30+ eCommerce Tools to Help You Build, Launch and Grow Your Store

What is your eCommerce store missing? What eCommerce tools do you need to be more efficient?

When it comes to your online eCommerce business, you deserve the best of the best, no matter what it is.

The best website, the best products, the best service, the best quality, the best customers. No one has time for poor design or lacking integrations!

Welcome to Drop Ship Lifestyle’s curated list of products, apps, and services that will ensure your drop shipping success. All of our partners and the resources in this list are the best of the best.

We recommend all of these eCommerce tools because we know them. These resources work for our businesses, and they’ll work for yours.

We know their product and how it works with drop shipping stores following the Drop Ship Lifestyle model. We know the company and the employees that put them apart from being just another eCommerce business.

We use them daily to help our business run better, and it’s not just us.

Thousands of other eCommerce businesses are using these apps and services to connect with their customers, optimize conversion, provide better service and create a better user experience.

Together, with them and Drop Ship Lifestyle, you can build a powerful, long-last, and extremely profitable eCommerce store!

So what is your eCommerce company missing? What tools do you need to be more efficient? Take a look at the list of eCommerce tools down below and start running a better online business.

Shopify

Shopify is our go-to eCommerce store platform. I now use Shopify to create 99% of my eCommerce websites. They offer great rates, amazing free templates, and industry leading customer support.

My favorite feature is probably their App Store which allows you to add on features to your drop shipping store for extremely low fees (or free!).

Helpful Blog Posts:

• How to Build a Shopify Store in 10 Steps
• Our Favorite Shopify Apps

Grasshopper

Grasshopper is the ‘Entrepreneur’s Phone System’ and our favorite service for setting up a business phone number. Even better, this service allows you to run your business from your cell phone.

Using a business phone number in your drop shipping store will make your business look bigger, and more established.

Feature/Benefits:

• Get a toll free or local number for your business with multiple extensions
• Set up each extension with custom call forwarding to any phone in the world
• Send/receive SMS/Text messages from your business number
• Get voicemails emailed to you as audio attachments
• Keep business calls separate from personal calls
• Plans start at $12/month
• 30 day money back guarantee

Save $75 on a Grasshopper phone number with an exclusive Drop Ship Lifestyle discount.

Private Internet Access

Instantly “change” your location to anywhere in the world! Private Internet Access provides state of the art, multi-layered security with advanced privacy protection using VPN tunneling.  With Private Internet Access you can :

• Defend yourself from data monitoring and eavesdropping
• Hide your IP to block unwanted exposure and data leaks
• Block unwanted connections
• Browse anonymously

Get it for less than $3 a month through this link.

Norton Shopping Guarantee

Norton Shopping Guarantee says, “We deliver. And then some.” It's what online shoppers want for their money, and retailers need for their business.

Norton Shopping Guarantee is a smart marketing tool. Shoppers love the free service. Retailers love the increased business.

Shoppers don't trust websites they don't know. When shoppers feel confident they are more likely to buy from your store. That's why you need a service like Trust Guard in your online store.

Trust Guard is the #1 most trusted website security service online. Their trust seals address security, identity, and privacy concerns. A growing concern for many online users these days. Learn more here.

Designed for any entrepreneur who cares about their branding, Logojoy empowers anyone to get professional quality design quickly, and at a price they can afford. With their AI-powered logo maker you can instantly create stunning logo designs for your eCommerce business.

You'll start by choosing your favorite inspiration before you move on to browsing mockups. Finally, you'll get to see what your logo would look like in real life situations. Logojoy is completely free to make logos– you only pay for a design when you're happy.

Get started making a logo you'll be proud of over on Logojoy.

Klaviyo

Relevant Marketing makes more money. Klaviyo helps you drive sales by using data from Shopify to send automated abandoned cart email campaigns, create personalized product recommendations, deliver post-purchase engagement campaigns, run better Facebook ads and more. It's data-driven marketing, made simple.

