The best ecommerce tools to boost profits and save time

By Rhonda Bradley January 30, 2024

If you run an ecommerce business, you’re probably investing a lot of time trying to keep up with a never-ending list of responsibilities. 

From managing inventory to fulfilling and shipping orders, dealing with refunds and returns, directly communicating with customers, or optimizing your content for SEO, there’s a lot to juggle.

Fortunately, the right ecommerce tools can help you get it all done with ease.

From putting your marketing on autopilot to exceeding your quarterly sales goals while reducing returns fraud, ecommerce tools can simultaneously save time and increase your profits.

The right ecommerce tools are a game-changer for any ecommerce business. But they can also slow you down if you choose tools that don’t work well. Or if they are so difficult to use that your team refuses to adapt.

Discover some of the most successful tools for ecommerce businesses in this guide to the best ecommerce tools to boost profits and save time. 

• Best tools for successful ecommerce companies
• Best email marketing tools
• Best customer service tools
• Best product and market research tools
• Best social media tools
• Best analytics and reporting tools
• Best fraud prevention tools
• Best shipping & inventory management tools
• Best SEO tools

Keep reading to find out what tools are most popular with ecommerce businesses and get recommendations for trusted, reliable tools in a variety of categories.

How to choose the best ecommerce tools for your business

When choosing ecommerce tools for your business, there are several factors to consider. 

First, you’ll want to assess your specific needs and goals. Are you looking for a tool to help with inventory management, order fulfillment, or marketing automation? Understanding what you need helps you narrow the options.

Next, ask yourself – how easy is this tool to learn? To cut onboarding time, look for tools that have intuitive interfaces and offer user-friendly features.

Finally, you’ll need tools that integrate seamlessly with your other key software programs, so choosing tools with the right integrations is a high priority.

To find your way to the best ecommerce tools more quickly, follow these 3 simple steps:

1. Read reviews and recommendations like the ones in this guide to help you quickly find a handful of promising options.

2. Take advantage of free accounts and free trials that allow you to get hands-on experience before making a commitment. 

3. Ask yourself “Can this tool scale with you as your business grows” or will it force you into searching for a new tool six months from now?

By following these steps to choosing the best ecommerce tools for your business, you can find your way to software that makes your business more efficient, productive, and profitable for a long time to come.

We looked into the top-rated companies in each category to find the ones that are most frequently used and highly rated by ecommerce companies. The apps in this guide were chosen based on a combination of their reputation for performance, reliability, and happy customers.

You’ll find something for every aspect of your business in the guide below. From email marketing to fraud prevention, customer service, and reporting tools, each category presents best-in-class tools to make your business more efficient and secure.

Best ecommerce email marketing tool

Email marketing tools automate, personalize, and track email campaigns. They can help to generate and nurturing leads, boost sales, and build customer loyalty — and skyrocket your conversions.

AWeber

Email marketing and lead generation are a breeze with AWeber email marketing software. 

AWeber goes far beyond the basics to provide its customers with a seamless, easy-to-use, lead nurturing platform. Its feature-rich platform provides a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface that you and your team will love.

AWeber helps ecommerce businesses:

• Craft beautiful, effective email marketing campaigns using prebuilt templates, an integrated Canva design tool, and a built-in AI writing assistant.  

• Build your email list with lead magnets using AWeber’s easy landing page builder. 

• Quickly create email nurture campaigns using behavior-based triggers like cart abandonment, website activity, lead magnet downloads, and email engagement.

• Put all your email campaigns on autopilot with comprehensive automation features that are super quick and easy to use.

AWeber helps ecommerce businesses develop deeper relationships with subscribers with advanced technology and tools that are intuitive and easy to use.

Why you’ll like AWeber:

• Provides countless autopilot and automation features for ecommerce businesses.
• Includes built-in Canva design tools, AI writing assistant, and landing page builder.
• Lets you easily create high-performing, personalized, and segmented email campaigns
• User-friendly, drag-and-drop interface that doesn’t require heavy training or onboarding
• 24/7 customer support
• Generous free account available

“There are so many fantastic features that make email marketing that much simpler. From setting up landing pages, and email flows, to seeing all of our new subscribers that join daily, we have loved using AWeber!”

