Customer relationship management (CRM) software for ecommerce feature capabilities like customer activity tracking, marketing campaigns, and order management, addressing the needs of an online retailer. The best CRM for a small ecommerce business offers affordable and simple features to store customer information, track inventory, run email campaigns, and process orders. After evaluating dozens of products, our picks for the best ecommerce CRM include:
- Best CRM for ecommerce with free Shopify integration: Freshmarketer
- Excellent CRM software with payment processing: HubSpot CRM
- Great multi-view options for customer tracking: monday sales CRM
- Affordable and robust product catalog: Pipedrive
- Best free ecommerce CRM with inventory management: Bitrix24
- Great for ecommerce project management: Insightly CRM
- Best all-in-one CRM for an ecommerce website: Zoho CRM Plus
- Recommended for Google Workspace users: Copper CRM
- Top CRM with high usability: Really Simple Systems
- Excellent artificial intelligence (AI) tools: Salesforce Commerce Cloud
Best Ecommerce CRM Software Compared
Provider | Free Plan? | Our CRM Rating out of 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|
 | $19 per user | ✓ Up to 10 users | 4.88 |
 | $18 for 2 users | ✓ Unlimited users | 4.80 |
 | $10 per user (3-user minimum requirement) | ✕ | 4.65 |
 | $14.90 per user | ✕ | 4.61 |
 | $49 for 5 users | ✓ Unlimited users | 4.54 |
 | $29 per user | ✓ 2 users | 4.41 |
 | $57 per user | ✕ | 4.36 |
 | $23 per user | ✕ | 4.23 |
 | ✓ 2 users | 4.14 | |
 | 1% of gross merchandise value | ✕ | 2.99 |
Freshmarketer: Best Free Shopify Integration
Pros
- Easy system to use while navigating the menu and operating the features
- Excellent tools for creating and deploying marketing campaigns and automated journeys
- Direct integration with Shopify, including on the free plan
Cons
- Barebones free option in terms of features and data capacity
- Expensive after Growth plan ($19 per user, monthly)
- Lacks built-in payment processing and inventory management tools
- You need a free integration with Shopify: Freshmarketer’s Free plan is pretty bare-bones in terms of capabilities—limiting you to 100 contacts, 200 emails, and one customer segment. It is, however, one of the few products with a free Shopify integration. This lets you track contact activity and segment lists based on Shopify events like abandoned carts or first-time visits.
- You want complete ecommerce marketing tools: Freshmarketer is a marketing automation platform that’s mostly meant for campaign management. It lets users create, send, automate, and track marketing campaigns via email, text, social media, Facebook ads, and WhatsApp. There are also tools for designing landing pages, tracking website activity, and engaging web visitors through live chat or an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot.
- You want to manage payments and inventory from your CRM: Freshmarketer, unfortunately, is only a good product for managing marketing campaigns, storing customer data, and tracking activity. It doesn’t offer built-in features for processing payments or managing inventory.
- Alternative: HubSpot CRM is a great alternative for built-in payment processing tools, while Zoho CRM Plus lets you handle inventory management, projects, and marketing in one system.
- You need a more robust free CRM for an online store: While Freshmarketer has a free-forever option, it’s designed more for a temporary use case as it limits you to 100 contacts, one list, 200 emails, and basic contact data storage tools.
- Alternative: Bitrix24’s free plan supports unlimited users and does not have a limit on product lists. It also has many ecommerce features like an online store builder, landing pages, inventory management, and a shipping cost calculator.
Freshmarketer Pricing Plan & Overview*
Freshmarketer Pricing Add-ons*
- Freshbots Additional chatbot sessions : $100 for 1,000 Freshbot sessions
- Marketing contacts: Starts at $100 per month for 5,000 additional contacts
- Conversion Rate Optimization Website visitor behavior analysis and site optimization for paid plan users : Starts at $219 per month for 10,000 monthly unique visitors (MUV)
- Messaging Agent Access to Agent Inbox to manage chat conversations across all channels in one place : Ranges from $15 to $69 per agent, monthly
- Dedicated IP address For Enterprise plan only : $100 per month
*Pricing is based on annual billing. Monthly billing is available for a higher cost. It comes with a 21-day free trial. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing here.
