Are you interested in growing your online store? If you’re like most of us, the answer is a resounding yes!
The thing is, there are more eCommerce websites than ever before. In fact, it’s estimated that there are between 12 and 24 million online stores, and more are added to the list every single day. Couple this statistic with the fact that online sales are expected to reach a whopping $5.42 billion by 2022, and it’s easy why more people are investing in a business website.
If you hope to compete in a crowded industry, having the right tools is critical to your success. Ecommerce tools give business executives and marketers powerful new ways to streamline complex processes and engage with their audience.
Today, we want to take a look at 10 eCommerce tools you can use to skyrocket sales, grow your email list, enhance brand awareness, and much more.
Ready? Let’s get started!
1. WPForms
One key feature every business needs is a contact form. If your visitors can’t reach you when they have a question or concern, you’re going to have a hard time building rapport with customers and securing sales.
WPForms is a drag and drop form builder that’s perfect for beginners and experts alike. You can quickly and easily create payment forms, email signup forms, surveys, and much more.
Users appreciate the fact that WPForms comes with over 100 templates, including mobile-responsive designs. You can also integrate this plugin with many of the tools you’re already using to grow your business, like Slack and WooCommerce.
Couple these features with advanced options, like conditional logic and the ability to create a form as a landing page, and it’s easy to see why this plugin has over 5 million active installations.
If you’re interested in creating eye-catching forms but don’t have a lot of time, this is one eCommerce tool worth checking out. The free version of WPForms comes packed with all of the basic features you need to get started.
2. OptinMonster
A big part of growing your eCommerce storefront is building your email list and consistently securing sales. OptinMonster is a tool you can use to do both of these things while building rapport with your audience.
Out of the box, this drag and drop builder comes with a wide range of campaigns and templates that you can use to create fun, engaging popups for potential customers. For instance, you can create a popup that visitors see right before they exit your website. This type of campaign can help you recover lost sales and convince visitors to subscribe to your email list before they leave.
Other popular campaign types include:
-Inline
-Floating bar
-Gamification
-Slide-in
-Fullscreen
One of the best parts about OptinMonster is you can use the display targeting feature to choose who sees specific campaigns. For example, if a customer is browsing your product catalog, you can trigger a popup featuring the product they were looking at with a limited-time promotion. This handy feature makes it easy to deliver a personalized experience to each visitor, which is known to skyrocket conversions.
3. Easy Digital Downloads
Many people use WooCommerce or Shopify when they sell digital products online, but there’s a downside. These companies take a percentage of each purchase, which means you’re missing out on profits every time a customer places an order.
Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) allow you to cut out the middleman and design a highly customizable storefront for your business. As a result, you’ll have more creative freedom over how your store looks, plus you’ll get to keep more of the money earned on each order.
You’ll also have access to a complete list of your customers and their previous orders, which makes managing their future purchases and personalizing promotions easy for first-time business owners and veterans alike.
Easy Digital Downloads features 1000s of integrations, including Zapier, LearnDash, and FreshWorks. When you consider that all of these integrations are easy to add and adjust due to EDD’s intuitive interface, it’s no surprise that we put this tool towards the top of the list.
4. MonsterInsights
The next tool we want to talk about today is a Google Analytics plugin called MonsterInsights. This eCommerce tool allows you to connect your website to your Google Analytics account. As a result, you can strategically track the activity on your site and make improvements over time.
Once you connect your Google Analytics account, you can check things like your traffic, revenue sources, and demographics, all from your website’s dashboard. There are plenty of practical ways to use this data to boost your sales and engagement.
For example, you can look at your popular blog posts in an easy-to-read chart. Imagine if you could quickly find out what kind of content drives customers to your website and replicate that success. Well, if you use MonsterInsights, you can.
If you’re trying to build customer personas, MonsterInsights can give you a deep look at who’s visiting your site and how they’re spending their time. Use this information to craft promotions, content, and features that keep customers coming back to your online store.
5. PushEngage
Odds are, you’ll want to reach your existing audience when you release a new product, host flash sales, or publish a new blog post. Push notifications are a convenient way to connect with your audience and convince them to engage with your brand.
PushEngage is one of the most user-friendly and comprehensive push notification tools on the market. This tool allows you to send desktop alerts to visitors who opt-in to receive alerts from your business.
There are plenty of creative ways you can use PushEngage to skyrocket your sales and increase user engagement. For instance, if a user leaves your store with items in their shopping cart, you can send them a browser alert that encourages them to come back and complete their order.
