Our recommendation for most people is Zoho. It’s easy for even beginners to use, but robust enough to handle customer relationship management at scale. Try Zoho for free today.
Growing an ecommerce store takes more than listing your products. You need to also understand who your customers are, what they are buying, and how to effectively keep your new customer bucket full. Ecommerce CRM software does all this for you and more.
Whether it is identifying your top-selling products, figuring out the device your customers most often use to click the “buy” button, or monitoring revenue in real time, ecommerce CRM software is the tool you need to stay on top of your online store’s performance. Here’s our take on the best ecommerce CRM software tools on the market today.
The Top 5 Best Ecommerce CRM Software Options
Our research uncovered these five ecommerce CRMs as great solutions for a lot of different kinds of web stores. They each bring something special to the table for unique use cases while sporting the core capabilities required from a general ecommerce CRM solution.
The best ecommerce CRM software for most of our readers is Zoho, because it is easy for anyone to learn how to use, but also powerful enough to handle demanding and advanced customer management tasks. Plus, it sports great features for social selling and other channels for boosting your revenue. Get started with Zoho for free today.
- Zoho – Best for integrating social media
- HubSpot – Best for online stores just starting out
- Pipedrive – Best for those new to CRM software
- Salesforce – Best for shops in growth mode
- Metrilo – Best for deep dives into store analytics
While all of these tools deliver when it comes to customer relationship management, the one that’s best for you depends on your unique needs.
Match Your Scenario to the Right Ecommerce CRM Software Solution
Below you’ll find some common scenarios that ecommerce stores face at one stage of their existence or another. Below, we offer guidance on the best recommendations for each situation. Choose one based on where you are in your ecommerce journey.
- Your ecommerce shop is brand new
- Your ecommerce shop is growing quickly
- You want to sell on social media
- You’re new to CRM software
- You want to dig deep into the data behind your shop’s performance
Your ecommerce shop is brand new
Best option: HubSpot
HubSpot is a fantastic option for ecommerce shop owners about to hit the launch button. Its free version means you won’t need to make a financial commitment to get started using it. HubSpot’s platform is intuitive and relatively easy to get the hang of, so you can keep your focus on the nuts and bolts of your online shop rather than spending lots of time mastering your CRM software.
Another great choice: Pipedrive
Pipedrive is designed to be easy to use for people of all experience levels (or no experience with CRMs at all) and offers 24/7 email and chat support. This makes it exceptionally easy to integrate with your ecommerce shop as you build and launch it. Got stuck? Don’t sweat—help is just a click away.
Pipedrive won’t overwhelm you with unnecessary bells and whistles, either. This allows you to focus on getting your shop up and running without a hitch. The only consideration for new ecommerce shop owners is cost. Pipedrive doesn’t offer a free version, so you’ll have CRM software expenses from the get go. But we think the ease of use this software delivers outweighs the price point.
If your ecommerce shop is brand new, be sure to keep in mind:
- Ease of use: Choose an ecommerce CRM software tool that is easy to set up, learn, and use, so you can focus on getting your online store up and running.
- Customer support: Be sure there will be a resource available to help you navigate CRM setup and use, so you don’t waste time spinning your wheels when you’re stuck.
- Cost: When your online store is just getting off the ground, every penny counts. Choose CRM software that won’t add a lot to your monthly expenses while you’re still striving to turn a profit.
Your ecommerce shop is growing quickly
Best option: Salesforce
When your ecommerce shop is in a period of serious, swift growth, you want CRM software that scales quickly and keeps pace with you. Salesforce is your scalability partner. It is one of the more robust solutions on this list and can take you to any level of ecommerce growth you imagine. You won’t outgrow (and then have to replace) your CRM software when you start with Salesforce.
