Category: Ecommerce

Best Accountancy Platforms for Ecommerce Businesses

Finding the right accounting software for your ecommerce business is key to ensuring that you can properly manage your finances, keep track of your profits, and grow your business successfully.

But what is the best ecommerce accounting software for your business, and how do you decide?

We’ve got you covered with the below guide to accounting software for ecommerce owners. We’ve written up bitesize reviews of the best ecommerce accounting software providers — including the features, pros, cons, and cost of the ecommerce accounting software provider, along with ecommerce platforms they can be used on.

Read on to find out more:

	Cost	Features	Pros	Cons
Wave	Free	Income and expense tracking Unlimited users Bank and credit card connections Organize income and expenses into tax categories Invoicing functionality Receipt scanning	Affordable Mobile app available Basic reporting	No customisable reports Doesn’t have inventory tracking Can’t pay bills directly No live customer service
Xero	$9-60 per month	Bank connection and reconciliation Inventory management Invoicing Pay bills Manage expenses	Easy to use Affordable Customisable reports	Email customer support only Lacks some features small businesses need
QuickBooks	$12.50-$75 per month	Automatic daily syncs with ecommerce platform Inventory management Bank connections Invoicing	Integrations with most ecommerce platforms Easy to use Multiple reporting templates	Not the cheapest option Some reporting features are quite complicated
FreshBooks	$6 – $20 per month	Customisable invoicing Bank connection Expenses management	Simple to set up and use Integrates with most ecommerce platforms	Inventory tracking feature is limited Only supports single-entry accounting Basic reporting features
FreeAgent	$12-$24 per month	Expenses management Bank connection Reporting dashboard Estimates and customisable invoices	Easy to use Regular updates Good tax reporting features	Not the cheapest option for accounting software Limited customer support

Why ecommerce accounting is important for your business

Once you’ve picked your ecommerce platform, set up your store, and before you start selling, you need to put in place accurate and reliable accounting processes. This will help you to understand exactly how your business is doing, where the money is, and what areas you need to be working on improving. Accurate bookkeeping is going to ensure that you can build a stable business that’s able to grow.

Having a solid understanding of your finances will also help you to forecast how your business can develop — you’ll be in a much better position to predict your growth and build plans around it.

The other main reason that accounting is so important for your ecommerce business is that it makes it a whole lot easier to sort out your taxes at the end of each year.

What can go wrong if you don’t get your ecommerce accounting right

It’s important to stay consistently on top of your finances. Even neglecting them for a short time can lead to some serious problems for you and your business.

When it comes to sorting out your business’s taxes, you need to have all your paperwork in order, ready to share with your accountant or directly with the government. If you let things slide, you’re going to spend hours trying to find all the invoices, bills, and other documents.

This can cause much bigger problems in the long run. Submitting your tax returns late can result in hefty fines. You’re also going to end up paying fines if you find that some of your paperwork is missing, or you end up miscalculating your finances.

If you’re looking for investors or to get a business loan from the bank, you need to have all your financial documents in good order and ready to share. If you don’t have this all lined up, or there are some gaps in your finances, it’s going to look like your business is an unreliable and risky investment.

Failing to keep on top of your finances can also lead to cash flow problems — you won’t have a clear idea of how much money you have coming in, and how much is going out. This is when you’ll end up missing bill payments, or being unable to pay your staff, and once you start to have cash flow problems it’s hard to get yourself back on track.

What to look for in ecommerce accounting software

There are a lot of accounting platforms out there, and it’s hard to know which one will be best for your ecommerce business. The good news is, most of them will offer a free trial, so you can test them out and get to grips with how they work.

When you’re looking for accounting software, check whether it integrates with the systems and software you’re already using — it will make things a lot simpler if it works with your store platform to pull in your sales data.

You should also look for bank reconciliation features, where it connects with your bank account and pulls in all your transactions so that you can organise them. This also means that recurring payments such as rent can be automatically categorised.

Reporting is another important feature to consider — you want to be able to easily see weekly and monthly reports of your finances so you can keep an eye on everything. Your accounting software should also be able to produce tax compliant records.

Image: Pexels

The other key thing to think about is what customer support the platform offers. If something goes wrong with your accounting, you don’t want to be waiting days for a reply. Check out what support channels they offer and how quickly they respond. Do they have a good reputation as an ecommerce accounting software provider?

Some accounting software will include other features such as payroll processing or inventory management. While these might not be essential straight away, as your ecommerce business grows it might make life easier if you can manage these things all in the same place — and you might pay less than if you’re using other software as well.

Best accounting software for ecommerce businesses

If you know roughly what you’re looking for, but you’re struggling to decide between software options, you’ve come to the right place. Here is our list of best ecommerce accounting software for ecommerce businesses:

QuickBooks

Quickbooks works well for any size business, but its features and simple design make it particularly ideal for small and medium ecommerce businesses. It has affordable pricing plans that include everything an ecommerce business would need and make it suitable to use as your business scales — plus it integrates with all the main ecommerce platforms.

Features

Sync sales data: it’s easy to import orders and refunds from your ecommerce platform, or you can set up QuickBooks to sync them automatically once a day
You can connect your bank account to QuickBooks so that it imports all of your bank transactions and sorts them into different categories
You can manage expenses by uploading receipts using your smartphone or desktop computer and sort them or set it up to automatically categorise your expenses
QuickBooks has a mobile app that makes it easy to keep an eye on your finances from anywhere at any time
You can sync product and inventory levels from QuickBooks into your ecommerce platform
Unlimited telephone and online chat support

Pros

QuickBooks is easy to integrate with the majority of ecommerce platforms and banks, it’s straightforward to set up and use, and it offers some useful reporting features. It offers a lot of automation that will take a lot of repetition and admin out of keeping your finances in order.

They also have live telephone support so you can get help with any issues immediately.

Cons

Although the basics are pretty easy to use, some of the advanced features are quite complicated to get to grips with.

It’s also not the cheapest option for ecommerce accounting software, but it does offer all the important features that you would need.

Cost

Essentials plan – $12.50 per month

This includes all the basic functionality you might need when you’re getting started to input and track your income and expenses, send invoices, and pay bills.

Plus plan – $35 per month

This plan is usually the best for small or medium ecommerce businesses. You can run enhanced reports, manage inventory, and have up to five users.

Advanced plan – $75 per month

With their top plan, you can have up to 25 users with custom permissions, produce batch invoices and expenses, and you have access to training and 24-hour support.

Platform integrations

QuickBooks works with all the main ecommerce platforms and tools including Shopify, PayPal, Square.

Xero

If you’re looking for a slightly cheaper alternative to QuickBooks but with all the same key features then Xero is the best option.

It’s another web-based platform, with the essential accounting functionality such as importing transactions, managing expense, invoicing, and reporting, that a small business will need.

However, while their pricing plans are slightly cheaper they are a lot more restricted than QuickBooks.

Features

You can connect your bank account to import and reconcile transactions daily (only one account can be connected on the lowest plan)
Compatible with most ecommerce platforms to import sales data
You can track inventory, manage stock and add items into invoices and orders
Send online invoices with online payment options from your Xero account
View a dashboard to track all your finances
You can manage expenses and upload receipts
Xero has a mobile app that can capture expenses, send invoices, and reconcile transactions from anywhere

Pros

Xero is easy to set up and intuitive for users — plus it offers affordable pricing plans. It connects to all major banks and ecommerce platforms so there’s no need for manually importing any of your data.

Cons

One of the biggest downsides for Xero is that they only offer customer support via email, which means it can often take more than a day to get a response.

It also lacks some of the smaller features that you might want such as cloud storage and integrations with tax software.

Cost

Early plan – $9 per month

All of their plans have access to their main accounting features, but the basic plan only allows you to send five invoices and quotes per month, enter five bills, and reconcile 20 bank transactions.

Growing plan – $30 per month

You can send unlimited invoices and quotes, enter bills, and reconcile any number of bank transactions.

Established plan – $60 per month

As well as sending invoices, entering bills and reconciling bank transactions, the top plan also includes multi-currency transactions, expenses management, and project management features.

Platform integrations

As well as connecting with all major banks, Xero can be used with the main ecommerce platforms including Shopify, Squarespace, and BigCommerce.

Image: Pexels

Best free accounting software for ecommerce businesses

If you don’t want to pay for your ecommerce accounting software — or can’t — then there are still some great options out there for you.

Here is our favourite (and arguably the best) free accounting software for ecommerce businesses:

Wave

Wave is free cloud-based accounting software that offers most of the basic functionality that ecommerce businesses require. You can track income and expenses, send invoices, scan in receipts, and connect bank accounts or PayPal for a live record of transactions.

Features

Connect an unlimited number of bank accounts and payment methods to keep track of all incoming and outgoing transactions
You can view a dashboard of finances and export accounting reports that cover profit and loss, and cash flow
You can create and send customisable invoices, and set up recurring billing for any repeat customers or subscription-based services
Wave has a mobile app to check your finances. It also allows you to scan in receipts wherever you are even offline and these are then synced with your account the next time there’s an internet connection
You can run multiple businesses in one Wave account

Pros

Wave is specifically designed for small businesses and it includes all the features you would need with no limitations for free. It’s fairly simple to set up and get started, and it’s easy to use, with a good mobile app that allows you to keep track of things when you’re on the go.

Cons

While all the accounting software features are free you do have to pay to use Wave’s payment processor or payroll system.

It also lacks features that other paid software will have such as inventory management and time trackers, and you can’t set up multiple users on the same account. The reports you can produce are also fairly basic and can’t be customised.

Cost

It’s free to use Wave for accounting, invoicing, and receipts, which covers most of the features a small ecommerce business would require. If you want to make payments through the software there’s a charge per transaction ranging from 1% to 3.4% + 30¢ depending on which type of card you’re using.

Their payroll system starts at $20 per month plus $6 per active employee, and $6 per independent contractor paid.

Platform integrations

Wave can be integrated with your Shopify account to import all your transactions. It also works with PayPal, Shoeboxed, and Etsy, as well as all major banks.

