Today, a wide range of software solutions exist to help ecommerce business owners better manage every aspect of their online store. However, creating the ideal technology stack for an ecommerce store is often easier said than done. To help you put together a tech stack that’s best suited for your unique business needs, we’ll review some of the top ecommerce tools on the market today, grouped by category.
First, we’ll walk through what you need to know about building a powerful, easy to use ecommerce tech stack — without breaking the bank.
What is an ecommerce tech stack?
An ecommerce tech stack is the collection of digital tools, software applications, and platforms that an online store owner uses to run their business. These tools work together to optimize day-to-day tasks — across sales, marketing, customer service, order fulfillment and returns, payment processing, and other key areas — and reveal customer insights that can fuel growth.
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If you’re curious about an ecommerce brands’ tech stack, try searching on builtwith.com, which scans the back-end of any website to see what technology it uses.
Factors to consider as you build your ecommerce technology stack
Today, ecommerce store owners have a broad range of solutions to choose from when it comes time to build their ecommerce tech stack. However, an abundance of options can also make selecting the best solutions a challenge. Here are the most important factors to consider:
Cost
An ecommerce tech stack can consist of anywhere from 3-5 core tools to more than 20, depending on the size of your operations and how you approach the process. It’s vital to set a budget and keep it in mind as you weigh different solutions and plan tiers. If possible, balance it against the return on investment (ROI) for the particular tool or feature set (more on that later).
Compatibility
Ideally, you’ll create a digital ecosystem of tools that integrate seamlessly and transfer data quickly and reliably. The ecommerce tools you consider should allow you to combine the features of multiple solutions, either through direct integrations or third-party integration tools.
Ease of use
While all ecommerce solutions come with some degree of a learning curve, it's a good idea to prioritize user-friendly tools that are easy to install, set up, and use. Look for a knowledge base with tutorials and FAQs; expert-led training options can also help.
Customer support
Make sure the support solution aligns with your business hours and the channels you prefer, like email, phone, or live chat. Choosing a solution that’s backed by excellent customer support means you’ll have a reliable source of assistance if or when issues arise.
Determining the order of tool additions
Building the right tech stack, complete with all the tools and features your store could possibly need, doesn’t happen overnight. It’s best to focus on testing and approving the tools you truly need for your day-to-day operations. That way, you know that any other software or hardware you’re considering should integrate nicely with your must-have tools.
For starters, an online store hosting platform will be the cornerstone of your ecommerce tech stack. From there, it’s up to you to decide which tools you add next.
We’ve seen that many ecommerce store owners choose to prioritize their sales and marketing tools — after all, many of the other solutions on our list won't offer much value if your online storefront isn't attracting customers or ready to manage payments. Big picture solutions or add-ons, like the top tier of a user analytics tool or premium page themes, can come later on.
Ensuring compatibility between tools
When it comes to building the best possible ecommerce tech stack, integrations are key. Choosing apps that sync with one another allows information to flow seamlessly between them, cutting down on manual labor and user error and letting you get the most out of your stack.
Most software platforms have an integrations or apps page where they list their official integrations. For instance, the Gorgias Apps page has a categorized, searchable database of the 80+ apps that integrate with its platform. For apps that don’t directly integrate, a tool like Zapier lets you easily set up workflows between them and doesn’t require much tech expertise to use.
An email marketing platform that connects with your order fulfillment platform, for example, can enable you to send automated order tracking updates to your customers personalized with their name. A customer service solution that integrates with your social media marketing solution, meanwhile, can allow you to turn your social media channels into customer service channels.
A connected ecosystem provides far more value and functionality in the long run. By looking for compatibility between tools ahead of time, you can build an ecommerce tech stack that’s much more than the sum of its parts.
Balancing your tech stack budget against potential ROI
Fortunately, the money you invest into building tech stack doesn’t disappear into thin air — it will offer real value and unlock revenue opportunities. As you consider the cost of different tools, it’s a good idea to weigh it against the potential ROI of each tool.
At a high level, you can determine the potential ROI of each tool by weighing the expenses for a given time period — such as monthly subscription costs, licensing fees, additional users, and training or setup fees — against the potential gains. It can be tough to put the positive value of using a new tool into figures, however, consider gains like increased sales or reduced labor costs to start.
