The Beginner’s Guide to SaaS Tools for eCommerce
eCommerce is one of the trickiest businesses to be in. Unlike many other businesses that rely on a specialty in one specific functional area like technology, marketing or logistics, eCommerce requires a mastery in almost all the different functional areas. To compete with the likes of Amazon, an online store has to not only enjoy a sophistical tech infrastructure but also own a state of the art supply chain, customer service and marketing teams.
Although this can be a daunting task for a small business, third-party SaaS apps help bridge the gap between enterprise eCommerce sites and bootstrapped online stores. Therefore, your eCommerce ROI is significantly bolstered by the use of SaaS apps to execute various functions of your business.

1: SaaS to Set Up an eCommerce Website
Getting an eCommerce website up and running is one of the most challenging aspects of the business. The process involves designing a beautiful website that aligns with the industry you are in, creating separate pages for each product in your inventory, integrating your site with payment gateways and making sure that the entire system is safe and secure for your buyers.
Which software can help you do it?
Shopify is, without a doubt, one of the most popular apps. It works great for both small and large businesses and is quite affordable with a starting price of $29 per month. In addition to Shopify, you also have other SaaS apps like. BigCommerce, Volusion, and 3DCart. While Shopify is ranked on top because of its ecosystem of designers and developers that make it possible for you to build beautiful sites for all sizes of businesses, BigCommerce is targeted at the developer community and 3D Cart at large businesses.

2: SaaS for Inventory Management
There are two vital components to logistics — the cost of shipping and the shipping duration. Amazon, for instance, offers free shipping on a number of product categories and some of these also qualify for overnight shipping. This presents a terrific buying experience to customers. As a startup eCommerce store, you may not really have the luxury to offer competitive shipping amenities.
There are however certain SaaS apps that can help you build a sophisticated supply chain network for your eCommerce business. Shopify, for instance, runs a service called Oberlo that allows users to set up partnerships with suppliers to allow them ship products directly to the customer. Called dropshipping, the process can help bring shipping costs down dramatically.

3: SaaS for eCommerce Marketing
The third step in launching an eCommerce store is establishing marketing processes. Online stores typically advertise over two channels — Google Adwords and Facebook Ads that are also integrated with Instagram. If you sell products in an industry like fashion or travel, Instagram is a lucrative channel to find customers.
Nurturing your target audience is a vital aspect of your marketing strategy in eCommerce. Mailing automation tools like MailChimp and Drip have free starter plans that help eCommerce marketers build a list of prospective buyers who they can nurture and convert into paying customers.

In other words, using SaaS apps like MailChimp costs nothing to a startup eCommerce store and is thus a big boost to your ROI.
4: SaaS to Improve Customer Experience
Customer relationship and user experience play a big role in improving the ROI on any eCommerce operation. As we have pointed out earlier in this article, eCommerce marketing relies heavily on nurturing your prospective audience into paying customers. This is a gradual process that involves building a customer relationship by offering a great customer experience.
A study published by eConsultancy found that live chat offered the highest customer satisfaction ratings among all communication methods. According to this report, over 73% of customers expressed satisfaction over live chat compared to just 61% among customers using email and 44% among those who used a phone to talk to the business representative.
Live chat SaaS tools like Tawk.to and Olark offer free starter plans to customers and are best suited for startup eCommerce stores. From a marketing ROI perspective, live chat tools are fantastic for online store businesses. For one, they do not require the same kind of capital investments that phone-based support channels do. Also, with live chat, an agent can converse with multiple customers simultaneously and this improves support productivity. Moreover, live chats increase customer satisfaction and these factors together help improve marketing ROI significantly for eCommerce businesses.

Conclusion
eCommerce is a challenging industry to be in and as the owner of an online store, you will be required to wear multiple hats at the same time. SaaS-based tools discussed in this article can not only help you set up and manage all these various functions with ease, but also bring down the cost of operations thus significantly boosting your ROI.


