The world of ecommerce is constantly evolving, presenting both opportunities and challenges for entrepreneurs and companies alike. To thrive in this competitive environment, having access to the right tools, information, and strategies is crucial.
In this article, we explore a wealth of free ecommerce resources as well as paid ecommere resources designed to empower e-merchants like yourself, from ecommerce books and podcasts to help you learn ecommerce to powerful tools for your newsletters, SEO, and more so that you can better achieve your business goals.
Whether you're a seasoned ecommerce professional or just starting your e-retail journey, this guide will provide you with a list of great resources to assist you in succeeding in the ecommerce space.
1. Digital Business and E-Commerce Management (book)
Now in its 7th edition, Digital Business and E-Commerce Management provides a comprehensive introduction to managing an online store effectively and navigating a business in the Digital Age. Originally authored just by Dave Chaffey, co-founder of Smart Insights, the latest edition also includes contributions from Tanya Hemphill and David Edmundson-Bird.
This book is a valuable companion for your ecommerce journey, regardless of your level of experience in running an ecommerce company. It offers insights, strategies, and practical guidance for success, presented in an accessible manner even for those just getting started in e-retail.
2. DotCom Secrets (book)
If you're looking to learn how to improve your sales funnels, Russell Brunson's book, DotCom Secrets, is a great choice. Brunson emphasizes the importance of well-designed sales funnels in increasing website traffic, conversions, and overall ecommerce success.
Regardless of your website's current state, the book offers a wealth of frameworks, funnel strategies, procedures, and scripts to enhance communication with your target audience, potentially leading to growth and sustained profitability for your ecommerce business.
3. Content Rules (book)
A strong content marketing strategy is essential for expanding your brand's reach, driving website traffic, and increasing online store sales. If you're an ecommerce newbie, creating compelling content that resonates with your target audience and establishes brand authority can be challenging.
Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman offer a solution through their book called Content Rules. It serves as a practical guide for finding your brand voice and enhancing your social media presence to boost brand loyalty and generate enthusiasm for your products. Handley and Chapman assist business owners in defining their goals and provide illustrative case studies for clarity.
4. Get Rich Click! (book)
Regardless of the size or products of your ecommerce business, profit generation is likely a top priority. Marc Ostrofsky, an accomplished internet entrepreneur, has authored a comprehensive book called Get Rich Click! It serves as a step-by-step guide for uncovering strategies to monetize your web enterprise.
Ostrofsky believes that all ecommerce entrepreneurs, regardless of their current skillset or experience, can acquire the knowledge needed to boost business revenue and attain financial success.
5. Ecommerce Evolved (book)
Tanner Larsson, author of Ecommerce Evolved, launched his first ecommerce venture in 2001 and has since witnessed significant changes in the industry over the past two decades. As the CEO of Build Grow Scale, he shares his insights in this book, providing readers with an insider's view of successful ecommerce ventures and a proven approach to adapt to the constantly evolving sales landscape on the internet.
Larsson not only outlines ecommerce principles but also guides on leveraging data and implementing systematic, robust automated marketing campaigns to enhance business efficiency.
6. WiziShop's Ecommerce Blog
WiziShop's Ecommerce Blog offers a wide range of tips and strategies for succeeding in online sales. The blog covers topics like trending products, paid advertising, SEO, email marketing, web ergonomics, payment and shipping solutions, product page creation, affiliate marketing, and social network strategies.
It's a resource for both new and experienced e-merchants, providing best practices, industry news, and inspiration. The blog also explores digital marketing, site optimization, visitor attraction, sales revenue generation, and automation with AI, making it a comprehensive guide to support and boost your ecommerce strategy!
7. The eCommerceFuel Podcast
The eCommerce Fuel Podcast, hosted by Andrew Youderian, is a significant presence in the industry. Youderian's ecommerce experience dates back to 2007 when he launched a CB radio online store, providing him with extensive knowledge.
With over 500 episodes and 5 million downloads, the program covers a wide range of ecommerce topics, including marketing, SEO, logistics, and customer service. It fosters a community-driven approach, with eCommerceFuel community members frequently sharing real-world experiences and advice. While suitable for all listeners, it's particularly beneficial for those with a basic understanding of ecommerce.