Freshmarketer agent inbox with a summary of a customer’s Shopify activities (Source: Shopify)
Our Expert Opinion
Freshmarketer takes the top spot as the best CRM for ecommerce thanks to its easy-to-use features, broad contact management tools, and robust marketing capabilities. We like that it has free integration with Shopify. By connecting with the popular ecommerce platform, users can track activity and automate campaigns from the CRM system based on Shopify activity.
HubSpot CRM: Best CRM With Payment Processing
Pros
- Free plan has mass marketing email, Facebook Messenger integration, and list segmentation
- Includes built-in payment processing tools and integration with Stripe
- Highly intuitive CRM that requires a minimum learning curve
Cons
- Paid plans get expensive after upgrading
- Products library unavailable until the Professional plan
- Does not have inventory management features
- You need payment processing capabilities: In both the HubSpot Sales Hub and CRM Suite, which adds marketing and service tools to the sales CRM, users can collect and track digital payments. One option is through built-in processing, which allows invoice payments through an automated clearing house (ACH). There’s also direct integration with Stripe for handling credit payments.
- You want a minimal learning curve for your ecommerce CRM: HubSpot is notorious for being one of the best simple CRMs in the market. It leverages a modern interface and intuitive features so users at any technical level can quickly figure out and operate the system. Once comfortable, ecommerce teams can create and deploy marketing campaigns, integrate with ecommerce tools like Shopify, and automate customer journeys from one system.
- You need inventory tracking features: Inventory tracking tools let you monitor product lines and stock to ensure you are always at optimal levels. HubSpot is limited to hosting a products library that lets you view all the items your retailer sells.
- Alternative: We recommend Zoho CRM Plus as the best tool for inventory management, product tracking, order processing, and vendor management.
- You want a more scalable solution: Ecommerce businesses are unique in that they can quickly grow their operation after just one or a few successful campaigns. That said, it’s essential to have a cost-effective, scalable CRM for ecommerce to update when users need more data capacity and advanced features. HubSpot, however, is relatively expensive on the paid plans (starting at $18 per month for two users) once users need to upgrade past the Free option.
- Alternative: Bitrix24 stands out as the most scalable and affordable CRM for ecommerce, with paid plans that range from $49 per month (five users) to $399 per month (250 users). Its free plan for unlimited users allows you to build an ecommerce store with unlimited products.
HubSpot CRM Pricing Plan & Overview*
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per-month breakdown of the Sales Hub plans for individuals and small teams. There are also Enterprise-level plans for bigger teams that need advanced customizations. Monthly billing is available for a higher cost. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing here.
HubSpot CRM managing payment links (Source: HubSpot)
Our Expert Opinion
First and foremost, we love HubSpot CRM’s product versatility. It gives options to subscribe to a sales-only CRM for lead and deal management, or a CRM Suite that adds marketing and customer service tools. It also stands out for its all-around product usability and robust free-forever plans. The most notable use for HubSpot CRM, however, is payment processing, where ecommerce teams can manage customer payments from the CRM system.
monday sales CRM: Best for Multi-view Dashboards
Pros
- Excellent no-code automation design tools for creating data management and email outreach workflows
- Simple product to use with a spreadsheet-style format for data entry and customizing boards
- Solid dashboard reporting tools to get real-time performance updates and track key metrics
Cons
- Misleading pricing; paid plans require a minimum number of users
- Doesn’t offer a free plan and has expensive lead scoring
- Lacks ecommerce operations tools like payment processing and an inventory management module
- You want to track ecommerce activity on numerous views: monday Sales CRM lets you store unlimited items, like customer records, and view them on any type of board views like table, Kanban, Gantt, and timeline. Users can also create dashboards to meet any need as long as the data is stored in the CRM. This lets you apply reporting to ecommerce activity to track orders, customers, and revenue on one CRM dashboard.
- You need a highly intuitive CRM system: monday Sales CRM is acclaimed for product usability through its spreadsheet format, like Excel, for data entry and management. It also has no-code automation features where users can use premade workflows and select triggers, actions, and data records to design automatons. This lets you update crucial data and drip email nurturing tasks on autopilot.
- You need a free CRM for ecommerce: monday Sales CRM, unfortunately, no longer offers a free-forever plan to test drive the features for a long period of time.
- Alternative: Freshmarketer, HubSpot CRM, and Bitrix24 are all excellent CRM options with free ecommerce tools.
- You want more operational ecommerce tools in your CRM: monday sales CRM is relatively limited in that online retailers can only use it for email marketing and storing customer information. It can’t process payments through the platform, nor can it monitor inventory stock and orders without creating data automation between third-party tools.