Another great choice: HubSpot
HubSpot is another CRM built to grow alongside your store. It’s quite similar to Salesforce in terms of functionality, but is slightly more user-friendly for owners of ecommerce stores early in their growth phase (with budgets to match). So, if you have goals of supercharged growth down the road but are still just beginning your journey to domination, HubSpot is a good choice for an ecommerce CRM tool that’s easy on tight budgets but will still grow with you.
If rapid ecommerce store growth is in your future, be sure to consider:
- CRM scalability: Be sure to choose something that has the capacity to grow with you as your web store matures and expands.
- Expanded functionality: Favor CRM software that can integrate with new tools as you add them to your online store and offer advanced features when you grow enough to need them.
- Cost: Budget becomes less of a priority as your business grows, but be sure to understand how the price of the CRM software increases as your needs increase.
You want to sell on social media
Best option: Zoho
Depending on the type of ecommerce shop or customers you have, social media may be an integral part of your sales strategy. If this is you, then Zoho is one of your best bets for streamlining social into your sales process. Zoho Social will help you publish, manage, and monitor all your social channels with ease. You can schedule unlimited posts and create detailed reports that help you stay on top of your overall social performance.
Another great choice: HubSpot
HubSpot is another good choice to streamline your social media posting efforts, allowing you to publish ecommerce marketing and customer engagement content directly to LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. You can also connect your blog to your social accounts so new content gets cross-posted automatically. You will have to move to a higher tiered plan to get full social media integration and functionality, though.
If social media is a key part of your ecommerce store selling plans, pay attention to:
- Integrated social media management: Social media posting on multiple platforms can be a lot of work, so look for a solution that brings it all into your CRM platform.
- Automated content sharing: If your ecommerce website also has a blog (and it should), make it simple to share your new content across all your social media channels.
You’re new to CRM software
Best option: Pipedrive
Pipedrive offers a clean, minimalist user interface that makes it easy to tap into its robust features without feeling overwhelmed. Even beginners will feel comfortable navigating Pipedrive from the first time they log into the software.
Add in 24/7 customer support via chat or email and even the newest user won’t be left in the dark for long. If you are new to the world of CRM software, Pipedrive is an excellent, novice-friendly option to get started.
Another great choice: Zoho
Zoho is another great choice that takes the guesswork out of navigating its CRM platform. Clean design, intuitive functionality, and a sleek mobile app make it easy to manage your customer information from anywhere at any time.
If you’re new to CRM software, pay attention to:
- Available customer support: The faster you can get help, the sooner you can get up and running. Be sure the solution you choose provides the help you need, when you need it.
- Streamlined user interface: The easier the platform is to understand at first glance and the more intuitive navigation within it is, the better.
- Simplified functionality: You want a tool that is robust enough to get the job done but makes that powerful functionality easy for anyone to use.
You want to dig deep into the data behind your shop’s performance
Best option: Metrilo
Analytical data helps you track your online store’s marketing, sales, and revenue performance. When you want to really dig into the numbers behind that performance, Metrilo is your solution. It offers really strong analytics tools that let you get as granular as you want.
It compiles everything on Metrilo’s dashboard (with information updated in real time) and shows you key information like new customers, top selling products, real-time revenue, successful orders, conversion rates by device, and customer lifetime value. One glance tells you what’s working and where you need to refocus your efforts.
Another great choice: Zoho
Zoho’s CRM provides powerful reports that help you compile the data most important to you and understand underlying trends for your ecommerce store. You can easily export reports as Excel sheets and CSV or PDF files. Or you can share your analytics dashboard with the people who need that information, either on your website or via Slack.
If data is what you crave, be sure your CRM solution has:
- An easy-to-understand dashboard: Having all key information in one place makes quick work of understanding how your business is doing at the moment. You can then flex to address issues before they become problems.
- Robust reports: Sharing data is critical to overall store success, so be sure your CRM offers a variety of reports and easy ways to share them.
- Report templates: Don’t reinvent the wheel each time you need new data. Find a CRM that includes the templates you need, letting you quickly and easily identify the data you want at any given time.
