Before developing an e-commerce website for your business, you need to make some important decisions to ensure the seamless functioning of your website.
One of the vital decisions that you might have to consider is to integrate third-party software/tools with your e-commerce website.
Yes, you may need your website builder to integrate some third-party tools for you in order to automate a specific or whole process of your online store.
How third-party integration works?
Your web developer can integrate a set of scripts or codes, which in most cases is through APIs, that empower your website to fetch powerful features from third-party vendors or providers in the realtime.
Benefits of third-party integrations:
- Enables your website to expand its features easily.
- Save your time and money to build several features from the scratch. In other words, integrating a third-party tool doesn’t affect your overall e-commerce website development cost a lot.
- Takes care of crucial aspects such as security, accuracy, and efficiency.
- Fetches & sends the data in real-time.
Now that you know the importance of third-party integration for a website, let’s have a look at some of the examples where you may need to integrate a third-party tool or software.
In this blog, we have shared 7 types of third-party tools/software that your developer can integrate with your e-commerce store to make your life easier.
#1 Payment gateways
One of the major objectives to build any e-commerce website is to accept payments online. Having said this, it’s crucial to integrate a reliable payment gateway with your website so that your customers can pay hassle-free and securely.
Here comes the role of a payment gateway.
What’s a payment gateway?
A payment gateway is a technology that captures and transfers payment transactions from the customer to the merchant.
In simpler words, the payment gateway works as the middleman between the customer and a merchant. It basically ensures that each transaction or activity is being carried out securely & seamlessly.
What are the examples of a payment gateway?
- PayPal
- Stripe
Recommended post: 4 Best payment gateways to integrate with your WordPress website
#2 Shipping gateways
For any e-commerce business, shipping plays an important role. Shipping is so crucial that it also influences the decision of online shoppers whether they should go ahead & place their orders or not.
Your online shoppers would be more likely to buy from you if you offer:
- Free shipping
- Quick delivery
- Order tracking ability to your users
Having said above, integrating a third-party tool or software to facilitate the shipping process on your e-commerce business is another important decision that you may need to consider.
Benefits of integrating shipping gateway:
- Easy order/invoice generation process
- The ability to track the parcel
- Timeliness & speed of delivery
Your website builder can help you to integrate the shipping API and automate the shipping process of your website.
Below are some of the shipping gateway providers:
- Shippo
- FedEx
#3 Inventory management system
Automating stock management is yet another challenge that you may face when your business or product line expands. Therefore, you may need to integrate an inventory management system with your online store.
Benefits of integrating inventory management system with the website:
- It helps to sync different channels of products automatically.
- It helps to fetch real-time inventory status.
- It helps to reduce possible human errors.
- It also helps you to view multi-dimensional reports
Your website developer can assist you to integrate different third-party inventory management systems such as Stitchlabs & Ecomdash.
#4 Accounting management system
To run an e-commerce store profitably, you do need to have an efficient accounting system in place.
You may not realize the need for an accounting system in the initial phase of your business, but as you expand, the accounting figures such as sales, payments, refunds, etc. can really become overwhelming for you to take control of.
To simply your accounting work and make your life easier, you can integrate a third-party accounting management system with your e-commerce with the help of your eCommerce developer.
Here are some of the benefits of an accounting management system:
- Creating & managing invoices
- Tracking sales & expenses
- Automating invoices, credit notes, and receipts.
- Automatic calculation of taxes.
- Balance sheets management.
- Fewer errors & increased accuracy.
- Real-time financial information.
- Save money on human resources.
Here are some of the popular & reliable accounting management systems that you may like to consider:
- XERO
- QuickBooks
#5 CRM
A CRM can help your e-commerce website to grow your business.
How can CRM grow your e-commerce business?
- It enhances marketing and promotion.
- It facilitates your after-sales service.
- It helps you to make your sales strategies.
- It also helps in a better customer experience.
- It enables you to do better inventory planning & forecasting.
Your website developer can help you to integrate a third-party CRM with your e-commerce store.
Below are some of the commonly used CRM tools/software that your website builder can integrate with your online store:
- Zoho
- Hubspot
#6 Live chat
If you really want to get a competitive edge for your e-commerce business, you must provide excellent support to your customers.
And when it comes to providing prompt support to your online shoppers, live chat comes for your help.
Yes, a live chat helps you to grow your e-commerce sales by:
- Resolving the queries of your shoppers instantly.
- Get in touch with your website users to know what they want.
- Providing your existing customers after-sales support and pitch them for more orders.
- Helping your potential buyers to go through the shopping process seamlessly.
Your web developer can integrate any of the effective third-party live chat systems with your store.
Below are some of the popular live chat platforms:
- Zendesk
- LiveChat
- Formilla
- ChatBot
Recommended post: 9 Reasons for you integrate a live chat feature with your eCommerce website
#7 Newsletter
A newsletter system on your e-commerce website can help you to grow your sales.
How does the newsletter feature help to get more sales?
- Building a database of potential buyers who are interested in your products.
- Offering your users discounts & offers regularly.
- Maintaining communication with your existing customers.
- Establish yourself as an industry specialist.
- Converting your leads into customers.
- Sending your customers the emails for up-selling.
- & more…
Below are some of the commonly used newsletter plugins/platforms that can be integrated with your e-commerce store:
- Mailchimp
- Aweber
- Constant Contact