Ecommerce businesses have a lot of options when it comes to accounting software, but it’s important to find one that meets your specific requirements, is easy to use, and that any accountant you’re working with is happy to use.

While, initially, you might look for free accounting software, as your business grows you might need some of the advanced features that other paid platforms offer — and it’s worth considering how easy it is to switch over. Whatever your needs, there is always an ecommerce accounting software option for you

December 11, 2020

5 Customer Retention Strategies That Are Ideal For Online Businesses

One of the huge advantages of brick-and-mortar retail is that a fantastic location can do most of the work for whichever seller is fortunate enough (or sufficiently forward-thinking) to secure it. Set up a convenience store immediately outside a train station, for instance, and you’ll barely need to put any effort into reaping the rewards. You’ll be the default choice.

When you move into the world of online business, you largely take location out of the equation, and shoppers suddenly have access to a nearly-boundless pool of alternatives. Whatever edge you lean on to get people through the door (so to speak) can be dulled at any moment. If you have the cheapest prices, someone can beat them. If you have the biggest range, a competitor can significantly expand theirs. That means you can’t rely on new business to the same extent.

As a result, you don’t just need to work harder to bring in fresh prospects: you also need to make a concerted effort to keep the customers you’ve already won over. Loyal customers spend more, complain less, drive referrals, and are more receptive to marketing materials. If you can master the art of customer retention, you can proceed with a lot more confidence.

To that end, we’re going to take a look at five customer retention strategies that all online businesses should consider implementing. Let’s get started.

Provide exceptional customer support

Sooner or later, the average customer will need some kind of assistance. Maybe one of their orders will be delayed, or they’ll be uncertain about which item to choose between two similar products. When that happens, they’ll want some official support — and the nature of the support they’re able to find will heavily determine how they view the business.

Improving customer service is all about being accessible, consistent, efficient, and dedicated. It isn’t good enough to rely on a sluggish ticketing system. Whenever you can, use options like live chat and social engagement to deal with issues as quickly and usefully as possible. Do a great job, and you’ll no doubt secure some lasting loyalty.

Iterate based on customer feedback

The worst thing a modern company can do is stagnate, because there are countless operations out there that are consistently investing in development. Whether it’s the quality of your products or the functionality of your website, you need to fight to maintain an excellent standard — and it’s essential to remember the people you’re trying to impress.

When you make significant changes to your business, the people most affected will be your long-term customers — and if they don’t appreciate the changes, you’ll have a difficult time convincing them to stick around. Due to this, you should make customer feedback an integral part of your corporate development process.

Don’t just make changes because you want them. Find out what your customers want, then iterate your store with those preferences in mind (improving your customer experience). You don’t have to do everything they ask for (and probably couldn’t, since they won’t all want the same things), but if you roll out some desired changes and let people know about them, you’ll earn a lot of valuable goodwill.

Address all social media negativity

The social media world tends to reveal and intensify problems, and businesses that don’t pay attention to it inevitably get blindsided by its brand-damaging power.

Suppose that someone has a bad experience with your company and wants to complain about it. If they don’t believe you’re likely to make things better, they won’t complain to you: they’ll complain to their friends, and they’ll most likely complain via their social media accounts (probably tagging your company along the way or by simply writing on your posts).

If you miss that negativity, it’ll only fester. That’s why you need to not only notice it (quickly, it bears adding) but also take action to address it by engaging with anyone and everyone who speaks ill of you online.

Don’t be aggressive, but don’t meekly accept responsibility either. Give each complainant the benefit of the doubt and investigate their problem. If it’s your fault, do what you can to fix it. If it isn’t, make it clear that everyone else knows that.

Implement a good loyalty program

When you’ve been a loyal customer for a certain company for a long enough time, you can start to feel that you’re being taken for granted. It’s particularly frustrating when the company seems obsessed with bringing in new customers. Think about how ISPs (Internet service providers) tend to operate. They offer all the best deals to prospective customers so they can bring them in.

If you want to keep people around, you should take the opposite tack: give your best deals to the customers who’ve supported you for a long time.

Implementing a loyalty program is the way to go, ensuring that there’s a clear system through which extended patronage will earn people various rewards (discounts, advance notice of new products, better support, etc.).

Show company personality and ethics

People these days want more than just great prices and strong service from the brands they support. They also want to like them and consider them laudable somehow — and what makes a brand likeable is having personality and caring about more things than money. Showing personality highlights the people behind a business, making it harder for customers to view it as a faceless and apathetic monolith.

As for caring about things beyond money, it’s become normal for companies to talk about their ethical commitments. What are you invested in? What causes do you support? Maybe you’re doing what you can to encourage sustainability, for instance.

If so, be sure to talk about it, making it part of your general marketing strategy. Customers who respect your values will probably stick with you even if competitors can beat your value proposition.

If you do whatever you can to keep your customers around, they’ll reward you by spending more and giving you unyielding support. You’ll always need to bring in some new customers, but this approach takes a lot of the pressure off lead generation, allowing you to relax somewhat and focus on improving your business.

December 7, 2020
8 Ecommerce Blog Post Templates You Can Use Today
Blogging is one of the most effective marketing methods open to ecommerce businesses.

Blogs offer an array of benefits for online stores: they generate leads, increase relevant web traffic, engage prospective customers, outline brand values, and so on. Beyond that, it’s relatively easy to do, requires no extra software or tools, and can be done anywhere at any time.

If you’re writing content for your online store today, you need a blog post template to go with it.

But why is using a template for your blogs such a good idea?

Creating high-quality ecommerce blogs on a regular and consistent basis can be difficult. Writing fresh content is a time-consuming task, and blog templates speed up the process by giving you a clear direction of where to go.

Using a template for your articles saves you time, guides your writing, and helps you create an engaging blog post that your customers will actually read.

We’ve created this essential list of ecommerce content templates to help you quickly and easily create a great blog post. Read on to discover eight great ideas for your ecommerce blog post calendar to suit any occasion.

Blog post template #1: listicles

Revered by some yet reviled by others, you can’t deny that the listicle is a popular format of digestible content that readers love. It’s compact, concise, and perfect for a mobile-first age.

And listicles are flexible too. You can choose whatever theme you like to collate your listicle around, as long as it’s relevant to your audience’s interests.

Generally between 5-20 points long, they can be strategies, tools, techniques, tips, even memes — whatever resonates with your target audience. But for ecommerce, products also make great listicles.

Don’t be afraid to lighten up your listicle with a little humour — listicles are quick, digestible blog posts, and a joke here and there makes them easier to read.

The anatomy

Your listicle should contain:
- One overarching theme: recipes, style, products, etc
- 8-10 resources related to your theme, with the following:
  - High-quality image
  - Link to each
  - Concise but engaging description
  - Prices (where applicable)
Blog post template #2: roundups

A roundup post is a great way to reuse old content by transforming it into something new. It’s also perfect for when you’re stacked out with Christmas or Black Friday orders but you need to fill your content schedule in a pinch.

The best roundup posts are those that cater to different audience segments’ specific needs. They will vary depending on your customers and what other competing content you’re up against, but they all generally follow the same structure.

Remember — just because you’re reusing old content, it doesn’t mean you can simply reproduce it and leave it at that. Give it a bit of a shine by adding in some fresh copy and intersperse some images or memes throughout.

The anatomy

Your end-of-year roundup should contain:
- A brief intro for each post
- 5-10 of your top-performing posts from the past year, including:
  - Links
  - Prices
  - Photos
  - A short but engaging description
Blog post template #3: interviews

Interviews are an ecommerce content quick win. They’re easy to do (most of the content is provided by your interviewee), great for nurturing relationships by showing some love, and deliver insight from a fresh perspective.

Beyond that, interviews also cement your position as an authority within your niche. Speaking to an expert in your industry shows you’re active and engaged within your niche, rather than a passive observer.

Finally, interviews offer a great chance to amplify your content too. If they’re interesting or valuable, your readers will (hopefully) share your interview with others too. This generates valuable social shares that increase your content’s SEO and brand value.

Remember to offer open-ended questions to encourage your interviewee to offer more information. If you want to know more about something but your interviewee has clammed up, simply politely ask them to elaborate a little for you.

It’s also a good idea to acknowledge your interviewee’s expertise. Praise them for their knowledge, and then ask them a question — you’ll get a lot more out of your interview by creating a positive connection between the two of you.

The anatomy

Your interview should include:
- An interviewee: someone relevant to your industry that your customers will find interesting. If you’re struggling, it’s worth using tools here — influencer marketing platforms are a good way to find relevant people in your niche
- 8-10 interview questions: try to go beyond the usual and craft questions that elicit insightful, interesting responses
- A good photo of your interviewee. If possible, take an original snap that you can share in your social media promo.
Blog post template #4: gift guides

In the run-up to gift-giving events such as Christmas or birthdays, customers often need a little inspiration. Gift guides collate this inspiration into one handy place, helping shoppers find the perfect present to buy their loved one.

As well as helping the individual with gift ideation, these gift guides also function as shareable wish lists for your customers to pass on to their friends and family. For those shoppers struggling to find that perfect gift for a distant aunt for Christmas, your gift guide might provide the inspiration they need.

Beyond that, gift guides can also be optimised for search engines for other struggling customers to find and use for inspiration. This is a handy SEO trick that helps you take advantage of seasonal web traffic, giving your online store a welcome boost in the SERPs.

The anatomy

Your gift guide should contain:
- A selection of 10-15 products (of which at least a third should be yours)
- High-quality photos of each product (at least two)
- A short but snappy description of your product, with price and any discounts
- A link to each product page.
Blog post template #5: how-to guides

How-to guides are great content that drives traffic by helping your customers out. They’re useful and informative, and make for some superb evergreen content too.

People often turn to the web to find out how to complete a specific task, or if they need advice on an issue. These tutorials are your chance to deliver that knowledge, solve your audience’s pain points, and drive traffic to your online store too.

