The success of an online project depends not only on quality products. A huge role is played by the business model, which will be established before the launch of the project.
Creating a website, developing a project, launching it, marketing it, defining an effective advertising campaign, creating an interesting to users content - a difficult work that the owners have to complete. Typically, offline trading requires a large staff to complete all of these tasks. In eCommerce, 2-3 people can do all this with the help of specialized services and programs.
Reasons you need reliable services for eCommerce:
- Reduced staff costs
- Ability to independently implement interesting and useful business tools: analytics, sales management, etc.
- Easier to understand the work of eCommerce and digital marketing from the inside and better control of employees
- Easier to collect analytics, make plans and develop your website in the direction where there is the greatest profit.
The Wiremo team prepared the best services and tools for eCommerce, which are necessary both at the start of the online store and for its successful development.
Website creation tools
It is very important for eCommerce to have a flexible website with many features. Therefore, we recommend that anyone who is considering entering online trade to use platforms for creating online stores. Such a website can be built independently without the involvement of programmers and lower business entrance threshold.
Squarespace - a simple and thoughtful website builder that offers ample opportunities for creating online stores of various kinds. A distinctive feature of the Squarespace website builder is the ability to integrate with third-party platforms. This simplifies the work of moving stores, databases, etc. Absolutely any person will master the logic of creating a Squarespace eCommerce website, even if you have never encountered such platforms.
WooCommerce - a WordPress plugin that after installation allows you to turn a WordPress information website into a fully functional eCommerce platform. This is an intuitive system that can be supplemented with various functions to create an eCommerce store that really has no restrictions by making necessary settings, choosing an appropriate design, and content option. This system is somewhat more complicated than Squarespace, but it can also be mastered in a few days.
Shopify - a platform for creating online stores with great features. Key benefits of the service:
- abundance of built-in functions;
- simple to work with the catalog;
- ability to adjust the store for any type of product;
- ability to optimize, configure various reports.
Each platform has not only convenient basic settings but also many additional. Modules that connect as needed. Thus, we could not pass these systems and made Wiremo plugins and apps that quickly integrate with Squarespace, Shopify and WooCommerce, so working with online stores is even easier and more efficient.
Business tools
Once you have opened an online store, you need to monitor employees and work processes, track cash flows, monitor balances and monitor day-to-day operations. For this you need effective business tools. With their help, you will not miss a single important task and will always be up to date with what your employees are doing, even if they work remotely.
Shipping Easy - a very convenient platform for automating delivery and logistics management at all stages. It can be integrated into any content management system. You can manage customers, stocks, track balances and more. In addition, you will always have access to the best delivery rates to any country.
Zoho Projects - a system of planning, collaboration and tracking. It helps small online stores and large-scale projects organize high-quality team work, create task lists, plans and receive reports and schedules for their implementation. Employees and non-staff personnel have constant access to documents, spreadsheets, presentations. All reports can be exported in PDF, XLS, CSV. There is also a very convenient module in the program for time tracking, which can be used to easily calculate salaries.
Salesforce – a CRM number 1, which has about 20% market share. It provides extensive management and control capabilities for eCommerce. Everything you need for a full-fledged work is brought together here. This includes mailing, analysis of sales, profit accounting, a messenger for customer support, and much more.
Marketing tools
There is already competition in all niches of eCommerce, budgets are limited, and customers are smarter. Now, in order to survive and succeed, you need to clearly monitor all the processes of the online store. You need to understand whether you are on the right track and make quick decisions about what needs to be changed when necessary. Thousands of new online stores around the world are launched monthly. Statistics say that only 15% percent will survive in a best-case scenario. Your goal - not to be on the list of the remaining 85%.
For this, we prepared a set of tools that will help you analyze the work more easily and implement additional marketing techniques in website promotion.
MailChimp - an essential tool for E-mail newsletters. If you work in B2B segment, E-mail newsletters are the foundation of online business. But even for B2B, this is a very important service. Your customers will always be up to date with all the new products, discounts, and other information.
Buffer - a service of pending posts for social networks. It is especially relevant for online stores that have several Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter accounts. The application allows you to pre-plan the publication of posts. You create a post with the desired text and media and assign a release date. At the indicated time, the post will appear on your page, and the program will collect statistics on it (number of likes, comments). If you want to develop your social networks and always keep abreast, this is an indispensable tool.
Wiremo - a platform of independent reviews on your website. This marketing tool performs several tasks at once.
- Improves SEO and increases the number of keywords by which your online store is ranked in Google
- Imports reviews of real people from social networks to your website, increasing confidence in it
- Increases the number of repeat purchases and helps to build a steady flow of customers
- Improves website interaction
We believe that Wiremo is one of the best solutions on the market because it easily integrates into any CMS: Squarespace, Shopify and WooCommerce without the involvement of programmers. This service has many features that are necessary at each stage of the online store.
Research and Analysis Tools
Before working on marketing, you must clearly understand what you want to achieve from each channel. You install KPI on each marketing tool and must control the results by redistributing the budget to more effective channels. To track the results of your work or the work of your marketers, the following services can be useful to you:
Google Analytics - a service for a detailed analysis of website traffic. The distinctiveness of the project is that it is suitable for both single-page services and online stores with a complex multi-level structure. No special skills are required to use Google Analytics. Therefore, even a novice businessman can monitor the effectiveness of a project with its help. In addition, based on the data obtained, you can set up better advertising campaigns, identify your target audience and understand who and when visits the website.
SEMrush – this service allows you to analyze your website in terms of marketing and promotion. It makes it possible to analyze the visibility of the website for different requests, to see the full picture of the changes in the long term. With it, you can not only monitor your own development but also the accomplishments of your competitors. It gives a complete picture of the work of your competitors and you can adopt something interesting from them.
Mixpanel - a convenient tool for analyzing the target audience. Unlike Google Analytics, it allows you to segment buyers and website visitors more accurately. A set of metrics will help you set up funnels, send letters or messages to mobile devices and track their effectiveness.
The development of an online store is a complex process that requires constant attention to many details. When planning to do everything manually, you will not achieve fast and high-quality results. In order to achieve your goal, use all the features, the functionality of services and various programs. Then, you will be one step ahead of those who are trying to do everything manually or with the help of large teams, investing a lot of money.
