This is the best time to start an e-commerce business. You have nothing but momentum on your side. Over the last year, e-commerce took off.
The pandemic forced stores to close, but many still operated online. E-commerce sales jumped more than 32% over 2019. Home improvement, sports equipment, and the food and beverage industries were the big winners.
10 of the Best Resources for E-Commerce Companies
As people get vaccinated and things return to normal, people are still going to shop online. You want to make sure that your e-commerce business is in the best position to succeed.
That’s why you want to keep reading. Learn the top tools and resources that every e-commerce business needs to be a huge success.
1. YouTube Creator Academy
If you’re going to learn how to take advantage of YouTube to grow your e-commerce business, you might as well learn right from the source.
The YouTube Creator Academy has a series of lessons that cover everything from getting started to monetizing your YouTube channel. You’ll also learn how to develop content and grow your channel.
It’s a free resource, plus you have access to a lot of other resources beyond the lessons. It’s worth checking out.
2. Pinterest for Business
Are you planning to use Pinterest to drive traffic to your e-commerce site? Create your business account on this popular resource right now and take a big step towards success. Make sure that the username isn’t taken here. Like YouTube, Pinterest has an academy for content creators.
There are resources that will help you learn what makes a great pin and learn how to boost sales during the holiday season.
The Pinterest Academy shows you how to create content that matters, drive traffic to your site, and convert the traffic into sales.
3. Practical E-Commerce
Practical E-Commerce is the resource to learn about the e-commerce industry. This is the type of content that turns your e-commerce site into a business machine.
You’ll learn about things like analytics, conversions, marketing, and search engine optimization. What sets this resource apart from the rest is that it goes into depth about what it takes to run an e-commerce business.
For example, topics like shipping, insurance, and packaging fulfillment are covered, too.
That makes it a great resource to learn more about e-commerce and stay on top of trends.
4. Ubersuggest
What keywords will you use to help your product pages and content get found on search engines? There are plenty of keyword tools out there, and Ubersuggest is a good one.
It provides a lot of detail like some of the other tools out there, but at a fraction of the cost. You’ll know exactly what keywords you should use and get other keywords to use in your content.
5. SiteGround
An online business needs to have a reliable website host. If people try to visit your site to find that it’s down, you probably lost them for good.
You also need a website host that handles e-commerce sites and upgrades its servers to speed up load times. That website host is SiteGround.
It’s proven over and over that it’s a capable hosting company. What sets this company apart is customer service. You can actually call the company and talk to a representative if you have any questions.
6. Facebook Messenger
Your customers have high expectations. They want to reach your customer service team through a variety of channels, including live chat.
You can invest in a live chat platform, or you can use something like Facebook Messenger. There are plugins that you can install on your site that give your customers the ability to message your team without leaving your site.
These plugins are available for Shopify and WordPress sites.
7. Loomly
You know that you need to have social media, but keeping your content organized among Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest is draining.
Loomly is the one scheduling platform that lets you schedule content on all of these platforms. It’s affordable, and it’s easy to use.
There’s also an app so you can record video, edit it, and upload it for a story post.
8. Drip
Drip is a CRM platform for e-commerce businesses. The platform lets you manage leads, automate email marketing, and build your customer base.
The good thing about using Drip is that it’s scalable. You won’t need to migrate from one email marketing platform to another because your business is too big.
It also integrates with Shopify, WooCommerce, and a host of other tools.
9. Google Analytics
You don’t know if your e-commerce business is successful until you measure it. Google Analytics shows you everything you need to know about your site.
You’ll know how much traffic your site gets and where it comes from. You can do a deeper dive to set up conversion goals and learn about the demographics of your site’s visitors.
It’s a free tool that’s easy to install on your site. It’s a must-have for any e-commerce business.
10. Dropshipper.com
Do you want an easy way to start an e-commerce business? Check out Dropshipper.com. You pay a monthly fee, and you have access to an entire e-commerce business.
Of course, you have to promote it, but most of the backend work in managing the business is done for you. Dropshipper.com integrates with AliExpress, so you have can pick your products to sell and the rest is taken care of.
Build a Thriving E-Commerce Business
The difference between an e-commerce business that thrives and one that survives is leverage. You need the right resources to leverage knowledge and information into action.
You need the right tools to leverage your time. The e-commerce online resources listed here are ones that will help you build a big business.
You have everything covered, from resourced to find drop shippers, the latest industry information, and tools to help you with social media and email marketing.
See what else is happening in the Startup Blog to help your business grow.
Some other articles you might find of interest:
Make your business rock with these business plan writing skills:
Startup’s Guide to Write a Business Plan
Would you like to know how investors value a startup?
How Do Investors Value a Startup?