Indeed, how-to guides are also a great opportunity to showcase your expertise within your niche. Position yourself as an authority and deliver value to your customers with comprehensive instructional guides.

The key to creating a great how-to guide blog post is to make it accessible. You might know all the necessary jargon, but your audience probably won’t. Keep it simple — short sentences, basic vocabulary, and no fluff. Include only what is necessary and make it as readable and accessible as possible.

The anatomy

Your how-to tutorial should contain:
- Keyword research: use keyword research to identify what kind of queries your audience is searching for. This will help inform what kind of guides you create
- A brief into explaining what you’ll be teaching your readers, why you’re teaching it to them, and how it will help them
- A step-by-step breakdown of the entire process
- Images for each step to better visualise the process (where applicable).
Blog post template #6: newsjacking

The word ‘newsjacking’ was coined by the marketing strategist David Meerman Scott in 2011. It refers to the practice of adding your own opinions and insights into a current news story, often as it’s breaking.

For ecommerce businesses, this is a huge boon. Newsjacking places your brand into real-world events. It shows that you are active and current, engaged with your industry in real time.

By responding to industry news and providing your opinion on it, you educate your readers and position yourself as a thought leader rather than simply an observer.

Of course, it’s important to tread carefully when newsjacking. It’s easy to stray into difficult territory, and many brands have fallen into the trap of being tone-deaf in their attempts to analyse or insert themselves into the news.

Strive to offer a fresh insight, but be wary of going too far in an attempt to be unique. If in doubt, ask someone to proofread your blog before you publish — a second pair of eyes can be useful for spotting problematic copy.

The anatomy

Your gift guide should contain:
- A compelling intro that shows why your audience should care about the story
- A link to the original news story: this helps your readers contextualise your piece
- 2-3 excerpts of the original story: these serve as anchors for your opinions.
Blog post template #7: trends

People like to know what’s current — something buoyed by the real-time nature of social media.

Being in touch with what is happening right now as it happens is essential, particularly in ecommerce. Style-savvy fashion customers always want to stay ahead of design trends, for instance, and tech geeks are always eager to know about the latest gadgets.

Trends blog posts help you provide that to your audience — they’re a chance to deliver insight into the future of your niche.

Like other content templates on this list, sharing a trend blog shows that you are engaged in your niche and that you are at the forefront of your industry. It builds your authority as a brand, a valuable thing when it comes to expanding your customer base and growing your store.

But beyond all this, trends blog posts show that you are an active, exciting brand that cares about your niche. It is this that sets your ecommerce business apart from the rest, demonstrating an energy and passion that extends to your customer community.

The anatomy
- 3-10 genuine trends within your industry: these need to be current. Don’t simply rehash trends from last year (unless they have developed in a significant way) — make your content stand out by listing real, relevant, and current trends
- Solid research: while it’s certainly possible to rewrite a list from other resources, you likely have the requisite knowledge and expertise to be able to recognise developing trends within your industry
- Actions: how will these trends impact your industry, your business, or your customers?
Blog post template #8: beginner’s guides

Whether it’s learning how to tie your shoelaces or finding the perfect method of making scrambled eggs, every journey starts with a single step.

As an online store, you can help your customers take that step with simple, easy-to-understand beginner’s guides. You know your industry and your audience inside-out, so you’ll know how to educate people about your niche too.

These kind of article templates are essentially entry-level how-to guides, designed to help complete novices understand elements of your industry. They provide actionable value to your audience that they can take away and use.

But beyond this, beginner’s guide templates build your authority too. They depict you as a source of knowledge and expertise, increasing your value as a brand as a result.

The anatomy
- Use clear, basic language: avoid unnecessary jargon wherever possible, or include explanations to help your audience get to grips with your guide
- Keyword research: identifying the most commonly-searched queries, especially those with the suffix “for beginners” or similar, will help you create content that actually resonates with your readers
- Use visual aids where appropriate to help cater to different kinds of learning within your audience.
The ecommerce blog templates above are just a few examples of possible content ideas for your online store. You can use them as they are, or tweak them for your own purposes — whatever suits your online store’s goals.

Whether you’re still getting to grips with content marketing for ecommerce or you’re just struggling for inspiration, these blog post templates will help you create engaging, relevant content that your audience will love, time and again.
December 4, 2020
How To Use Trust Signals To Let Customers Know Your Website Is Safe

It’s easy to think of online shopping as safe to the point of being anodyne, but this is a result of sticking exclusively to the most well-known stores. Of course you’re going to have a decent experience ordering something through Amazon: it’s a corporate juggernaut with ceaseless investment in being the default ecommerce option. And if you can get everything you need through the usual suspects, then maybe you don’t need to worry about security…

…Except that approach supports a status quo that would utterly doom your ecommerce store.

You need shoppers to expand their horizons, looking to support smaller retailers and ensure that profits aren’t completely swallowed up by a handful of companies. If they won’t wander off the beaten path and take a chance on an unknown seller, you can’t make any progress, and your only option is to operate solely through third-party marketplaces.

You don’t want that, obviously. You want to maintain your independence by running your own dedicated store and growing your brand into a success that doesn’t need to piggyback off the architecture of bigger sellers. But if you’re going to achieve that success, you need a plan to convince prospective buyers that your website is just as reliable as sites like Amazon.

In this post, we’re going to explore how you can use trust signals to convince visitors to your site that it deserves their trust, ultimately pushing them to give you opportunities to win them over. What are trust signals, and what actions should you take? Let’s get into it.

What are trust signals, exactly?

The term trust signal is extremely broad, referring in this context to anything someone can find on your website that will make them more likely to trust your company.

You can, of course, have signals that provide the opposite effect. Think of egregious typos in your homepage copy, implausible prices or claims about order turnaround, or clear inconsistencies in your company details (suggesting that they’ve been altered or entirely fabricated).

When someone who doesn’t know much about your brand arrives at your website, they’ll be unconvinced but have an open mind. Your task is to seize the chance to convince them that you’re worth their time and money. If you don’t, they’ll go elsewhere, and you’ll lose out.

Mention payment security credentials

One of the biggest concerns people have when buying online is keeping their financial details safe. After all, they’re often called upon to volunteer their card information, and that information could easily be abused.

To reassure them that they can order through your store without major risk, you can mention whatever payment security credentials you can muster.

The easiest inclusions are supported third-party gateways that are already trusted, with PayPal being the obvious example. If you make it clear that you accept PayPal payments, people will know that they can trust your payment process to a reasonable extent (after all, they’ll have the option of seeking recompose through that service in the event that they’re unhappy).

And if you take card payments directly, you should have security safeguards in place, so let people know which ones. What schemes are you registered to? What standards do you adhere to? Security badges pertaining to governing bodies can be very influential.

Prominently display social proof

Who wants to be the first person to order from a new website? It isn’t very appealing because it involves charting unknown territory. It’s far better to wait until some others have tried it first, as you can see what their experiences are like. This is part of the power of the social proof, and the part that pertains most strongly to security and safety.

The other part, of course, more closely resembles peer pressure. The more people buy from your store and comment on it positively, the more popular your brand will be, and the more eager others will be to order from you. There isn’t always wisdom in crowds, but ecommerce is one arena in which mass interest and approval tends to indicate a decent company. You can also draw upon customer approval to power an affiliate marketing strategy.

Beyond just including a broad array of reviews, consider picking out some comments that relate to security and putting them on your homepage. The ideal review would outline some initial hesitation (mirroring what most people will be feeling) before making it abundantly clear that there was never any need to be hesitant — but if you have no such review, make the best of the comments you do have.

Offer clear terms and conditions

Ecommerce isn’t as simple as exchanging money for goods.

There are complicated terms and conditions involved: even if you don’t directly comment on them because you don’t have any, your store will be subject to the default terms and conditions for an operation of its type. And the thing about terms and conditions is that the notable absence of them is cause for concern.

Why would you omit such things if you had no issue with customers reading them? And if you don’t want customers reading them, it raises the question of what you’re trying to conceal. By making it easy for people to review your terms and conditions, you can show that you have nothing to hide and are eager to always operate with transparency.

You don’t need to overload your website with trust signals, but they’re definitely important.

Revisit your website from the perspective of someone unfamiliar with it, and consider how it comes across. What needs to be in place to make it seem trustworthy? Figure that out, then add the necessary trust signals.

December 1, 2020
How To Write Blogs That Increase Ecommerce Sales
Your ecommerce blog is a great way of increasing sales for your business. It can build your brand, increase trust in your company, and give you access to new audiences of potential customers.

There are many ways you can write blogs that drive up revenue for your business.

Rather than providing you with ecommerce blog outlines that might not fit exactly with your company, this article gives you solid ideas and tips that you can use to create valuable content.

From writing SEO optimised posts to incorporating UGC, this is how you can write content that helps bring more business to your ecommerce company.

Create ecommerce blog content that’s SEO optimised

Creating SEO optimised content for your ecommerce blog is a great way to increase your sales. This is because it puts your ecommerce products in front of people that are interested in buying the things you’re selling.

SEO stands for search engine optimization.

It’s a tactic that’s used to increase your rankings in search engines, putting your web pages in front of people that are conducting searches that are relevant to your business.

However, creating this content only works as a sales aid if your rank for the right terms.

Credit: Seobility

To increase your revenue you need to rank for your money words. These are the keywords that will help you drive traffic to pages that will lead people to buy your products.

You need to find the right terms for your business and this means conducting keyword research, then incorporating these keywords into your blog.

There are many great resources available to help you carry out your keyword research and Moz is one of the best places to find them.

The One-Hour Guide To SEO is a great guide for beginners. It features a number of easy-to-digest videos that will give you the tools you need to create SEO optimised content for your ecommerce blog.

Include clear CTAs in your ecommerce blog posts

Using CTAs in your content is an excellent way of writing content that turns your ecommerce blog into a sales tool. The reason for this is that CTAs direct your audience to complete actions that ultimately lead to them buying your products.

