Ecommerce brand-building tools that create better customer relationships

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Which brands just ‘get’ you? There are probably a handful of brands with which your connection goes beyond the transactional. Brands you almost feel like you’re a part of. Brands with which you share a common purpose.

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You need to make your target audience feel those things about your brand, but that’s easier said than done. Building an ecommerce brand takes a lot of time and effort. And you’re competing with so much noise to grab people’s attention, never mind sustain it for the long haul.

Our starting point is always to look at how tech can help us to work smarter, not harder. So how can apps and tools help make the connection between your brand and its target audience? And how can it reduce the admin and costs of retaining customers and growing a community?

Let’s look at some customer and community brand-building tools that will help you.
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Customer loyalty

It’s a well-worn phrase that it’s far cheaper to retain customers than attract new ones. So it should come as no surprise that customer loyalty tools like these are a big part of brand building.
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Yayloh

Return management software Yayloh takes something as mundane as the returns process and creates a tool to boost customer loyalty. Brand experience during this often-overlooked customer touchpoint goes a long way to helping someone decide whether to buy from you again.

• Fully branded and personalised digital returns process
• Branded returns tracking page
• Detailed, product-level return data

Pricing:

Starts at $60 per month

Pros:

• Strong post-purchase brand experience
• Builds and analyses data to cut future returns
• Streamlines operations while encouraging customer loyalty

Cons:

• Relatively high entry tier price for startups
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Voyado

Voyado is a customer experience platform offering a suite of customer loyalty tools promising to keep customers coming back again and again. That’s pretty much what we’re looking for from these brand-building tools.

• Rewards scheme to encourage repeat purchases
• Membership levels to create regular interactions
• Custom triggers and other gamification elements to drive specific actions

Pricing:

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Pros:

• Highly customisable membership levels and gamification triggers
• Insights on customer loyalty across your brand and for individual customers
• Free trial available

Cons:

• No pricing information available
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Community-building tools

A surefire way to build your brand is to have an active, engaged community around it. These tools help to build and manage brand communities.
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Circle

Circle is an all-in-one platform that brings together every aspect of community building, including discussions, memberships, live streams, chat, and events.

• Make community spaces to host discussions, share ideas, or ask for feedback
• Create private or secret spaces for members or VIPs
• Customise with your logo, brand colours, and domain

Pricing:

Starts at $39 per month

Pros:

• Native integrations through platforms like Zapier
• Free trial available
• Clean, intuitive user experience

Cons:

• A limited number of preset options means every upload needs to be configured
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Guild

Guild is a collaboration platform for public, group, and one-to-one community communication. This takes the form of a simple, easy-to-use chat and conversation tool.

• Main feed featuring the best content and conversations
• Threaded conversations to give structure to community discussions
• Ability to create member profiles

Pricing:

Starts at £20 per month

Pros:

• Run multiple groups within your community
• No ads and customised branding
• Moderation and audit trail features

Cons:

• Fewer features than other community-building tools
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Customer service tools

The smoothness of a customer’s interaction with your store is a massive factor in brand reputation. That’s why tools to manage customer service interactions are essential for brand building.
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Gorgias

Customer support app Gorgias brings customer communication via email, live chat, social media, and phone into a single platform.

• Centralise all support tickets
• Manage and update orders within the app
• Integrates with Klaviyo, Yotpo, Facebook, and more

Pricing:

Starts at $60 per month

Pros:

• Simple, user-friendly customer service management
• Time-saving automations, templates, and rules
• Made for ecommerce and integrates with Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce

Cons:

• Creating workflows can be a bit difficult
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Zendesk

Zendesk’s customer helpdesk software gives you centralised support and ticketing to make life easier for you and your customers. It creates a platform to manage all customer service interactions.

• Centralised workspace for live chat, WhatsApp, email, and more
• Answer Bot for 24/7 support even when agents are unavailable
• Integrated help centre and community forum features

Pricing:

Starts at £39 per agent per month

Pros:

• Suite of collaboration tools to increase efficiency
• High level of customisation and personalisation
• Free trial available

Cons:

• Not exclusively geared to ecommerce
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Multi-channel tools for ecommerce

Selling via multiple channels gets your brand in front of more people. These multi-channel tools increase automation and reduce duplication. Keep in mind that additional marketing is unavoidable if you’re selling on multiple marketplaces.
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Sellbrite

Sellbrite helps you to reach new customers no matter where they shop by giving you the tools you need to run and grow a multi-channel ecommerce business.

• Create and manage listings for multiple channels
• Manage inventory and fulfil orders across all platforms
• Control everything from a single interface

Pricing:

Starts at $19 per month

Pros:

• Integrates with Shopify, BigCommerce, Amazon, Google, Etsy, eBay, and more
• Inventory syncing feature to avoid overselling
• Try for free up to 30 orders per month

Cons:

• Some additional work is required to get listings ready for each channel
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BigCommerce + Feedonomics

We could have featured either of these tools separately, but BigCommerce + Feedonomics have combined to create an omnichannel offering that helps you to list, optimise, advertise, sell and fulfil products across more than 100 channels.

• Automatically optimises and categorises large and complex product catalogues
• Syndicates listing across more than 150 marketplaces
• Centralised platform for managing orders from all channels

Pricing:

By customised proposal

Pros:

• Syncs with Amazon, eBay, Shopify, Google, and more
• Accurate mapping of product data across marketplaces with diverse attributes
• Optimisation tools to boost discoverability for each channel

‍Cons:

• No pricing information available
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Brand partnerships

Grow your brand by creating a partnership with brands that share your values or target audience. Make direct approaches or use brand partnership tools to start immediately.
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Carro

Sell your products on other brands’ stores with Carro, a cross-selling app for Shopify. Once you’re vetted, you can sell products on other Shopify stores (which have also been through a vetting process).

• Seamless integration with Shopify admin
• Products look like all others in your partner store except for the message: “Fulfilled by our friends at [your brand].”
• Add other brand’s products to your store (monthly fee applies)

Pricing:

5% commission

Pros:

• Choose which brands have access to your products
• Free to use — you only pay a commission on sales
• Build brand exposure with no upfront costs

Cons:

• Some reviews suggest occasional problems with the messaging system
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EasyDonation

Build brand partnerships with charities and not-for-profit organisations using EasyDonation, a donation app you can add to your Shopify store.

• Collect donations from your cart page (or during checkout with Shopify Plus)
• Choose which organisations benefit from your customers’ donations
• Donations added to customer’s order total

Pricing:

$6.99 per month

Pros:

• Select partners that align with your brand values
• Donations managed via Shopify Payments
• Customisable donation receipts sent to customers

Cons:

• Setup process may require assistance from the developers
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Start building a community around your brand

Brand building is an essential part of creating a sustainable ecommerce business. The tools we’ve featured provide brand-building infrastructure while reducing your admin burden.

To engage your customers, build a community and grow your brand:

• Think about how you reward the loyalty of repeat customers, brand advocates, and active community members
• Create a home for your community by building a platform that encourages the conversation and content you want
• Up your customer service game so that all interactions with your brand are slick, enjoyable experiences
• Take your brand to where your customers are with omnichannel selling
• Define your brand values through partnerships and associations with other organisations