– Abbey Hertzler

AWeber Pricing:

• Free plan
• Lite plan: starting at $12.50/month
• Plus plan: starting at $20.00/month
• Unlimited plan: $899/month

Best ecommerce customer service tools

Customer service tools help you develop healthy customer relationships that build trust, loyalty, and sales. Help Scout and Zendesk are ideal customer service tools for ecommerce businesses.

Help Scout customer communication platform

Help Scout customer communication platform aims to help you increase customer loyalty by providing outstanding customer service. Its comprehensive selection of customer service tools includes a shared inbox, customer service CRM, live chat, knowledge base, help desk reporting, and much more.

Overall, Help Scout is a versatile tool that encourages self-service support and helps you deliver personalized, efficient customer service and communication across several channels.

Why we like Help Scout:

• Very user-friendly and feature-rich platform
• Provides plenty of workspaces and customizations
• Excels at managing inbound customer emails
• Streamlines collaboration among team members

“Help Scout offers all the features you want, but doesn’t nickel and dime you for it like the bigger names do. (Integrations, custom reporting, Help Desk/FAQ Center, CSAT, etc.)”

– Savannah N., G2 customer review

Help Scout pricing:

• Standard: $20 per user/month
• Plus: $40 per user/month
• Pro: $65 per user/month

Zendesk Customer Service Software

Zendesk customer service software is a great option for ecommerce businesses searching for a reliable, easy-to-use customer service tool. It provides everything you need for streamlined omnichannel customer service, including a ticketing system, AI-powered features, and outstanding collaboration tools for your team.

Its flexibility makes it a good match for any size business, whether you are a new business expecting to grow or an enterprise-level organization with complex requirements. 

Why we like Zendesk:

• Extensive integrations and app marketplace allow you to connect with a variety of ecommerce platforms and apps.
• Excellent analytics and reporting with insights to help you improve customer communication.
• Shared inboxes and notes make it easy for your team to collaborate.
• Provides a cohesive customer experience across multiple channels.
• Reliable and secure: Zendesk invests heavily in security and uptime, ensuring your data is always protected.

“Zendesk is the superior platform for customer support in my opinion. Just works great and has everything you need to provide good customer support.”

– Camilla C. G2 review 

Zendesk Pricing:

• Suite Team: $55 per agent/month
• Suite Growth: $89 per agent/month
• Suite Professional: $115 per agent/month
• Suite Enterprise: Contact for pricing

Best ecommerce product and market research

Product and market research tools provide important insights into consumer preferences, market trends, and competitor strategies, so you can make informed decisions about new releases and marketing strategies. 

We recommend SimilarWebPro for SaaS and service businesses, Sell the Trend for dropshipping businesses, and Jungle Scout for Amazon sellers.

SimilarWeb Pro for SaaS and Service ecommerce businesses

SimilarWeb Pro is a market intelligence platform that provides deep website traffic and engagement insights for your own site and your competitors. It can reveal traffic sources, audience demographics, popular content, and even competitor marketing strategies.

For SaaS and service-based companies, SimilarWeb Pro is an excellent tool to help you  analyze competitor websites so you can understand their content marketing, organic and paid traffic strategies, and audience demographics. It also allows you to use traffic insights to identify potential target markets and content gaps.

Why we like Similar Web Pro for SaaS and Service ecommerce:

• Provides deep site traffic and engagement insights
• Excellent for market, competitor, and keyword research
• Useful to content marketing and SEO teams
• Allows you to view competitor website keywords and engagement metrics

“SimilarWeb Pro is a handy tool to get traffic and keywords insights for your competitors. For the people in digital space, this is a very useful tool to have in your kitty.”