- Alternative: Different products can fulfill this particular need. HubSpot CRM is great for offering payment processing capabilities through built-in tools or Stripe integration. Zoho CRM Plus, however, has an entire inventory management module built into its CRM system.
monday Sales CRM Pricing Plan & Overview*
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a monthly per-user breakdown. Monthly billing is available for a higher cost. There is a 14-day free trial for the paid plans. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing here.
monday sales CRM deal views (Source: monday sales CRM)
Our Expert Opinion
monday sales CRM isn’t a traditional CRM for ecommerce, and it therefore lacks the built-in operations management features for monitoring inventory, processing payments, and tracking orders. However, it is highly versatile, which can add a lot of value to a small business. Between its email tools, no-code automaton, and simple data management features, online retailers can use CRM for data storage, task automation, and communications.
Pipedrive: Best Built-in Products Catalog
Pros
- Includes a built-in product catalog to track items you sell, their cost, price, description, ID numbers, and additional notes
- Solid contact data management tools with activity tracking, duplicate detection, and visual timelines
- Highly customizable system to tailor for ecommerce informational requirements
Cons
- No free plan
- Doesn’t have payment processing, inventory management, or broader online marketing tools
- Workflow automation gets expensive
- You need a built-in products catalog: While Pipedrive is mostly known as a sales CRM system with advanced lead and deal management tools, it does offer one specific tool vital to an online retailer: a products catalog. This allows teams to create a custom list of product offerings with descriptions, tax rates, price, cost, ID numbers, and notes, in which purchases for specific products can be tracked in contact records.
- You want robust contact management features: Pipedrive is one of the top overall contact management software products for those who need advanced data management tools in their CRM for online retail. Teams can auto-enrich their customer profiles with online data, detect duplicate records, monitor purchase and engagement activity, attach relevant files, and view customer locations on Google Maps within a contact record.
- You need more expanded ecommerce tools: Pipedrive is ideal for the products catalog, contact storage, activity tracking, or email marketing features. Inventory management, payment processing, direct Shopify integration, and expanded marketing tools like online ads management are not available in this CRM.
- Alternative: Zoho CRM Plus gives the most comprehensive operations CRM with inventory management, while HubSpot CRM has some of the most expansive yet cost-friendly marketing capabilities.
- You want a free ecommerce platform: While it’s not necessarily an expensive option, Pipedrive does not offer a free-forever plan.
- Alternative: Bitrix24 offers some of the best ecommerce capabilities, like inventory management, at no cost. Freshmarketer is great as its free plan integrates with Shopify.
Pipedrive Pricing Plan & Overview*
Pipedrive Pricing Add-ons:
- Projects Project management tools; free with Power and Enterprise plans : Starts at $6.70 per user, monthly
- Campaigns Customizable email campaigns : Starts at $13.33 per company, monthly
- LeadBooster Lead generation tool set (chatbot, live chat, prospector, web forms, and appointment scheduler) : Starts at $32.50 per company, monthly
- Smart Docs Trackable quotes, proposals, and contracts; free with Professional, Power, and Enterprise plans : Starts at $32.50 per company, monthly
- Web Visitors Web tracking and lead ranking : Starts at $41 per company, monthly
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per-user monthly breakdown. Monthly billing is available for a higher cost. Paid plans include a 14-day free trial. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing here.
Pipedrive built-in products list (Source: Pipedrive)
Our Expert Opinion
While primarily a sales CRM and deal tracking system, Pipedrive can serve specific use cases relevant to an online retail business. The products catalog, for instance, is top-notch for tracking items sold and their details like unit prices, category, tax rates, and any other custom field you want to add. This is particularly useful for monitoring customer activity and prior purchases to help offer promotional deals or recommendations.
Bitrix24: Best Free Ecommerce CRM
Pros
- Free plan for unlimited users
- Extensive free ecommerce functionalities with order processing and inventory management
- Includes call center software with collaboration options
Cons
- Complex navigation and interface are not suited for first-time users
- Document storage in CRM records is not available for free
- Support is limited to live chat and email
- You are a solopreneur or small business needing a free ecommerce CRM: Bitrix24’s free plan supports unlimited users. In addition, it has an amazing set of ecommerce features that include product lists, order processing, coupons, self-service payments, a shipping cost calculator, and inventory management.