Ecommerce CRM Software Company Reviews
Finding the right CRM for your online store can make the difference between ho-hum performance and superlative success. We looked at the core functionalities web store owners need from CRM software no matter their size and came up with the following shortlist of options. This is the best of the best and there is a solution for every ecommerce shop in the reviews that follow.
Zoho – Best for Integrating Social Media
Zoho is a great all-around CRM solution, but where it really shines is in how it integrates social media into its platform. Zoho Social streamlines your social posting efforts by integrating with Facebook and Twitter, allowing you to manage all of your social activities from within the Zoho CRM interface. For brands that put the emphasis on building community with their customers who are active on Facebook and Twitter, no other product on our top list goes as deep as Zoho.
You can monitor customer feedback across your social networking sites, track customers’ social interactions inside the CRM, receive real-time notifications whenever someone interacts with one of your social accounts, and even add social media leads directly into the CRM.
For online shops with multiple social media profiles at the individual product or brand level, Zoho streamlines social media management, too. It allows you to synchronize in real time all your brand profiles and settings, so managing them all can be done from one spot. These integrations save you a lot of time, allowing you to focus on other aspects of selling instead of juggling the management of numerous social accounts across multiple platforms.
Of course, if you leverage other social media platforms to market your products, Zoho may fall a bit short. You may want to consider an alternative like HubSpot that integrates with Instagram and LinkedIn, too.
What Makes Zoho Great
There’s a lot to like about Zoho beyond its deep social media integrations. For starters, the entire Zoho experience is extremely customizable. Zoho’s Canvas View allows you—and anyone else on the platform—to design a personalized dashboard with its drag-and-drop builder. Every Zoho user’s experience can be tweaked to meet their preferred working style.
Integrations is another Zoho sweet spot. It offers over 800 integrations, meaning that practically any third-party app you’re already using can be tied into your CRM. Platforms like Shopify, MailChimp, Slack, and Facebook Ads are just a few of the options. And the robust developer platform provides low-code and pro-code tools to integrate data across your enterprise stack and create custom solutions.
Zoho also takes an omnichannel approach to customer communication. Whether messages come in via email, phone, social media, or the customer self-service portal, Zoho consolidates it all in one place, ensuring that messages are seen and can be responded to quickly.
Zoho delivers all of this enterprise-level functionality at a very attractive price, on top of that. You can get started for as little as $14 per user per month when you sign up for an annual contract. Take a deeper dive into all things Zoho CRM by reading our full review of the platform.
HubSpot – Best for Ecommerce Stores Just Starting Out
HubSpot is the ideal solution for new ecommerce shops, because you can start with a fairly robust free option and then upgrade modularly as your shop grows. HubSpot is on par with Salesforce in terms of the advanced functionality you can unlock, but HubSpot stands out by also meeting the needs of new ecommerce sellers without complex needs or big budgets.
To get started, HubSpot packs a lot into just its free version of this platform, including:
- Marketing forms
- Landing pages
- Ad management
- Live customer chat
- Deal pipelines
- Meeting scheduling
- Basic SEO recommendations
This means even the newest of new ecommerce stores (or those with rock-bottom budgets) can hit the ground running with HubSpot’s CRM.
As your store and needs grow, HubSpot makes it really easy to upgrade from the free to a paid tier, too. You’re not going to find it complicated to add on HubSpot’s advanced features, like email sequences, sales automation, SEO tools, customer knowledge bases, and more.
The HubSpot platform is also quite easy to navigate and use. It breaks down its offerings into hubs, so you can quickly find what you need and implement it.
What Makes HubSpot Great
HubSpot’s hub concept adds a lot of flexibility for growing ecommerce shops. Individuals and small teams can start out on the free plan and then upgrade by adding more capable modules focused on facets like marketing, sales, customer service, CMS, and operations.
