The Top 10 Best eCommerce Tools & Software for SMBs | eCommerce Matters Ep. 038
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This post is a roundup of some of the best eCommerce software out there. We come into contact with lots of eCommerce companies of different sizes and from a multitude of sectors. It is always fascinating to hear what technology they’re using across their business to get the edge.
In this post, we plan to pay it forward, by presenting some of the highlights from these conversations, of the best eCommerce software that you should be trying and using in 2023.
We cover Pricing, Webshops, SEO, Product & Data Feed Management, Google Shopping, Cart Abandonment, Loyalty, Post Purchase Tracking, Product Reviews, and Social.
Should you prefer to listen to the best eCommerce Software of 2023, we also have an accompanying podcast episode. Listen on eCommerce Matters now:
Podcast Notes
1. BlackCurve - Pricing
BlackCurve is your eCommerce pricing HQ. They help eCommerce businesses understand their competitors and use price to improve digital marketing performance.
There are three editions available, which means as your pricing requirements scale, you can simply upgrade to the next tier, rather than needing to find a whole new provider:
Tracker – This offers competitor pricing and marketing insights.
Challenger – This provides dynamic pricing (Competitor led rules) with safeguards.
Commander – This gives users a more advanced dynamic pricing capability (Competitor led, sales history, stock, and marketing rules) with safeguards included as well.
You can get up and running in a few clicks, as plugins are available to all the major eCommerce platforms.
Automated product matching is included as standard. Most of the competitor pricing providers require users to submit the links to be scrapped for the competitor prices.
BlackCurve is the only vendor that also considers marketing performance in pricing decisions. Retailers are spending huge amounts of money on Google Ads, so BlackCurve helps improve your Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) by identifying how much your market price position is holding back your conversion and relevancy score.
Get started from as little as £129 per month. A 14-day free trial is also available. Start your trial here.
Find out more at https://www.blackcurve.com/.
2. Shopify - eCommerce Platform
We have experience connecting with all the major webshop vendors. Magento (now known as Adobe Commerce) and BigCommerce are both highly customisable, but as for speed of implementation and speed of change, we see them holding back businesses more than enabling them to grow, as they both take months and months to get started, and any updates require engineers.
Shopify on the other hand is plug-and-play, and configurable rather than requiring customisation. It is also much more affordable too. Why businesses are still customising the crap out of any software in 2022/2023 I do not know. Configuration is always best in the long run in terms of speed and maintenance.
Starting at £29 per month to £259 per month for their main product, Shopify Plus is also available for larger organisations.
Sure you have to use their own payment engine. Limitations there. But for scaling quickly. No other webshop compares. More than enough themes. More than enough configuration. Lots of apps and out-of-the-box plugins for fast-moving businesses.
Find out more at https://www.shopify.com/uk.
3. UberSuggest - SEO Analysis and Insights
I have used a lot of SEO tools including AH Refs and SEM Rush. All very complicated and take considerable time to get to grips with the software. I have recently been made aware of UberSuggest. Can I just say this is fantastic?
The software audits your whole site, identifying any issues such as missing internal links or broken external links, and flags opportunities for improvement such as in your page meta-data. It even makes recommendations for what to put in your meta-data.
For me, the killer functionality is at helping you identify keywords and content that will quickly help you rank much better than your competitors, all done in a really simple and easy-to-use interface, by assessing gaps and opportunities versus your competitors.
UberSuggest starts at £29 per month for their entry-level product and goes up to £99 per month.
Find out more at https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/.
4. Intelligent Reach - Product & Data Feed Management
One of the first data points that connect to BlackCurve is an eCommerce product inventory. We're still seeing missing brand names, incomplete product names, missing product codes and more, even from established players in their respective market-places.
Google uses all this information to categorise your page, identify if the page is relevant against a search term, and therefore whether it should even be presented to the user for the applicable search term, so there should be no excuse for missing data at the very least.
Think of Intelligent Reach, like the UberSuggest of the product feed world. Flagging to you whether you have data gaps, and perhaps most impressively enabling you to test the performance of different product data for example A/B test the conversion of different product names.
Intelligent Reach works across 1,500+ channels and marketplaces, so more than enough vendors to connect with out of the box.