- You need telephony features for customer support: When you subscribe to a paid Bitrix24 plan, you can use its telephony features to call your customers from your CRM. You can also integrate your private branch exchange (PBX) system with it so you can keep your existing phone number.
- You prefer using a simple CRM: Bitrix24’s robust features make it hard to learn and navigate for beginners. Its interface also displays a lot of menu options.
- Alternative: Really Simple Systems, Pipedrive, and HubSpot CRM are our best recommendations for freelancers and teams who prefer using a simple CRM. These providers are easy to use and navigate, even for beginners, making them one of the best simple CRMs.
- You need free in-app phone features: Bitrix24’s telephony features are not available in the free tier.
- Alternative: HubSpot CRM’s free plan allows you to integrate it with a voice-over-internet protocol (VoIP) system like Aircall.
Bitrix24 Pricing Plan & Overview*
Bitrix24 Pricing Add-ons
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per-user monthly breakdown. Monthly billing is available for a higher cost. Paid plans include a 15-day free trial. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing here.
Online store created using Bitrix24 template (Source: Bitrix24)
Our Expert Opinion
Of all the providers in this guide, Bitrix24 has the most robust set of free ecommerce tools. You can use its website builder to create online stores, landing pages, and web forms at no cost. It also offers special features not generally available with other free ecommerce CRM platforms. These include payment processing, coupons, a shipping cost calculator, and inventory management.
Insightly CRM: Best for Project Management
Pros
- Includes built-in project management
- Shopify integration lets you sync customer data between systems and adjust inventory levels from Insightly’s project tools
- Robust contact management tools with relationship linking, data storage, and activity tracking, including from third-party tools
Cons
- Marketing and customer service modules require a separate product for an added cost
- No free plan
- Expensive for price books and products management
- You need to manage product development projects: This is one of the best ecommerce platforms for businesses that produce and distribute their own product lines. It has a built-in project management module that allows all plan users to oversee long-term initiatives. These could include product development processes that let you set up automated queues—auto-creating tasks and milestones for each new project.
- You want to track Shopify inventory levels: Insightly CRM stands out as having one of the best Shopify integrations. Like other CRMs, it can synchronize customer data between systems and create highly targeted segmented campaigns. Plus, teams can use the integration to manage inventory by adjusting stock levels in their Insightly project management module, which syncs with Shopify.
- You want true and affordable inventory management support: Some teams may not like the idea of using a project management system as an alternative to monitoring inventory levels or tracking products on an expensive Enterprise plan. In both cases, Insightly is not the best product for you.
- Alternative: Zoho CRM Plus is the best alternative that has project management, but it has a separate inventory management module for overseeing products, vendors, and sales orders.
- You need expanded customer management features: Ecommerce is heavily customer-driven, where you need to create properly targeted marketing campaigns and manage customer service requests. Unfortunately, Insightly requires a paid native add-on for marketing and service features like marketing automation, journey-building tools, and ticketing.
- Alternative: HubSpot CRM is one of the best options for customer management at all stages of the sales funnel that includes sales, marketing, and service features in one platform.
Insightly Pricing Plan & Overview*
Insightly CRM Pricing Add-ons:
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per-user monthly breakdown. Monthly billing is available for a higher cost. Insightly offers a 14-day free trial on paid plans. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing here.
Insightly tracking project milestones (Source: Insightly)
Our Expert Opinion
Insightly gives product development and design teams an edge in getting their product lines into the marketplace. It has excellent project management and task collaboration tools and one of the most intriguing Shopify integrations that let you manage inventory from the projects module. We also like the system’s contact management system, which can synchronize records with Shopify so you can keep activity data up to date and segment customer lists.
Zoho CRM Plus: Best All-in-one CRM
Pros
- All-in-one sales, marketing, service, and project management system
- Offers a Zoho-Shopify extension that syncs Shopify customers to Zoho records in the CRM
- Comes with an inventory management module for tracking orders, creating product books, and managing vendors
Cons
- No free plan and only one, expensive paid plan at $57 per user, monthly
- Requires a learning curve to figure out and operate
- Campaigns and social media management require paid add-on
- You want an all-in-one ecommerce CRM: Zoho CRM Plus is a product built specifically as an all-in-one sales, service, and marketing platform. It also integrates with Shopify to synchronize customer data between both systems and offers a built-in project management module for planning campaigns, product launches, or new product development processes.
