Are you interested in starting your own e-commerce business? If so, it’s important to know exactly which tools you want to have at your disposal once you get started. Otherwise, you may end up struggling to catch up after you’ve begun fulfilling orders.
To ensure that your systems and processes are up and running efficiently once you launch, here are a few great tool recommendations that any online store should use.
1. Look for a comprehensive point of sale system that allows you to seamlessly shift to online operations
If you already own a retail business, transferring your small business operations over to an online store can be a bit difficult, especially in regard to accepting payments and managing sales. The best way to deal with this is to find a point of sale (POS) system that makes it easy to manage both sides of your business.
One excellent suggestion is this Cash Register Express POS system, which comes with benefits like being able to offer customers the same seamless shopping experiencing in-person and online, improving order management by seeing all of your sales in your retail store and online at a glance, tracking sales, and spotting market opportunities with ease.
If you know that your profits would improve as a vendor if you had the right POS system, then choose a great option like the Cash Register Express POS system listed above.
2. Purchase a barcode inventory system, so you can improve inventory control
Nothing is worse than seeing that you have purchase orders in your system, only to realize that you don’t have enough stock to fulfill those orders. This is why having a barcode inventory system is essential for inventory management and effective e-commerce. But what type of tool gets the job done?
The best option for online store owners is a handheld barcode scanner. Handheld barcode scanners operate on your Wi-Fi and help you manage your inventory by allowing you to see your live stock at a glance when you scan the barcode on an item (or make any changes to inventory levels if necessary), keeping track of despatched orders and updating inventory information as you fulfill them, and tracking incoming shipments from suppliers that will be used to replenish your stock.
With the right inventory management system that helps you track your stock levels in real-time, any small business owner can maintain their peace of mind knowing that they have an inventory system largely free of human error.
3. Find social media tools that help you schedule posts ahead of time
Your online store relies heavily on your digital marketing strategy in order to see strong sales. However, going through the process of logging into every social media platform, creating a post, and publishing multiple times a day can pull you away from the work that truly matters.
To automate the social media posting process, you should look for social media tools that do the hard work for you. Platforms like Hootsuite, Buffer, and Later make it easier to plan out your posts ahead of time and schedule them for when you anticipate getting the most engagement.
Of course, running an e-commerce business means having a ton of digital photos that you need to keep track of as you craft online product descriptions and social media posts. It can be a good idea to keep your business protected by purchasing an online photo backup system. Gone are the days when you had to have hard drives for your photo storage needs or had to use multiple cloud storage service solutions on your mobile device like Dropbox, Google Photos, or iCloud to maintain your digital photo collection.
Now, you can get dependable online photo storage by purchasing a product that plugs directly into your Wi-Fi and offers you terabytes (TB) of cloud storage to keep your backup photos within reach. Whether you just need 1TB of storage or near-unlimited storage at 8 TBs, you’re sure to find the right product to store your own photos safely and securely.
4. Keep track of your financial health with the right accounting software
Running a small business is easy until you’ve lost track of your performance and don’t know how many sales orders you’ve fulfilled in the past months. One of the most critical aspects of your success is staying on top of your financial health.
That being said, not every business owner may be a financial whiz, and not everyone wants to outsource their accounting needs. Fortunately, there are plenty of excellent accounting software solutions like QuickBooks or Wave that will help you keep track of your finances as you go. If finance is a pain area for you, make sure to download one of these services immediately.
Running an online store can be a great way to generate income and maintain control of your professional life. However, it doesn’t come without its challenges. To develop an e-commerce store that’s better geared toward success, use the tools listed above to improve your online store now.