We recommend creating an optimistic estimate (lowest cost and highest return) and pessimistic estimate (highest cost and lowest return) to get closer to an accurate number. For example, if your optimistic estimate suggests that an email marketing tool will increase your store's cash flow by 10%, then you could factor this estimated ROI into how much of your budget is allotted for this tool.
Ecommerce store hosting platforms
The first solution that you will need to 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 services such as website hosting, website security, and payment processing on your behalf. If you would like to get started building your own 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 certainly earned its reputation as a go-to choice for e-commerce sites. With Shopify, business owners are able to create attractive online stores in a matter of minutes by choosing from a broad variety of 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 by making use of the Shopify App Store — a store that 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
Check out Shopify’s integration with Gorgias.
BigCommerce
Like Shopify, BigCommerce is a web development solution that allows ecommerce business owners to create their own online stores within a no-code environment before offering a full suite of web hosting services that includes site security and payment processing.
With that said, there are a few features that set BigCommerce and Shopify apart. For one, BigCommerce offers a long list of built-in sales features that don't require any additional installation, ensuring that you are ready to start moving products the moment your store goes live. Another nice feature of BigCommerce is that BigCommerce does not charge any transaction fees regardless of the plan that 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
Check out BigCommerce’s integration with Gorgias.
Magento
Magento differs from Shopify and BigCommerce in the fact that it is an open-source platform that is free to download and use. In order to build a website using Magento, though, you are going to need a certain degree of coding experience. The tradeoff for this steeper learning curve is that Magento allows you to build sites that are much more customized than what you could build 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)
Check out Magento’s integration with Gorgias.
Ecommerce marketing tools
According to data from The Drum, the total amount of money spent on digital ads increased 41% in the first half of 2021. If you want to keep up with econnerce industry competition that is increasingly spending more on advertising, 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, there are a lot of capabilities that come with developing the right ecommerce marketing tool tech stack.
Klaviyo
Klaviyo is a SaaS solution that automates the process of creating and managing email and SMS campaigns. With Klaviyo, you start out with pre-built campaign workflows that you can customize into your own email or SMS campaigns. From there, Klaviyo allows you to create automated triggers and segmented lists for your campaigns that will completely automate the process of sending the right messages to the right customers at the right times.
Pros
- An incredibly wide range of pre-built email workflows to choose from
- A convenient analytics dashboard that displays key campaign data
Unique features
- Multiple automation triggers such as cart abandonment, price drop, back-in-stock, and more
- A large library of integrations to pull data from other ecommerce tools and platforms into Klaviyo
Check out Klaviyo’s integrations here.
Postscript
Postscript is a tool that integrates with Shopify stores in order to provide store owners with the ability 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
Check out Postscript’s integrations here.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free analytics service offered by Google that is 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 that they visit, how much time they spend on each page, detailed demographics of your website visitors, and beyond. This detailed customer data helps you optimize your online store and marketing campaigns alike.
Google Analytics can also connect with any ecommerce platform and offers an incredibly wide range of other integrations as well.
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
Learn how to set up and integrate with Google Analytics here.
Canva
Canve is a simple, powerful design platform where anyone can design marketing assets for their website, social media, and more. While most designers prefer more powerful design tools, Canva’s extensive template library and simple drag-and-drop editing features make it the perfect choice for small business owners and single-person marketing teams.
Pros
- Easy to use, regardless of technical or design skills
- Great free model
Unique features
- A large template library with pre-sized images for Instagram stories, Facebook banners, and so much more
- Great collaboration features to help facilitate brainstorming and feedback
Ecommerce social media management
With billions of engaged users all over the globe, social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are ripe with marketing opportunities. In addition to solutions for marketing to your social media audience, ecommerce social media management tools can also provide benefits such as automating the process of managing your social profiles and enabling you to turn your social media profiles into customer service channels.
Sprout Social
Sprout Social is an all-in-one social media management tool that offers features like social listening tools for gleaning key insights from your social media audiences, automation tools for automatically scheduling and publishing posts, a centralized inbox for responding to comments and direct messages across multiple platforms, and rich analytics for gauging the results of your social media efforts. If you're looking for a single solution to empower your store's social media strategy, Sprout Social is a wonderful option to consider.
Pros
- Offers a variety of powerful tools and features in a single solution
- Intuitive and easy to use
Unique features
- Social listening tools automatically track and extract key insights from social conversations about your brand
- Publishing and scheduling tools enable you to schedule posts for automatic publishing across all major social media platforms
Check out Sprout Social’s integrations here.