- You need built-in inventory management: Zoho CRM Plus, in addition to its many modules and integration options, has built-in inventory management. This feature is especially useful for ecommerce as you can manage orders, vendors, product lines, and inventory stock in the same interface you’re deploying your marketing campaigns and sales outreach.
- You need additional pricing options: Zoho CRM Plus is a specific CRM product built by Zoho to give all the native interactions, like Zoho Desk, Projects, Analytics, and Campaigns, in one system. That said, it only comes with one pricing option, which is $57 per user, monthly.
- Alternative: Freshmarketer and Bitrix24 are great options with free-forever plans and a range of subscription options that give teams flexibility based on their needs.
- You want a more intuitive platform: An issue with all Zoho applications, including the CRM Plus app, is usability. We find it tough to learn and navigate for beginner-level users, mainly due to its rich feature inclusion.
- Alternative: HubSpot CRM, monday Sales CRM, Pipedrive, and Really Simple Systems stand out as the top ecommerce CRM options for usability ratings.
Zoho CRM Plus Pricing Plan & Overview*
Zoho CRM Plus
Cost:
- $57 per user
Key Features:
- 10GB storage for up to 200 users; 30GB storage for more than 200 users
- 5GB (plus 1GB per user) of license file storage per organization
- 100 Blueprints (create visual representations of business processes) per organization
- One Brand (10 social channels)
- 10 customer service channels
- Unlimited projects, tasks, subtasks, and milestones
- Over 250 survey templates
- Unlimited reports and dashboards
- More than 75 built-in visualizations (including charts, pivot tables, and tabular views)
- Zoho CRM (one user)
- Zoho Desk (one user)
- Zoho Analytics (5 million rows)
- Zoho Sales IQ (200,000 website visitors tracked per month)
- Zoho Survey (unlimited responses)
- Zoho Campaigns (5,000 marketing contacts)
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per-user monthly breakdown. Monthly billing is available for a higher cost. Paid plans include a 30-day free trial. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing here.
Zoho CRM Plus inventory management sales orders (Source: Zoho)
Our Expert Opinion
Zoho CRM Plus is the best CRM for online business, managing customers, running marketing campaigns, and managing inventory in a single system. Users can integrate it with ecommerce tools like Shopify and get access to essential tools for deploying campaigns, monitoring stock, processing orders, and tracking customer activity. While it only has one relatively expensive plan, its completeness makes it worth every dollar.
Copper CRM: Best for Google Workspace Users
Pros
- Similar feel to Google Workspace
- Built-in project management and auto-profile enrichment features
- Easy-to-use report generation tools
Cons
- Does not offer a free plan
- Except for Google Workspace products, all integrations require higher-priced plans
- No advanced AI tools
- Your team uses Google Workspace apps for work collaboration: Copper CRM is known for having an interface that has a similar layout and feel as that of Google apps, propelling it to our list of the best Google CRMs. It also has a Chrome extension that lets you access CRM data without leaving Gmail or Google Calendar.
- You generate leads using LinkedIn: We consider Copper CRM to be one of the leading social CRMs because of its integration with LinkedIn. With just one click, you can create contact records, enrich contacts, qualify leads, and sync your LinkedIn interactions.
- Your team does not use Google apps: There’s no point in using this CRM if you do not use Google Workspace for work collaboration. Copper CRM is built for Google, and this is evident in its integrations, extensions, and interface design.
- Alternative: Freshmarketer and monday sales CRM are among our top recommendations for teams using any business productivity tools other than Google Workspace suite.
- You’re looking for low-cost marketing automation tools: Copper CRM’s marketing automation features start at the Professional tier, which costs $59 per user, monthly. This price could be a bit expensive for small teams and startups with limited budgets.
- Alternative: Consider subscribing to HubSpot CRM to access free and low-cost marketing automation features. Its free plan includes mass email capabilities, engagement tracking, and email templates.
Copper CRM Pricing Plan & Overview*
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per-user monthly breakdown. Monthly billing is available for a higher cost. Paid plans include a 14-day free trial. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing here.
Copper CRM Chrome extension in Gmail inbox (Source: Copper CRM)
Our Expert Opinion
Copper is specifically designed to be used and integrated with Google Workspace apps like Gmail and Google Docs. It is a great fit for ecommerce businesses that use these apps as it logs all your customer interactions in your inbox. This provider also helps you eliminate manual and repetitive data entry tasks through workflow and task automation. In addition, it has solid lead management capabilities and high ratings for usability because of its simplicity.