– Arika N., Capterra review

SimilarWeb Pro pricing:

• Starter: $149/month
• Professional: $399/month
• Team: $15,000/year
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing

Sell the Trend for dropshipping businesses

Dropshippers, are you hoping to identify up-and-coming products with high sales potential? Sell the Trend helps you do exactly that. 

Using AI predictive technology Sell the Trend provides you with in-depth details on what products are trending now, and which are expected to surge. It also allows you to review your competitors’ sales and new products.

Sell the Trend may not be for everyone, since it’s an all-in-one dropshipping platform, however, it does offer a free trial so you can try it before making a commitment.

Why we like Sell the Trend:

• Database includes 7 million products and 83 niches of ecommerce
• Search and analytics powered by AI
• Predictive AI technology helps predict upcoming product trends

“Sell The Trend is an amazing tool for e-commerce and dropshippers, providing comprehensive data on thousands of products, from suppliers as well as competing stores selling that product.”

– Mario, Trustpilot review

Sell the Trend pricing:

• Free trial available
• Essential plan: $99/month

Jungle Scout for Amazon ecommerce sellers

Amazon ecommerce sellers looking to grow or begin selling on the platform want to check out Jungle Scout to help manage and scale their Amazon sales. 

Jungle Scout is an all-in-one Amazon seller platform. Its product research tools help sellers estimate product profitability, track historical trends, view trending products and brands, and optimize listings. 

The tool utilizes product and sales data, ranking history, supplier information, and competitor analysis to help you make decisions on what and how to sell. 

Why we like Jungle Scout:

• Provides efficient, data-driven product research.
• Includes a training academy to help users improve their Amazon sales and profits.
• Excellent fit for ecommerce businesses that also sell on Amazon.
• Includes a Chrome extension for quick sales information on any competitor.

“The tools that Jungle Scout offers for research and analysis of Amazon products are very powerful and useful in getting started. My favorite thing about Jungle Scout, however, is the Academy and the Community of like-minded people who are willing to help and offer great guidance through the process.”

– Diyana D. G2 review

Jungle Scout Pricing:

• Basic: $29/month
• Suite: $49/month
• Professional $84/month
• Cobalt: Contact for pricing

Best ecommerce marketing tools for social media

Social media management tools help ecommerce brands consistently publish high-quality, valuable social media content. We recommend Buffer or Outfy, depending on your objectives — and Canva for everyone.

Buffer social media management

When it comes to ecommerce, Buffer is a social media management powerhouse. 

Save time and resources, gain valuable insights, and build a vibrant social community with tools that let you schedule, publish, collaborate, automate, create, and visualize all of your social content. 

From content suggestions to social listening and analytics, Buffer combines all your social media tasks into one dashboard for a highly efficient approach to social media marketing.

Why we like Buffer:

• Scales well for any size business
• Allows multiple accounts and workspaces
• Provides social listening and monitoring tools
• Excellent analytics and reporting to track your social media performance
• Highly visual, intuitive interface that’s easy to use

“Buffer takes all the stress out of social media management. There’s a great draft and approval process along with an easy to use asset library.”

– Jack H., G2 review

Buffer pricing:

• Free account
• Essentials: $6/month
• Team: $12/month
• Agency: $120/month

Outfy social media management

Take visual product storytelling to the next level with Outfy social media management. Its emphasis on eye-catching social media content is supported by a focus on videos, gifs, and collages. 

Outfy provides themed templates, auto-generated hashtags, AI-powered content creation, and automated posting capabilities.

Why we like Outfy:

• Creates videos in seconds
• Integrates videos, gifs, and collages for eye-catching social media content
• Publish to Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and Pinterest
• Friendly interface and easy-to-use program

“Excellent program for any post on social networks. The best: it has a free plan and the post automations work perfectly. Activate and go live life! Thank you Outfy team.”

– Santique, Reputon review

Outfy Pricing:

• Free forever plan
• Free 7-day trial
• Starter plan: $15/month
• Pro plan: $30/month
• Ultimate plan: $52.50/month
• Enterprise plan: $90/month

Canva social media graphic design tool

Ever wished you could whip up gorgeous graphics, ads, and social posts – even though you don’t know a thing about graphic design? 

