7 Essential SaaS Tools For Your eCommerce Business
Integrating SaaS with your business allows you to automate your company’s workflow and optimize production, reduce cost, and some of the manual burdens of managing your business.
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is software licensed to a user to access and use via the internet usually payable on a monthly or annual basis. There are various SaaS solutions available to individuals, teams, and businesses.
With SaaS products, you don’t need to develop and design your own solutions to run and manage an e-commerce business. This translates into lower costs and access to feature-rich software designed with your business needs in mind. This guide will focus on SaaS e-commerce.
Here are seven SaaS tools to consider for your e-commerce business:
1. Shopify: SaaS for e-commerce websites
Shopify is one of the best SaaS products for e-commerce websites. It offers business owners a standard yet flexible online store builder designed to increase conversions and sales, decrease admin tasks, and provide beneficial analytics and reporting.
A basic plan (or license) to establish a standard online shop is $29. Advanced plans with additional features range from $79 to $299 per month. New users can try Shopify free for 14 days, no credit card required, and upgrade, downgrade, or cancel at any time.
Shopify also includes online marketing solutions including email templates for campaigns, Shopify Ping, a free messaging app that lets you manage customer and team conversations from one place, and SEO plugins.
Aside from Shopify, there are e-commerce alternatives including Wix, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and more.
2. Oberlo: SaaS for drop shipping
Oberlo, a drop shipping app, helps you find products you can dropship directly to customers, and never worry about inventory, packaging, or shipping. Dropshippers use the app to search for various products from international suppliers and include them on their e-commerce websites.
Once a product is sold, the supplier sends the order directly from their warehouse to your customer. No need to manage shipping, handling, or the fulfillment process from point of sale to delivery of products to customers. Oberlo offers three pricing plans from free and 7.90 to $29.90 per month. Each plan includes various levels of learning and coaching products and product limits.
3. Removal.AI: SaaS to optimize product photos
A transparent background maker, Removal.AI removes image background from photos instantly and optimizes product photos. High-resolution images with a white background and no distractions will present your products in the best light to maximize sales.
An analysis of 7 million product images found that 76% had their original background replaced with pure white. An additional 16% removed the background and opted for transparency. There are plenty of reasons why pure white and transparent backgrounds are popular. It’s consistent, clean, represents true colors, and file size is minimized (which helps with page load speed.
Using SaaS tools to optimize product photos saves the time and money you’d spend hiring a graphic designer. Aside from Removal.AI, product background removers for non-designers include Remove.bg, Slazzer, and Photoscissors.
4. HubSpot: SaaS for marketing and sales
HubSpot is a robust SaaS platform for marketing, sales, customer service, and CRM tools — including the methodology, resources, and support to help e-commerce businesses grow. HubSpot offers an educational blog, Academy, and YouTube content, along with consultation services. Connecting an online store to HubSpot provides access to powerful integrations to convert traffic to sales, personalize marketing, and track and attribute revenue.
5. Slack: SaaS for team management and collaboration
Slack is a messaging platform designed for use in the workplace, as it can help team members keep in touch, plan schedules, share documents and files, and stay connected.
Slack brings team communication and collaboration into one place so you can get more work done, whether you work from home or across multiple offices. Check off your to-do list and move your projects forward by bringing the right team members, conversations, tools, and information you need together.
Slack is available on any device, so you can find and access your team and your work, whether you’re at your desk or on the go. Current pricing plans include a free, standard, and plus option for $12.50 per month with tiered features and an Enterprise Grid for large businesses or those in regulated industries.
Alternative messaging and collaboration apps include Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex Teams, Blink, Google Chat, Workplace from Facebook, Amazon Chime, Brosix, Troop Messenger, and more.
6. ActiveChat: SaaS for customer experience
Chatbots like ActiveChat take the pressure off support and sales teams with conversational AI and customer service automation. Customers, especially online shoppers, use chatbots to gather information and get answers quickly and easily.
Simple chatbots appear in messaging apps such as Messenger or Skype. Their sole purpose is automation to booking an appointment or make a purchase. Intelligent chatbots use artificial intelligence (AI) to provide more flexible responses to user questions.
Instead of purchasing three stand-alone products (chatbot platform, live chat solution, and conversational analytics tool), ActiveChat does it all, while also reducing costs for system integration, on-boarding, and staff training. ActiveChat offers a 14-day free trial and pricing plans starting at $49.00 per month.
Alternative chatbots include Respond.io, ChatBot, Bold360, Tidio, HubSpot ChatFlows, HelloTars, and Drift.
7. Xero: SaaS for business finance
Xero online all-in-one accounting software connects users to accountants and bookkeepers, banking institutions, and a huge range of business services. Accounting SaaS products help businesses run more smoothly, keep tidy records, and make compliance a breeze.
Xero automates tasks like invoicing and reporting, provides a full financial picture of your business, and makes end-of-year tax returns easy. Connect your accounts with apps for shopping carts, inventory management, sales tax, and more.
Accounting software alternatives include FreshBooks, Wave, ZipBooks, Holded, Sage 50cloud, Kashoo, and more.
Final thoughts
Integrating SaaS products with an e-commerce store allows you to automate workflow, reduce costs, increase productivity and alleviate the administrative burdens associated with running an online business. Meanwhile, SaaS products can help you keep up with industry trends and access the latest learning tools to grow your business.
