14 Best Productivity Tools for Your E-Commerce Team

As your e-commerce business grows, the way you manage it should, too. More business means more work. It doesn’t always mean there’s enough revenue to support more team members, though. It’s tough to stay competitive when you have to scramble to get everything done.

There’s more to do, but the same amount of time to do it. For every item you check off of your to-do list, you add another two or three.

Sound familiar?

In some cases, hiring is the right move. Growing your team multiplies the work you can do. A smart hire can accelerate your growth and give you an edge over your competitors.

On the other hand, hiring before you’re ready can do the opposite. Tie up too many resources to train and pay your new team member, and you’ll halt your momentum and get left behind.

Whether you hire someone or not, productivity is key. You can’t pack more hours into the day, but you can get more work done in the same amount of time.

The right tools can help you do exactly that. Leverage simple technologies to stand out in the fiercely competitive marketplace without overextending yourself.

To help you position your business for graceful growth, we’ve put together this list of e-commerce productivity tools.

Our criteria for the best e-commerce productivity tools

To run a profitable online store, you need to think about many things at once. On top of setting the strategy, you also need to attract customers, maintain your website, provide excellent service, and manage inventory.

There’s no one e-commerce tool that does everything for you. Besides, having a computer program do your work is not the end goal. Technology will never replace your keen intuition and judgment.

Instead, we rounded up this list of tools that help you do routine and repetitive tasks faster and more efficiently so you can focus on more important things.

The productivity tools we recommend fall into four categories:

1. Time and productivity measurement
2. Collaboration
3. Automation
4. Inventory management

Each of these functions is crucial for e-commerce teams of all sizes, and they present the best opportunities to get back some of your time. Let’s talk about how to do that.

Time and productivity measurement

Even if you’re not tracking work time now, adding a time tracker to your e-commerce team a smart productivity move.

Time tracking is all about visibility. When you can see exactly where your time goes, you can spot problems and identify time wasters that aren’t otherwise obvious.

For example, checking your messages a couple of times per day seems like a quick task. But time tracking data can show you that you actually spend six hours every week on messages alone. Use this information to set time limits for those low-priority items on your to-do list.

If you have a team, time tracking helps you stay connected and productive. A good time tracker can:

• Provide proof of work for freelancers and contractors
• Help you spot and clear bottlenecks before they cost you money
• Give your team the data they need to work smarter
• Automate timesheets and payroll

Here’s the best tool for e-commerce time tracking and productivity measurement.

Hubstaff: for e-commerce team time tracking and budget control

Hubstaff makes it easy for e-commerce teams to track time at home or even in the office. It’s an excellent tool for managing virtual assistants, too.

With real-time productivity measurement, you gain visibility into how your team works without interrupting productive time.

Built-in automations help you save time on tedious back-office tasks like payroll and budget management. The detailed reports show you how to save time and money. In other words, you get more done when you work smarter with Hubstaff.

Track time by project or task for more valuable insights. This detailed information helps you find and eliminate time wasters. Maybe those quick social media checks aren’t so quick, or maybe you underestimated how long it takes to add products to the website.

Hubstaff’s time tracking reports are even more powerful when paired with the other productivity data the app gathers.

For example, URL and app tracking shows you which tools and websites your team uses most often. If you pay for tools that your team doesn’t use, consider canceling the subscription. Or, if specific apps or websites are distracting your team, give a gentle reminder.

Hubstaff automatically creates timesheets from hours logged. There’s no need for manual time cards or spreadsheets, which means you also eliminate the time and errors that come with manual entries.

You can customize rates for each project or team member, and Hubstaff will take care of the payroll calculation. Managers can approve timesheets and pay employees via integrations with:

• PayPal
• Payoneer
• TransferWise
• Bitwage
• Gusto

Hubstaff integrates with over 40 different apps. Keep using the business and project management tools you already have. Popular integrations include:

• ActiveCollab
• Asana
• GitLab
• GitHub
• Insightly
• Slack
• QuickBooks
• Gusto
• Salesforce
• ZenDesk
• Zapier

Who is it for?

E-commerce businesses should consider Hubstaff if they want to:

• Better understand what their employees do during work hours
• Uncover and fix bottlenecks
• Measure and increase productivity

Learn how one e-commerce company transformed their business using Hubstaff.

What users have to say about it

Most of Hubstaff’s users praise its customer support as being very helpful and quick to assist with any issues they encounter. Customers cite invoices, screenshots, and detailed reports as the most useful features of the software.