CTA is short for call to action. You’ll have seen these used in various types of content already, but you may not have realised that you were being eased towards doing something the site wanted you to do.

There are two vital details with CTAs that you need to get right if you’re going to use them in your ecommerce blog to boost your sales.
- They need to go to the right web pages for your business
- You need your audience to interact with them positively
Credit: Seobility

The first point is the simple one. You can address it by establishing what pages you want your customers to get to. These will generally be product pages, but they could be category pages.

The second point requires more thought. However, there are some best practices you can follow with CTAs to make them more enticing.

The video below gives you some that you can use in your ecommerce blog posts right now. It’s also a good idea to review your previous posts and make sure they’re primed for conversion.

Embedded video temporarily unavailable. View the original video

Explain the benefits of your products in your ecommerce blog

Using your ecommerce blog posts to talk about the benefits of your products is a great idea. You can do this by establishing what the benefits are for your products, then writing a blog post pr series of blog posts that are about these.

For instance, it may be that you sell trainers. One benefit of these is that it makes people fitter. So you could write a blog post about how being healthier has a far-reaching impact on your life, helping you to feel happier at work and home.

In this example, you can show that one of the benefits of your products is that they can help people to get fitter and healthier by providing their feet with the support needed to perform rigorous exercises with confidence. After explaining these benefits in detail, you can include a link to a product or category page to help boost sales for your chosen target page.

Credit: PXFuel

One thing to keep in mind is that you must talk about benefits and not features.

It’s simple to make the mistake over talking about product features over benefits. Features are easier to discuss because it’s more about something looks than how it feels.

Unfortunately, in the case of many products, people don’t make the same connection with how something looks as how it makes them feel. This is because ecommerce is a huge industry and many products look very similar.

And the problem is that if you make this mistake then your ecommerce blog posts are less likely to have a positive impact on your sales.

Use your ecommerce blog to tackle audience pain points

Audience pain points are the questions your audience needs answers to.

They drive them to search for solutions and you can use your ecommerce blog to make your products the thing that eases their pain. Do this successfully and you can increase sales for your business.

Using audience pain points to inspire your blog content is a similar strategy to focusing on benefits, as it addresses questions your customers have and makes your products the answer.

But it goes further than focussing on your product benefits. How? By working backwards from the things that drive your audience and finding ways of linking it to your products – whereas writing content that focuses on benefits operates in the opposite way.

Credit: PXHere

There are many ways you can establish what your audience’s pain points are. One of the best is to create buyer personas for your ecommerce business.

Buyer personas are a market research tool that creates an image of your ideal customers. This takes into account things such as your customers’ behaviour, demographics, goals, and motivations.

Once you’ve got your personas you can create content that addresses their pain points.

You can then use this to increase your ecommerce sales by adding in links to your business’ product and category pages.

Incorporate UGC into your ecommerce blog

UGC stands for user-generated content. As the name suggests, it’s content that’s created by your audience. Not only is it a great source of free material for your ecommerce blog, but it’s also a great way to increase sales for your business.

The reason UGC is so good is that people trust the opinions of their peers as much as recommendations from friends and family.

The point is that they trust them more than your views because they don’t think there’s a vested interest, so including UGC on your blog makes your brand more trustworthy.

Credit: Free Stock Photos

You can leverage this on your blog by including testimonials from your customers.

Returning to the trainer example used earlier in this article, you could add a quote from one of your customers to a post on your ecommerce blog.

It might say something like “I was able to run for longer because these shoes were more comfortable. This means that I’m exercising five hours more every week and I feel much healthier because of this.”

This then helps increase sales for your ecommerce business because it validates your products — if a customer sees that one of their peers is benefiting from their products, then they’ll see it as an unbiased recommendation and will be more likely to buy from your company.

That’s just one way of leveraging user-generated content to build trust in your brand. You can find some more great ideas by watching the video below:

Embedded video temporarily unavailable. View the original video

Think about adding guest posts to your ecommerce blog

Guest blogs are what they sound like — they’re when you publish an article from another site to your own blog. This is a great source of free content for your business, but it also helps to increase sales. How? By giving your business access to new audiences.

Any external site that you publish on your ecommerce blog will have a vested interest in sharing the content on their social media channels. This puts your business in front of new followers and provides a potential new source of customers.

However, you should go further than this. Instead of just adding guest posts to your ecommerce blog, you should enter into a partnership with other sites by also writing content for their blog.

This will improve the chances of you reaching a new audience further still and increase the likelihood of you making more sales.

Great ecommerce blogs your business can learn from

We’ve given you some great tips to help you write and create ecommerce blog posts that will help to increase sales for your business.

To finish things off, we’ve picked out two great examples of ecommerce blogs that you can use as inspiration for your own content.

Shopify: ecommerce blog with lots of informational content

Credit: Shopify

We spoke earlier about audience pain points and how it can help you to increase sales for your business.

Shopify is a leading ecommerce platform and it’s the expert when it comes to creating ecommerce blog posts that tackle the problems its audience (and customers) encounter.

It splits its blog into the following categories:
- Latest Articles
- Business Ideas
- Grow Your Sales
- Product Updates
- Founder Stories
- Shopify Compass
These are focussed on topics that are relevant to both current and aspiring ecommerce business owners – it gives them the tools to start a business and to address any issues they encounter once they’ve launched their company.

BigCommerce: an ecommerce blog that knows how to use CTAs

Credit: BigCommerce

We explained earlier how using good CTAs in your ecommerce blog can help increase sales for your business.

BigCommerce is a popular ecommerce platform and it has a great understanding of how to use CTAs to help drive its audience to its money pages.

Some of the CTAs BigCommerce uses include:
- Linking to free trials of its platform
- Directing them to product pages
- Asking people to sign up to its email list
The last point is an interesting one because it may seem like it offers little scope to boost your sales.

However, by collecting the email addresses of your customers you can engage in audience segmentation. This allows you to learn more about your customers and create targeted blog posts that address their pain points.

There’s no one size fits all approach to writing ecommerce blogs that increase sales for your business – one tactic may work for a rival company but fall short when you apply it to your own.

However, what does fit for all companies is having a set of ideas you can work with.

We’ve given you plenty of great tips for how to write ecommerce blog posts that will increase sales for your business. All that’s left now for you is to start putting these ideas into practice.
November 20, 2020

Best Dropshipping Tools for Ecommerce Businesses

Dropshipping is one of the most exciting innovations in ecommerce since Amazon and its contemporaries changed the way we shop online forever.

The flexibility and low-investment nature of dropshipping makes it a model anyone with a bit of retail knowledge and a great eye for products can make a success of themselves with.

Of course, we all know a project can sometimes only be as good as the tools you have at your disposal. That’s not different when the tools are digital.

To make sure you’re running your business as efficiently as possible, betting on the right product trends and making the customer experience as smooth as possible, we’ve put together a list of the best dropshipping tools available right now. Read on to find out more:

The 5 best dropshipping tools

Tool Name	Supported Platforms	Key Features	Price
Oberlo	Shopify	The leading dropshipping ecommerce tool – slick, great price points and easy to use.	Starter – Free Basic – $29.90 Pro – $79.90
Spocket	WooCommerce	Quick access to products for a more Western audience	Starter – $19 / Month Pro – $49 / Month Empire – $99 / Month Unicorn – $299 / Month
Sell The Trend	N/A	Insight into the hottest products on the market now and how to promote them	N/A
Zendesk	Oberlo	Versatile customer service done your way	Lite – $0 Professional – $15 Enterprise – $49
Answer The Public	N/A	Fantastic insight into the exact questions consumers are asking	Free – $0 Monthly – $99 Annual – $79 / month

Best dropshipping tools for ecommerce platforms

The platform you choose can make or break your ecommerce store. There are a few standout options on the market available for dropshipping specifically. Let’s explore the very best.

Shopify: Oberlo

Shopify is one of the leading ecommerce tools and a must-consider for any dropshipping store owner.

Developed exclusively for Shopify, Oberlo is one of the most recognisable names in dropshipping, and with good reason.

Oberlo is a Shopify app or marketplace that helps you find products you can dropship.

Once you’ve effortlessly integrated Oberlo into your Shopify store you can browse its marketplace for products to sell and add them to your store in an instant. This creates a clear pipeline for your business where consumer orders will be shipped directly from the supplier.

Shopify and Oberlo are phenomenal tools for dropshippers that focus primarily on making the whole process easier. If you’re a Shopify user who appreciates the ease and user-friendly nature of the platform (particularly as a beginner), this is the perfect place to start your dropshipping journey.

Oberlo has three pricing plans — a Free Version, Basic Plan and Pro Plan which all feature increased useability, functionality and features depending on the price.

WooCommerce: WooDropship

WooCommerce is a brilliant free tool that dropshippers looking to run a WordPress website should heavily consider.

Unlike a Shopify store — where hosting is free —— you will need to pay for hosting to get your dropshipping store online. Other than that, it is a simple service that gives you a great platform to bring your dropshipping dreams to life.

WooDropship offers much of the same integration with AliExpress as Oberlo (through AliDropship) — adding products to your site and allowing you to start placing orders. It automates the shipping process to make including items on your store a much more streamlined process.

It’s automated price updated feature makes sure you’re always up to date with AliExpress price alterations — helping you keep track of profit margins and make sure orders remain profitable.

Shopify: Dropified

Oberlo might be the bigger name in the dropshipping community — but a significant number of store owners will nail their colours to the Dropified mast.

While it is slightly more expensive than some of the tools we’ve already covered (including no free plan), it is a versatile tool that does all the basics you could want from a dropshipping platform very well.

Everything integrates seamlessly with Dropified and the essential auto-updating price, profit margins and availability sync makes it easy to keep a store going. It also features its own store with products shipping directly from the US.

Want to manage several stores in different niches? Dropified allows you to do that from one account. And you can even learn how to manage your store better with the helpful training center videos.

Image Unsplash

Best dropshipping tools for order processing

Orders are the heart of a dropshipping business. If you aren’t getting orders, your store is heading nowhere fast.