8. The Product Entrepreneur Podcast
Hosted by Maureen Mwangi, The Product Entrepreneur Podcast caters to entrepreneurs and business owners in the product industry. Leveraging her expertise (10+ years) in brand growth and marketing, Maureen explores various aspects of establishing and expanding product-based companies.
Episodes cover branding, marketing strategies, consumer behavior, and sales growth methods tailored to product enterprises. The program provides practical insights and real success stories, aiming to empower product entrepreneurs on their journey.
9. The Future Commerce Podcast
The Future Commerce Podcast, hosted by Phillip Jackson and Brian Lange, is a forward-thinking discussion platform exploring the intersections of commerce, retail, and web innovation. The hosts, with their signficant industry experience, delve into emerging trends, consumer behaviors, and technological advancements shaping the future of commerce.
Topics examined range from ecommerce strategies to retail innovations, sustainability in business, and more. One aspect that makes this program stand out is its focus on not just current trends but also speculative futures, offering insights into how commerce might evolve.
10. The Ecomm Manager Podcast
The Ecomm Manager Podcast focuses on ecommerce management and digital marketing. François Marchand, an experienced figure in digital media, having spent over two decades involved in journalism, broadcasting, marketing, and ecommerce, serves as the editor and host.
François and his guests, leading ecommerce pros, discuss numerous themes essential for ecommerce managers and share practical advice as well as their own success storeies. The program differentiates itself from other podcasts due to its personal storytelling approach, moving past mere industry jargon and headlines.
11. The My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast
The My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast, hosted by Steve Chou, concentrates on entrepreneurs who left their jobs to start successful internet businesses. Through personal interviews, Steve extracts detailed strategies that led to their success.
Unlike other business podcasts, Steve's approach is in-depth, asking tough questions and using his own experience in running multi-million dollar businesses to guide discussions. This program is valuable for those interested in learning about real-life entrepreneurial journeys and the tactics behind building successful online enterprises.
12. Reddit's Ecommerce Subreddit (forum)
The Ecommerce Subreddit (r/ecommerce) is a dedicated online community on Reddit for discussing all aspects of ecommerce sales. Here, you can read about a plethora of topics, including online selling strategies, marketing, website design, logistics, and customer service.
This subreddit is a valuable resource because it brings together a diverse mix of ecommerce enthusiasts, from beginners to seasoned professionals, offering a free place to share experiences, ask questions, and obtain practical advice.
13. Digital Point (forum)
You'll also want to be sure to check out the forums available on Digital Point. Discover an online community focused on digital marketing and ecommerce, with users discussing subjects ranging from SEO and social media marketing to web design and online business strategies.
Members can engage in group chats, where timely and intriguing insights about internet businesses are frequently shared. For private conversations, there's a private forum section available as a premium feature.
14. Udemy's ecommerce courses
Udemy is a well-known e-learning space featuring online courses for a plethora of subjects, including ecommerce. Online courses can be a great resource for aspiring and experienced internet retailers alike, as they offer a structured and comprehensive curriculum covering various aspects of ecommerce, everything from the basics to advanced concepts, often led by industry experts who share valuable insights and experiences.
For those seeking flexibility, Udemy's ecommerce courses are self-paced and accessible to busy individuals. They also promote a sense of community among learners. Completing such courses often leads to recognized certificates, enhancing credibility and résumé value.
15. HubSpot Academy (online courses)
HubSpot Academy offers a variety of free online courses and certifications primarily focused on internet marketing, sales, and customer service. While the website doesn't specifically categorize courses under "ecommerce," many of its offerings are highly relevant to ecommerce professionals.
These courses are designed to help professionals improve their online business strategies, enhance customer engagement, and drive sales growth. HubSpot Academy is known for its practical, skill-based approach.
16. Retail's Big Show by the NRF (conference)
Whether attended in person or virtually, ecommerce conferences like Retail's Big Show put on by the National Retail Federation (NRF) provide valuable chances to enhance your understanding of various internet sales topics. Moreover, they enable you to connect with individuals within your industry, fostering the expansion of your professional network.
Every year, the NRF hosts of one the biggest ecommerce events around, a three-day gathering that takes place in New York City. Retail's Big Show brings together retailers from over 90 countries across the world.
17. The Adobe Summit (conference)
The Adobe Summit offers a distinctive experience, allowing attendees to join either in person in Las Vegas for a fee or virtually for free. This event is centered around creating exceptional customer experiences and serves as a platform for attendees to acquire new skills, explore innovative ideas, and find inspiration for enhancing their own businesses' customer experiences.
