23 Software Booster For Growing E-Commerce Business In Malaysia
Starting a business in 2020 has been drastically easier.
Today, we don’t need decades of experience to be owners of our own business.
This is because everything is going digital. The performance of apps is getting more and more advanced.
We can automate everything from the comfort of our own home.
All we need to kickstart our business is a few key apps, platforms like social media or Youtube channel and we can work to create a real, simple brand that can scale and outperform our competition.
Of course, the challenge here is: how do we find these apps? Sometimes, it takes a lot of research to scout for the perfect tool, but every now and then you might find a blog like ours that shows you first hand, a list of software you can leverage to easily optimize and enhance your eCommerce store and marketing efforts in Malaysia.
Finding the app that is right for your business starts with possessing a basic knowledge of eCommerce and integrations.
Within the following paragraphs, are a list of tools that can be used for your internet commerce store. Please take note that this list of tools may include features that can be found in a free or paid plan.
E-Commerce Platforms
Before we delve into complicated integrations, the first question here is: Where are your customer (website visitors) going, to visit your products? You need a single main platform where customers can visit your store and make their payment online.
Here is the different eCommerce platform builder that you can subscribe to setup your website.
Shopify, EasyStore, WooCommerce, Magento
Picture Source: Unsplash
The reason you should set up your own website, rather than publish your product in the marketplace like Carousell, Amazon, Lazada or Shopee is really simple. Having your own website (or websites) allows you to custom design your store, giving your brand the powerful voice it needs.
Apart from that, you can integrate your websites with a various feature that allow you to plan, track, visit analytics to gain insights, identify prospective customers and create a solution that would entice them to make a purchase on your site. These can be done by installing Facebook pixels or Google tag manager on your online stores.
Besides that, if you are selling online on these platforms, you can customize the shopping experience of your customers based on their behaviour. For example, these days the more popular options for browsing are on mobile phones.
Hence, having your own platforms enables you and your team to design a user-experience process that is personalized to your customer or target audience.
Our recommendations for your store would be Shopify. This is because the pricing plans and offers for small businesses are affordable, friendly customer support provide helps within 24 hours, and there are constantly new integrations for merchants to improve, and manage their content and product easily and effectively.
If you are looking to give this eCommerce platform a try, during the recent lockdown they extended the free trial to a 3-month long period. Although it’s been reduced back to 14 days recently, we can still hop on their trial period to explore the functionality and ease-of-use!
B2B Management for E-Commerce Businesses
Okay. You have a website now. What is next? Chances are, you need visitors or leads!
In this case, if you are an enterprise targeting customers (Business-to-Customers), the simple existing solution is to build a strong brand that drives traffic, offers the best service but also marketing your products on social media channels, optimizing for engagement and conversion. Not too hard, yes?
The real challenge is to find a tool that supports B2B Management.
Are you targeting major industries in Business-to-Business transactions, but running on a tight budget? If you are looking for a unique, user-friendly application that integrates plenty of features seamlessly with a dashboard that organizes your data: Dropee is our suggestion.
Dropee
Dropee is a B2B Management tool that helps you automate everything in your B2B transactions. From orders, delivery logistics, to payments, all on one platform. No more paperwork, hello automation.
Apart from that, it’s built with ease of use helps you compare product prices that fit your budget and manage your business processes with fewer resources. Source from more suppliers and service more customers beyond geographical boundaries. The plan for Dropee can be determined by requesting a demo at their website.
Cloud Inventory Management Software
You have a thriving eCommerce business and its time to expand it to a new market, or even increase product distribution through affiliate marketing. How are you going to keep track of your inventory?
Simple. Cloud Inventory Management Software helps you monitor and maintain your inventory levels online. Traditionally, inventory management is time-consuming and one of the most tedious, least popular tasks carried out by eCommerce businesses.
It is boring, filled with errors and issues, and it diverts resources from more important aspects of the business. With inventory solutions designed with users in mind, you can drive growth to your brand without worrying about the dragging task.
Here are some tools that we propose with reasonable pricing:
Operato by Hatio, Unleashed, QuickBooks Commerce (TradeGecko)
Another awesome feature of these cloud inventory software is the ability for your sales invoice to automatic manages your inventory. Yes, easy, clean automation.
We would recommend Operato by Hatio because their core software appeal involves a warehouse management feature that helps you, as an eCommerce business owner improve your stock management processes with the tedious task such as barcode labelling and so on.
Apart than that, you can integrate Operato by Hatio with multiple sales channel simultaneously; Across online marketplaces such as Shopee, Lazada and eBay; your own website store; Shopify and Magento; As well as Cloud Point-of-sales (POS) software such as Xilnex.
Real-time reports for your warehouse management will be ready at your fingertips!
With such a powerful integration, you can manage all your sales channels at one place. To make things even sweeter, they have plans to launch the cloud inventory feature in Q1 2021!