These tools make the order process easier for both you and your customers.

Note: some of these tools will have their own suppliers, while others will connect to other dropshipping websites.

Spocket

Compatible with both Shopify and WooCommerce — this nifty little tool gives you an alternative way to source products for your store.

Unlike many of the product sourcing and order processing tools we’ve covered so far, Spocket has their own selection of dropshipping product suppliers — 60% of which are based in the US or Europe.

That means you can offer much faster delivery times for your store.

If you’re looking for variety in your store, this machine learning powered discovery tool will make it easy for you to get samples of your product, and get full orders out across the world almost instantly. An excellent addition to your store that helps at both ends of the process.

Ecomdash

A multi-channel inventory management system —— Ecomdash combines traditional ecommerce methodology with dropshipping automation functionality.

This tool can be integrated with a number of high profile platforms including Amazon, eBay and Shopify to manage orders seamlessly.

Features include setting supplier prioritization to route orders automatically, SKU mapping for an accurate tracking of your products, and the automatic updating of your sales channels with shipping and tracking info.

Ecomdash takes lots of little things all ecommerce store owners need done well and puts them in one simple, constantly updating, package.

Spark Shipping

Running a dropshipping store requires a fast, automated process that can happen in the background.

Spark Shipping is perfect for just that — working with all major vendors to route orders to the most suitable supplier, synchronise your inventory and track your orders in detail.

Best of all Spark Shipping is known for its integration with other multi-channel management solutions (such as ChannelAdvisor) meaning if you want to build on your store and back end processes you don’t need to abandon it and it’s benefits.

Best dropshipping tools for website performance

Reviewing and managing your website’s performance is an essential step in improving its overall performance and user experience.

Here are some tools that give you precious insight into your store’s performance and highlight key issues:

Google Analytics

A phenomenally powerful and popular tool that gives you a holistic view into the inner-working of your website and the success of your marketing channels.

Putting aside valuable insights into organic traffic, social media campaigns and email newsletters for the time being, Google Analytics is an essential dropshipping tool. It’s great for getting a full picture of who uses your website, what they respond positively to and how you can make simple changes to improve their experience and attract more like-minded consumers.

An essential tool for ecommerce of all kinds, Google Analytics lets you drill down into your store’s visitor data, allowing you to segment your audience, and decipher not just how they found your store, but what exact steps they took on their customer journey.

From helping you restructure your product pages to recognising what your most profitable landing pages are, Google Analytics is a website performance essential.

ZIK Analytics

Designed specifically with dropshipping in mind — ZIK Analytics is an excellent tool for eBay dropshippers to find products and learn about the dropshipping landscape.

This tool helps you optimise your listings and boost website performance. Best of all, it gives you invaluable insight into what your competitors are up to. With ZIK you can learn from the sellers that dominate the market.

Their competitor research tool is robust and gives you an idea of what products are selling best for them. This gives you key knowledge of the most important factor in dropshipping currently — which products are hot on the market right now.

Image Unsplash

Best dropshipping tools for marketing

By now, everyone knows how important digital marketing is to the success of an ecommerce store — and this is no different whether that’s traditional ecommerce or dropshipping.

Here are some great marketing tools for aspiring dropshippers and seasoned professionals:

Google Trends

Google Trends won’t help you post to Facebook or become a must-follow Instagram account — but it will give you an idea of what products people are talking about and might be a great focus for your dropshipping store.

This is no ordinary SEO tool. With it’s easy to use interface Google Trends gives you a clear indication of what seasonal topics, products and niches people are interested in in raw data terms. There’s no subjectivity — just a case of noticing what buzz is sustainable and what’s a fad already on the way out.

It’s also a great tool for edging out the competition and monitoring their ranking position and popularity online.

In terms of marketing, Google Trends can be used to find related topics and do “content freshness” — essentially create new content to boost your store and stay on-trend.

Sell The Trend

Sell the Trend is a unique tool comprised of many lots of smaller tools.

A newer tool for dropshippers to play around with — Sell the Trend is an incredibly comprehensive product research tool that doesn’t just give you key insights into the popularity and sales history of certain products, but also provides example Facebook ads that will help your products get noticed.

Rather than subscribing to a whole host of product research tools, Sell the Trend gives you everything you could want in a neat package.

In terms of a marketing tool, Sell the Trend is a more dropshipping and ecommerce-focused version of Google Trends. Not strictly designed for marketing but incredibly useful either way.

Omnisend

Email marketing is still crucial to ecommerce — and something any good dropshipping store needs to invest in.

When it comes to professionalism and bulk delivery, there are few better tools than Omnisend.

With Omnisend you can send up to 15,000 free marketing emails per month — more than enough for any good dropshipping store just starting out. There’s not much more to it than that. And what more could you want from an email tool?

Coupled with something like Zoho Mail to create a professional-looking email address, this is a quality tool that will help you get significant exposure in consumer’s inboxes.

Omnisend is very user-friendly for new dropshipping store owners — but helpful alternatives such as MailChimp exist if you prefer a slightly more guided interface.

Buffer

Marketing can be exhausting and repetitive. That’s why any good dropshipping store owner that values their time but wants to create a comprehensive social media profile should make a great social marketing automation tool one of their first investments.

Buffer allows you to create a unique schedule for sharing content on all of your social channels — such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest.

Sure, there are lots of great social management tools that allow you to do just that. However, Buffer thrives in the simplicity of its interface and processes. You can freely edit, move or delete posts from your social queue at will without hassle.

With a great free plan and more comprehensive paid plans you never need to worry about working late filing social posts ever again.

Best dropshipping tools for customer support

Staying in touch with your audience is critical to keeping them on side.

The advent and growth of the social proof phenomenon is point enough that customer service is one of the most essential components of ecommerce, and key to making your store stand out and retain consumers.

G Suite

For fans of Gmail and Google Cloud services looking to integrate them into their customer support — G Suite is the perfect fit.

Unlimited custom email addresses with the added benefit of a familiar Gmail email interface? Sounds good to me. If your business makes heavy use of Google tools such as Calendar or Docs it makes sense to use this seamless tool.

With helpful prices scaled to the size of your business, G Suite is a great starting point for businesses that need a simple way to analyse their customer interactions through email and provide the best support service possible.

Tidio

However, some would say customer support has evolved beyond emails and direct calls. What if you want to complement your dropshipping store with a high quality live chat function?

Tidio is one of the most impressive live chat tools on the market. This adaptable plugin (it’ll work on both Shopify and WordPress among many others) is a brilliant tool that merges marketing automation, bots and live chat functions to improve your customer service output and boost sales.

With a free option and a ton of customisation options to tailor Tidio to your branding specifications, this is an excellent tool for new dropshipping stores looking to make their customer service second to none.

Zendesk

Dropshipping is a unique business model that attracts a huge number of different customers — and each of those customers will have services and support preferences.

Luckily for dropshipping store owners, Zendesk offers all the customer support platforms and functionality a new or existing store could want to flesh out their customer base or expand their services.

This customer service solutions suite includes live chat, call centre phone systems, a knowledge base and a customer support ticket system — all integrated into the same package and easy to use.

With a package this complete, dropship store owners can both react to customer queries and questions in a timely manner, and provide them with the content they need to answer questions themselves — without taking precious time away from you or your employees.

Best dropshipping tools for SEO

For those not in the know, SEO is the unrivaled key to online success in all online businesses, including dropshipping ecommerce.

Comprehensive, well-done SEO can often be the difference between a dropshipping store taking off with a passionate audience and one that fails to capture attention.

Whether you’re just starting out with SEO or an experienced analyst looking for the best possible tools, these are some fantastic options.

Ahrefs

There are too many reasons to list why Ahrefs is one of the most popular and well-respected SEO tools available.

Ahrefs has expanded to become one of the most multi-purpose SEO tools on the market, whether you’re looking to link build or analyse traffic to your store.

It’s most well-known feature is its Site Explorer. This allows you to analyse any website (including your own) and get vital SEO information such as DR (Domain Rating) and number of backlinks. Basically, it’s the best look at what’s beneath the SEO hood of your website you can get.

With a world class UI and exceptional insight into data, there are few better places for a growing dropshipping store to turn for a look into both their own insights and the market at large.

Keywords Everywhere

If you’re just looking for the right keywords to prioritise on your website then a tool like Ahrefs can be a big investment. That’s where a tool like Keywords Everywhere comes in.

This free Chrome and Firefox tool pulls search engine data from a whopping 16 different websites and delivers the results in a neat little package for you to analyse.

Search volume, cost per click and competition level — it’s all here for you to analyse and put to use in your content.

There are lots of tools out there that give you insight into the keywords that could give you mountains of traffic to your website. But few offer the comprehensive overview and access to low-hanging fruit that Keywords Everywhere does.

Answer The Public

It’s great to know what keywords are popular amongst your potential audience — but it’s even better to know exactly what questions they’re asking Google.

Answer The Public is a keyword research tool with a difference. It pulls data directly from Google to give you a comprehensive overview of your keywords as well as any related queries. This is essential information that can craft future pieces of content and the products you build your store around.

Answer The Public isn’t such a brilliant tool just because it gives you insightful data about keywords — but because it puts exact queries in front of your face (incredibly detailed diagrams and all).

Best free dropshipping tools

We all like free stuff right?

Free tools don’t always get the best rep due to their lack of cost, limited features or perceived inferiority in comparison to industry leaders.

However, there are a number of free tools that can help simplify and streamline running a dropshipping business. On top of the great free tools we’ve already covered, here are some brilliant pieces of free dropshipping software.

Google Keyword Planner

In our previous section on SEO we covered a couple of different keyword research tools. While any of these could be used, Keyword Planner is a great free and easy option to use.

This Google tool allows you to tap into Google’s massive keyword database.

Okay, it’s not quite as fleshed out as many leading keyword research tools. But as a free option? There’s not much better than it around. Plus, everything you’re getting is straight from Google.