Gorgias
Gorgias's comprehensive customer service platform offers powerful social media management features such as the ability to respond to direct messages, comments, and mentions across platforms from a single dashboard, track sales generated by individual support agents via social media app, and create macros that streamline your day-to-day social media interactions.
Pros
- Powerful, user-friendly social media features and integrations built specifically for online stores
- Offers a broad range of customer support tools to make Instagram, Facebook, and more part of a stellar customer experience
Unique features
- A centralized, user-friendly dashboard for managing social interactions across platforms
- Customizable rules and macros powered by customer sentiment detection
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Check out all of Gorgias’s integrations here.
Recart
With over 146 million active users in the United States alone, Facebook Messenger is one of the most popular messaging platforms in existence. With Recart, ecommerce store owners are able to take advantage of this app's popularity by creating automated Facebook Messenger marketing campaigns. Recart also offers tools for helping you grow your Facebook Messenger subscriber list, as well as SMS marketing and list-building features.
Pros
- Makes it incredibly easy to build opt-in popups and automated marketing flows
- Offers a range of useful Facebook Messenger marketing campaign templates
Unique features
- Enables you to create cart abandonment reminders, welcome series, sales promotions, and a range of other automated Facebook Messenger campaigns
- Provides customizable, fast-loading opt-in popups for growing your subscriber lists
Check out Recart's integrations here.
Ecommerce customer relationship management (CRM) tools
Creating an optimized customer experience is a vital goal for all types of retailers, and ecommerce stores are certainly no exception. With ecommerce CRM tools, you can ensure that you are managing your all-important customer relationships in a way that is well-organized and largely automated, freeing you up to focus on other important 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 start building your subscriber lists and generating 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
Check out Attentive’s integrations here.
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 are able to provide a number of capabilities, such as helping you create the ideal sales funnel for your site, helping your sales staff perform customer outreach, and providing you with a wealth of customer data that you can leverage to boost your website's sales.
Certainly
With Certainly, ecommerce store owners can create AI assistants that will guide their site's 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 completely customize your AI assistants
- A wide range of pre-made templates to speed up your time to market
Check out Certainly’s integrations here.
EasyCall
Even in today's digital age, contacting customers by phone remains a lucrative sales strategy. With EasyCall, sales teams are able to 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
Check out EasyCall’s integrations here.
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 would like to leverage the power of automation on your website, here are two great automation e-commerce solutions to consider.
Alloy
Alloy is a no-code automation solution for ecommerce stores that allows you to create triggers and automated flows with ease. Alloy is designed to integrate with a wide range of ecommerce tools and platforms so your system is ready to go when a specific event occurs within your store or one of the apps that you rely on, like a sale, customer message, page view, and more.
Pros
- Plenty of customizable triggers, conditions, and executable actions to select from
- Capable of integrating with over 100 different ecommerce tools and platforms
Unique features
- Offers a variety of pre-built workflows in addition to the ability to create your own, customized workflows
- Centralizes data from multiple applications and customer touchpoints
Check out Alloy's integration with Gorgias.
Omnisend
Omnisend is a tool that allows ecommerce store owners to create automated SMS and email marketing campaigns. In addition to templates to help get you started, Omnisdend also offers precision targeting and list segmentation tools, customizable triggers for launching automated campaigns, and in-depth reporting on the results that your SMS and email campaigns generate.
Pros
- Easy to set up and use
- Affordable pricing plans with a completely free plan that offers up to 500 emails per month
Unique features
- A broad range of customizable email and SMS templates to choose from
- Automated list segmenting automatically divides your subscriber lists into targeted list segments
Check out Omnisend's integration with Gorgias.
Mesa
Mesa offers a wide range of automation solutions, including automating customer returns, order tracking, creating customer support tickets, and beyond. With Mesa's large 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 automations 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 automations or create your own automation from scratch
- A vast selection of pre-built automation workflows
Check out Mesa’s integration page here.
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. In fact, the average cart abandonment rate across all industries is right 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, one-part plug-n-play ecommerce platform, Shopaccino allows you to turn any website into an ecommerce store by providing features such as payment processing, campaign tracking, inventory management, and more. If you are looking for an all-in-one solution for creating and managing your online shop but would rather use your existing website, then Shopaccino is a great option to consider.
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
Check out Shopaccino’s integrations here.