• Increase sales by sending personalized emails and Facebook ads using virtually any data from your Shopify store.
• Get started in minutes with 1-click integration and predesigned, responsive templates for newsletters and automated flows.
• Recapture lost sales with automated abandoned carts, browse abandonment, and winback flows.

Head over to Klaviyo to learn more about getting started.

Recart

Recart is another Shopify app we highly recommend. It helps you generate more revenue by focusing on customers who abandoned their shopping carts. By contacting these customers using Facebook Messenger, emails, and push notifications, it brings any abandoned cart campaign to a new level.

Recart also comes with impressive abandonment analytics. Which will help you learn how to reduce abandoned carts and new ways to turn those carts into sales.

To find out how Recart can help you sell more, head over here.

Automatic Discount

Automatic Discount is an app for your Shopify stores that applies automatic discounts via links. So no more worrying about coupon codes. This app allows you to create tons of unique discount offers that can automatically be added to your customers’ carts.

There are both free and PRO plans available, plus a 7-day trial to test out the PRO plan yourself.

Tidio Chat

Tidio Live Chat is a free-to-start chat app for your Shopify store. There’s no logging in or signing up. So you’ll be able to integrate chat into your drop shipping store in minutes.

This is one of those Shopify apps that will easily increase sales by improved communication and a better understanding of your customers’ needs.

Pixc

An online photo editing service, Pixc removes the distracting and unappealing backgrounds of your product photos to make them look professional, crisp and clean at a very affordable price.

This service is perfect for entrepreneurs who have the ability to take their own product photos but may not necessarily have the budget for expensive backdrops or photo editing software.

Let Pixc do the leg work for you and reap the results of quality product photos that will entice your customers.

Out of the Sandbox

Out of the Sandbox is a Shopify theme store that specializes in developing beautiful storefronts to use for your drop shipping store. Pick one of their visually pleasing, intuitive and user friendly storefront themes to create a stunning website that suits your brand’s unique style.

Find out more information here.

Zipify Pages

Ezra Firestone's Shopify landing page builder, Zipify Pages, is one of our favorites out there. It's a unique drag-and-drop page builder and has been designed specifically for eCommerce stores. With it, you can build high-quality, conversion-tested pages with just a few clicks of the mouse.

Find out more about Zipify's full collection of apps over here.

123RF

123RF is our go-to recommendation for stock images, vectors, music, and video. They've got a large selection, and millions of options all at low prices.

Shopify’s #1 app development partner, Bold’s apps are designed to increase your sales or help you save time running your store so you can focus on growing it.

They offer social media, customer service and sales related apps such as subscription membership apps, sales motivator apps, returns management apps and many others. 

Integrating any of Bold’s apps will add unique features to your Shopify store so you can interact with your customers in new ways or make life easier for yourself.

Our favorite Bold app is Bold Upsell for smart cross and up-selling. Find out here how the app can help your eCommerce store make more money.

Empire Flippers

A drop shipping store is an actual eCommerce business Instead of using someone else's platform (e.g. Amazon & eBay), we teach you how to build your own store with Shopify. This way, you can process your own orders -- or you can choose to cash out and sell your store, making a good chunk of cash.

At Drop Ship Lifestyle, we recommend using Empire Flippers when it comes time to sell your store (or if you’re looking to buy a store!). They are an Inc. 500 company and the top curated marketplace for buying and selling established, profitable online businesses, including drop shipping stores.

Helpful Posts:

• Everything You Need to Know About Buying and Selling Websites
• What is My Website Worth? How to Tell the Value of Your Online Business

Dropbox

Dropbox is an online storage system that you can sync across all your computers and devices so you have all the documents, photos, and videos you need wherever you need them. Just for signing up you get 2GB for free, and you’re able to keep your files for yourself or share them with your employees and team, even if they don’t have Dropbox.

Dropbox is great for teams because everyone can edit a shared file without the hassle of emailing big projects back and forth. If your entire business is online, like many entrepreneurs, make Dropbox a part of your workflow, never lose a file again and let this file managing service work for you.

