A User-Friendly Guide On Ecommerce Tech Stacks

Today, many software solutions are designed to help ecommerce business owners better manage every aspect of their online store. However, choosing the ideal tech stack for an ecommerce store is often easier said than done. To help you develop a technology stack best suited for your unique business needs, let’s look at some of the top e-commerce software today, grouped by category.

Ecommerce store hosting platforms

The first solution you must choose before you can get your ecommerce store up and running is a hosting platform. Hosting platforms allow you to build a custom ecommerce website — regardless of your coding experience — using simple drag-and-drop commands.

Plug-n-play hosting platforms also offer website hosting, website security, and payment processing on your behalf. If you would like to get started building your ecommerce store using an ecommerce store hosting platform, here are the top platforms to consider:

Shopify

Arguably the most recognizable ecommerce store hosting platform, Shopify has undoubtedly earned its reputation as a go-to choice for e-commerce sites. With Shopify, business owners can create attractive online stores in minutes by choosing from various starting templates, then adding additional design elements and features from Shopify’s ever-expanding library.

Business owners can also integrate thousands of additional features into their online store using the Shopify App Store. This store sells thousands of third-party apps designed to integrate with Shopify websites.

Pros

• Mobile-ready
• Choose from thousands of third-party app integrations on the Shopify App Store

Unique features

• Integrated payment processing
• 24/7 live customer support

BigCommerce

Like Shopify, BigCommerce is a web development solution that allows ecommerce business owners to create online stores within a no-code environment before offering a full suite of web hosting services, including site security and payment processing.

With that said, a few features set BigCommerce and Shopify apart. For one, BigCommerce offers a long list of built-in sales features that don’t require additional installation, ensuring that you are ready to start moving products when your store goes live. Another nice part of BigCommerce is that BigCommerce does not charge any transaction fees regardless of the plan you choose.

Pros

• The ability to add an unlimited number of product variants
• Designed for scalability

Unique features

• Wide range of built-in sales features
• No transaction fees on any plan

Magento

Magento differs from Shopify and BigCommerce because it is an open-source, free download-and-use platform. To build a website using Magento, you will need a certain degree of coding experience. The tradeoff for this steeper learning curve is that Magento allows you to create sites that are much more customized than what you could make using Shopify or BigCommerce. Magento also offers hosting services and a broad range of third-party integrations that can be purchased as add-ons.

Pros

• Unlimited customization options providing you know how to code
• Comprehensive answers to just about any question can be found on the Magento Forum

Unique features

• Detailed analytics and reporting
• Enhanced product browsing (i.e., the ability for customers to zoom in on product images, the ability to display stock availability, and the ability to display multiple pricing tiers)

Ecommerce marketing tools

According to data from The Drum, the total amount spent on digital ads increased by 41% in the first half of 2021. Suppose you want to keep up with the competition that is increasingly spending more on advertising. In that case, it is essential to develop the right marketing strategy for your online store — and a big part of creating an effective marketing strategy is choosing the right ecommerce marketing tools.

From providing insights about your visitors to helping you conduct keyword research to helping you manage your email and PPC campaigns, many capabilities come with developing the right ecommerce marketing tool tech stack.

Klaviyo

Klaviyo is a SaaS solution that automates creating and managing email and SMS campaigns. With Klaviyo, you start with pre-built campaign workflows that you can customize into your email or SMS campaigns. From there, Klaviyo allows you to create automated triggers and segmented lists for your campaigns that will completely automate sending the right messages to the right customers at the correct times.

Pros

• an extensive range of pre-built email workflows to choose from
• A convenient analytics dashboard that displays crucial campaign data

Unique features

• Multiple automation triggers such as cart abandonment, price drop, back-in-stock, and more
• an extensive library of integrations to pull data from other ecommerce tools and platforms into Klaviyo

Postscript

A postscript is a tool that integrates with Shopify stores to allow store owners to create and manage SMS marketing campaigns from one centralized dashboard.

Given that SMS messages have a 98% open rate, according to data from TechJury, SMS can be a powerful medium to manage, and Postscript provides all of the tools you need to develop and oversee effective SMS marketing campaigns: detailed reporting, tools for growing and managing your SMS subscriber list, and beyond.

