ECommerce Tools That Will Get Your Business Online
People with the entrepreneurial spirit come up with great ideas, but then sometimes encounter technological and psychological barriers that stop them implementing these ideas. You may have turned your enthusiasm to eCommerce a few years ago, but then found it all too complicated and just given up. If this is the case, try again. There are many new eCommerce tools available now that will make your online enterprise a lot easier to set up.
You don’t have to be a computer genius to get an eCommerce shop going. In this review, you will read about eCommerce platforms, services, software, and shopping cart solutions. It takes time to get familiar with new systems, but this roundup of eCommerce solutions has done some of the groundwork for you by narrowing your search to the eight top eCommerce tools currently available.
1) Recurly
Getting people to subscribe to a service is a great way to tie in repeat business automatically. Services like investment tip sheets, diet plans, exercise regimes, and lifestyle coaching can be charged with monthly or yearly repeat billing. If that’s the type of business you are in, you should look into Recurly, an eCommerce platform specifically serving subscription businesses. They have credit card verification methods that minimize any impact you might suffer from fraud, and their confirmation procedures reduce incidences of canceled payments and chargebacks.
2) Shopify
Shopify offers a complete eCommerce solution. This platform hosts and helps you build your website, provides an online shopping cart, and processes payments. You can interface your Shopify site with PayPal and many other payment processing systems. Shopify integrates some of the best eCommerce software, and it has pretty much covered all the eCommerce tools you will need. They even offer an interface that enables you to use a Shopify screen instead of a point of sale (POS) system if you have a brick-and-mortar business as well as an online outlet.
3) Vendio
Vendio is very similar to Shopify, and you will need to examine each of their websites to decide between the two. Vendio places more stress on the fact that you can sell on eBay, Amazon, and Facebook through its system. You can do that with Shopify, too, but you have to dig a little deeper through its presentation to find this information, suggesting that Vendio gives those services a little more priority than Shopify.
4) Sift Science
Fraudsters win by gaming the eCommerce world—getting goods delivered and then demanding refunds from their credit cards without returning anything. A credit card refund, called a chargeback, can be made without your permission, and if you get hit with too many of them, credit card companies will withhold a large chunk of your revenue for a time. If the chargebacks continue, they will refuse to deal with you, and your business will be finished. Sift Science is a fraud detection system that analyses shoppers’ habits and prevents fraudsters from buying from your site. This will protect you from excessive chargebacks and unpaid deliveries. This eCommerce solution integrates with Shopify.
5) Google Adwords
Google offers a chance to get ahead in the search engine optimization game, right to the top of search results. This method is called Google AdWords. You may not be interested in paying for your slot on Google’s results, but signing up for Google AdWords is free. You can use it to research what keywords are popular at the moment. So, it is a useful eCommerce tool even if you never actually use it for advertising.
6) Open Cart
At first glance, Open Cart seems to be just an online shopping cart. However, it isn’t just that; it is a comprehensive eCommerce platform like Shopify and Vendio. Just like those other two eCommerce solutions for instant online shops, Open Cart integrates with payment processing and shipping companies such as PayPal and FedEx. If you already have your own domain and hosting package, Open Cart has one big advantage over Shopify and Vendio—it’s free.
7) Zendesk
Zendesk is a customer relationship management (CRM) system. CRM systems enable you to chat with potential customers to answer their questions about your products, and then you can provide support and help through those systems for after-sales service. Zendesk isn’t an eCommerce platform—you will still need an eCommerce solution, such as Vendio or Shopify, that has an online shopping cart included. Zendesk is more of an eCommerce service that you could add to your existing online store. This eCommerce tool can be integrated with Shopify.
8) IDChecker
IDChecker, like Sift Science, is an eCommerce tool for fraud prevention. This eCommerce service includes document and face scanning, which is performed through the buyer’s webcam. As with Sift Science, the motivation for integrating IDChecker into your online shop is to reduce the damage of chargebacks. A main benefit of IDChecker is its scalability and effectiveness for enterprises of all sizes.
Solutions
Starting an online business is an exciting venture, and you should take time to read through the descriptions of Shopify, Vendio, and Open Cart to see which of these three eCommerce platforms would work best for your products. If you sell subscriptions to your services, then you should consider Recurly for your billing method. Sift Science and IDChecker provide essential eCommerce services to prevent chargebacks and keep your business running. Google AdWords will help you analyze your market and target your advertising. Finally, eCommerce tools like Zendesk will encourage nervous shoppers to buy and increase word-of-mouth recommendations by making sure you help buyers fix problems with your products. Your eCommerce strategy just got a lot easier to plan.