20 best marketing tools for retail stores

20 May.,2024

 

20 best marketing tools for retail stores

Solink offers invaluable heatmap analytics for retail stores. See how promotions draw traffic in-store. Track customer behavior regarding specific products, assess store layouts, and measure merchandising’s impact. 

Contact us to discuss your requirements of interpretation system. Our experienced sales team can help you identify the options that best suit your needs.

With legal allowances, Solink even lets you understand point-of-sale interactions. Their dashboards excel at marketing metric tracking, especially in sales volume variations.

While Solink is best known for security and loss prevention, the benefits don’t stop there. Through advanced AI, Solink turns your existing camera system into a profit driver. 

Solink also provides a dashboard for your core business KPIs, as well as the ability to set limits for proactive alerts when your metrics are outside your comfort zone. By integrating with your POS and other systems, Solink provides new sales data insights.

The Best E-Commerce Software

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Selling products online, be they physical or digital, has never been easier than it is today. The e-commerce field has grown past simple third-party tools that are tacked-on to web hosting plans. Now, many e-commerce platforms offer website builders and domain registration (though, web hosting services support e-commerce integration, too). With this blending of utility, the e-commerce platform matters less than the features you need to connect with potential customers.

Deeper Dive: Our Top Tested Picks

Shopify

Best for a Limitless Product Inventory

4.5 Outstanding

Bottom Line:

Shopify is the go-to choice among e-commerce platforms, as it gives you many useful tools to quickly build an online store.

PROS

  • Unlimited products, storage, and monthly data transfer
  • Easy-to-use dashboard
  • Zero transaction fees via Shopify Payments
  • 24/7 customer support
  • Expansive, third-party app store
  • Free, attractive themes
  • Free, 14-day trial

CONS

  • Lacks integrated email marketing tools
  • Potentially overwhelming number of options

SPECS

Name Value Free Version Transaction Fees Bandwidth Fees Point of Sale Support Drag-and-Drop Site Editor REST API SSL Certificate Included 24/7 Phone Support Live Chat All Specs

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Shopify Review

Wix Stores

Best for Transaction-Free E-Commerce

4.0 Excellent

Bottom Line:

Featuring zero transaction frees from third-party payment gateways, Wix Stores is a robust, e-commerce platform that's strongly geared toward beginners who want to sell products or services online.

PROS

  • Easy to use and understand
  • Many customization options
  • Supports POS systems
  • No transaction fees
  • Stellar uptime

CONS

  • Free trial doesn't let you receive payments
  • Doesn't let you switch templates

SPECS

Name Value Free Version Transaction Fees Bandwidth Fees Point of Sale Support Drag-and-Drop Site Editor REST API SSL Certificate Included 24/7 Phone Support Live Chat All Specs

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Wix Stores Review

BigCommerce

Best for Extensive Tutorials

4.0 Excellent

Bottom Line:

BigCommerce is a powerful e-commerce platform that holds your hand through the store-building process, courtesy of a deep knowledgebase, video tutorials, and active user forums.

PROS

  • Unlimited products, file storage, and bandwidth with all plans
  • Robust search options
  • 24/7 live agent support
  • More than 100 free and premium themes
  • Free, 15-day trial

CONS

  • Relatively expensive advanced plans
  • Dashboard has a mild learning curve
  • Lacks an integrated point-of-sale system

SPECS

Name Value Free Version Transaction Fees Bandwidth Fees Point of Sale Support Drag-and-Drop Site Editor REST API SSL Certificate Included 24/7 Phone Support Live Chat All Specs

GET IT NOW

Bigcommerce

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BigCommerce Review

GoDaddy Websites + Marketing Website Builder

Best for Marketing and SEO Tools

4.0 Excellent

Bottom Line:

GoDaddy's e-commerce-focused website builder features the marketing and SEO tools needed to succeed online.

PROS

  • Good-looking sites on desktop and mobile
  • Unlimited storage and monthly data transfers
  • Great marketing and SEO tools
  • More than 100 templates
  • Excellent uptime and customer service
  • AI tools
  • Free tier

CONS

  • Limited layout customization
  • Ecommerce not available with all tiers

SPECS

Name Value Free Version Transaction Fees Bandwidth Fees Point of Sale Support Drag-and-Drop Site Editor REST API SSL Certificate Included 24/7 Phone Support Live Chat All Specs

GET IT NOW

Today’s Best Deal

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GoDaddy Websites + Marketing Website Builder Review

PinnacleCart

Best for Multiple Administrators

4.0 Excellent

Bottom Line:

PinnacleCart is an e-commerce platform that delivers a comprehensive set of easy-to-use features, including inventory, email marketing, and SEO tools.