Negative reviews mostly center on Hubstaff’s activity level feature but often stem from users’ misunderstanding of how the feature works.

As noted in the support documentation, this feature should be used as a way to identify sudden drops or increases in productivity, rather than as an absolute measure of how productive a team member is. New users, especially managers, should keep this in mind.

What makes this tool different

While there are plenty of time tracking solutions out there, Hubstaff stands out thanks to features such as:

• Payroll management – Use Hubstaff to automate payroll by setting pay rates for each team member and then paying them directly through integrations with PayPal, Payoneer, Wise, and Bitwage.
• Ease of use – Setting up Hubstaff is simple and using it is super easy. Your team will find Hubstaff far easier than filing timesheets, and there’s not much of a learning curve, so you can get started right away.
• Team member scheduling – Plan and schedule shifts for your customer support team, see availability at a glance, and manage time-off requests.

How it makes you more productive

Hubstaff helps you improve your team’s productivity by allowing you to uncover and address inefficient processes and time-wasting activities. This enables your team to do more in less time.

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Pricing

Hubstaff offers a free plan for single users. Paid plans offer more users and features.

• Basic ($7/user/month)
• Premium ($10/user/month)
• Enterprise ($20/user/month)

Annual plans come with two free months and offer a discounted rate. All plans come with a 14-day free trial.

Collaboration

If you have too much to do and not enough time to do it, you need an effective way to prioritize.

Task management software is the answer. Whether you handle your own operations or manage a team, project management helps you get more done while you focus on the right things.

When you start using a task management system for the first time, it takes some practice. Remember to work from the system and leave yourself notes about what you already finished.

Soon, you won’t believe that you got work done any other way. You’ll get much more done and waste a lot less time.

Want to learn more about e-commerce project management? Check out this guide on how to plan out your projects.

Hubstaff Tasks: Kanban-style workflows to organize work

Hubstaff Tasks is designed around Agile principles to coordinate tasks and teams. Learn more about Agile project management here.

With easy setup and visual Kanban boards, everyone always knows what the team has finished, what’s in progress, and what’s up next. That visibility means you can easily delegate tasks or pick up where someone else left off.

Hubstaff Tasks makes managing your day-to-day easy with user-focused features.

Customize workflows by starting with the built-in templates and adjusting to suit your style. If you prefer, you can also build new workflows from scratch.

Each task includes a checklist to show you more details about the progress you’ve already made. You can add notes, comments, and files to each task. The entire history is attached. You know exactly what happened and who did what.

When you tag a team member in a comment, Hubstaff Tasks automatically notifies them. There’s no need to follow up with an email. They respond right in the task, which means you’ll never have to dig through your messages looking for that information again.

The Sprints view helps you prioritize by showing what you need to work on immediately and what’s next in the pipeline. Click and drag items to change their order or move them to a different Sprint.

For less urgent work, create customized To-do lists with the My Stuff feature.

Hubstaff Tasks integrates seamlessly with Hubstaff. To-dos and projects in Hubstaff Tasks will automatically appear in Hubstaff, and you can start or stop the timer from the task or the Hubstaff app.

Who is it for?

Hubstaff Tasks is best suited for e-commerce businesses that are looking to:

• Improve their workflows and processes
• Meet deadlines more consistently
• Optimize resource management

What users have to say about it

Customers praise Hubstaff Tasks’ ease of use and how it allows them to get started on tasks and projects quickly.

Apart from being intuitive to use, Hubstaff Tasks also has comprehensive support documentation you can use to learn more about how to use all of its features. The customer support team is always happy to help.

What makes this tool different

Hubstaff Tasks is built with Agile teams in mind. It comes with features like Sprints, Epics, and daily Stand-ups.

These are outstanding tools for teams that use Agile methodologies, but even non-Agile teams get a lot out of them. You can easily divide your work into manageable chunks, stay organized, and communicate more effectively with these easy built-in tools.

Thanks to its seamless integration with Hubstaff, Hubstaff Tasks also allows businesses to accurately track time spent on tasks and projects.

This is really valuable for merchants that need a little extra competitive edge. You know where every minute of your team’s time goes, so you know where you can cut waste, which projects take more effort than they’re worth, and what kind of work creates the most return in the least time.

How it makes you more productive

With Hubstaff Tasks, you’ll be able to create more efficient processes and workflows. It will also improve the way your team collaborates on tasks, helping move projects forward faster.

At a higher level, this tool can help you plan ahead to get more done. You see how all the pieces fit together. With Timelines and workflows, it’s easier to squeeze a few extra tasks in without it being overwhelming.