Really Simple Systems: Most User-friendly CRM
Pros
- Free and cost-friendly subscription options
- Highly intuitive product for setting up, navigating, and operating
- Robust level of system customization to design data fields, layouts, and dashboards to meet your unique operational needs
Cons
- Limited number of third-party integration options
- Primary plan limited to just sales tools; service and marketing modules require separate add-ons for an additional cost
- Most workflow automation tools aren’t available until the Professional plan
- You’re looking for a simple and low-cost contact database: Really Simple Systems has a free plan for two users that includes unlimited contacts, 100 company records, 100MB document storage, pipeline tracking, and task management. It also has one-page customer views and account-linking capabilities. These are some of the reasons why it is included in our list of the top contact management systems.
- You want a CRM with robust customization capabilities: Really Simple Systems lives up to its name of having a simple interface, but it does not lag behind when it comes to customizations. Its customizable fields, tables, pages, dashboards, and drop-down lists allow businesses with a unique sales process to track specific lead or customer information easily.
- You want built-in marketing tools: Unfortunately, Really Simple Systems’ marketing tools require paid add-ons or the Enterprise plan. These additional tools range from $30 to $64 per month.
- Alternative: HubSpot CRM’s free plan comes with free marketing tools, such as blobs, an automated email form, landing pages, and email marketing.
- You need a robust mobile CRM app: Really Simple Systems has a mobile-friendly site that can be accessed via a browser. However, its dedicated mobile app for field sales personnel is currently still in development.
- Alternative: We recommend HubSpot CRM, Pipedrive, and Bitrix24 for users looking for a robust mobile ecommerce CRM.
Really Simple Systems Pricing Plan & Overview*
Really Simple Systems Pricing Add-ons:
- Additional storage: $4 per month for 1GB
- Simple Marketing Includes 5,000 emails per month, campaign management, email designer, design templates, mailing lists, scheduling, unsubscribe option, and response tracking : $30 per month or free with at least five users on Enterprise plan
- Advanced Marketing For paid plans only; includes 50,000 emails per month, Simple Marketing features, database segmentation, scheduling, lead management, email opt in/out, website integration, web forms, automated campaigns, and automated tasks : $64 per month
- Service Desk For Professional and Enterprise only; includes case management, service level agreements, case level ranking, custom dashboards, custom reports, and email integration : $64 per month or free with at least five users on Enterprise plan
- Customization Service Tailor your CRM to meet your business needs : Contact provider for a custom quote
*Monthly billing only. Paid plans include a 14-day free trial. Pricing reflects pricing info available at the time of publishing. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing here.
Really Simple Systems adding a product line (Source: Pipedrive)
Our Expert Opinion
Really Simple Systems stands out for its simplicity and excellent contact management system. It allows you to store an unlimited number of contacts and link accounts related to each other. These features are especially useful for tracking reselling referral partners or indicating a decision-maker among your customers. Ecommerce business owners can also add products to the CRM with the use of a custom drop-down list called Opportunity Lines.
Salesforce Commerce Cloud: Best AI-powered Tools
Pros
- Complete ecommerce management tools like order fulfillment, shipping, personalized marketing, and multi-store management
- Omnichannel ecommerce capabilities include online, mobile, social media, and brick-and-mortar stores
- Predictive intelligence allows users to gather insights into customer behavior and trends
Cons
- Sharp learning curve due to advanced features
- Plans are expensive for small businesses
- Customizations require advanced technical knowledge
- You want to leverage AI for ecommerce: Salesforce Commerce Cloud has embedded AI tools that help customers find what they need and discover products that are tailored to their interests. Its predictive intelligence also provides businesses with insights into customer behavior, allowing them to tailor their marketing campaigns accordingly.
- You are an entrepreneur with advanced coding or web development knowledge: This platform has a rich store of templates and commerce APIs that you can use to customize a solution that fits your specific business needs. You can also build a storefront using one of its out-of-the-box website templates.
- You’re looking for an affordable, all-in-one ecommerce CRM: Salesforce Commerce Cloud’s pricing could be very steep for startups and small businesses that are not yet very profitable. The pricing is scaled according to your gross merchandise value (GMV), but the total cost averages $150,000 per year in license fees, not including the cost of building your online store.
- Alternative: We recommend Bitrix24 for solopreneurs and small businesses wanting to start with a robust all-in-one CRM. It also offers affordable and scalable paid plans that start at $49 per month for five users.