Amazon Best Seller

Not quite a tool — but something all dropshipping store owners should be using to their advantage

The Best Sellers section on Amazon is a great way to get insight into the popularity of specific products on other marketplaces.

A great little research hack — Best Sellers lets you browse through product categories and subcategories to see what’s popular with shoppers at the moment. While it won’t tell you exactly how many units have been sold, it’s a simple little way to learn what public opinion surrounding the product is before you invest in selling it or use it as a key promotional item.

Clicky Analytics Tool

If Google Analytics doesn’t quite gel with you, then Clicky Analytics might be a better tool choice.

This simple tool is feature-rich — including all the basic Google Analytics data alongside real-time stats. Don’t tell the Google Analytics purists, but we think Clicky might just have a more user-friendly and better looking interface, making it much easier to file those end of the month reports for your store.

If you love Clicky, you can upgrade to one of the paid plans which also includes features such as heatmaps to get a clearer picture of what is and isn’t working on your site.

There are literally hundreds of exceptional digital tools out there for dropshipping stores to take advantage of — with even more being released every day as the model becomes increasingly popular.

These are all brilliant tools to get started and define what works for you and your approach to dropshipping.

November 13, 2020

Best Ecommerce WordPress Themes

In theory, a WordPress theme is a simple collection of templates which forms the front of your ecommerce store. But in practice, they are so much more.

In today’s climate, retailers are clambering to get online. But to stand out from the crowd, you need an eye-catching site — one that will draw traffic and convert. Therefore selecting the right WordPress theme could be pivotal in creating your dream website and finding success online.

But choosing the ideal theme is no menial task. Like Goldilocks’ porridge, it’s all about getting it just right for your business. How would you envision your dream storefront? Start there and think about your message, buyer personas and the overall feel you are trying to create.

Read on to discover some of the best ecommerce WordPress themes for your store, and how they can help create your perfect business.

WordPress theme comparison table

Theme	Page Design	Features	Customisation	User-friendly	Price
Astra	⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐
Neve	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐	⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐
Storefront	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐	⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Divi	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐	⭐
Flatsome	⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐
Shopkeeper	⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐
Avada	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐	⭐
Brutal	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐	⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐

Astra 🥇

Image: websitedemos.net

Cost: Free from the WordPress online shop with premium features available up to $59

Astra is one of the most popular ecommerce themes in all of WordPress; widely used across a variety of platforms for its speed and overall usability.

The theme’s simple but customisable nature lends itself perfectly to flexibility, meaning Astra is not only one of the best ecommerce WordPress themes — it’s a fantastic tool across the board.

The upside of using Astra over similar themes is the overall value on offer; good at everything, master of none. Astra is an all-rounder, making it the WordPress theme to beat for any web designer.

It’s capable of supporting all your ecommerce needs and is rich in features and plugins, including support for WooCommerce and many more.

Here’s the kicker: Astra isn’t one theme, but many. The package allows you to import a variety of templates, each tailored to the nature of your store.

One downside, however, is the design. No matter which template you choose, Astra can come across as a little dated and drab. While many alternatives prove to be more eye-catching, you couldn’t ask much more from a free theme.

Check out how the Astra WordPress theme performed in our rating system:

Page design: ⭐⭐⭐
Features: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Customisation: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
User-friendliness: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Price of theme: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Pros	Cons
✔ Quick off the mark for a free theme	❌ Dated and drab design
✔ Ecommerce support and plugins	❌ Maybe too basic
✔ Variety of tailored templates
✔ Simple and recognisable

Overall, Astra isn’t perfect, but it’s one of the best ecommerce WordPress themes — if not the best ecommerce theme available for free by a long shot. If you’re a novice looking to dip their feet into online sales, look no further than this all-round gem.

Easy to use, functional and customisable — Astra ticks all the boxes you need.

Looking for a little extra zest? Astra’s purchasable premium features provide an added boost to your selling needs.

Neve 🥈

Image: themeisle.com

Cost: Free with paid versions ranging from $39

Neve is a versatile WordPress theme accompanied by a selection of interesting page designs. You can sell comfortably with a bold, accessible storefront; each design is fully functional and ready for use right out the gates.

The user value of Neve is easily good enough to rival front runner Astra. But the theme really sets itself apart through its instantaneous usability.

Additionally, the page design is stunning, even compared to traditional paid-for themes. Neve is fluid, modern and eye-catching — perfect traits for user satisfaction.

Neve is also fully compatible with WooCommerce and any other similar plugins on the market. This makes it ideal for any small business looking to make a big splash on the web

Best of all? It’s SEO friendly, meaning search engines like Google and Bing absolutely love to see it. By using Neve, you’ll give your ecommerce shop a great foundation for maximising customer reach.

However, Neve falls well below expectations in regards to features. In fact, there are basically none. Its slick design creates sparse, often empty-looking sites. Is this minimalism, or far too simplistic?

For some stores, this is probably acceptable. But it’s a deal-breaker if you’re looking to bulk up your online shop with all the bells and whistles — in which case, you’ll be more inclined to opt for the tried and tested Astra.

Let’s see how Neve stacks up against our rating system:

Page design: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Features: ⭐⭐
Customisation: ⭐⭐
User-friendliness: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Price of theme: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Pros	Cons
✔ Instant and responsive page design	❌ Light on features
✔ SEO friendly	❌ Lacking in customisation options
✔ Fast and simple

Considering all the ups and downs, Neve almost beats Astra to the top spot. The page design makes a fantastic theme for any small business on a tight budget.

Neve’s purpose is simple — fast, punchy and concise — but this leaves little room for anything else. For that reason, Neve has to settle for a strong second-place finish.

Looking for a balanced theme? This isn’t the one for your business. Unlike Astra’s all-round capability, Neve is geared to do one thing really well, which makes it shine particularly bright in the world of ecommerce.

Storefront 🥉

Image: themes.woocommerce.com

Cost: Free of charge

Storefront is the optimal theme if you’re looking for quality on a shoestring budget. And as the official WooCommerce theme for WordPress, there’s definitely a case for it to top this list on pedigree alone.

Being intertwined with the ecommerce platform, it comes as no surprise Storefront integrates seamlessly with the WooCommerce plugin. But the benefits of this for online sales extend far beyond a few branded buzz words.

WooCommerce tops the charts in the ecommerce industry, with its platform now hosting almost one million live websites. Building websites with such a well-known brand only serves to strengthen consumer confidence.

However, as themes go this one is fairly limited compared to others on the market. Storefront’s benefits are only applicable to newcomers and if you’re looking for a customisable or more intricate experience, you’ll be left frustrated.

Now the basics are covered, read on to discover how Storefront performs against our rating system:

Page design: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Features: ⭐⭐⭐
Customisation: ⭐
User-friendliness: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Price of theme: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Pros	Cons
✔ Great for beginners	❌ Extremely limited customisation
✔ Connected to a respected brand name	❌ Not a great choice for seasoned users

Rest assured Storefront comes with very few downsides; selecting this theme to represent your online store is a solid, reliable choice.

But while it’s made it to our best ecommerce WordPress themes list, if you want anything other than the basics, you’ll be left bitterly disappointed (although its simplicity can also be a massive plus).

WooCommerce’s official theme allows even the most inexperienced of beginners to start trading online, growing the industry from the bottom up.

Divi

Image: elegantthemes.com

Cost: No free version, $89 asking price

Divi shares many similarities with Astra — a fantastic multipurpose theme which does everything to a really strong standard.

in terms of popularity, it is right up there as well. Beloved by users for its sharp design, paired with diverse customisation and plugin options.

Divi is unique to Astra through its stand out drag and drop feature — something that allows you to make live changes to your site through its very own page builder.

Most notably, Divi is incredibly malleable and can be manipulated like putty in the hands of a capable designer. You can create all manors of combinations, to the point where it’s hard to pick out a Divi template from the pack because each page could be unrecognisable from the next.

Divi allows creatives to really get carried away and build something special. But if you aren’t very comfortable playing around with a template, working the interface can be a little tricky. And after forking out the asking price, you don’t want to be left wondering what to do.

Let’s take a look to see Divi stands up to scrutiny:

Page design: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Features: ⭐⭐⭐
Customisation: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
User-friendliness: ⭐⭐
Price of theme: ⭐

Pros	Cons
✔ Fantastic freedom and customisation	❌ Not for beginners
✔ Lots of ecommerce plugins available	❌ Too many options
✔ Real time editing	❌ Quite expensive

It takes a skilled hand to get to grips with a Divi template, but if you can master its capabilities, the designs you can create are magnificent and unique. For experienced and creative pros, this is one of the best ecommerce WordPress themes.

The only problem is that the package doesn’t come cheap. Therefore, it’s hard to justify paying the price when themes like Astra are free of charge.

If you’re a creative soul who has experience in page design, the Divi is the perfect theme for you.

Flatsome

Image: flatsome3.uxthemes

Cost: Premium listing of $59

Flatsome is another versatile theme, which is why it’s garnered a lot of attention within the ecommerce community over the years.

Wherever you look, this theme is topping the charts, and for good reason too — Flatsome is simple, stylish and constantly updated to keep relevant year on year.

This theme is ideal for beginners because you can build stunning landing, product and checkout pages without having to be a coding wizard.

When it comes to the world of ecommerce, converting leads into sales is the optimum goal.
And with fully customisable pages across each stage of the transaction, you can tailor the buying experience directly towards your target audience.

So that’s a big tick for getting the basics in line. But where Flatsome finds its niche is the catalogue view. This streamlines the entire process, placing all your products in the eyline of all the site’s users.

However, given it’s a pretty expensive theme, the idea of only being given six months of customer support is a little underwhelming. As a beginner, it’s nice to feel secure in your purchases. Therefore the online support system is clearly this theme’s biggest downside — along with the price tag.

Think this could be the theme for you? Let’s make sure by looking at Flatsome through our rating system:

Page design: ⭐⭐
Features: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Customisation: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
User-friendliness: ⭐⭐⭐
Price of theme: ⭐⭐

Pros	Cons
✔ Great customisation options	❌ Pretty expensive for one domain
✔ Always receiving updates	❌ Weak on user support

Flatsome is a fantastic theme and its seemingly infinite popularity only serves to affirm this.

