8 Must-Have Tools for Scaling Up Your E-commerce Business

Photo by Mike Petrucci on Unsplash

There’s something more personal about running an e-commerce business. And that’s because there’s really no manual for it. Sure there’s plenty of good advice out there. But it’s the type of venture where you need to put in the work and discover what it takes to succeed.

Just take a look at these e-commerce influencers who now make six, seven figures, or even more than that in a year.  They’ve gone to trade shows and bargained with suppliers. They’ve messed up their SKUs, experimented with business models, and agonized over shipping costs.

The tools and information are there. However, as an online entrepreneur, you’ll need to go through several hoops before landing on something that will grow your business.

Growth is a good thing, something any businessperson should aspire to. Yet there’s a negative aspect that most people don’t realize.

The Dark Side of Growth

Let’s say you started an e-commerce business in late 2019. You have a solid product with labor and materials available locally. Then the pandemic hit, and with it came a surge in e-commerce sales. 

This was the windfall you didn’t expect to have. Your private label company is now making three times more than it did when it launched. You’re scrambling to hire more people to serve more customers, but all the while, costs are piling up.

This is what unabashed growth does. It’s like unleashing a monster that feeds on every part of your operations. It will run your enterprise to the ground if you don’t regain control of it. 

Do you want to increase your profit without totally ruining your cash flow? Then focus more on scaling a business.

The Benefits of Scaling

Now it should be emphasized that growth is not different from scaling. Instead, the process involved in scaling allows a business to grow at a sustainable pace.

As mentioned before, uncontrolled growth can take a massive toll on your company’s expenses. But if you adopt a scaling strategy, you’ll be able to cater to more clients with only a negligible increase in costs.

Scalability also offers other benefits.

• Consistency and improved efficiency

A scalable e-commerce venture is more efficient at anticipating and planning for all eventualities. It can continue to operate when faced with challenging circumstances. 

Factoring in scalability doesn’t just mean being able to navigate through the ups and downs of running a business. It allows for success through preparedness. 

• Adaptability and longevity

By knowing how to upscale or downscale, your company will be flexible enough to adapt to economic changes and pressures.

Your online enterprise will increase its chances of future survival because you have made the provisions to do so. 

• Become more competitive 

When you’ve got a scaling strategy that works, there’s no way you can’t succeed. And if you’re on top, your brand will then be regarded as a strong competitor within your niche or industry.

Learning how to scale your e-commerce business is worth a try, whether you do dropshipping or run a private label enterprise.

Photo by Igor Miske on Unsplash

Must-Have Tools for Scaling Your E-commerce Business

A scalable, profitable business requires the use of the right tools. Today, there are tons of them available online. However, some tools overlap with each other in terms of features. Below is a handy guide of the ones that are the most popular and effective at the functions they perform.

For Marketing

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is the tool you need to listen, network, and share valuable content with followers. 

You can use this social media tool to schedule updates and interact with potential customers. It also allows you to get a read on what people are saying about your brand or products. It also gives users access to powerful analytics and insights that can help you get more ROI from your efforts.

Mailchimp

Keeping an email list is probably the oldest trick in the marketer’s book. Today, it remains one of the most effective marketing strategies for conversion and sales.

MailChimp is considered the foremost email marketing service provider. You use it to create and send regular email updates about your products to your list of subscribers. It also has features that will allow you to create campaigns that will funnel special offers like discounts and coupons to entice more people to buy the goods you’re selling.

For Design

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop helps you improve the quality of your product images. 

This photo editing software lets you establish a sense of consistency and branding that works. That consistency is what will set your brand apart from competitors. Additionally, images that look like they’re edited by a professional helps build trust and legitimacy for your e-commerce business.

Canva

Canva is great for creating visual media for your website and social media channels. You can design compelling graphics that will relate to your business. 

Even better is that you don’t need to have photo editing experience to use this tool fully. Choose from one of Canva’s many customizable templates, so you don’t need to start from scratch. There are fun collaboration features on there that your team can use as well.

For Analytics

Google Analytics

The data you get from Google Analytics as you scale your business is crucial. That’s because the right data will inform your decisions. You and your team can then develop a suitable scaling strategy for your business. 

Google Analytics lets you filter unnecessary data to ensure that you get the right traffic stats. It also has a feature wherein you can track events on multimedia content. For example, you’ll know how many people hit the play or pause buttons on the promotional videos of a recently launched seasonal ad campaign.

Kissmetrics

Knowing who your customers are matters. But what’s even more important is understanding the journey the customer took until they bought your product.

KissMetrics is a tool that lets you do that and more. It allows you to see revenue metrics conveniently broken down by traffic source. One feature called the Funnel Report offers a peek inside your customers’ minds when they avoid the checkout button. 

Overall, KissMetrics is good at giving you all the information necessary to create a marketing strategy where your brand shows up at the right time on your customer’s radar.

For Business Management 

Zendesk

Zendesk is an easy way to humanize your customer service. It complements your chatbot by having a live agent to answer multiple queries or process complicated requests. 

Zendesk also integrates with other project management or marketing tools you might be using. It provides metrics that will help improve the quality of service, plus a community forum where you can learn from expert users when you’ve just started.

Sellics

Product research is essential to an e-commerce business. You need to constantly be on the lookout for your “next big thing” so you can create products that will be top sellers.

Sellics is the go-to product research tool for Amazon sellers. It finds profitable products and allows you to study these products deeper. 

Sellics users have access to Amazon’s product database. This makes it easy to filter sellable items across multiple categories. 

Conclusion

It can be overwhelming when your e-commerce business grows at a rapid pace. Such growth can bring in tons of profit, but it can also raise costs. A scaling strategy will enable your online enterprise to enjoy sustainable and long-term growth.