- You don’t have heavy developer resources for your ecommerce site: Salesforce Commerce Cloud requires advanced developer skills because it is loaded with a complete set of ecommerce capabilities. It requires a lot of time and money to build and maintain an ecommerce store built using this platform.
- Alternative: Freshmarketer provides free integration with Shopify across all of its plans. You can use this connection to build and manage an ecommerce store with no coding skills required.
Salesforce Commerce Cloud Pricing Plan & Overview*
Salesforce Commerce Cloud Pricing Add-ons:
- Salesforce Order Management: Ranges from 30 cents to 50 cents per order
- Commerce Portals: Starts at $1 per login, monthly, or $2 per user, monthly
*Pricing is based on gross merchandise value (GMV) and/or order volumes on an annual breakdown. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing here.
Salesforce Commerce Cloud online storefront (Source: G2)
Our Expert Opinion
Salesforce Commerce Cloud provides ecommerce business owners with a hefty amount of tools for building, managing, and expanding their stores. It has point-of-sales, store operations, and order management all rolled into one platform. One of its greatest strengths is its predictive analytics technology, which you can use to customize your marketing campaigns and customer interactions.
Visit Salesforce Commerce Cloud
How We Evaluated the Best CRM for Ecommerce
To determine the best CRM software for ecommerce, we evaluated features relevant to managing a business that sells products online. For instance, payment processing through Stripe integration and inventory management tools are useful for handling some of the back-end operations. We also looked at marketing capabilities through mass email campaigns and social media integrations, plus typical software product attributes like price and customer support.
The tabs below offer insight into our evaluation process of the best CRM for small ecommerce business:
25% of Overall Score
General CRM features are tools and capabilities relevant to any CRM system, regardless of use case or industry vertical. Reporting tools, customizable data fields and pipelines, and a mobile app, for example, are all essential software features for a business. We also wanted to see expanded ecommerce CRM integrations with tools like Shopify, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce.
20% of Overall Score
As many online retailers start on a tight budget, we considered pricing criteria, which look at free plan availability and the various subscription options businesses could upgrade to as they grow. We also looked at the billing options for a subscriber to either pay monthly or save by paying annually. Finally, we looked at the costs specifically for access to ecommerce tools like email marketing, inventory management, and payment processing features.
20% of Overall Score
Niche and advanced features looked at capabilities specifically relevant to ecommerce companies. These included the capabilities of email marketing tools, reporting dashboards, and social media integrations. We also wanted to see each CRM offer operational features like inventory management and payment processing, either built-in or through integration.
20% of Overall Score
Extensive customer support allows users to better understand their CRM and quickly product system or billing issues. This was evaluated in terms of service hour availability and multiple channel access to support lines via phone, live chat, and email. We also looked at self-service resources subscribers can access, like product tutorials, user forums, or training modules.
15% of Overall Score
In addition to firsthand experience with a CRM ecommerce business owners would use, we evaluated what actual users say about each product based on online reviews from reputable sites like G2 and Capterra. These criteria consider how actual customers feel to gain insight into perceived value for the price paid, ease of use when operating and navigating the CRM, and how much users liked the CRM’s features.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
An ecommerce CRM is software that lets you develop customer relationships and manage an online storefront—ideally all in one interface. It’ll be beneficial for online retailers, wholesalers, or any other business selling products online with tools such as customer tracking, email marketing, social media management, inventory monitoring, and payment and order processing.
Not necessarily. Online retailers and ecommerce businesses don’t necessarily require but can greatly benefit from an ecommerce CRM. Ecommerce platforms like Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce give you the basics to create an online store, market to customers, and handle orders. A CRM, however, provides more advanced features for tracking customer activity, managing projects, handling service requests, tracking inventory, and automating campaigns. Many CRMs also integrate with ecommerce platforms so you can sync customer data between both systems.
Based on our evaluation, Freshmarketer is the best CRM for ecommerce businesses because of its ease of use, free Shopify integration, and robust marketing features. Other similar providers that also compete well in this space are HubSpot CRM, monday sales CRM, and Pipedrive.
Bottom Line
Ecommerce CRM software helps online storefronts track customers, deploy marketing campaigns, and manage inventory. There are many CRMs to choose from based on feature preferences and budget. Freshmarketer, for example, has a great free integration with Shopify to auto-deploy campaigns based on Shopify data. Alternatively, Zoho CRM Plus offers built-in inventory management, while HubSpot CRM has great free marketing tools.