Zapier

This platform gives you the option to connect a number of different apps together. Acting as the conduit for different services, you can use Zapier to automate your customer tracking with your payment processor or update a spreadsheet with new purchases. This is a powerful tool that helps you streamline different processes as your business grows.

Affirm

Affirm is a loan company that allows its users to buy goods from online merchants and pay for those purchases in fixed monthly payments. The benefit for customers using Affirm is they don't charge any fees. 

To learn more about getting started with a business account, head over here.

Rev

We are the biggest fans of Rev for help with all of our transcription needs– everything from my eCommerce Lifestyle podcasts to new episodes of Drop Ship Weekly YouTube videos. 

The turnaround time is unbelievably quick, especially considering the price. And that's not to mention the countless integrations and services available through this tool. Check it out here.

Upwork

Upwork empowers you to grow your business with the help of freelancers around the world. You can use this site to hire for any scope of work such as short-term tasks, recurring projects, or full-time contract work. 

Storetasker

Different from Upwork, Storetasker is where you go to hire freelancers for Shopify-specific tasks. This company vets qualified Shopify marketers, developers, and specialists so that you can stay focused on growing your store– not screening and hiring short-term help.

Get a free estimate for expert Shopify support over at Storetasker.

Onlinejobs.ph

OnlineJobs.ph has the largest database of Filipino virtual workers: more than 250,000 profiles and 10,000+ Filipino join each month. This is our recommendation if you’re looking to hire long-term virtual assistants.

The website is just a marketplace– you recruit and hire on your terms. Whether that's part-time, full-time, hourly or salaried.

Creative Market

Creative Market is a website that provides you with top notch graphic design content to enhance your website and social media platforms. You have to purchase most of the design content, although some of it is free. The good news is they offer everything from photos, graphics, templates, themes, fonts and more.

Plus, everything they offer is highly customizable for your own needs! Using Creative Market’s pool of talented designers is a great way to save money hiring a graphic designer for your business’ website and social media.

Get started and browse the extension selection over at Creative Market.

Facebook Ads

To connect with new customers and drive them to your eCommerce site, use Facebook Ads to launch campaigns that target specific users or types of users. 

Facebook Ads is a great option for eCommerce businesses because the cost is relatively inexpensive compared to other options.

Google Ads

To increase brand and product exposure, you can use Google Ads to create campaigns that drive more customers to your website. With Google Ads, you can target specific audiences based on location or keywords, and you only pay for actual results.

What makes Google Ads extra special is that you don’t have to create the demand – you simply need to satisfy it. Your audience is already looking for your products and keywords.

Many Chat

I’m sure some of you are familiar with the application, Many Chat. It’s a fantastic way for your company to interact with your customers through Facebook Messenger and automated bots.

ManyChat lets you build a Facebook messenger list that you can market to. We started using ManyChat as soon as it came out. It works great, but over the years, tons of other companies picked it up as well.

Buffer

Out of all the social media management platforms out there, the one we recommend most is Buffer. It's simple, easy, and has everything you need. There are free plans for up to three accounts. After that, plans start at $15.

For drop shippers just getting into social media, this is a great tool that has plenty of integrations to help you automate and reduce time spent scheduling social media posts.

Compass

Compass is another great Shopify app that will help you save time and money in providing you more than 30 different stats on your eCommerce stores. You can make sense of your metrics by analyzing benchmark against your peers.

Additionally, Compass will help you boost revenue and profitability with tailored best practices and recommendations based on research from thousands of online merchants. 

Sumo

Sumo is a wide suite of marketing tools to help you grow your eCommerce business. It includes everything from multiple types of email captures as well as in-depth analytics to easily understand exactly how people are interacting with your store. With Sumo, you can:

• Reduce cart abandonment
• Convert window shoppers
• Increase order value
• Grow your email list

Ultimately, Sumo gives you everything you need to grow your store’s traffic, subscribers and conversions, all in one efficient and organized place! The best part is that it’s incredibly customizable while also simple to understand and implement.