It can seem like a dog-eat-dog world out there, especially where it concerns starting your business. There are so many factors that come into play with regard to starting up your business that it's hard to figure out where to begin. Generally, you have to spend money to make money, but sometimes you can catch a break. Every now and again you can come across free tools to help you run your e-commerce business.

1. Buffer

In our day and age, social media is the glue that holds our society together. You can hardly go a day without someone mentioning Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or any other platform. Sounds a little sad, but it's true. Many people state that they get their news from one social media platform or another. Since people pay so much attention to social media, it would behoove you to ensure the visibility of your site on social media. Google Search Console can help with that, but so can Buffer.

Many times people may set reminders or alarms in regards to setting up their posts on time. Buffer eliminates the need to do that. Through Buffer, you are able to create posts ahead of time and post them across your various platforms at a given time. It's one less thing for you to worry about.

2. Bitly

Speaking of social media platforms, you want to make sure the contents of your outreach aren't too distracting. Think about any e-commerce post you've ever seen on social media. Have you ever seen the long and lengthy web address? No. Chances are the store shortened the address so as not to detract from the rest of the post. I know it seems like such a small and silly thing, but I promise it's helpful. Especially when you consider that, sometimes, the address might be considerably longer than the actual text. Who wants that?

3. Mailchimp

Whether you can believe it or not, a significant amount of your return business will come from emails. Aside from the customer's desire to return on their own strength, which you can't totally rely on, emails are the best way to get customers to come back. Customers learn about sales, their abandoned carts, items selling out and much more via email. This is why you should be utilizing Mailchimp.

The idea of keeping track of all the emails that you should be sending is quite worrisome. How could one manage it all? If you've gained a large following, or even if you haven't it will be much easier to have someone, or something, else to do the heavy lifting for you. In a similar way that Buffer automates social media posts, MailChimp automates email blasts. If you want to grow your business, you should consider automating your email.

4. Grammarly

Okay, hear me out on this one. This one may seem silly, but it's not. Part of your job is making sure that your site is optimized for search engines. Grammarly is a great way to increase SEO. If your site has simple grammatical mistakes, not only will it reduce the likelihood that your site will be a result in a search but it will also diminish your appearance in the eyes of your propsective customers. It's a simple plugin, so it's really harmless to make sure all your i's are dotted and your t's are crossed.

5. Survey Monkey

No one is perfect and there is always room to grow. Always. If you ever find that your business is in a rut, or it's hitting a plateau point, perhaps you should spend sometime surveying your customers to find out what's working and what isn't. It wouldn't hurt to add some kind of incentive to entice the customers to actually take the survey, either. Survey Monkey is fairly renowned the world over and can help you in more ways than one.

This tool is particulalry useful because you're more apt to learn about the areas needing improvement, which is the goal. Consumers are more likely to gripe during surveys than they are to give praise. While criticism may hurt to read, this is incredibly useful for you becuase you can minimize the likelihood of it ocurring again. Conversely, if the consumer offers praise, you know what you're doing right and can continue doing so.

Conclusion

Whether you're a veteran in this field or a newbie, you can always get help in way form or another. And free help is always the best kind. Oftentimes, it's hard to wear all of the hats required when running a business. But with help from these tools, you don't have to wear them all by yourself.