Pricing

Hubstaff Tasks is free for up to five users and ten projects. The Premium Plan includes unlimited users and projects.

• Free Plan (Free)
• Premium Plan ($5/user/month)

Coda: for teams that organize work in documents

Coda is document-focused but organizes information like an app. If you normally use a document to keep track of your to-do list, Coda is the next level. It’s like a homepage where you organize all your processes, tools, and tasks.

Build your Coda environment with tables, buttons, and templates that suit the way you work. It’s a very flexible interface. That flexibility can make organization a little more difficult than a typical task management software, so be prepared to put more thought into your structure.

Creating a resource library is one of the best uses for Coda. The information you share is easy to access and easy to update. As your team grows, Coda helps keep everyone on the same page.

Coda uses plug-ins called Packs to connect to other apps your team uses. For example, with the Shopify Pack, you can manage inventory, SKUs, and prices from Coda.

Coda also has its own inventory management templates.

Who is it for?

Try out Coda if you:

• Want to keep all your data in one place
• Need a flexible tool that can adapt to your workflow

What users have to say about it

Users love Coda’s versatility and flexibility. They enjoy being able to use a single tool that can replace half a dozen different solutions they use while helping them keep everything organized.

Reviewers also note that Coda comes with plenty of templates you can use to get started on tasks and projects quickly.

Most negative Coda reviews focus on the tool’s steep learning curve. Reviewers claim that Coda can be difficult to master, especially if you’re looking to create documents from scratch.

What makes this tool different

Coda is highly customizable, allowing you to adapt it to your team’s workflow.

One of its standout features is Packs, Coda’s version of plug-ins that allow you to connect your Coda docs to other apps. Packs allow you to pull or update data from different apps without leaving the Coda interface.

How it makes you more productive

Coda will prevent you from having to switch between different apps when working on a task, helping you to complete it faster. It will also allow you to find the information you need more quickly, saving you time and effort.

Pricing

Coda offers a free plan with doc size limits. Paid plan pricing depends on the number of doc creators and the feature set you want. Doc editors and viewers don’t need to pay.

• Pro Plan ($10 per month per doc maker)
• Team Plan ($30 per month per doc maker)
• Enterprise Plan (custom pricing)

Your team can save up to 15% by choosing an annual plan.

Google Workspace: productivity and collaboration for teams

You probably know about Google Workspace, formerly called G-Suite. It includes tools for collaboration, cloud computing and storage, and productivity.

Workspace is well known for apps like Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, and Google Docs.

It also has more niche apps like Forms to create surveys and Currents to engage employees.

One of the best things about Google Workspace is that most of your team is already familiar with it. There will be little to no learning curve.

Even for new users, the most commonly used apps are intuitive and easy to learn. If you’ve used Microsoft Excel, you can easily figure out Google Sheets.

Google Drive stores all of the information your team needs in a central location. You can give individuals or groups different access permissions to protect sensitive data like customer information.

The Cloud Search feature allows anyone to search for and access information across the Google Workspace environment. Don’t worry — your private files don’t show up in internet searches. They’re only visible to people added to your workspace.

Since Google Workspace is Cloud-based, you and your team can work from anywhere with an internet connection.

Who is it for?

Google Workspace is a great option for merchants that:

• Want a comprehensive suite of collaboration tools
• Need a solution that integrates easily with their existing tech stack

What users have to say about it

Users note that Google Workspace allows them to collaborate more easily. This is especially true for remote teams, which can work together on documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in real-time using Google’s suite of collaboration tools.

The main issue users have with Google Workspace is the limited support options, which forces merchants to figure things out on their own or seek help elsewhere.

What makes this tool different

The main advantage Google Workspace has over similar tools is that it’s an all-in-one solution for team collaboration. Creating and editing documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, scheduling meetings, organizing video calls — you can do it all with Google Workspace.

It also comes with comprehensive support documentation you can use if you run into issues with using any of the tools included in the suite. Digging through this information might be cumbersome, but the information you need is probably there.

Google Workspace is widely used, so there’s a good chance that your team will already know their way around. This is an advantage if you work with a lot of freelancers or plan to bring new team members on board quickly.

How it makes you more productive

Google Workspace comes with almost all the tools a modern team needs. All the apps included in Google Workspace also play well with one another, helping you be more productive when using the suite.

Since the entire family of apps is cloud-based, your team can get to their work from anywhere. It’s easy to manage permissions so you can grant and remove access to individual files or entire folders. When you get rid of your access issues, you save time and reduce frustration.