Ecwid
Ecwid is a tool that makes it easy to add products and a checkout page to any website or social media profile. Like Shopaccino, Ecwid can be used to turn your existing website into a fully operational online store. Ecwid also makes it easy to sell across multiple sales channels and platforms, including in-person, on your website, or on your 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 easily 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
Check out Ecwid’s integrations here.
Ecommerce web development tools
For brand-new stores, most of the tools listed in other sections will be enough to . However, as you grow, you may need additional web development frameworks to help you customize your store, improve efficiencies, and offer the customer experience your shoppers deserve.
Front-end web development
Front-end web development programming languages help you develop, design, and deploy your ecommerce website. They help make your website more interactive, eye-catching, and user-friendly. The main front-end programming languages are:
- Cascading Style Sheets (CSS): Stylizes and formats HTML documents
- Hypertext Markup Language (HTML): The standard markup language for web pages
- JavaScript (JS): Adds more dynamic, interactive elements to your web pages
Back-end web development
If front-end web development is the aesthetics of the house, back-end web development is the plumbing, electricity, and everything else that operates behind the scenes to power the house’s — or your website’s — functionality.
Back-end development is usually custom-built, and requires a few elements:
- Operating system: Windows, Linux, or macOS
- Web server: Apache, Nginx, Microsoft-IIS
- Databases: MySQL, MongoDB, DynamoDB by Amazon, Firebase database by Google, PostgreSQL
- Storage: Amazon Web Services (AQS) S3, Firebase Storage by Google
- Scripting language: Ruby on Rails, Java, Python, Scala, PHP, Spring, Groovy on Grails
If you’re interested in learning more about technical stacks for ecommerce, consider reading more about some of the most popular:
And if this section on web development went over your head, don’t be alarmed. Most stores get away with simple no-code tools until they mature enough to hire outsourced or in-house developers to support.
Ecommerce payment processing software
The ability to securely and conveniently accept payments from customers is a vital capability for any online store. Thankfully, these payment processing solutions make it easy for you to provide your customers with multiple payment processing options: Think of them like payment gateways that connect your store to flows of funds.
Shopify POS
Shopify POS is a point-of-sale solution designed specifically for Shopify stores. It boasts a variety of advantages for Shopify users, including the ability to sync inventory, payments, and orders across multiple Shopify stores, create discounts and loyalty programs, and offer customers flexible shopping options like local pickup, local delivery, and ship-to-customer.
Pros
- Easy and powerful integration with the Shopify platform
- Provides useful inventory management tools in addition to payment processing
Unique features
- Allows you to process payments online, in store, or on your social media channels
- Lets you create detailed customer profiles for use in loyalty and rewards programs
Check out Shopify POS's integrations here.
PayPal
Once integrated into your online store, PayPal allows you to accept both credit/debit card payments as well as payments that are made using the customer's own PayPal account. PayPal also offers convenient point-of-sale devices that enable you to accept credit, debit, and PayPal payments 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
Learn how to integrate with PayPal here.
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 easily accept credit/debit card payments.
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
Check out Square’s integrations here.
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 the complex billing in a way that is easy and largely automated.
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
Check out Recharge’s Tech Partners list of best-in-class integrations here. Or, see the full integrations directory.
Ecommerce customer service software
Excellent customer service is a key 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 built specifically for merchants in the ecommerce industry.
The tool provides live chat customer support capabilities and self-service options such as a dedicated help center and knowledge base. This platform also offers a wide range of automations and macros for automating much of your 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 multichannel 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 key events
- Macros and rules that allow you to automate customer service tasks such as providing shipment updates or creating customer support tickets
Check out all Gorgias integrations here.
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, provide agents with real-time customer feedback and more, 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
Check out Stella Connect’s integrations here.
Still not satisfied? Check out our list of the best:
Ecommerce chat tools
Installing chat tools on your website is one of the best ways to boost order value while making customer support more convenient for your customers. In fact, nearly 80% of businesses say offering live chat features has positively impacted sales, revenue, and customer loyalty.
Chat solutions for ecommerce stores can come in two different forms: live chat and automated chatbots. Implementing a live chat solution lets customers connect with a live support agent via a chat widget on your website. Chatbots, meanwhile, are AI-powered chat tools that auto-reply to common customer questions and issues according to rules you create and macros and resources you build ahead of time.
In both cases, ecommerce chat tools can be a powerful way to make your support channels more accessible to customers while reducing the workload of your support team. Here are the tools that can help you do it.
