttons, which charge a small commission for each sale. Vendio thas a very interesting free plan to get started, and Muncom is basically a shopping cart to create an eCommerce easily and for free.

SEO and SEM tools

Improving your position in the SERPs is essential to attract potential customers to your eCommerce. To do this you can use Google Ads, an SEM tool that indirectly also influences SEO. And others such as:

Woorank: Very complete and useful for carrying out SEO and social media audits, as well as designing personalised marketing plans. The free version lasts 14 days.
Screaming Frog: One of the most complete tools for SEO audits, detecting server errors, duplicate content, broken links… Its free plan allows you to analyse up to 500 pages.

Other alternatives are Mergewords, KeyWord Density Analyzer, WordStream, SEMrush or SEOBook, a powerful pack for tracking your online shop and importing marketing results.

Design tools for eCommerce

In the digital sphere, it is no use having the best products on the market if your website does not appeal to the public through their eyes. We recommend using collaborative design tools such as Invision, accessing communities of designers with Dribbble or creating catalogues for social networks with Instasize.

In terms of photography, you’ll be well on your way if you know Photoshop or PicMonkey. And as for design and illustration, you can start with Canva, useful, simple and intuitive; Notegraphy o Freepik.

If you are adventurous with audiovisual content, After Effects is a great option. And don’t forget to take care of the typography! In this respect, Dafont can help you a lot.

All in all, all of these eCommerce tools can help you achieve success in your online business, as long as you follow a coherent and well-planned strategy.

Although it is true that sometimes creating your own online shop from scratch without any previous knowledge can be a big investment of time. Therefore, we recommend that you consult a professional who can advise you or even do it himself.

At Doowebs we have experience creating and managing websites and especially eCommerce, if you are thinking of setting up your own website and do not know how to do it, please contact us. We will be happy to help you! You can also ask for a quote free of charge and without obligation.