Pricing

Most of Google’s services are free for individual users with Gmail accounts. Plan pricing depends on the features you want and the number of users. All plans include a 14-day free trial.

• Business Starter ($6/user/month)
• Business Standard ($12/user/month)
• Business Plus ($18/user/month)
• Enterprise (custom pricing)

Automation

According to the McKinsey Global Institute, you can automate half of the activities you currently pay people to do.

Free up your team to work on high-priority tasks that a computer can’t do. Let technology take care of the rest. Why should you pay someone an hourly rate for work that a machine can do faster, cheaper, and more accurately?

There are lots of business functions that need your personal attention. Good automation gives you the time to focus on those.

For more on automation, check out this guide on automating tasks for your e-commerce business.

LastPass: for secure password management

Your team probably uses dozens or hundreds of different services, all with different login credentials. It’s difficult to remember all of these passwords, and it’s risky to use the same password multiple times.

With LastPass, you retire manual password management. You get a secure way to manage passwords with a lot less annoyance. Seriously — is anyone else fed up with password resets?

Getting locked out of your tools and systems is a huge waste of time. Of course, getting hacked is even worse. LastPass might not save you many hours every week, but it will prevent time-consuming problems.

Organize passwords in a secure vault for safety and convenience.

With the LastPass browser extension, the app automatically fills in your passwords when you visit sites that are saved in your vault. If you change a password, it automatically prompts you to save that change.

There’s also a digital wallet to store payment information securely.

Who is it for?

Use LastPass if you want to:

• Protect your employees’ and your business’ data
• Save time on locating login details for various company accounts

What users have to say about it

Users praise LastPass’s ease of use, as well as its secure encryption, password sharing, and autocomplete features. Some reviewers especially like having the ability to deactivate individual user accounts, which is useful if a team member leaves.

Negative reviews mention instances of LastPass overwriting form fields on websites, as well as issues with forms not getting filled randomly. A few reviews mention that they don’t get reminders when using the same login details on multiple websites.

What makes this tool different

LastPass offers secure password sharing, allowing your team to safely share passwords for various company accounts. It allows you to see which passwords team members are sharing and who can access them.

Another standout feature is data breach alerts. LastPass monitors the dark web and alerts you immediately if your credentials on any website have been compromised.

How it makes you more productive

With LastPass, your team members won’t need to waste time finding login details or resetting passwords. Instead, they’ll be able to spend this time on work that actually moves projects forward.

Using LastPass helps prevent data breaches and other security problems.

If you’ve ever had to recover from a hack, you know how much time it takes and how much grief it causes. Hopefully, you’ll never deal with a hacking attempt, but just in case, it’s a good idea to use a password manager like LastPass.

Pricing

The free version of LastPass is great for individual users. LastPass offers four different plans for business use. Pricing depends on the security features you want and the number of users you need.

• MFA Plan ($3/user/month)
• Team Plan ($4/user/month)
• Enterprise Plan ($6/user/month)
• Identity Plan ($8/user/month)

Kin: for do-it-yourself human resources

It’s essential to have strong communication with your team. Team members want to stay informed about policies, benefits, and opportunities for career growth.

But Human Resource management can be time-consuming and costly. When you run a growing startup, you probably can’t afford a dedicated HR department, and it’s tough to find the time to invest in your team members.

From onboarding to managing time-off, Kin automates many of your HR activities.

Kin has a dedicated feature to manage time off. Customize time-off policies for your business within the platform. Team members can request vacation time through Kin for managers to approve or decline.

The app syncs with the Calendar of your choice, so holidays and time-off show up automatically.

Kin handles paperwork and supports eSignatures, so paperwork is fast and simple. Use this feature to share new policies as your business grows. It’s also a great way to organize new-hire documents.

Performance reviews and objectives are a great way to give feedback and measure progress towards goals.

With digital processes for HR activities, you can make sure everyone aligns with business and performance goals. Also, digital records and notifications help keep team members informed of policies and schedules.

Who is it for?

E-commerce businesses should take a look at Kin if they’re interested in:

• Streamlining onboarding
• Managing employee data from one central location

What users have to say about it

Kin users like that the software helps them keep all their employee information in a single location. It also reduces the number of back-and-forth emails they need to send.

Some reviews mention Kin having a fairly intuitive interface and great customer support, as well as making it easy to switch over from other HR platforms.

Negative reviews mention Kin’s review area being difficult to use and note that it lacks advanced reporting features. A few reviewers also state that the software is somewhat difficult to use on mobile devices.