You can also create your own bundle for a truly custom approach to your CRM. And, if the limitations within those bundle options aren’t sufficient, there are also add-ons that can further customize your monthly plan.
When your shop starts growing larger and even reaches enterprise levels, more hub bundles and functionality are available as your needs become more intense or complex.
This means no matter how far you go on your online growth journey, HubSpot remains a viable CRM solution that can stick with you for the long haul. Start small and let HubSpot grow with you.
For individuals and small teams, start on HubSpot’s free-forever package to get acquainted with the platform. When you need more functionality, you can graduate to the Starter plan for $18 per month or the Professional plan for $800 per month. Discover everything you need to know—and more—in our full HubSpot review.
Pipedrive – Best for Those New to CRM Software
Pipedrive was designed with ease of use in mind. It has a clean and easy-to-navigate interface so that you can get going with it right away, even if you have zero previous CRM experience.
You can choose to set up a customized sales pipeline or use one of Pipedrive’s existing templates. Then, just add your deals manually or import them from a spreadsheet. Once the data is in Pipedrive, all key information—and stages of the sales cycle—are captured in one streamlined dashboard sporting a Kanban board-style display.
This visual sales pipeline really simplifies things. It brings together lead and deal management, communication tracking, insights, automation, and reporting together in an easy-to-digest way. Every person on your team, no matter their prior experience with CRM solutions, can easily stay on top of leads and customers at all stages of the sales cycle.
What Makes Pipedrive Great
Pipedrive makes other parts of customer relationship management easy, too. It takes little effort to add customized web forms to your website using Pipedrive, which can boost your lead generation efforts. Team collaboration is another strength of the software, keeping everyone on the same page about sales updates and wins.
Pipedrive’s Smart Contact Data feature places important contact insights at your fingertips. With one click, Pipedrive retrieves web data about your contacts from available online sources, including LinkedIn. This saves you hours of research time and lets your sales team quickly identify the best possible outreach strategies to reach customers.
Simplified reporting is another big win for Pipedrive. Customizable reports can be generated with just a few clicks and Pipedrive’s Insights feature (and interactive dashboard) lets you quickly identify success patterns so you can optimize future campaigns and workflows.
Pipedrive plans start at $14.90 per user per month with an annual plan. There are also Advanced, Professional, and Enterprise plans available for a higher monthly rate.
You can try Pipedrive free for 14 days, no credit card required. Find out more about Pipedrive in our comprehensive review.
Salesforce – Best for Shops In Growth Mode
Salesforce is the CRM you want when you have big goals for scaling your ecommerce website. Salesforce brings all the bells and whistles that a business needs when its customer list is already big and constantly getting bigger.
While Salesforce’s core functionality is mostly similar to the other products on our top list, there are some unique aspects that deserve to be highlighted. And those differences are why Salesforce is so good for rapidly scaling ecommerce shops.
Salesforce puts a heavy emphasis on automation and predictive analytics. It leverages the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in its Einstein suite of tools. These tools help you analyze all your data to uncover trends, make predictions, and recommend next steps. This is next-level ecommerce store management, and well beyond the needs of most early-stage web stores.
Of course, all this robust functionality comes at a cost, and Salesforce is at the higher end of the cost spectrum. But Salesforce is anything but a no-frills approach to CRM. It has the power behind it to help rapidly growing ecommerce shops leapfrog above their competition, so the price will be worth it to the right growth-focused online store owners.
What Makes Salesforce Great
It isn’t just cutting-edge technology that sets Salesforce apart from its competition. Another big differentiator is that Salesforce can manage any CRM category you can think of, bringing it all together within Customer 360.
This bundle of all Salesforce products and services gives everyone on your team a shared view of every single customer detail, offering crystal-clear views into all aspects of the customer experience. No silos. No misunderstandings. No missed opportunities.
Reporting is another area where Salesforce dominates. The platform offers two ways to view data—the Salesforce Classic dashboard and the Lightning Experience. Each offers highly sophisticated ways to review and study customer data. Both dashboards give you everything you need to understand your business in granular detail.
