Essential Apps for E-commerce Businesses

1. Shopify

For those looking to create and manage their own e-commerce website, look no further than Shopify. Shopify has emerged as one of the leading platforms for e-commerce businesses, as it provides all the necessary tools to create and manage online stores.

When creating a website, UX (user experience) and design are often the make or break in the early stages, Shopify takes away these potential pain points. Its intuitive interface, customisable themes, and secure payment gateways allow businesses to create memorable and efficient websites. 

Another great element that sets Shopify out from the rest of the competition is the extensive range of plugins. These plugins allow the website creator to have a greater range of functionality while keeping ease front of mind. Though Shopify caters to the less tech-savvy part of the population, those who would prefer to have a bit more of a hands-on approach can take advantage of in-depth analytics, inventory management, marketing tools that support data-driven decision making.

Additional features that really make Shopify a powerful tool include:

• Shopify Plus for enterprise-level businesses;
• Shopify POS for offline sales;
• Shopify Mobile for on-the-go management; and
• Shopify Experts for expert assistance in optimising the platform for maximum success.

Now that you have a greater understanding of all that Shopify has to offer, it's time to go and test it out yourself!

2. Klaviyo

Nowadays it's important to have a meaningful relationship with customers. A great channel for direct contact with an audience is through effective email marketing. Email marketing has many strengths, most crucially the ability to create a personalised and targeted email for a subscriber list.

“How does one do this?” I hear you ask. There are many different platforms these days that will help you to create email marketing campaigns, but the one that we at GRAVITATE Digital find most effective is Klaviyo.

There are many great features that make Klaviyo a great tool for marketing including:

• Advanced segmentation
• Automation capabilities; and
• The ability to deliver tailored emails based on customer behaviour, preferences, and purchase history.

A key part of marketing that often gets overlooked is retargeting. Regularly, customers will convert not on the first encounter but on the second or third. One of Klaviyo's strengths lies in its ability to easily retarget these potential customers through targeted campaigns. 

Klaviyo has developed integration with other marketing channels such as SMS marketing, social media advertising, personalisation platforms, and CRM systems. This integration gives users the ability to create effective multi-channel campaigns. There are many more features that make Klaviyo such a great tool for marketers. Go and check it out for yourself!

3. Oberlo

Drop shipping is a popular business model for e-commerce entrepreneurs, and Oberlo simplifies the process by seamlessly integrating with Shopify. For those who don't know what drop shipping is - it's a business model where online stores sell products without ever physically handling the product. Instead, the store purchases the product from a third party, which then fulfils and ships the order to the customer. 

Drop shipping offers many benefits for e-commerce owners. Primarily, it eliminates the need for initial inventory investment, allowing retailers to start their businesses with minimal capital investment. For many start-up e-commerce stores, the management of inventory is also a pain point, but this business model mitigates this issue as the products are shipped directly from the supplier to the customer. This means no storage space is required, reducing overhead costs. Another advantage of drop shipping is flexibility and scalability, allowing retailers to easily expand their product offerings without the constraints of having a physical inventory.

This is where Oberlo comes in. Oberlo can be thought of as an intermediary between the drop shipper and the supplier. Oberlo enables businesses to import products directly from suppliers and automates product syncing, order tracking, and inventory updates. All these tedious tasks that become a burden on a growing business can be taken care of by using a platform such as Oberlo, allowing businesses to focus on marketing, customer engagement, and scaling operations.

4. Yotpo

With the rapid advancement of the digital age, some of the most difficult pillars for brands to build and maintain are trust and credibility. With the ever-present threats of scammers, cheats, and swindlers these pillars are vital for success in the e-commerce landscape. 

Due to the distrust customers have developed, they’ll often want recommendations and reviews before committing to a product. This is where Yotpo can be a saving grace. Yotpo is a platform that amplifies social proof through customer reviews and ratings. The ease at which Yotpo integrates with major e-commerce platforms and automatically sends review requests to customers is the foundation of building trust and credibility. 

Yotpo is the answer for those looking for solutions for email and SMS marketing, loyalty and referrals, subscriptions, reviews, and visual UGC (User Generated Content). It can assist a brand in accelerating its growth by enabling advocacy and maximising customer lifetime value.

Using this platform supports brands to effectively leverage social proof to increase trust and sales. This in turn can help to cultivate a loyal customer base that will boost recurring revenue. Checkout Yotpo's reviews yourself and explore what it has on offer.

5. Google Analytics

Though design and advertising are the ‘pretty’ parts of marketing, the real heavy hitters rely on the data, and the best data-crunching platform out there is Google Analytics. Data is the lifeblood of e-commerce businesses, and Google Analytics is a powerful tool for tracking and analysing website performance. 

It's all well and good to create an amazing, eye-catching, memorable campaign that ticks all the boxes and should be a hit, but how can we actually determine its success? Google Analytics integrated with e-commerce platforms provides valuable insights into:

• Customer behaviour;
• Traffic sources
• Conversion rates
• Cost per conversion; and
• Many more data points.

These insights are what should be driving campaigns and marketing decisions, without them, marketers are simply taking a stab in the dark. 

Google Analytics' power isn't limited to its raw data. Another benefit it possesses is its ability to provide detailed reports, real-time data, and customisable dashboards. These features help businesses make informed decisions to improve their online presence and marketing strategies. Though we could go on all day about how useful Google Analytics is, we must get back to optimising our accounts. Be sure to check out the many more features Google Analytics has to offer. 

Wrap-up

So there we have it, our pick of the five essential apps for e-commerce businesses. Leveraging these apps, can support e-commerce entrepreneurs to create robust online stores, delivering personalised email campaigns, simplifying drop shipping, harnessing social proof, and unleashing the power of data. Incorporating these essential apps into an e-commerce business strategy can significantly contribute to growth, success, and create a competitive edge in the dynamic world of e-commerce.

Don't let it slip by, go and check out everything that these amazing platforms have to offer.

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