What makes this tool different

A lot of HR tools have been released in the past few years. However, most don’t offer as comprehensive of an employee management solution as Kin does.

Not only does Kin allow you to manage all your employee data, but it can also help you organize your onboarding process, facilitate performance reviews, and manage time-off requests.

How it makes you more productive

Kin can help you streamline your employee onboarding, record maintenance, and performance review processes, saving you dozens of hours every month.

Pricing

Kin HR offers four different plans based on the number of users and features.

• Startup Plan ($3/user/month)
• Studio Plan ($5/user/month)
• Growth Plan ($6/user/month)
• Enterprise Plan (custom pricing)

Zapier: for connecting apps and sharing data

Zapier is like a skeleton key for automation. The software allows you to connect thousands of different apps to move information and notifications between the tools you use.

We love it. With the Hubstaff and Zapier integration, you can instantly connect Hubstaff to over 3,000 other apps.

Zapier’s main feature is called a Zap, an automated workflow that connects two or more apps. Each Zap consists of a trigger and an action. A trigger starts a workflow, and an action completes that workflow. For example, a Zap can trigger a Slack notification every time you receive a new support request.

Use this tool to automate tasks across your business. Your imagination is the limit.

Popular Zaps include workflows for sharing content on social media, sending new leads a personal message, and notifying team members after trigger events.

Zapier eliminates the need for customized integrations. If you want to streamline work for tools that don’t work well together on their own, a Zap can make all the difference.

Who is it for?

Zapier is a great option for e-commerce businesses that are looking for a way to:

• Reduce their team’s workload through smart automation
• Speed up or eliminate repetitive tasks

What users have to say about it

Reviewers say that Zapier helps them automate a variety of tasks with no coding involved. They also like the fact that Zapier supports a large number of apps.

Some reviewers report issues with automations executing late. Others mention that the free plan is too limited and the app occasionally runs slowly.

What makes this tool different

While there are similar automation solutions out there, none of them come close to integrating with as many different apps as Zapier does. At the moment, the tool supports more than 3,000 integrations, and the Zapier team is working hard to add more integrations every month.

How it makes you more productive

You can use Zapier to automate a variety of tasks, including data entry, social media marketing, and invoicing. With every new automation you implement, you’ll free up your team’s time, allowing them to get more done.

Pricing

Zapier offers a free plan limited to five Zaps and a 15-minute update time. Zapier’s pricing depends on the number of Zaps, the complexity of Zaps, update time, and advanced features. Pricing below is the monthly cost for an annual plan.

• Free Plan
• Starter Plan ($19.99/month)
• Professional Plan ($49/month)
• Team Plan ($299/month)
• Company Plan ($599/month)

Drift: for automatic customer conversations and engagement

Drift helps companies engage buyers in real-time via chat, video, voice, or email. In other words, it’s a chatbot.

This platform aims to engage visitors on your website to create a better buying experience. Your Drift AI chatbot pops up as soon as a new user arrives.

Using real-time and historical data, Drift can personalize messages and direct visitors to the information they need. This is easier for the average user who wants to find something specific, and it cuts down on the number of items in your support queue.

If the bot can’t help, it connects the customer to someone on your team for human help.

Drift can also handle emails. Use it to send marketing messages and prioritize the messages that need your personal attention.

Drift integrates with more than 50 other tools, including Salesforce, Marketo, HubSpot, and more. The reporting feature uses the data from each of the integrated platforms to give you detailed profiles and insights into your customer base.

Who is it for?

You should use Drift if you’re an e-commerce business that wants to:

• Deliver a personalized shopping experience
• Generate more revenue from your existing traffic

What users have to say about it

Reviews show that Drift is easy to install. It also has plenty of templates and great customer support. Reviewers enjoy having the ability to create personalized playbooks for multiple audiences.

Negative reviews mention issues with routing leads, the inability to assign multiple reps to an account, and a lack of CRM integrations. Some reviewers have also experienced issues using Drift’s mobile app.

What makes this tool different

Through Drift’s real-time personalization feature, you can take advantage of marketing automation data to create personalized experiences for each shopper. This allows you to engage visitors at the right time with the right content.

How it makes you more productive

Drift can help to reduce your customer support team’s workload, allowing them to focus on more urgent support requests and solve more tickets during their shift.

Pricing

Drift offers a free plan with limited features and user seats. All Drift plans include a customer success manager, onboarding, and chat support.

Paid plans include more features. You’ll get integrations, audience intelligence features, and conversation analytics.