Whether you're seeking insights on marketing automation, advertising, analytics, or other aspects of ecommerce and traditional commerce, the Adobe Summit provides a dynamic community for learning and networking.
18. WiziShop's AI (tool)
WiziShop's AI tool for text generation is designed to significantly help ecommerce businesses. It makes it possible to generate product descriptions, blog posts, and SEO meta descriptions; rewrite or translate text; create ads; and produce other kinds of text content for your ecommerce store in a flash. This tool is unique in its capacity to provide quick, AI-generated text, helping to speed up content creation processes sixfold!
This will especially come in handy if you're handling this aspect on your own and don't have a dedicated team to take care of it for you. Avail of the AI feature as soon as you sign up with the WiziShop ecommerce platform, regardless of which pricing plan you select.
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19. Canva (tool)
Canva is a user-friendly graphic design tool that enables users to create professional visuals, such as graphics, presentations, and marketing materials. This great resource provides you with an easy way to create stunning visuals for your online store, ads, and social media, enhancing brand appeal and customer engagement without needing advanced design skills.
20. Looka (tool)
Designing a logo for your brand is easy with Looka's free logo maker, an AI-powered tool that simplifies the process of creating custom logos. Begin by simply entering your business's name and industry, and then select your preferred logo styles, colors, and symbols. The tool generates various logo options, which can be customized in terms of colors, fonts, and layouts.
21. Google Search Console (tool)
Google Search Console is a free tool that helps website owners measure their site's performance on the search engine. It provides valuable data on search traffic, helps identify and fix issues, and enhances visibility in search results.
Key features include search analytics to understand which queries bring users to the site, URL submission for indexing, alerts on site issues, and detailed page insights from Google's index. It also offers resources for optimizing content, monitoring AMP pages, improving mobile usability, and enhancing rich results, making it a comprehensive tool for managing a site's search presence.
22. Google Trends (tool)
Another must-use free tool from Google is Google Trends. This tool provides insights into the popularity of search terms across the Google search engine. It allows users to explore what the world is searching for in real-time or over a selected period.
Google Trends can reveal search interest trends, compare different terms, and show geographic distribution of search queries. This tool is useful for identifying trending topics, understanding public interest, and conducting market research.
23. Ubersuggest (tool)
Ubersuggest, created by marketing expert Neil Patel, is a robust SEO tool designed to support your keyword research, competition analysis, and SEO audit efforts. It helps users identify keyword ideas, track their search ranking, understand backlink data, and analyze competitors' SEO strategies.
This tool is particularly beneficial for improving website visibility and traffic by offering insights into SEO tactics that can enhance web content and search engine ranking. You can use the freemium version of Ubersuggest to perform a maximum of three daily searches or upgrade to the paid version for a greater number of searches.
24. Answer The Public (tool)
Answer The Public is a search listening tool that taps into autocomplete data from search engines like Google, generating phrases and questions people are asking around specific keywords. It's valuable for uncovering consumer insights, assisting in content creation, and discovering hidden niches.
This tool helps in creating relevant content, monitoring trends, and making informed business decisions based on real-time search data. Just like with UberSuggest, Answer The Public is available for free, for up to three searches per day, and as a paid tool, for more searching capabilities.
25. Semrush (tool)
Semrush is a comprehensive platform that offers a suite of tools for SEO, market research (e.g., determining what to sell or who your ideal buyer is), and more. It aids you in growing organic traffic, creating engaging content, understanding competitors' strategies, optimizing ad spend, and building effective social media strategies.
Semrush provides valuable insights such as keyword research, backlink analysis, technical SEO audits, competitor ad monitoring, and performance tracking for social networks. It's widely used by marketing professionals for its detailed analytics and ability to guide internet marketing strategies for improved online presence and performance.
26. Hootsuite software (tool)
Hootsuite simplifies content publishing across various platforms like Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube. The paid tool, which starts at $99 per month with a 30-day free trial, offers several advantages, including the ability to post on multiple networks effortlessly.
You can engage with users publicly or privately, mention others, insert links or images, and geotag posts. Managing teams and assigning network administration tasks are straightforward. Hootsuite also enables post scheduling based on optimal engagement times and offers analytics to measure performance and return on investment.