The customisation options, which can be tailored for ecommerce, is a huge plus for small businesses looking to make an initial impact.

But if price is a deal-breaker then you best look elsewhere. Although Flatsome is great at what it does, there are plenty of themes which perform similar functions, either cheaper or completely free of charge.

Shopkeeper

Image: shopkeeper.wp-theme

Cost: $59 premium theme with an additional paid option to extend user support

With the latest and greatest Shopkeeper 2.9 update, this theme is one of the best around if you aren’t put off by the price.

Shopkeeper is a fully responsive package built with ecommerce functionality front and centre. Boasting flash designs and complete WooCommerce integration, online businesses can make the most of their website by using the theme.

Unlike many other themes, ecommerce is the main bragging point. This isn’t a generic theme with a few plugins thrown around here and there.

Shopkeeper — much like its namesake — is all about completing sales in a professional manner. Where the theme lacks in customisation options, it more than makes up for it in overall efficiency.

Containing a selection of set page designs, Shopkeeper makes the most of an open, sprawling layout — perfect for fashion and clothing. If you’re looking to really showcase your items and write informative reviews, look no further.

Additionally, Shopkeeper contains drag and drop features in the same ilk as Divi. And although user support is time-sensitive, there are dedicated YouTube videos to refer to whenever you like.

Here’s how Shopkeeper stacks up against our rating system:

Page design: ⭐⭐⭐
Features: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Customisation: ⭐⭐
User-friendliness: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Price of theme: ⭐⭐

Pros	Cons
✔ Designed specifically for ecommerce	❌ Takes some time to get used to
✔ Responsive	❌ Paid theme

Cost aside, Shopkeeper looks to be a great theme for any online retailers, big or small. But is it one of the best ecommerce WordPress themes out there?

Its specific design is often a little limiting, and being a paid theme it would be nice to see a little more variety on the screen.

With that being said, Shopkeeper is the perfect theme to showcase products on a pleasing open platform, like a digital catwalk.

Avada

Image: avada.theme-fusion

Cost: $60 premium theme with a paid option to extend user support

Avada’s 7.0 update has allowed it to grow into a really strong ecommerce theme — flush with customisation options, a responsive layout across all devices, and WooCommerce functionality to top it all off.

With all the above and more, it’s no surprise Avada is considered the number one WordPress theme across every facet of its user base. Although the price seems expensive, Avada definitely gives you value for money.

However, learning how to use Avada can be pretty difficult for users who have acclimatised to other themes already. Avada does things its own way — which isn’t necessarily wrong, just different.

But although the learning curve is steep, strangely enough, newcomers have a slight edge, given they haven’t got used to using another package.

Do you want to join the thousands using Avada? Let’s take a closer look to see if it’s the theme for you:

Page design: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Features: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Customisation: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
User-friendliness: ⭐
Price of theme: ⭐

Pros	Cons
✔ Lots of demo sites for starters	❌ Very expensive (price per site)
✔ Integrated front end page builder	❌ Often does too much and gets confusing
✔ WooCommerce features	❌ Not for the faint of heart
✔ Great customisation options

Often people invest in Avada on name alone, not knowing exactly what they are in for.

Avada is fantastic if you can get to grips with it, but overcoming the learning curve is no mean feat. And as well as being expensive and complicated, the WordPress theme offers little free support.

An undeniably brilliant tool for skilled website designers, if you want a simple theme to sell your stock, Avada isn’t that. But if you have the money and can take the time to understand this theme, its upsides are nearly infinite.

Brutal

Image: brutal.demo

Cost: Annual fee of $89 plus an extra $49 to receive year-long support and updates

Does a minimalist design appeal to you? Brutal is a fresh-looking theme, perfect for today’s market.

No pomp, nor clutter, this theme is as concise as it gets, not to mention it is incredibly pleasing to the eye. Brutal is for businesses who are confident in the aesthetic of their product and need to show it off.

As such, this will appeal mostly to fashion retailers and clothing brands, because Brutal lets your designs do the talking.

If you were to pick out an obvious downside, it would be the extortionate price attached to them. All in, a package which comes to just under $140 far exceeds anything we have seen so far.

But is it worth it? I’m unconvinced. Although Brutal clearly has its merits, the emptiness of the theme also means fewer features and customisation options are available.

What you see is what you get. And for a theme that commands such a high fee — that’s simply not enough to warrant the price tag.

Let’s see how Brutal compares to its competitors:

Page design: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Features: ⭐⭐
Customisation: ⭐⭐
User-friendliness: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Price of theme: ⭐

Pros	Cons
✔ Best page design I’ve seen	❌ Very expensive
✔ Great for fashion brands	❌ Lacking in features
✔ Very simple to use	❌ Few customisation options

Overall, Brutal is an aesthetically striking theme that would make me proud to showcase a product on.

However, if you’re paying this much for a theme, you’d expect more than a fancy gallery. This is a great theme that I want to love. But for the price tag alone, my praises come with a hint of disdain.

Summary of all the best ecommerce WordPress themes

With millions of different WordPress themes on the market, choosing just one to develop your online business can be a daunting task. Often you will find yourself dipping in and out of redesigns, unable to commit to one theme.

But rest assured, these are some of the best ecommerce WordPress themes out there, and there are few better themes than the ones mentioned above.

With special mention to Astra, Neve and Storefront, each offers something different for your business. And at the end of the day, it’s purely up to your personal preference and needs.

Have any of these themes piqued your interest? Head to the best WordPress theme stores and begin building an ecommerce website of your very own.

November 6, 2020

Why Every Ecommerce Business Should Engage in Referral Marketing

If you run an ecommerce business, you know all it takes is a few quick messages and clicks to make a sale. The same can be true to gain a new customer — if you use referral marketing.

Referral marketing is the process of motivating customers to share your business with others. By utilizing existing relationships, incentives, and word of mouth, an ecommerce business can see exponential growth by using this tactic.

Below, we go over a few other reasons why every ecommerce business should engage in referral marketing.

Referral marketing works alongside your current operations

Take a look at your existing customer communication. Do you post on social media, conduct customer surveys, or send transactional emails? These are all perfect opportunities to include referral marketing.

The best time to ask a customer to recommend your business to others is when they’re at their happiest — usually after a purchase or standout experience.

Make the most of these moments by including a catchy call to action at the bottom of your emails. Something like “Share the love,” “Tell your friends,” or even a straightforward “Give £10, Get £10.” A brief mention of your referral program and its benefits is enough to continue the relationship with your customer.

Referral programs are easy to start

Thanks to specialty software, an entire referral program can be set up in just a few weeks. This is less than the amount of time it takes to conceptualise most other types of marketing campaigns.

Not only can the right referral software tool integrate into your ecommerce site without any difficult coding, it can also track the program’s progress and referral rates.

Many steps can be automated, including sending out the reward incentive or adding new referrals to a list of leads. Plus, all the collateral can be customized with your brand for a completely seamless experience.

Referrals are one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies

Think of referral marketing costs like commission — you only have to pay when you make a new sale.

Aside from any software and management costs, referral marketing is pay per performance ( therefore, low risk). Most of what you spend for are the referral incentives, which are only paid once you make a sale.

For example, say you offer £20 for every successful referral and receive 20 referrals in the first month. The amount you pay for incentives (£800) is only given after you’ve already closed those 20 new customers. If you don’t get a new customer, you don’t pay a thing.

In fact, discounts, store credit, and even non-monetary incentives can be enough to generate referrals. Plus, they encourage repeat business from your customers.

Referral marketing shines on social media

Whereas word of mouth originally took place offline, from person to person, much of today’s word of mouth happens through social media and online communications.

Referral marketers know this, and allow customers to send messages through their preferred social media or messaging platform.

A good referral campaign will include a pre-drafted message that can be customized or used as is. It will also offer a range of social share buttons so customers can easily and quickly send the message to their friends and family.

With businesses inviting their customers, and customers messaging their family and friends, referral marketing maximizes your presence on social networks.

Referrals add to your social proof

Referral marketing also builds social proof. And for an ecommerce business, this can be what leads a potential customer to your business.

It makes sense: When others hear about your brand from their family or friends, they’ll automatically see it as one that’s trusted and valuable.

In fact, 83% of respondents across the globe trust recommendations from friends and family — much more than commercial ads, online review sites, or email campaigns.

And since your customer’s network is likely to have many others in your target market, these referrals will be more inclined to check out your business.

Referrals lead to long-term customer relationships

A goal of any retailers is to form long-term relationships with their customers. Referral marketing helps do that, with rewards that encourage goodwill and repeat business.

Most successful referral programs offer discounts or store credit, which incentivize customers to stay loyal to the business. The referred friend often also gets a similar incentive to increase the odds of a first purchase.

Referral marketing works because in addition to spreading the word about your brand, it forms a mutually beneficial relationship between ecommerce businesses and its customers.

Referral marketing software makes data easy to track

If you run an ecommerce business, you know how important it is to track data. Click through rates, average order value, conversion — these all help inform you about the customer’s shopping experience.

Well, referral programs help round out the picture. Referral marketing software tracks the number of successful referrals per customer, what platforms they use to share, and which rewards encourage the most referrals.

Many marketers even send out an initial survey to see who of their customers are most likely to refer others to a business. These are the best customers to invite to your program and get the referrals rolling.

Plus, if you notice one of your customers is especially active in referring their friends, you can develop the relationship even further and ask them to be a brand ambassador or influencer.

Expand your ecommerce business

The benefits of referral marketing have helped a number of ecommerce businesses expand their customer base.

If you already see some customers recommending you to others, it’s a good time to try referral marketing. The reward incentives and easy ways to share will only help build on that organic word of mouth.

And since referral programs can run completely online, they can be integrated and managed alongside your ecommerce store with ease.