Integrations are another standout area for Salesforce. Forget hundreds of integrations. Salesforce offers thousands via its proprietary integration marketplace, AppExchange. Since Salesforce is cloud-based, your integrations will sync in real-time so everything always stays up to date.
Salesforce is definitely not the cheapest option on our list. But, for ecommerce stores growing fast, the robust functionality makes it worth the price. Plans begin at $25 per user per month for the Essentials package. At the other end of the spectrum, you’ll pay $300 per user per month for the Unlimited plan that includes unlimited CRM power and support.
Our Salesforce review gives you deeper insights into this CRM powerhouse.
Metrilo – Best for Deep Dives into Store Analytics
Metrilo was built with ecommerce analytics in mind. Its real-time dashboard gives you a snapshot of your online store’s performance and includes all the key data points you need to know what’s working—and what needs a new approach.
Metrilo automatically tracks marketing campaign performance, so you’ll know right away whether the strategy you rolled out is working with your target audience. Metrilo also tracks engagement metrics and sales attribution, giving you the insights you need to optimize your marketing spend.
The best part? Metrilo does all this without any manual setup required. The functionality is built into the product out of the box. Metrilo also seamlessly integrates with—and is an official plugin for—top ecommerce platforms like WooCommerce, Magento, and Shopify.
What Makes Metrilo Great
Metrilo builds on its powerful analytics functionality with other great features, too. It comes standard with ready-to-use revenue breakdowns, delving into the details of new versus returning customers, coupons, social channels, digital campaigns, and referrals. It also gives you insight into which devices are the source of your orders, so you can optimize outreach accordingly.
Metrilo has great product management reports, too. You get insights into which products are most viewed by site visitors, which are most often purchased, and even which have the highest abandon rate. You can use this information to make sound, data-driven decisions about new products and ways to bundle existing products to boost sales.
There are pre-built funnel reports that map out the customer journey for you, using the data from your store. This lets you identify any bottlenecks and resolve them accordingly. You can also let Metrilo’s smart assistant do the heavy lifting for you. This algorithm analyzes your data and provides suggestions for improvements in specific areas.
Metrilo pricing starts at $99 per month when you choose the annual plan. This includes unlimited team members, so it makes Metrilo quite competitive with others on this list that bill on a per user basis, particularly if you have a bigger team using the product. You can also try out Metrilo free for 14 days.
QuickSprout Ecommerce CRM Software Related Content
Looking for more information about CRM software? We’ve got it in bunches.
Whether you’re completely new to managing customer information, looking for a deep dive into a specific product, or have other considerations, be sure to check out our other Quick Sprout CRM articles, which we’ve listed below.
Ecommerce CRM Software Guides and How-Tos
- The Beginner’s Guide to CRM Integrations
- The Beginner’s Guide to CRM Trends
- The Beginner’s Guide to CRM Reporting
- The Beginner’s Guide to Agile CRM
- CRM vs. CMS
Ecommerce CRM Software Company Reviews
- Zoho CRM Review
- Salesforce CRM Review
- Pipedrive CRM Review
- HubSpot CRM Review
- Microsoft Dynamics CRM Review
Ecommerce CRM Software Related Top Lists
- Compare the Best CRM Software
- Compare the Best Small Business CRM Software
- Compare the Best Free CRM Software
The Top Ecommerce CRM Software in Summary
The best ecommerce CRM software solution depends on a variety of factors and is unique to each online store owner. The great news is that there’s an ideal solution out there for everyone. We think Zoho is the best pick for a wide range of ecommerce store owners, but each of the five options we reviewed above have notable strengths for common situations that call for a CRM.
Whether you’re launching your first ecommerce shop or poised to move into enterprise-level territory, one of the solutions on our list should satisfy your every need.
Source: quicksprout
Compare the Best Ecommerce CRM Software