Drift does not disclose pricing on its website.

CommentSold: for easier selling directly on social media

For merchants that rely heavily on social media, a tool like CommentSold can save you time and help you make more money.

With CommentSold, you can sell your products directly from social media comments. For example, if someone comments on one of your posts about how much they love that handbag, you can start the sales process right there.

This is a great tool to help you host live social media sales. Use it for special events like video flash sales.

CommentSold makes it faster and easier to nurture leads outside of your website. It’s a great tool for competitive merchants that are already going the extra mile to build their brands.

Who is it for?

• Businesses that have a large social following they’re looking to monetize
• Merchants that are looking to automate social selling

What users have to say about it

CommentSold users love how easy the app is for their customers to use. They also enjoy the waitlist and automated invoicing features, as well as restocking notifications.

Some reviewers also mention that CommentSold lacks support for Safari browsers and video uploads, and they wish that there was a POS application.

What makes this tool different

CommentSold is an innovative social selling tool. Its two main standout features include:

• Automatic invoicing – CommentSold can automatically generate invoices based on social media comments. After commenting on a post featuring a product they’d like to purchase, customers will receive a message containing an invoice and a link to check out.
• Live sales events – You can use CommentSold to create live stream sales events on Facebook Live. Customers can watch the event and add products to their cart without leaving Facebook.

How it makes you more productive

CommentSold can automate a large part of the social selling process, allowing your social media team to focus on promoting your products and growing your brand’s social following.

Pricing

CommentSold offers a 30-day free trial. Paid plans include:

• Basic ($49/month +5% of sales)
• Business ($149/month +3% of sales)
• Enterprise (contact for pricing)

AiHello: to put your Amazon PPC on autopilot

AiHello is an Amazon PPC automation tool that can help you put your Amazon advertising campaigns on autopilot.

It’s an effective way to reduce the amount of time you spend managing ad campaigns while boosting profitability at the same time.

For example, you can set up AiHello to bid more on specific keywords during peak hours and reduce bids during off-peak times, decreasing your average ad cost in the process.

AiHello will monitor your campaigns 24/7 and tweak them continuously to ensure maximum profitability. Since it uses artificial intelligence, the tool gets “smarter” as time goes by and is able to optimize your campaigns better.

AiHello can mine for keywords used by your competitors and automatically add them to your campaigns. It also provides detailed logs and reports to help you understand how it’s optimizing campaigns.

Who is it for?

• Businesses that sell on Amazon and want to spend less time on managing Amazon PPC ad campaigns.

What users have to say about it

Reviewers enjoy AiHello being easier to use than Amazon’s advertising dashboard. They also praise AiHello’s ability to reduce ad costs and the company’s reputation for being very quick in adding new features suggested by users.

The main issue AiHello customers note is that it’s only available in certain geographical areas. Some reviewers also mention limited support options and occasional software bugs.

What makes this tool different

AiHello’s advanced automation features help it stand out from similar solutions. It can scan for and automatically add competitor keywords to your campaigns.

The tool also handles day-parting (reducing bids during off-peak hours and increasing them during peak hours) automatically. Finally, you can use AiHello to create advertising campaigns in bulk.

How it makes you more productive

AiHello helps you automate and scale your Amazon PPC advertising, significantly reducing the amount of time you need to spend on managing campaigns.

Pricing

AiHello offers the following plans:

• Basics ($0/month + 4.5% of ad revenue generated by AutoPilot)
• Standard ($39/month + 1.5% of ad revenue generated by AutoPilot)
• Premium ($99/month + 0.75% of ad revenue generated by AutoPilot)

Reviewbox: to monitor product reviews

Reviewbox helps you monitor reviews of your products across Amazon and other major retail websites, including Target and Walmart. It can send you email notifications and detailed historical reports.

Those notifications make it much easier to answer questions and respond to negative reviews.

Its Pricebox feature allows you to see the current Buy Box and who owns it, as well as monitor stock levels and track Amazon badges. You can use it to monitor and enforce your Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) policy and get alerts if a seller violates it.

Copybox is another one of the tool’s useful features. It helps you monitor all your product listings and detect changes to the brand name, product title and features, badges, and images.

This is highly useful for making sure your brand message stays consistent across all your product listings.

Reviewbox also allows you to track your and your competitors’ rankings for specific product keywords and export all your search rankings. Finally, you can use the Ad Station feature to automate your Amazon ad campaigns by defining automatic bidding rules.

Who is it for?