Pros

• Create up to 65 different automation triggers
• Segment your subscribers using 40 segmentation filters, including historical Shopify data, SMS activity, data from app integrations, area codes, and more

Unique features

• Create multiple “text-to-join” keywords
• Create QR codes that can be used to opt-in to your subscriber list

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free analytics service offered by Google designed to provide real-time insights regarding how users find and use your website. With Google Analytics, you can see where your traffic is coming from, the pages they visit, how much time they spend on each page, the detailed demographics of your website visitors, and beyond. This detailed customer data helps you optimize your online store and marketing campaigns.

Google Analytics can also connect with any ecommerce platform and offers an extensive range of other integrations.

Pros

• Excellent data visualization features
• Create custom data reports

Unique features

• Perform keyword research using Google Analytics’s Search Console
• Segment your website visitors and leads for more personalized and targeted campaigns

Ecommerce customer relationship management (CRM) tools

Creating an optimized customer experience is a vital goal for all retailers, and ecommerce stores are no exception. With ecommerce CRM tools, you can ensure that you manage your all-important customer relationships in a well-organized and largely automated way, freeing you up to focus on other essential tasks.

Attentive

Attentive is an SMS and email marketing solution designed to help store owners scale their subscriber lists and engage with those lists in a more personalized manner via enhanced segmentation and targeting. If you would like an all-in-one solution to SMS and email marketing, Attentive can offer everything you need to build your subscriber lists and generate impactful campaigns.

Pros

• Makes it easy to ensure compliance with SMS and email marketing regulations
• Strategic guidance and resources designed to help store owners optimize their SMS and email campaigns

Unique features

• A design editor that allows you to easily create various sign-up units for your website, social media platforms, emails, and product packaging/in-person marketing initiatives
• Build custom integrations using Attentive’s Public APIs and developer resources

Recharge

Recharge is a subscription billing platform for Shopify stores that allows store owners to sell subscription-based products and services. If you are selling subscription-based goods such as replenishable goods or subscription boxes, Recharge can help you manage complex billing easily and largely automatedly.

Pros

• Detailed analytics and reporting
• ReCharge is the only Shopify Plus partner designed specifically for subscriptions

Unique features

• A gifting function that allows customers to gift a subscription to another person
• Upsell workflows to help increase your average order value

Ecommerce sales tools

Ecommerce technologies designed to help you optimize your store’s conversion rate and grow its sales can be highly beneficial. Ecommerce sales tools can provide several capabilities, such as creating the ideal sales funnel for your site, helping your sales staff perform customer outreach, and providing you with a wealth of customer data to leverage to boost your website’s sales.

Certainly

With Certainly, ecommerce store owners can create AI assistants to guide visitors to recommended products, walk customers through the checkout process, present customers with upsell opportunities, assist with returns, and more. These AI assistants also gather loads of valuable data during their conversations with customers that you can use to optimize the customer experience on your site.

Pros

• Create AI-assistant-guided sales funnels for your site
• Access much more detailed customer data that is acquired via customer conversations with your AI assistants

Unique features

• Certainly, Webhook Builder allows you to customize your AI assistants completely
• A wide range of pre-made templates to speed up your time to market

EasyCall

Even in today’s digital age, contacting customers by phone remains a lucrative sales strategy. With EasyCall, sales teams can manage every aspect of phone-based customer outreach from a single centralized dashboard. EasyCall also makes it easy for customers to get in touch with you by making it simple for you to create a business phone number and web-based call center.

Pros

• EasyCall can easily integrate with almost any CRM tool
• An intuitive call center tool allows for effortless collaboration between your sales and customer support teams

Unique features

• Create a web-based call center without the need to purchase any hardware
• Make international calls without paying international calling fees

Ecommerce automation tools

Automating time-consuming tasks such as managing email marketing campaigns or building new features into your website can free you and your team up to focus on other responsibilities. If you want to leverage the power of automation on your website, here are two great e-commerce solutions to consider.

Mesa

Mesa offers many automation solutions, including automating customer returns, order tracking, creating customer support tickets, and beyond. With Mesa’s extensive library of pre-built automation workflows and its no-code workflow editor, you can build and customize just about any automation you can imagine — regardless of your coding experience.

Pros

• Makes it easy to build customized automation using only drag-and-drop commands
• A well-regarded support team for helping you make the most of Mesa’s many features

Unique features

• A no-code workflow editor that allows you to customize Mesa’s pre-built automation or create your automation from scratch
• A vast selection of pre-built automation workflows

Ecommerce shopping cart tools

Once you successfully direct a customer to the checkout page of your online shop, the battle is still far from over. The average cart abandonment rate across all industries is at 70%, according to data from Baymard Institute. Thankfully, utilizing the right ecommerce shopping cart tools can help you optimize your customers’ checkout experience and keep your cart abandonment rate as low as possible.