Canva lets you create beautiful social media content in minutes, thanks to thousands of fully customizable templates and design elements.  

Why we like Canva:

• Easy drag-and-drop interface (no training needed!)
• Generous free account available/affordable pricing on the Pro version
• Built directly into AWeber’s email marketing builder
• Thousands of prebuilt templates
• One-click brand customization tool applies your brand colors, logo, and fonts

“What I like about Canva is that it makes my work completely beautiful. From designs and editing Canva has it all. Plus I love how Canva has an on the go template that you can use in times of hurry. Canva is a life saver for every project.”

– Klarenz A., G2 review

Canva pricing:

• Forever Free plan
• CanvaPro: $14.99/month
• Canva for Teams plan: $29.99/month

Best ecommerce analytics and ecommerce reporting tools

Reporting and analytics tools help ecommerce companies track and analyze customer behavior across multiple channels. For comprehensive reporting, we recommend Google Analytics or Glassbox.

Google Analytics

To boost sales and optimize your website, there’s no better game-changer than Google Analytics. 

The powerful program lets you analyze customer behavior by tracking site visits, purchase paths, and exit points. You can measure your marketing campaign performance by tracking which traffic sources and marketing channels drive the most sales and learning what ads and promotions are most effective. 

Google Analytics also lets you understand visitor engagement by tracking the time spent on page, bounce rates, and click-through rates. And you can monitor key metrics such as conversion rates, average order value, and customer lifetime value.

These are only a handful of the tools and features available on Google Analytics. For any company with an ecommerce website, the program is a must-have, despite a slightly-higher learning curve.

Why we like Google Analytics:

• Freemium model provides a generous free plan
• Provides comprehensive tracking of customer engagement and behavior
• Provides in-depth analysis of your marketing efforts across various channels
• Offers detailed insights into conversion rates and sales funnels
• Enhanced ecommerce tracking provides a comprehensive view of your store’s performance, including add-to-cart actions, product views, and transactions

“The real-time analytics feature is a standout, providing instant data about current site visitors. This immediacy is crucial for responding to trends as they happen. ”

– Parthipan P., G2 review

Google Analytics Pricing:

• Standard Google Analytics tools: Free
• Enterprise level premium service: Contact for pricing

Glassbox

Glassbox for Retail & E-commerce captures and analyzes 100% of the customer interactions on your e-commerce website and mobile app. Its tagless data means you don’t need to add any manual tags to your website — the software does it all for you.

Why we like Glassbox:

• Highly rated by customers on G2 (4.9-star average) and Capterra (5.0-star average) 
• Provides real-time session replay
• Provides interactive heatmaps to visualize data
• Includes customer, product, and funnel, and performance analytics

“There are SO MANY things we love about Glassbox, but probably my favorite part of the tool is its session recordings. It has been a game-changer in terms of us being able to replicate and diagnose struggle points on our sites because we can literally see exactly what a user did leading up to the issue and share that moment with our dev team to explore further.”

– Laura H., G2 review

Glassbox pricing:

• Contact for pricing

Best ecommerce fraud prevention tools

Fraud prevention software shields e-commerce businesses from financial loss and reputational damage by analyzing transactions and detecting suspicious activity in real-time. We recommend ClearSale Ecommerce Fraud Protection or Seon Fraud Fighters for ecommerce companies.

ClearSale Ecommerce Fraud Protection

ClearSale Ecommerce Fraud Protection is a fraud prevention and chargeback guarantee service designed for ecommerce businesses. It helps online merchants combat fraudulent orders and chargebacks while minimizing legitimate order declines.

Why we like Clearsale:

• Advanced algorithms to analyze orders in real-time and identify potential fraud.
• Chargeback guarantee offers financial protection and reduced risk of losses due to chargebacks on approved orders.
• Easy integration with a wide selection of ecommerce platforms and payment gateways.
• Scales with your business needs as you grow.