27. Sprout Social (tool)
Sprout Social combines traditional social media management platform features with advanced artificial intelligence capabilities. It allows you to schedule posts on social networks, using its internal algorithm to identify optimal posting times for maximum reach.
In addition, Sprout Social offers a mobile app for convenient community management on the go, making it easy to engage with your audience throughout the day.
28. Buffer (tool)
Buffer is a renowned platform known for its efficiency and affordability, catering to businesses of all sizes, with paid subscriptions ranging from $6 to $120 per month. It provides a range of tools for effective social media marketing, including scheduling and performance analysis.
Buffer also allows the creation of landing pages with essential links for businesses on social networks. A free version is available to manage up to three channels, making it an economical option for marketers.
29. Mailjet (tool)
Mailjet is an email service provider offering tools for designing, sending, and managing marketing and transactional emails. Its features include an easy-to-use editor for your emails, real-time collaboration tools, a library of pre-designed templates, and powerful personalization and segmentation capabilities. Mailjet also emphasizes email deliverability, with tools like email validations and previews, and offers subscriptions that range from free to $25/month.
30. Mailchimp (tool)
Mailchimp is a marketing automation platform that specializes in email marketing services. It offers tools for creating, sending, and analyzing email campaigns, along with additional features like landing pages, internet ads, and customer relationship management (CRM) integration. Pricing with Mailchimp ranges from free to $350/month, depending on the needs of your ecommerce store.
31. WiziShop: The essential ecommerce platform for your website!
With all the free ecommerce resources as well as paid resources available today, one that you might not have considered is your choice of ecommerce platform. There many reasons why you should use an ecommerce platform, and while there are many platforms that exist, your best bet will be to go with WiziShop, the AI-powered solution!
With WiziShop, you'll have everything you need to succeed. Start your small business off on the right track by picking a design template from our extensive library to build a store that suits the vision you have for your brand. Then, add your business information, logo, and products in just a few clicks. Select your preferred payment and shipping options, and you're ready to go.
Besides the artificial intelligence for text generation that we mentioned earlier in this article's list, you'll be able to avail of over 400 pre-integrated tools to support your efforts in transforming store visitors to loyal customers and sell more items. Here are just a few of the features you can look forward to:
- Auto-Mail Booster: With this comprehensive emailing tool, you can craft and send top-notch, engaging newsletters that your customers will want to read, personalize your emails with subscribers' first names, and create customized campaigns for special moments in your customers' lives. You can also schedule automatic reminder emails for events such as an abandoned cart, a customer's first order, etc.
- Smart Check-Out: Our "Smart Check-Out" process continually undergoes optimization to reduce order placement time significantly. This results in order times that are three times faster than those on competing online stores. Achieved through numerous optimizations, including non-mandatory account creation, streamlined address entry, data retrieval from Facebook or PayPal, spellcheck, and a consolidated single-page process, our platform offers your ecommerce site's customers a quicker ordering experience.
- Speedy Change: Speedy Change allows for the simultaneous editing of multiple items, say to create flash sales for products priced between $15 and $20 that have been purchased at least five times, for instance. This feature provides versatility for catalog reorganization, homepage highlights, delivery options, and price adjustments.
Furthermore, WiziShop knows all too well how important SEO is for ecommerce sites. For this reason, we provide you with more than 50 features to ensure that your site is automatically optimized for technical SEO. That's right... This occurs without you having to do anything on your end!
In addition, with WiziShop, you'll have support every step of the way when it comes to your ecommerce business. The members of our dedicated team of Business Coaches are available to help you with anything and everything concerning your store, whether five minutes after you sign up or 10 years down the road!
Just have a simple question that you need a super quick response to? We're very happy to be able to offer our helpful chatbot Maia, who's ready to assist you 24/7 and can be found in your admin dashboard.
Another reason why WiziShop is the best ecommerce platform around and an excellent resource is the free training we supply. Take advantage of numerous modules to learn about a wide range of ecommerce topics and take your small business to the next level.
Ready to start your ecommerce adventure with WiziShop?
Test the solution with a 7-day free trial, and then get your first month for just $1!
Try WiziShop free for 7 days
THE EASIEST NO-CODE ECOMMERCE SOLUTION✅ No credit card required
✅ Access to all features
✅ No commitment