About the author:

Kat Dalao is a content manager for Referral Rock. She’s spent her career in publishing, first as a writer and then as a creative director for a magazine. She’s currently based in New York, where she enjoys doing random projects, exploring the city, and cooking.

October 6, 2020
5 Emails Every Ecommerce Seller Needs
Email marketing is the most powerful tool in your arsenal to get people back to your ecommerce store. But beyond the typical promotions and order detail emails that you’re used to seeing, here are five key emails that you need to send to improve your shopping experience and increase your ROI (return on investment) and CLV (customer lifetime value).
1. Welcome email
2. Abandoned cart emails
3. Review requests
4. Related and recommended products
5. Re-engagement emails
Ecommerce welcome email

Your welcome email is the first email a subscriber gets after they’ve confirmed their subscription to your list. It’s an easy one to overlook, especially if you’re sending regular emails to your list.

Your welcome email is the first chance to establish your brand and start building a relationship with your customers. Even in ecommerce, people want to buy from companies that they know, like, and trust.

A welcome email is also a great time to delight your customers. If coupons or discounts are part of your strategy, give them a coupon here to use on their next purchase.

Remember, many subscribers will join your email list when they make their first purchase, so your welcome email will arrive later. To avoid the inevitable “can you apply this coupon to my existing purchase?” customer service inquiries, make it valid on any upcoming purchase in the next 30 days.

As an added bonus, you can send a follow-up reminder for people to use the coupon code before it expires.

Abandoned cart emails

Abandoned cart emails are pretty routine in ecommerce marketing. Most ecommerce email marketing systems offer an out of the box abandoned cart email.

Take some time to truly customize these emails to align with your brand. If possible, show the products they have in their cart in the email.

You can also use this opportunity to show related products that other customers have purchased, either with or instead of what they’ve considered.

According to Barillaince, the average conversion rate for shopping cart abandonment emails was 18.64%. Take a quick look at your current abandonment rate — and consider what it would mean to your bottom line to get 15-20% of that revenue back into your bottom line.

Abandoned carts emails are also an opportunity to increase the size of your shopping cart by suggesting related or alternative options to what’s in their cart.

Review requests

Consumer proof is one of the strongest tools in your toolbox when selling online since customers are often unable to properly engage with your products until after they’ve said yes.

Reviews are powerful tools to increase sales and provide you with virtually unlimited marketing content to take off the site as well. According to Neilsen’s research, 73% of online respondents use reviews to make purchase decisions.

Send a review request email 1-2 weeks after the product was received and ask for the customers to provide you with feedback. Give the option to reply directly to the email if something wasn’t right and a link to write a review for the product they purchased if they loved it.

While they’re there and thinking about how great their last order was, they may just add something new to their cart!

Related & recommended products

Almost anything you sell online can have another accessory that goes with it. From adding on an AirPod case that matches their new iPhone case to the perfect socks to go with their upgraded running shoes. Finding and recommending the products that your customer needs next is a sure-fire way to convert a one-time customer into a lifetime customer.

Luckily, with today’s sophisticated dynamic email features, you don’t have to build all of these emails manually. With an ecommerce focused email marketing system, you can use all the work you’ve put into cross-merchandising inside your shop, along with the browsing data collected, to dynamically build and send these emails on a regular basis.

Re-engagement emails

Last but not least are re-engagement emails. Also called win-back emails, these emails can get people opening your content and shopping again — or keep your email list clean. As many people as there are out there talking about how to bulk up your list numbers, having a clean email list is even more important. Re-engagement emails should be sent after customers haven’t opened or clicked on emails after three to six months.

The series is simple —- you simply ask them if they want to continue getting the emails. If so, they click through. If not, you will remove them automatically. Have your click-through go to a top-rated or new product category on your shop to encourage them to start browsing as well.

Removing unengaged subscribers from your list means that you’ll spend less each month on your email marketing system plus get better results from every email you send.

Don’t stop there

While these five types of emails are important to support your ecommerce business, don’t stop there! Continue to send traditional email campaigns with special offers like promotions, new product announcements, and shipping updates.

Also, look at your own experiences to identify new opportunities to encourage engagement with your email list. What opportunities have you missed because you simply didn’t know? What information would have helped you make the most of a previous purchase?

Education is a powerful tool that you can use throughout your email marketing campaigns to increase customer loyalty and engagement.

About Brandi Johnson: Brandi Johnson is a marketing consultant and coach with over 15 years of online marketing experience, including content marketing and email marketing. She helps overwhelmed business owners create and implement marketing strategies that support their business goals with less time. You can find her blogging over at heybrandi.com. Her book, Minimum Viable Marketing: Find the Right Pieces to Build Your Marketing Strategy is available now
September 10, 2020
Should You Upgrade to Magento 2?
Magento has been a prominent platform since 2012 and websites have heavily invested in it. After so many years, they have ended Magento 1’s Support.

The change was difficult to understand for merchants and the entire Magento community.

Cutting the chaos around this topic, here are a few options you can take. Weigh the pros and cons of each and decide what best suits your needs.

What does Magento 1 EOL mean?

It means the official team no longer provides M1 patches and technical support. Let’s explore the possibilities:

Staying on Magento 1

Don’t have enough resources? Not sure if M2 is going to work for you? You can continue to stay on Magento 1, just like before. There are a lot of misconceptions around ‘End Of Magento 1 Life’. Most of the merchants are concerned about the following:
- Code Fixes
- Security Patches
- Feature improvements
Over 75% of the sites are still running on Magento 1 efficiently. One of the best things about Magento is its huge community. A lot of viable solutions have popped up ever since Magento has announced its plans to discontinue its support to M1.

Look for a good managed hosting company that would ensure:

1. Managed security
- Your website will be protected against any possible old or new threat and patching will be done accordingly
- Malware scanning & DDoS protection
- Your store will still get updated with patches
- Disaster Management Plan
2. Speedy M1

Discontinuation of M1 doesn’t mean, it won’t perform well. It will be still fast, but only if your store is finely configured and the Magento stacks are optimized to ensure maximum performance. Regular monitoring is required to make sure there’s no-fault and the resources aren’t choked.

Moving to Magento 2

If you want to make the move towards Magento 2, the new software has many benefits:

1. Improved speed

Magento 1 can handle up to 200k views per hour while Magento 2 can handle 10 million views per hour. So if you’re experiencing a lot of traffic, then M2 is a perfect choice.

2. SEO friendly

Magento 2’s front-end design makes it easier for the website to be browsed on all kinds of devices – laptops, tablets, mobiles, etc. Since M2 is responsive throughout the devices, this helps the website with its SEO.

3. Better checkout systems

The checkout system is more streamlined in M2. It is shown that M2 with PHP process 135k more orders per hour. The customer experience has been dramatically improved and simplified. Plus, the order placement is simpler and automated.

Also, guest users can check out without registering and pre-registered customers are automatically identified via their email address.

4. Easy to purchase

In M1, every time the customer adds a product to the cart, the page refreshes. Consequently, these slow-loading pages would lead to a higher bounce rate. However, in Magento 2, there’s a functionality called ‘Ajax add-to-cart’ which prevents a page from reloading whenever a product is added to the cart.

5. Hustle-free extension update

Installing some basic extensions in M1 was a time-consuming task even with the help of Magento experts. But, Magento 2 has made it easier to install extensions and without wasting time. This issue is resolved with the help of CSS3, LESS, and HTML5.

Move away from Magento

Understanding an entirely new platform could be a challenge. However, after analysing your store needs and budget, you can make a decision accordingly. Here are some points to consider while choosing a CMS:
- Performance & Speed
- Security
- Extensions
- Easy Usability
- Customization
- Price
Moving over to Magento 2 has its merits, but sticking with the original isn’t out of the question either. If you’re still struggling to make up your mind, consider reading an in-depth review of Magento.

Author bio: Sakshi Behl is the marketing manager at WebScoot.io, a Managed eCommerce Hosting Platform. She likes to reach the masses with her writings. You can connect with her on [email protected]
August 18, 2020

Category: Ecommerce

Why ecommerce accounting is important for your business

What can go wrong if you don’t get your ecommerce accounting right

What to look for in ecommerce accounting software

Best accounting software for ecommerce businesses

QuickBooks

Features

Pros

Cons

Cost

Platform integrations

Xero

Features

Pros

Cons

Cost

Platform integrations

Best free accounting software for ecommerce businesses

Wave

Features

Pros

Cons

Cost

Platform integrations

Provide exceptional customer support

Iterate based on customer feedback

Address all social media negativity

Implement a good loyalty program

Show company personality and ethics

Blog post template #1: listicles

The anatomy

Blog post template #2: roundups

The anatomy

Blog post template #3: interviews

The anatomy

Blog post template #4: gift guides

The anatomy

Blog post template #5: how-to guides

The anatomy

Blog post template #6: newsjacking

The anatomy

Blog post template #7: trends

The anatomy

Blog post template #8: beginner’s guides

The anatomy

What are trust signals, exactly?

Mention payment security credentials

Prominently display social proof

Offer clear terms and conditions

Create ecommerce blog content that’s SEO optimised

Include clear CTAs in your ecommerce blog posts

Explain the benefits of your products in your ecommerce blog

Use your ecommerce blog to tackle audience pain points

Incorporate UGC into your ecommerce blog

Think about adding guest posts to your ecommerce blog

Great ecommerce blogs your business can learn from

Shopify: ecommerce blog with lots of informational content

BigCommerce: an ecommerce blog that knows how to use CTAs

The 5 best dropshipping tools

Best dropshipping tools for ecommerce platforms

Shopify: Oberlo

WooCommerce: WooDropship

Shopify: Dropified

Best dropshipping tools for order processing

Spocket

Ecomdash

Spark Shipping

Best dropshipping tools for website performance

Google Analytics

ZIK Analytics

Best dropshipping tools for marketing

Google Trends

Sell The Trend

Omnisend

Buffer

Best dropshipping tools for customer support

G Suite

Tidio

Zendesk

Best dropshipping tools for SEO