Strong results too, as they suggest a +79% Impressions, +109% Clicks, and +16.7% Conversion rate on average for their customers.
Definitely worth a conversation. Find out more at https://www.intelligentreach.com/.
5. Bidnamic - Google Shopping Optimisation
Retailers are spending thousands of pounds a month on Google Ads. Bidnamic enables you to unlock your Google Shopping potential, with precision bidding on every SKU. Enabling you to make purchase intent keyword bids automatically.
In simple terms, something like "Nike Trainers" will be an expensive bid, and unlikely to directly lead to a purchase; whereas a bid term like "Nike Air Max 90 Smoke Grey 10" is further down a buying journey, it is likely the user has identified the trainer they want, and are about to make a selection. This is the bid you want to make and win the click.
Bidnamic tests and learns, and adapts your bidding automatically. It is a bit of black-box, with word on the street that prices start at £1,000 per month, but the results we have heard are fantastic. You will need to work with a customer success manager here from Bidnamic, so this is not a software-only purchase.
Find out more at https://www.bidnamic.com/.
You might like to also consider https://upp.ai/ for a comparison.
6. Avada - Cart Abandonment
50% of users who click on links in abandoned cart emails go on to complete their purchase, so why wouldn't you have a capability in this area?
Avada comes highly recommended, supporting you with email marketing, SMS, and even WhatsApp cart abandonment notifications.
Pricing from £9/Month.
Find out more at https://avada.io/.
7. Loyalty Lion & Growave - Loyalty
Loyalty schemes are a great way of encouraging engagement in your brand and repeat purchases. They can be difficult to implement and get right, and more often than not we see businesses trying to reinvent the wheel and build a custom loyalty scheme.
This is where Loyalty Lion and Growave come in, as they take the strain with plug-and-play loyalty programs. For more functionality, Loyalty Lion is your friend, with prices starting at £320 per month. For entry-level, but considerable functionality none-the-less, Growave is highly recommended with prices starting at £9 per month.
Loyalty programs will help you strengthen your customer relationship, increase repeat purchases, and boost engagement. It is a self-fulfilling.
Find out more at
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8. Shipway - Post Purchase Tracking
On average, 70% of customer queries to a retailers support desk are related to questions around "where is my parcel?". This means you need an employee whose main role in life will be to find out where a product is and then in turn notify the user requesting the information. This is a very expensive and slow way of keeping your customers informed, leading to a bad user experience.
Repeat purchases and positive reviews all stem from good retail experiences.
Shipway takes the strain. With connections to all the major and smaller independent logistics firms, you can be up and running in no time, keeping your customer informed automatically for how long they will need to wait for that TV, toaster, book or jumper :-).
Pricing starts at 3p a shipment. Find out more at https://shipway.com/.
9. reviews.io - Reviews
Brands that display product reviews have an 18% higher conversion rate and an 11% higher average order value (AOV). Google even states that having Seller Ratings can boost your Ads Click through Rates by up to 17%.
A highly recommended review management and publishing tool in this area, with the cleanest user interface around, both in their own portal and how reviews are requested from your customers, is reviews.io.
Prices start from as little as £29 per month.
Find out more at https://www.reviews.io/.
10. Pinterest - Social Media
Advertising to individuals with buying intent will always convert better than interrupting a person who knows little about you. This is where Pinterest comes in. It is known for its picture curation boards, but did you know, you can also sell your products directly on their platform, without users even coming to your site? Alternatively, you can have more traditional ads, clicking through to your website.
If you're a small brand, this could be highly powerful to growing your business quickly, as getting the eyeballs to your site, is an uphill struggle, whereas Pinterest has already taken care of the eyeballs.
They report being 2.3x more efficient cost per converstion than other social media channels, and 2x higher return on ad spend for retail brands compared to other social media.
If your customers are hanging around in this tool (they definitely will be for fashion and homeware), then Pinterest should be top of your software list for social media advertising.
Typical prices are around £2-£5 per thousand impressions.
Typically clicks will cost £1.50.
Go to where you can get the intent clicks. Your budget will thank you for it. You will see the best returns.
Find out more at https://business.pinterest.com/.
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