You can also segment your subscribers and send personalized alerts to people based on their past behavior. So if someone was looking at one of your top products but didn’t add the item to their cart, you can use PushEngage to send them a special offer on that item the next time they open their browser.
6. SeedProd
The next eCommerce tool on our list is SeedProd. SeedProd is an easy-to-use landing page builder that’s capable of helping online stores across all industries.
You can choose to use one of over 100 templates to start your page or build it from scratch with the intuitive drag and drop builder. The possibilities are endless, so you’re bound to come up with plenty of new creative ways to captivate your audience.
You’ll find that SeedProd is suitable for more than just creating product pages. Other inventive uses include:
-Event registration pages
-Coming soon pages
-Thank you pages
-Social proof pages
We also like that you can create your own color themes and blocks and reuse them in future campaigns. This means you’ll save time, money, and energy during the design process. If used properly, SeedProd can help you boost engagement and help you generate more revenue.
7. RafflePress
If you’re like most of us, you use social media to engage with your audience and drive them back to your site. There are plenty of great social media marketing tools out there, but RafflePress stands out above the rest.
RafflePress is a giveaway plugin that you can use to host contests on your website and social media profile.
Out of the box, this tool comes loaded with templates that you can use to launch your first content in less than an hour. What makes RafflePress unique is an option to choose how your visitors engage with your event.
For example, you could create three ways to enter your contest. Users can share your post on social media, subscribe to your email list, or watch a video on your YouTube channel. You can create a ruleset where visitors can do all three of these things for multiple entries. In this sense, RafflePress can help you enhance brand awareness and bring in more sales across all marketing channels.
8. All in One SEO (AIOSEO)
If you want to get more eyes on your online store, search engine optimization is a must. All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is an SEO tool that can help drive more organic traffic to your website and boost your search ranking.
What we love most about AIOSEO is that it comes ready to use with a ton of features for both new and seasoned business owners. Once you install this plugin, AIOSEO will automatically look over your site and determine the best search strategy based on your needs.
After the initial assessment, you’re free to use AIOSEO every time you publish a blog post, expand your product catalog, or create a landing page. The SEO checklist feature is beneficial for teams that want to publish searchable content but don’t know much about how search optimization works.
Advanced users will be happy to know that they can use this tool to optimize videos, submit their sitemap to Google, create an RSS feed, and much more with AIOSEO.
9. Jungle Scout
If you want to offer your products on Amazon, Jungle Scout is the perfect tool for the job. One of the main highlights of Jungle Scout is the ability to research products before you list them on Amazon or even your own website.
Business owners or marketers can type in broad or specific keywords and find people selling similar items online. You can use this information to make informed decisions about your pricing and distribution.
Another helpful feature is the ability to review and optimize your product listings. On Google, your search ranking can have a tremendous impact on your traffic and sales. The same can be said for your search position on Amazon. If you’re on the bottom of a list of 10,000 businesses, you’re going to have a difficult time driving sales.
Jungle Scout makes it easy for first-time sellers and Amazon experts to optimize their online store so they can rise through the search results, reach more customers, and secure more sales.
10. TrustPulse
The last tool on our list is TrustPulse. TrustPulse is a social proof tool that can help you build trust with new and existing customers. Essentially, social proof in marketing is the idea that people are more willing to buy a product or engage with a brand if they see other people doing the same thing.
When you add TrustPulse to your website, you can quickly and easily show social proof in the form of subtle on-screen notifications. For example, if someone is browsing your product catalog and another customer buys a product, that first customer will see a popup that says “(Customer name) just bought (product)!”
This type of marketing is an excellent way to show that your business is reputable and trusted by shoppers. However, you can go beyond showing when a customer places an order.
You can also show when a user takes a specific action on your site, like joining your email list, downloading a free lead magnet, or engaging on your community forum. All of these small social cues can help build your reputation, which means people are more likely to place an order on your site.
Final Thoughts
Business owners have more ways to grow their business than ever before. The tools outlined here today can all help you generate traffic, increase sales, and build rapport with your audience.
I suggest thinking about some of the topics mentioned here today and try to decide what you need to improve your eCommerce storefront. When you’re prioritizing the tools you need for your company, it’s always best to look at your existing strategy and find ways to build a better user experience for your customers.
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Syed Balkhi is an award-winning entrepreneur and online marketing expert. He is the co-founder of OptinMonster, WPBeginner, MonsterInsights, and WPForms.