My Top 10 Favorite Tools for E-Commerce & Online Entrepreneurs

Everyone has their favorite tools of the trade when it comes to running an online business and growing sales. E-commerce professionals are seeing an explosion of apps, subscription services and software packages hitting the market, aimed at improving your chance of success. Some are tried and true heavyweights of the industry.  Others are skillful newcomers looking to unseat the big boys.

This list could be a Top 50 really. But these are my 10 favorite tools for researching, growing and eventually selling your ecommerce business.

Jungle Scout – Founder Greg Mercer has fashioned an incredible brand on the backbone of some unbelievable data-building and programming skills. I admire Greg tremendously. I highly recommend his Youtube channel. It’s worth spending time going through his “Million Dollar Case Study.” Every Amazon seller and e-commerce owner will learn something. Jungle Scout’s team scours millions of sales a week on Amazon to produce some phenomenal research in determining what’s selling and where market demand is headed.

Zapier – If the first rule of real estate is ‘location, location, location,” then the first rule of e-commerce should be “automate, automate, automate.” You should make Zapier your best friend.  These wizards have found a way to integrate more than 700 separate apps so you can automate dozens of different tasks throughout the marketing, sales and fulfillment chains. It’s a miracle, really.

Ship Station – In my view, the strongest shipping and fulfillment program available. It connects all your selling channels and carriers and directly integrates with FBA. It updates order status, creates and batches shipping labels and has the best tracking tools available. But the best thing is how bloody easy it is to setup and use from day one. 

TaxJar – I don’t know how on earth anybody can do e-commerce without TaxJar. Most people’s brains explode when they’re forced to manually calculate how much sales tax they owe to different U.S. states. And when. And how to pay. And who to call. This tax management platform easily connects to Amazon, Shopify, eBay and others. It’s not an option. Just get it.

Klaviyo – I know there are huge fans of Mail Chimp, Constant Contact, eWeber and other email marketing platforms. They all have their strengths. But none are better in my view when it comes to integrating email marketing and ecommerce.  Klaviyo makes it super simple to pull in your POS data and have your contact lists updated in realtime. Their design editing tools are clean, simple and much more eye pleasing that Constant Contact. It’s a great way to ditch your spreadsheets when stepping up your email marketing. 

Ahrefs – It’s pronounced H-Refs. When it comes to SEO diagnostics, this is the go-to. It’s a fantastic tool for improving your search traffic, snooping on your competitors and finding ways to outrank them. It’s an awesome friend when you’re doing keyword research, backlink investigations, and niche explorations. The $179/month will easily get repaid in traffic rewards.

Xero – This accounting upstart advertises itself as the online alternative to Quickbooks. So anyone who’s been using QB for centuries and has considered switching to the cloud platform for Quickbooks, check out Xero instead. It’s so much less cluttered and confusing. So much less inputting and double-checking. Why wasn’t Xero around 20 years ago?

Amaze Owl – This is Jungle Scout’s primary competitor for scrubbing the Amazon universe. Numerous people have made the argument to me that Amaze Owl is more accurate in several product research areas. Their desktop app allows you to take incredibly deep dives when exploring a product’s demand, niche and cost.  

Splitly – When it’s time to optimize your Amazon listings and grab the top organic rankings, you’re going to start here. It’s a fantastic A/B testing tool allowing you to see which keywords, marketing strategies, product titles and images work the best. It’s the hands-down leader in split testing and an industry-leading winner for maximizing sales.  

Camel Camel Camel – Dropshippers love this price tracking tool. It’s only for Amazon. The program keeps an incredibly valuable eye on your competitor’s pricing and drops informative email alerts.  It also has the price histories for nearly 20 million products. It can also help you track seasonally adjusted prices for the holidays. And did I mention, it’s free.  

Let me know your faves. Write us at brian@fcbb.com.

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