Cloud Accounting Software
The next tool that could turbocharge your growing eCommerce business will be another service with the name ‘cloud’ in it. If you ever struggle to keep up with your finances, then pay close attention to including a cloud accounting software in your list of tools.
With a few clicks, you can save and store your documents in the cloud. This makes the documentation or auditing purposes easier, faster and less troublesome. Besides that, you can access your accounts 24/7.
This allows you to stay tuned to the financial stability of your business even when you are away from your work desk. The cloud accounting software like Xero or QuickBooks Online is highly recommended because of its features and seamless integration with specific banks in Malaysia like CIMB bank, which helps account for all your transactions accurately.
Apart from that, the functionality, along with its low cost and unique offering as a SaaS saves you plenty of hours and effort.
Highly recommended software to use:
Xero, QuickBooks Online.
“I made a lot of sales but I’m really worried whether all the money has entered my company’s bank account?”
One of the pain points we noticed in eCommerce businesses is to match your sales invoices with the cash you received from your customer through multiple payment gateways such as ipay88, credit card, Paypal, Stripe etc.
I bet you must be having a headache to know if your bank balance is a true and accurate reflection for all the payment received from your clients.
Instead of settling for the traditional offline accounting software, you and your staff can leverage Cloud Accounting Software like Xero and Quickbooks Online to help you with that.
Talk to your accountant about bookkeeping, and make this the perfect time to migrate your services on the cloud, for easier accounting in your eCommerce business!
Cloud Payroll Software which supports E-Commerce Businesses
Payroll software is the next on the list because which business owner doesn’t want their HR managers to run LHDN approved payroll in just a few clicks? Tools such as Payroll Panda makes your monthly payroll simple and quick.
Besides, it’s not technical, and a low monthly cost allows business owners from any industry or niche (regardless of technology adaptation) to download, set and start automating your employee’s pay every billing month. It’s so easy-to-use that no training is required.
Tools that we recommend:
Talenox, KakiTangan, Payroll Panda, HREasily
Adopting these cloud payroll software provide an integrated feature that allows you to link up with Cloud Accounting Software. All the accounting entries will be done immediately, with just a click of the button!
We have written a blog if you would wish to implement Cloud Payroll Software. It is titled: ‘7 Powerful Benefits of Using Cloud Payroll Software in Malaysia’. Click here to read more!
Quality Customer Service and Support
Of course, every business needs a customer. It is just as important to focus on customer service in your eCommerce store rather than continue driving traffic and sales. The famous tool here would be Zendesk.
Whether its support, sales, or engaging with your customer, you can make your customer happy through text, mobile, phone, email, live chat, or social media.
Zendesk app is neat and clean and provides analytics on how you can further improve the customer experience on your internet commerce store. With the number of features provided in Zendesk and a free month trial, you will be wowed when you realise the role customer service can play in marketing for your business.
Tools that we recommend:
Zendesk, Freshdesk
Speed matters when it comes to making your customer feel comfortable, and for them to come back for your service again.
Picture Source: Unsplash
Foreign Exchange Platform for E-Commerce Businesses
These days, eCommerce businesses are often transacted globally with different currencies. Whether it’s selling online to customers all around the world, or making purchases from oversea vendors and paying them in different currencies: e.g. United States Dollars (USD), Euro (EUR) and many more. Wouldn’t it be awesome to have one platform to consolidate your foreign currency transactions right?
A tool that we recommend:
WorldFirst
It is a foreign exchange platform to keep your marketplaces at profit with their transparent foreign exchange rates from as low as 0.15%. Their solution is to help online businesses grow and scale their revenue across more countries.
Just imagine how convenient it would be, to open multiple foreign currency accounts on the same day!
Workspace
So, we saved the best for last.
Email, oh email. Whether you are selling small or huge quantities of products in your eCommerce store, you are going to rely on these tools almost every day.
Usually, it is not enough to be using Gmail (even though it is free) because customers on your site do not perceive gmail.com domains to be professional (if you are going to sell something to them). The biggest brands in the world will utilise G-suite or Microsoft Outlook for their day to day work. So are you going to as well?
Here are the tools that every business needs to get on!
Google Workspace (Formerly known as G Suite), Microsoft 365.
Other than that, both solutions have constant software updates to support your business’s essential communication. For example, the products under these tools include the popular: Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Google Calendar to name a few! These solutions help improve your work efficiency and effectiveness for internal operations.
So the software-as-a-service industry is rapidly growing, and convenient apps that can help us automate and digitize are being invented every single day. How is your eCommerce business going to maximise technological advancements and thrive in this new, competitive landscape?
We hope this blog post helped, and if you are interested in more articles like this, you can subscribe to our email newsletter!
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If you are expanded to retail space for enhancing distribution channels, these tools are for you:
Cloud Point-of-Sales Software
StoreHub
Xilnex
Cloud Scheduling & Time Tracking Software
StaffAny
Hauz