Shopaccino

One-part shopping cart tool, and one-part plug-n-play ecommerce platform, Shopaccino allows you to turn any website into an ecommerce store by providing payment processing, campaign tracking, inventory management, and more features. If you are looking for an all-in-one solution for creating and managing your online shop but would instead use your existing website, then Shopaccino is an excellent option.

Pros

• Provides the ability to turn any existing website into a fully functional ecommerce store
• Provides APIs for connecting any ERP, accounting system, or other software solution

Unique features

• A large selection of free responsive themes to help you get started building your online store
• Automatically or manually generate coupon discount codes

Ecwid

Ecwid is a tool that makes adding products and a checkout page to any website or social media profile easy. Like Shopaccino, Ecwid can turn your existing website into a fully operational online store. Ecwid also makes selling across multiple sales channels and platforms easy, including in-person, on your website, or social media profiles.

Pros

• Easily add products and a checkout page to any existing website or social media profile
• Completely free to use

Unique features

• In addition to turning any website or social media profile into a point-of-sale. Ecwid also allows you to quickly process and manage in-person sales and accept credit/debit card payments on the go or at your brick-and-mortar location
• Provides automated marketing features such as automated abandoned cart emails and automated PPC advertising

Ecommerce payment processing software

The ability to securely and conveniently accept customer payments is vital for any online store. Thankfully, these payment processing solutions make it easy to provide multiple payment processing options for your customers.

PayPal

Once integrated into your online store, PayPal allows you to accept both credit/debit card payments and payments made using the customer’s own PayPal account. PayPal also offers convenient point-of-sale devices enabling you to get credit, debit, and prices at your brick-and-mortar location.

Pros

• Robust security ensures that your customers’ sensitive financial data doesn’t fall into the wrong hands
• PayPal speeds up the checkout process for customers with an existing PayPal account, making it much easier for your customers to complete their purchase and thus reducing your cart abandonment rate

Unique features

• PayPal Checkout allows customers to complete their checkout without having to fill in information such as credit card numbers and shipping addresses
• PayPal Marketing Solutions provides insights into how your customers are shopping

Square

Like PayPal, Square offers both ecommerce and in-person payment processing solutions. While Square is best known for its point-of-sale devices that make in-person payment processing secure and convenient, Square can also be integrated with your online store to allow you to accept credit/debit card payments easily.

Pros

• Slightly lower fees than PayPal and other payment processing solutions
• Exceptional point-of-sale devices for in-person sales, including a free card reader

Unique features

• 24/7 live chat support
• Square offers a feature that allows customers to book appointments with your company through its website

Ecommerce customer service software

Excellent customer service is a crucial pillar of ecommerce success. With these ecommerce customer service software solutions, you can integrate live chat customer support into your website, create automated chatbots for handling common questions and customer support issues, and automate other time-consuming elements of customer support.

Gorgias

Gorgias is an all-in-one customer service solution that provides live chat customer support capabilities and self-service options such as a dedicated help center and knowledge base. This platform also offers many automation and macros to automate customer service responsibilities. If you are looking for a comprehensive solution to ecommerce customer service that will save your customer support team time and resources and give your customers the help they need, Gorgias is an excellent solution.

Pros

• Gorgias centralizes all of your support tickets in one place, allowing your customer support team to edit orders, modify subscriptions, and refund payments without leaving the helpdesk
• Can connect with Shopify, BigCommerce, and Magento stores to bring your products and shopper history right into the helpdesk

Unique features

• Live chat customer support with the ability to automatically message customers first during critical events
• Macros and rules that allow you to automate customer service tasks, such as providing shipment updates or creating customer support tickets

Stella Connect

Stella Connect is a tool designed to help business owners manage remote customer support teams. With Stella Connect, you can manage your entire customer support team from one centralized dashboard or integrate with Gorgias for an even more robust solution for remote teams. You can also schedule one-on-one meetings with customer support agents and provide agents with real-time customer feedback, making Stella Connect an excellent choice for business owners who rely on remote workers as their customer support staff.

Pros

• Centralizes and streamlines all aspects of remote customer support team management
• Provides detailed customer data that you can use to improve your customer support performance

Unique features

• Create and implement automated customer support workflows
• Create rewards and incentive programs for customer support agents

Ecommerce returns and shipping tools

Managing returns and shipping is a hassle that most online store owners would instead do without. Fortunately, high-quality tools allow you to automate many of the responsibilities associated with handling shipping and returns. By providing customers with self-service return options, automatically sending out shipping updates, and more, the following two tools can go a long way toward streamlining the logistics side of your business.

