Surviving the industry as a small startup is tough. With limited budgets and resources, the tide is very much against you. However, the advantage of being a small startup is that you’ve got plenty of resources that you are able to draw from.

Assessing competition and spotting what they’re doing wrong - or not doing at all - is insightful to put your business ahead. There are a plethora of eCommerce management tools available to contribute extra hands to the melting pot of the business.

With eCommerce as a small startup, you need all the help available. There are around 12 to 24 million online stores in existence. Not all of these are currently active, but that number is likely to grow. 

How do you choose which one is worth spending on? What makes a good management tool for eCommerce businesses? In this guide, we’ll explore the purpose of an eCommerce management tool, what to look for when shopping for one, and the best tools out there.

What are eCommerce management tools?

eCommerce management tools are responsible for the creation, launch, and management of an online business. For many small startups, they don’t have the luxury of a full workforce. 

Chances are, it’s a startup that’s made up of one individual or a handful of individuals that are willing to invest a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, to get it off the ground.

“I’m not sure I was fully aware of what starting from scratch entailed. The beauty industry is a very crowded and competitive market, and so getting your voice heard is tricky.” - Sarah Clark-Martin, co-founder of Fuaraìn Skincare

Having an eCommerce management tool in place helps assist in the tasks that are required to garner success. It also helps avoid your startup falling into the 90% of eCommerce start-up businesses that fail within the first 120 days.

Five eCommerce management tools to consider for a small startup

There are some great management tools out there to help elevate a startup’s eCommerce platform. Choosing from such a rich catalog of products is difficult but the suggestions below will make for a powerful toolkit for your business.

1. Attest for market research

In order to sell successfully, it’s critical to know who your customers are and what they’re after. Many eCommerce businesses end up failing as they’ve focused their marketing on the wrong target audience. 

The use of primary and secondary market research builds up a customer profile for your marketing team to leverage. An eCommerce management tool like Attest is helpful in conducting that market research through surveys and having access to the platform’s broad user database.

A consumer research platform is required as the bare minimum when it comes to your eCommerce tools.

2. Magento for eCommerce platforms

The foundations of an eCommerce platform matter greatly, which is why picking the right platform to build the site on, is key.

Magento is an advanced eCommerce platform that is considered one of the best for small startups due to its open-source technology. Not only that but the software itself is free. Additional costs come from web development, web hosting, and other integration features.

For a small startup that’s intended to grow fast in the eCommerce market,   .

3. Wordpress for content creation

While a blog is not necessary for some eCommerce platforms, it helps improve online presence. WordPress is a highly reputable platform for content creation and powers many blogs on the internet to date. 

In fact, more than 455 million sites currently use WordPress. That’s 43% of websites on the internet, in comparison to its competitors like Squarespace, which only caters to 2%.

Content creation is like liquid gold for any business at the moment. The internet loves content and there’s plenty that a business is able to generate in relation to their eCommerce business. 

Not only does it help with rankings if done properly but Wordpress blog content will help push products and encourage customers to purchase.

4. Slack for internal communications

Communication for any business is crucial. It helps keep everyone on the same page in order to deliver on their own departmental goals and to track KPIs. 

Slack is a handy platform for internal communications, offering features such as:

• Connects those who work remotely.
• Provides reminders for deadlines.
• Voice and video call functionalities.
• Apps and integrations.
• Team availability notifications.

Improving communication internally helps foster better relationships between team members and aid productivity within the workplace.

5. Hubspot for marketing

Marketing is a big player and influences the success of an eCommerce platform greatly. With so much noise on the internet, building brand awareness is crucial to stand out.

What makes your eCommerce platform different? How do customers find your business in the first place? Through the use of paid and organic marketing, it puts the business digitally on the map.

Hubspot offers a mixture of services from inbound marketing to sales and customer service. In this case, utilizing its marketing hub helps drive traffic to the site, and converts a lead into a paying customer. 

The platform is designed for small to mid-sized businesses, making it suitable for start-ups. From social media feeds to blogging and paid advertisements, it’s all accessed through the platform’s CRM. The platform allows the user to personalize the tool, scaling it both up and down accordingly.

6. Acquire for customer service

An eCommerce tool for your customer service support is helpful in helping buyers through their customer journey on the site.

With fantastic, top-tier customer service, it helps deliver an exceptional experience to customers that will keep them coming back. Retaining customers, after all, is considered a lot harder to do than acquiring them.

Acquire is an all-in-one platform to streamline all of the company’s customer service outlets. For all your digital channels; video, voice, chat - it gathers all queries in one place so that they are resolved quickly and efficiently.

Other notable mentions for eCommerce management tools 

There are a few other notable mentions of eCommerce management tools that are useful to integrate with one or some of the above platforms mentioned.

Chatbots are extremely helpful to have on an eCommerce site, with 50% of people saying they’d purchase from a website’s chatbot using conversational marketing. 

Analytical platforms like Optimizely are useful for accessing data and utilizing it for targeted marketing efforts.

Features to look for in an eCommerce management tool

To help simplify the process of finding an eCommerce management tool, what do you look for?

Online retail sales make up 22.3% of total retail sales according to eMarketer. Finding the right tools will give your business the best chance of customer acquisition and earning a slice of that financial pie.

What features should be included in any eCommerce management tool? Here are a few things to look for when shopping for eCommerce tools.

Simplifies business operations

Any tool that’s used for business is able to simplify business operations. Whether it’s accounting software to help finance teams streamline their current processes to social media scheduling tools to automate content publishing. 

eCommerce tools work with the same objective of making business operations more efficient.

Reputable and used by many

The popularity of an eCommerce tool is influential and when it’s used by many companies big and small, it’s worth getting. Take a look at the company behind the tool and what client testimonials or recommendations it features on the site. 

Offers value for money 

As a start-up, money is tight. A lot of these eCommerce management tools are as cheap as a cup of coffee, while others cost a fortune. It’s helpful to assess how much value a tool has in relation to what’s being spent on it. Offering value for money is 

Integration with third-party software and tools

A tool that integrates with other third-party tools is important as it helps bring everything together under a centralized platform. 

Ideally, if your eCommerce management tools integrate with others, it minimizes the number of movements employees make from one platform to another.

Responsive customer support service

A responsive customer support service is greatly appreciated by businesses that invest in eCommerce tools. The tools could be the best in features and performance but if something goes wrong, you’ll want a quick solution to the issue.

With a small start-up, any time wasted is money down the drain. A good way to test the company’s support services is by seeing what’s available, eg. chatbots, 24/7 email support, etc, and testing them out.

Build your eCommerce tool kit and watch your business thrive in 2022

An eCommerce is so much more than just the platform it’s built upon. Just like any business, it requires a number of cogs to turn the wheels and create success.

There are a wealth of eCommerce management tools out there to explore and take advantage of, to help your small start-up this year. Explore the ones mentioned in this article through any free demos and trials offered before diving in fully.

Author Bio: Natalie Redman 

Freelance writer for many clients across multiple industries. Natalie has three years of copywriting experience. Natalie has a wide range of experience in copywriting for web pages for businesses across many industries. She’s also the owner of three blog websites and a Youtube content creator.