PROS

  • Lets you sell physical and digital products
  • Lacks transaction fees
  • Supports multiple admins
  • Intuitive dashboard
  • Robust email marketing and SEO tools
  • 14-day free trial

CONS

  • Lacks a built-in point-of-sale system
  • Relatively expensive
  • Small number of themes

SPECS

Name Value Free Version Transaction Fees Bandwidth Fees Point of Sale Support Drag-and-Drop Site Editor REST API SSL Certificate Included 24/7 Phone Support Live Chat All Specs

GET IT NOW

Today’s Best Deal

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PinnacleCart Review

Square Online

Best for Social Media Integration

For more Simultaneous Interpretation Systeminformation, please contact us. We will provide professional answers.

4.0 Excellent

Bottom Line:

Square Online is a simple-to-use e-commerce service that lets you create attractive, feature-laden online stores that integrate with popular social media platforms.

PROS

  • Simple, intuitive setup
  • Lets you sell physical and digital goods
  • Supports POS systems
  • Unlimited monthly data transfers and storage
  • Free service tier

CONS

  • Charges transaction fees
  • Lacks a robust image-editing tool
  • Limited customer support days and hours

SPECS

Name Value Free Version Transaction Fees Bandwidth Fees Point of Sale Support Drag-and-Drop Site Editor REST API SSL Certificate Included 24/7 Phone Support Live Chat All Specs

GET IT NOW

Visit Site for Pricing Square

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Square Online Review

Shift4Shop

Best for a Robust Free Tier

3.5 Good

Bottom Line:

Now featuring a new name, the company formerly known as 3dcart gives you the room and features that expanding businesses need—even with its surprisingly stacked free tier.

PROS

  • Unlimited products and monthly data transfers with each plan
  • Most tiers have zero transaction fees
  • Robust free tier
  • Free, 15-day trial

CONS

  • Clunky and confusing website builder
  • Annual sales limitations

SPECS

Name Value Free Version Transaction Fees Bandwidth Fees Point of Sale Support Drag-and-Drop Site Editor REST API SSL Certificate Included 24/7 Phone Support Live Chat All Specs

GET IT NOW

Today’s Best Deal

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Shift4Shop Review

Volusion

Best for Third-Party Integrations

3.5 Good

Bottom Line:

Volusion is an e-commerce platform that has many features small businesses need to create well-designed online stores, including marketing tools, a helpful knowledgebase, and zero transaction fees.

PROS

  • Zero transaction fees
  • Feature-packed dashboard and CRM system
  • Unlimited monthly data transfers with each plan
  • Comes bundled with useful marketing and SEO tools
  • Many help articles and videos
  • Free, 14-day trial

CONS

  • Annual revenue limits
  • Base plan lacks phone support
  • Lacks an integrated blogging option
  • Site builder has rough edges

SPECS

Name Value Free Version Transaction Fees Bandwidth Fees Point of Sale Support Drag-and-Drop Site Editor REST API SSL Certificate Included 24/7 Phone Support Live Chat All Specs

GET IT NOW

$15.00 Volusion

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Volusion Review

Ecwid

Best for Low-Cost Plans

3.0 Average

Bottom Line:

Ecwid makes it simple to create an online store and export it to other popular marketplaces, but it locks important features behind higher-end tiers.

PROS

  • Low-cost e-commerce plans
  • Easy to integrate into other websites
  • Unlimited storage and monthly data transfers
  • Many helpful articles and an active user forum
  • Lacks transaction fees

CONS

  • The Venture tier doesn't let you list products in Amazon or eBay marketplaces
  • Phone support is locked behind Business and Unlimited tiers
  • Free tier offers limited product inventory
  • Low number of themes and third-party integrations

SPECS

Name Value Free Version Transaction Fees Bandwidth Fees Point of Sale Support Drag-and-Drop Site Editor REST API SSL Certificate Included 24/7 Phone Support Live Chat All Specs

GET IT NOW

$15.00 Ecwid

Learn More

Ecwid Review

Buying Guide: The Best E-Commerce Software

What Is E-Commerce Software?

E-commerce software lets you track and manage product inventory, as well as fulfill and ship orders. It helps you maintain a product database, track sales, market to customers, offer discounts, maintain a loyalty program, and even create a blog to connect with potential customers.

Even better, there are numerous turnkey bundles available that combine custom or name brand shopping cart solutions with e-commerce-focused web hosting services, banks and payment processors, as well as e-commerce fulfillment and warehousing operators. The problem with such complex, do-it-all services, however, is that it's tough to know how to evaluate them or even where to begin. Don't worry, we're here to lend a helping hand.

You Need E-Commerce for Your Small Businesses

Before we talk about what to look for in a e-commerce service, you may be wondering why you need one. As mentioned earlier, many web hosting services now offer e-commerce packages as part of their hosting plans, using built-in tools or integrating with open-source tools. It boils down to just how much extra work you, as a small business owner, want to put in to manage your store from scratch. It's just another set of hoops through which to jump if you have to set up your own merchant account and payment gateway. Plus, everything is on the web now: If you make your customers place an order and then call you with their credit card information, you are going to lose a lot of sales.