ReturnLogic

ReturnLogic is designed to automate the entire returns process by enabling you to create automated return workflows, automatically updating your inventory, and making it easy for you and your customers alike to track the status of returns. ReturnLogic also provides complete visibility to your customer support team, making it easy for them to access a customer’s purchase history and issue refunds and returns.

Pros

• Creates a completely transparent returns process that is easier for both your customers and support agents to navigate
• Provides analytics on your returns that you can use to lower your return rate

Unique features

• Barcode scanner functionality that allows you to update the status of a returned item with a simple scan
• 3PL and ERP integrations that allow you to seamlessly connect ReturnLogic with your existing inventory management systems or logistics provider

Wonderment

Wonderment is an order-tracking platform that seeks to reduce customer support tickets regarding order status by providing customers with automated shipping updates. With Wonderment, you can automate shipping notifications via email or SMS, send internal messages regarding delayed or lost orders, and create custom, fully-branded shipping alerts.

Pros

• Seamless and customizable shipping update automation options
• Helps stores be more proactive about resolving issues that could otherwise lead to customer support tickets

Unique features

• View the status of all of your shipments from one dashboard
• Integrates with Klaviyo, making it easy to send customized and automated shipping update emails

Implement Gorgias to your ecommerce tech stack and provide your customers with the service they need

From boosting your sales to streamlining the customer support process, creating a tech stack for your ecommerce store that is complete with the best ecommerce solutions can offer a wide range of advantages. At Gorgias, we are committed to helping our clients improve the quality of their customer support while at the same time making their entire customer support process more efficient with our industry-leading ecommerce customer support solutions.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are ecommerce hosting platforms?
Ecommerce hosting platforms are services that provide the necessary infrastructure to set up and manage an online store. They often include features like website building, payment processing, and security measures. Examples of these platforms include Shopify, BigCommerce, and Magento.

What are the roles of ecommerce marketing tools in my online business?
Ecommerce marketing tools are instrumental in developing and implementing marketing strategies for your online store. They help manage email campaigns, conduct keyword research, provide insights about your visitors, and much more. Klaviyo, Postscript, and Google Analytics are examples of such tools.

What is CRM in ecommerce and why do I need it?
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools help online businesses manage their interactions with customers and potential customers. CRM tools like Attentive and Recharge allow you to personalize the shopping experience, optimize customer communication, and manage complex billing for subscription services.

How can ecommerce sales tools boost my online store sales?
Ecommerce sales tools help optimize your store’s conversion rate and grow its sales by creating ideal sales funnels, aiding customer outreach, and providing valuable customer data. Tools such as Certainly and EasyCall offer capabilities like AI-guided sales funnels and a centralized platform for phone-based customer outreach.

Why should I consider ecommerce automation tools for my online store?
Ecommerce automation tools help to streamline time-consuming tasks such as managing email marketing campaigns or building new website features. Mesa is an example of such a tool, offering a wide array of pre-built automation workflows and a no-code workflow editor.

What are ecommerce shopping cart tools and why are they important?
Ecommerce shopping cart tools like Shopaccino and Ecwid improve the checkout process in your online store, thus reducing cart abandonment rates. They also allow you to manage inventory, generate discount codes, and sell across multiple channels including social media.

How does ecommerce payment processing software work?
Ecommerce payment processing software like PayPal and Square allow online businesses to securely accept customer payments through various methods, including credit/debit cards and digital wallets. These tools also provide additional features such as robust security, convenient point-of-sale devices, and marketing insights.

Which is the best ecommerce hosting platform?
The best ecommerce hosting platform depends on your specific business needs. Shopify is a great option for beginners due to its ease of use. BigCommerce offers a wide range of built-in sales features, while Magento is ideal for businesses that require a highly customizable platform.

Do I need a separate tool for email and SMS marketing?
While separate tools for email and SMS marketing can offer more specialized features, many ecommerce marketing tools offer both in one platform. For example, Attentive is a comprehensive solution for both SMS and email marketing, offering enhanced segmentation and targeting.

Are there any free ecommerce tools available?
Yes, there are free ecommerce tools available. For instance, Google Analytics is a free analytics service that provides real-time insights about your website’s traffic. Ecwid is a free tool that allows you to easily add products and a checkout page to your existing website or social media profile.