“I think the fact they take on the risk of fraud is a god send. Prior to ClearSale, we were not only getting hit with a fraud cost, but also indirectly cost to manage the fraud. Now it’s auto-magic.”

– James M., G2 review

ClearSale pricing:

• Contact for pricing

Seon Fraud Fighters

Seon helps businesses identify and combat fraud patterns by utilizing AI and machine technology.

Why we like Seon fraud prevention tool:

• Robust free plan available
• Intuitive interface that’s easy to navigate
• Able to check fraud scores across multiple countries and organizations

“Seon Fraud Fighters is like a guard dog that never sleeps – it’s always on the lookout for fraud. And the best part? It learns new tricks. It figures out what fraudsters are up to and adapts.”

– Bharath T., G2 review

Seon pricing:

• Free plan
• Starter: $599/month
• Premium: Contact for pricing

Best ecommerce shipping and inventory management tools

Shipping and inventory management tools help fulfill orders, optimize stock levels, reduce overstock, and improve order fulfillment efficiency and accuracy. We recommend Veeqo or Netstock for ecommerce.

Veeqo

Veeqo is a multi-channel ecommerce shipping software that helps online businesses manage inventory, fulfill orders, and ship products efficiently. 

Veeqo is free to use and provides shipping discounts for most major carriers. It charges no hidden fees or costs and allows unlimited users and orders.

Why we like Veeqo:

• 100% free to use
• Provides discounted shipping rates with major carriers
• Integrates with more than 50 carriers and stores
• Allows you to automate repetitive inventory tasks

“It’s very powerful software which allows us to keep our stocks in line across multiple shopify stores AND a physical shop. It was the only software we could find that would allow us to do this – and has lots of other benefits in terms of stock management and reporting too.”

– Charity N., G2 review

Veeqo pricing:

• Free to use. No hidden fees or costs.

Netstock

Netstock is a demand forecasting and inventory optimization software used by many types of businesses, including ecommerce retailers. It provides a centralized platform to track inventory across multiple locations, warehouses, and channels. This transparency allows for better decision-making regarding stock allocation, restocking, and overall inventory management strategy.

Why we like Netstock:

• Outstanding verified reviews and a 4.8-star rating on G2
• Powerful and accurate demand forecasting features
• Smart purchase order optimization

“Netstock has helped us to streamline our ordering process and achieve a 97% fill rate!”

– Kelly A., G2 review

Netstock pricing:

• Contact for pricing

Best ecommerce SEO tools

SEO tools help improve your online visibility, track keyword rankings, analyze competitors’ strategies, and identify opportunities to attract more traffic and increase sales. For ecommerce businesses we recommend Semrush.

Semrush

Semrush is a widely-recognized leader in the field of search engine optimization. The SEO platform is an excellent tool for ecommerce businesses because it provides comprehensive keyword research, competitor analysis, site auditing, product listing research, backlink analysis, and local and mobile SEO optimization tools.

Semrush integrates with a wide range of other platforms so you can combine your SEO efforts with other digital marketing activities. 

Why we like Semrush:

• Highly reputable service providing some of the best SEO tools on the planet.
• Received 21 international awards as best SEO software
• 30% of Fortune 500 businesses use Semrush for marketing
• Provides a massive selection of SEO tools and services

“This platform simplifies every aspect of my job, from keyword research to competitor analysis and performance tracking.”

– Heylin Isayana V., G2 review

Semrush pricing:

• Pro: $129.95/month
• Guru: $249.95/month
• Business: $499.95/month

Ecommerce tools: Advanced technology and user-friendly platforms

Every successful online business is built on a foundation of powerful tools. Finding the right ones for your company may take some trial and error, but it’s well-worth your efforts.

When choosing tools for your business, look for those with the features you need on a platform that’s easy for you and your team to use.

At AWeber, we specialize in email marketing with an emphasis on lead generation and nurturing. Ready to begin personalizing and segmenting email campaigns in minutes? Sign up for a free AWeber account today.