A PayPal button on your website is a good first step, but if you want to operate an attractive, modern online storefront from which people can shop day or night, then you really are better off using full-featured e-commerce platform instead of trying to glue all of the separate parts together on your own. E-commerce services streamline the relationship between buyers and sellers by handling multiple payment methods, collecting tax, and calculating shipping costs. A straightforward shopping experience means buyers get the product faster, too. A happy customer is just good business, after all.

How Much Does It Cost?

It's difficult to choose an e-commerce platform strictly based on price. Some offer advanced features, but impose restrictions on transaction or monthly data transfers; others limit a plan's features by price. Most e-commerce tools offer templates (also known as themes), but some may fence off popular ones into their premium packages. That means you must pay more money for an attractive website. A website builder is useful for customizing templates.

Some services may have a low monthly cost, but charge fees for transactions and for add-ons that let you integrate with third-party tools. Depending on your requirements, you can expect to see prices as low as $9.99 and as high as thousands of dollars per month. As always, it pays to read the fine print.

There are two types of transaction fees to keep track of when evaluating e-commerce services: the ones charged by the shopping cart and the ones charged by the payment gateway. You can't avoid the payment gateway fees; whichever service you select will charge a certain amount per credit card transaction. That's the fee from Authorize.Net or PayPal, for example.

Some e-commerce platforms charge an additional transaction fee for using the service regardless of the payment gateway. This means you pay your shopping cart vendor a certain percentage per transaction before the payment gateway collects its fee. Consider this scenario: A customer came to your store and paid $100 via PayPal. Your vendor will collect $3.20 for that transaction and PayPal will collect $3.20 (the actual amount will vary based on your PayPal account type). E-commerce platform typically offer bandwidth restrictions if they don't charge transaction fees.

Many services have tiers based on how much monthly data you need. If you expect high traffic volumes and sales, then you should look at unlimited plans or at least something more generous than the typical 1GB of bandwidth. Others restrict storage, which limits the number and size of product images you can display. Cheaper plans have smaller storage capacity, so if you have a fairly large product database or plan to have multiple images per product, then you will have to think about how much you need. Otherwise, that monthly bill with overage fees is going to be a surprise.

Monthly data is consumed whenever visitors swing by your website. If you list several images for a single product or you have a long slideshow, then that will eat up data. In that case, you'll need a generous data allotment. Think carefully about what you want from your store to determine if bandwidth limits or transaction fees make sense for you.

Important Features

Some e-commerce services are better suited for selling physical goods, while others support digital and virtual products, such as ebooks and services. As a result, you need to think about the types of products you want to sell before selecting a service. Some e-commerce companies let you migrate data from an existing service. They handle bulk, product database uploads, as well as moving customer and order history. If you aren't setting up a brand-new storefront, then you really need to look for e-commerce tools to help with the move.

Look for plans that let you organize inventory and maintain a customer database. If there aren't any built-in tools, see if you can integrate your cart with a third-party service. If you plan to send emails from your e-commerce website, then MailChimp, for example, might integrate with your service tier. See if you can issue discounts, gift certificates, and run sales.

You want search engine optimization (SEO) tools to help your storefront rise up in search results. You should consider integrating Google Analytics (GA) into the dashboard to understand who is coming to your store and what they are doing. You won't need GA if the shopping cart provides its own website metrics, but it's still a good tool to consider using with your store.

Don't rely on documentation, tutorials, and forums for customer support. Those are great resources but, ideally, you should be able to get someone on the phone or in a web chat, at least. Ideally, the support should be available at any hour of the day. You don't know when things will go wrong, so why should you have to wait for normal business hours to get help?

Many e-commerce tools offer trial periods. Take advantage of the trial to learn how to work with the shopping cart dashboard. If you find it annoying to see the placed orders, enter products, or fulfill orders, move on to a shopping cart that fits into your workflow.

Finally, think about security. While many of your customers will shop while using a virtual private network (VPN) service, there are still plenty who won't. To protect them, make sure your online store and its underlying web hosting provider either offer a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate or can accommodate a third-party certificate you purchase from someone else. In addition, make sure to invest in a dependable website monitoring tool to stay on top of any security or performance issues in real time.

5 Things You Need to Know About Web Hosting

5 Things You Need to Know About Web Hosting

Shopping for the Correct Cart

Take a look at the table below to determine the e-commerce features that you need for your online store. If you already have a store with one of these services and want to tell us about your experiences (good or bad), then let us know in the comments. Have an opinion about a store we didn't list here? Let us know that, too.

Juan Martinez and Mike Williams also contributed to this story.

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