Reviewbox is best suited for brands that sell their products on online marketplaces such as Amazon and Walmart.com, either by themselves or through third-party merchants.

What users have to say about it

Reviewbox’s customers like the ability to manage and export reviews from a central location. They also praise Reviewbox’s customer support team, which is very quick at solving any issues customers encounter.

The main drawbacks customers mention are that Reviewbox’s reporting features aren’t as robust as those of similar tools and that the app has a somewhat outdated user interface that isn’t very intuitive.

What makes this tool different

Reviewbox is an all-in-one solution for monitoring customers’ sentiment towards your brand and products, as well as merchants’ adherence to your brand’s seller policies. Thanks to its comprehensive set of features, it can replace half a dozen tools you might already be using.

How it makes you more productive

Does monitoring your product listings currently involve constantly reviewing and updating spreadsheets? Reviewbox can automate this process and make sure you’re able to spend more time on growing your business.

Pricing

Reviewbox doesn’t currently advertise its pricing plans on its website. However, the company does offer a 30-day trial period you can use to test out their software for free.

Inventory management

Inventory is arguably your most important asset.

Since it’s so important, it makes sense that you might spend a lot of time dealing with inventory. However, you shouldn’t waste time dealing with tedious and repetitive tasks.

The more your catalog grows, the more complex your operations become. Here are some ideas for tools that can help make your inventory management smoother and faster.

QuickBooks Enterprise: for end-to-end inventory management

QuickBooks Enterprise can track items, set pricing, manage orders, and provide robust reports.

If your team already uses QuickBooks Accounting, you can launch QuickBooks Enterprise with a simple upgrade. It does the data integration for you.

Barcode scanning means that your team can get notifications each time an item moves. Use that information to calculate accurate delivery windows and reduce the expense of lost items.

If you have your own warehouse, QuickBooks has a pick, pack, and ship feature with mobile compatibility. Fill from your computer and automatically send instructions to a warehouse team member’s mobile device.

QuickBooks can generate purchase orders when inventory drops below pre-set reorder points to make sure you don’t have a stockout. You can run reports to see inventory items by SKU, vendor, delivery date, batch, or bin number.

From the QuickBooks dashboard, you can see how much it costs to produce, sell, and ship each item. Use this information to plan the most optimal product mix, inventory levels, and price points.

Who is it for?

• Businesses that need a way to manage inventory, sales, reporting, and accounting from a central location

What users have to say about it

Reviewers enjoy QuickBooks Enterprise’s audit trail and reporting features, as well as its ability to do accurate inventory tracking.

Some reviews note that the app’s search function doesn’t always work properly. Others claim it’s difficult to rectify reconciliation errors and that QuickBooks Enterprise is not the best option for multi-entity companies.

What makes this tool different

QuickBooks Enterprise’s differentiating factor is precisely its focus on serving enterprise businesses. It can handle up to 1 million customers, vendors, and items, as well as 100,000 classes and 40 users.

How it makes you more productive

QuickBooks Enterprise can help you streamline a lot of tedious tasks involved with running an e-commerce company. This will allow you to spend more time growing your business.

Pricing

QuickBooks Enterprise has three plans: Silver, Gold, and Platinum. The silver plan offers basic features and reporting, while Gold and Platinum offer payroll integration, advanced reporting, and automation options. Here’s the pricing for an annual subscription.

• Silver Plan ($1147.50/year)
• Gold Plan ($1489.50/year)
• Platinum Plan ($1831.50/year)

ShipBob: for on-demand fulfillment and logistics management

ShipBob is a logistics platform built for direct-to-consumer companies. The service automates fulfillment and provides insights for you to make better decisions across the supply chain.

ShipBob provides on-demand warehousing and fulfillment. Their software helps you sell your products most efficiently.

To use ShipBob, you send your inventory to their fulfillment center. When a customer places an order, ShipBob picks, packs, and ships the items.

With ShipBob’s network of fulfillment centers, you can strategically hold inventory close to your target markets to cut down delivery costs and time. ShipBob’s two-day express delivery service uses ground shipping as an inexpensive alternative to air transport.

You can see where an order is in the shipping process, make changes to orders, and share tracking information with customers.

Reporting features identify slow-moving inventory, inventory with high storage costs, and opportunities for promotions.

ShipBob integrates with Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, and Amazon.

Who is it for?

• Direct-to-consumer brands
• E-commerce businesses looking to outsource fulfillment

What users have to say about it

Reviewers note how easy it is to integrate ShipBob with Shopify and Amazon. Some also mention how ShipBob’s analytics tools and real-time reporting enable efficient inventory planning.

