21 Ecommerce Apps & Tools That Every Small-Medium Online Store Must Know

Even the best tools mean nothing with a poor master. An intelligent master without powerful tools can’t do much.

An intelligent master with powerful tools can accomplish everything.

Ecommerce is shaping fast and we must be up-to-date in the market. Having the best ecommerce apps & tools optimized to work with each other can lead to an ecommerce success formula. I’ve selected some of the best apps and tools small-medium ecommerce sites should use. The majority of them are used by myself in my ecommerce businesses or was recommended by my customers, and some others are carefully examined.

(disclosure: we don’t receive any affiliate or other benefits from these providers. They are selected according to market reviews, usage and my own experience.)

Team Communication & Productivity

1. Trello - free, flexible, and visual way to organize anything with anyone. Drop the lengthy email threads, out-of-date spreadsheets, no-longer-so-sticky notes, and clunky software for managing your projects. Trello lets you see everything about your project in a single glance.
2. TrackingTime - task-based time tracking. It will help you to track your work and analyze where you spend it. We personally love to have Sunday-Productivity days revising what we’ve done well and deciding where our time could be managed better.
3. TrackDuck - visual feedback for web design and development. I love TrackDuck because it’s easy: you just hit the area on website which should be improved, add a comment and the other person (designer, developer etc) sees all the feedback live on the website.

Marketing

1. Soundest - create email campaigns with soundest, an email marketing platform for ecommerce. Responsive newsletters, customer segmentation, email automation etc. They also offer 15000 emails/month for free.
2. AdRoll - their retargeting is the only unified platform that helps you reach customers intelligently across devices on Facebook, Twitter, Apple iAd, and millions of websites.
3. Ometria - it combines predictive software and ecommerce marketing expertise to help you build a data-driven customer acquisition and retention strategy and drive additional revenues.
4. SweetToothRewards - it allows online retailers to create their own points-based loyalty program.
5. BuySellAds - guaranteed media buying of relevant audiences at scale. If you know your audience, just find the website where they hang out and show them your ads.
6. Yotpo - it is a customer content marketing platform that generates reviews, social Q&A & rich media to drive traffic.

Shipping

1. Shipwire - it provides order fulfillment services through a powerful SaaS platform from fulfillment centers around the globe. In brief, sell to any country and Shipwire will do the rest.
2. AfterShip - it helps you auto track all your shipments from UPS, USPS, Fedex and 120+ other couriers. It can even display tracking results on your store website and notify customers when the shipment is in transit, out for delivery, and delivered.

Product Supply

1. Maker’s Row - this platform enables brands to find manufacturers to create products in the United States.
2. ThomasNet - supplier discovery platform that connects buyers and engineers with 700,000+ North American manufacturers, machine shops, and distributors.

Dropshipping

1. WorldWideBrands - one of the oldest and best-known drop-shipping supplier directories. They say that it only includes suppliers that meet a set of guidelines to ensure legitimate, quality wholesalers.
2. Doba - the ultimate drop-shipping marketplace for wholesale suppliers and online retailers to connect their products with customers.

Website Usability

1. SearchNode - smart plug & play search for small-medium online stores. It helps visitors to find products easily and increases sales. Features include autocomplete, spellcheck and others. Gives a great search experience and conversion rate. (disclosure: I am the CEO of the company)
2. Unbounce - build, publish and A/B test landing pages with no I.T. knowledge.
3. Nosto - deliver personalized shopping experiences to your customers — wherever they are.

Outsourcing

1. ReplaceMyself - The Philippines is one of best places for outsourcing. Imagine what you could accomplish with intelligent English speaking-workers at a wage of $250/month, full-time (they work only for you).
2. UpWork - find freelancers to tackle any job, any size, any time.

Conclusion

Select relevant apps and tools for your online store and boost your business.

An intelligent master with powerful tools can accomplish almost anything.

Originally published at searchnode.net on January 21, 2016.