Gorgias
Gorgias offers a fast-loading and easy-to-install live chat widget that lets customers easily connect with a support agent any time they visit your website. In addition to live chat widgets built into your ecommerce store, Gorgias also gives you the power of live chat support via Facebook Messenger and SMS. For common questions and issues, Gorgias offers rules and macros that can be used to create automated responses, allowing you to quickly address the questions your brand receives most and turn them into sales opportunities.
Pros
- Gorgias's fast-loading live chat widget won't slow down your website
- Your live chat support agents can manage conversations across multiple platforms from a single dashboard
Unique features
- Provides support agents easy access to key details, like shopper history and inventory levels, during any live chat conversation
- Allows you to automatically trigger live chat campaigns based on a variety of events and customer actions
- Includes customer sentiment tools to automatically sort chat-based requests by priority and keep tickets organized
Learn more about the Gorgias live chat tool here.
Ada
Ada is a solution that provides AI-powered chatbots for customer experience, sales, and support purposes. In addition to automated customer support chatbots that are able to address common questions and issues, Ada offers chatbots that will proactively engage customers when they visit your store. These proactive outbound messaging chatbots can be used to automatically deliver timely content to customers that is personalized based on their actions and interests.
Pros
- No-code automation and one-click integrations make Ada easy to set up and use
- Chatbots deliver personalized responses based on customer data that feel like an interaction with an actual human agent
Unique features
- Intent and sentiment detections for delivering relevant, personalized responses
- Capable of automatically routing customer inquiries to your sales or customer support team
Check out Ada's integration with Gorgias.
Still not satisfied? Check out our lists of the best:
- Best live chat apps for Shopify
- Best live chat apps for BigCommerce
- Best live chat apps for Magento 2 Stores
- Best live chat apps for overall ecommerce
- Best live chat apps (industry agnostic)
Ecommerce returns and shipping tools
Managing returns and shipping is a hassle that most online store owners would rather do without. Fortunately, there are high-quality tools available that 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
Check out ReturnLogic’s integrations here.
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 notifications 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
Check out Wonderment’s integrations here.
Loop Returns
Encouraging exchanges for returned products rather than refunds is a great way to reduce the often substantial impact that product returns have on a store's bottom line. With Loop Returns, online store owners can create a customized product return portal where customers can return their purchases and manage exchanges without needing to contact the support team, among other helpful features.
Pros
- Customizable product return portals allow customers to manage returns themselves and reduce your support team's workload
- Meaningful metrics provide insight into your returns and refunds and identify supply chain, positioning, and other issues
Unique features
- Enables customers to automatically apply the value of their return to any order using the "Shop Now" feature
- Allows you to apply variable bonus credits to customers who choose to exchange their returned product
Check out the Loop Returns integration with Gorgias.
ShipBob
More of a logistics service provider than an application, ShipBob is a service that allows ecommerce store owners to ship their products in bulk to ShipBob warehouses across the country. Once you've delivered your products, ShipBob then takes over all inventory management and order fulfillment responsibilities on behalf of your online store — picking, packing, and shipping products to customers as they're ordered.
Pros
- ShipBob completely eliminates the burden of order fulfillment, including managing product returns
- Strategically located warehouses allow you to offer faster shipping to locations across the country
Unique features
- Includes built-in reports and analytics that provide a window into product performance
- Offers a comprehensive help center that will help you master the platform and resolve any issues that you might experience
Check out ShipBob's integration with Gorgias.
AfterShip
Providing customers with the ability to easily track their shipments is one of the most important parts of creating an optimized post-purchase experience. With AfterShip, you can create customized order tracking pages that allow customers to follow the location and status of their orders on your website. AfterShip's user-facing dashboard also enables you and your staff to easily monitor purchases and returns.
Pros
- Simplifies the tracking of purchases and returns for both your staff and your customers
- Plenty of customization options make it easy to create tracking pages that are on-brand and optimized for your store theme
Unique features
- Provides a range of automated post-purchase workflow templates, such as shipping notifications
- Provides detailed analytics around your shipping performance and post-purchase experience
Check out AfterShip's integration with Gorgias.
Add Gorgias to your ecommerce tech stack to give your customers the top-notch service that keeps them coming back
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.
See for yourself how Gorgias can help you provide your customers with the service they deserve — try out Gorgias today!