Negative reviews center on issues with overcharging, hidden fees, and lost packages. Some reviewers note that ShipBob’s customer service is slow to respond.

What makes this tool different

ShipBob is able to determine the optimal placement for your inventory across its fulfillment network in order to improve the speed of delivery while reducing shipping costs. It also allows you to scale more easily by distributing your inventory into multiple warehouses over time.

The platform’s proprietary e-commerce fulfillment software helps you manage orders and track stock levels, and even sends you notifications when you need to reorder inventory.

How it makes you more productive

By outsourcing fulfillment with ShipBob, you’ll save a lot of time and resources. This will allow your team to focus on other aspects of your business, such as marketing, sales, and customer support.

Pricing

ShipBob’s order fulfillment pricing depends on the number of labor hours required, the number of goods stored, and shipping requirements. All order-fulfillment customers get ShipBob’s software for free.

• Receiving: $25 for the first two hours ($40/person-hour after the first two hours)
• Storage: $40 per pallet/month, $10 per shelf/month, $5 per bin/month
• Pick and Pack: Free for the first four picks in an order, then $0.20 per pick starting with the fifth pick
• Shipping: Varies based on destination, weight, dimensions, shipping service, and more

Kibo Commerce: for supercharging order management and personalization

Kibo Commerce is an order management, personalization, and fulfillment automation solution for e-commerce businesses.

You can use it to scale your order fulfillment quickly when needed and optimize available inventory across your fulfillment network.

The software gives you a centralized view of all inventory across different locations so you can ship products in the most efficient way possible.

Kibo Commerce’s intelligent order routing engine helps you organize and prioritize your fulfillment locations and optimize fulfillment in a few clicks.

This helps reduce both inventory carrying costs and shipping fees, plus it enables faster delivery times.

The platform’s omnichannel fulfillment capabilities allow you to implement fulfillment options such as in-store and curbside pickup to meet online shoppers’ changing needs.

Kibo Commerce also comes with powerful AI-driven personalization features.

You can use it to create context and behavior-based audience segments, which will allow you to provide more effective personalized shopping experiences. The platform supports both individualized product recommendations and predictive site search.

Who is it for?

Kibo Commerce is best suited for large e-commerce businesses that are looking to optimize their fulfillment process and provide highly personalized shopping experiences to their customers.

What users have to say about it

Kibo Commerce customers praise the platform’s robust features, customizability, and customer support.

Negative reviews mention that it’s difficult to implement some of Kibo’s features. Some reviewers note that it can be hard to find specific orders in Kibo’s system due to a lack of filtering features.

What makes this tool different

Kibo Commerce has a host of features that help it stand out from similar solutions:

• 1-to-1 personalization – Kibo Commerce allows you to treat all your customers as unique individuals, serving them with highly personalized content that helps you improve conversion rates and reduce bounce rates.
• Testing and experimentation – You can use the Kibo platform to launch A/B, dynamic, and multivariate tests across all your channels and take advantage of machine learning technology to maximize your results.
• Headless commerce – Kibo’s B2C e-commerce platform supports headless commerce, giving you maximum flexibility without sacrificing performance.

How it makes you more productive

Kibo Commerce streamlines and automates order management, fulfillment, and personalization. This means your team will have to spend less time on managing orders and returns.

It will also reduce the number of support requests related to product recommendations. Your customers can more easily find what they’re looking for, and that’s a good thing for everyone.

Pricing

Kibo Commerce’s pricing depends on which of the platform’s features your business needs to use. The company doesn’t currently display any pricing information online.

Next Steps

That was a lot of productivity tools to consider. Take a deep breath, and bookmark this post. You might need to come back and compare the tools again.

Before you decide which tools are best for you, take these steps:

• Use a time tracker to identify inefficiencies. Where are you spending the most time and getting the least results? These are your best opportunities. Using the right tool will make the biggest difference here.
• Get feedback from your team. Every leader has blind spots. Ask your team what you can do to make their jobs easier. You might get more honest feedback if you use a survey tool like Google Forms, where people can answer anonymously.
• Take advantage of free trials. Many tools come with a 14-day free trial. Try it out. Does it mesh with your team’s workflow? Is it easy to use? Is there less frustration and improved results?

One last tip:

You’re more likely to see big productivity gains if you choose one new tool at a time. It’s hard to learn a lot of new things at once. Give yourself and your team time to learn before you adopt another new software tool, even if you need help in multiple areas.

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