Business Tools for Your Online Store

Online stores have a unique set of needs. Luckily, there are useful business tools that help to ship products overseas, pay employees and vendors in foreign currencies, and provide customer support.

Shipping

Major shipping companies like FedEx and UPS make it easy to track packages, estimate costs, and check for compliance laws in specific countries.

UPS offers an online tool called TradeAbility to quickly estimate the shipping cost of a package.

FedEx has a Small Business Center complete with shipping solutions, small business tools, and tutorials. If you’re just getting started, this is the perfect place to start researching and planning your shipping operations.

Payments

For a casual one-time payment, Paypal works just fine. You can send money to almost anyone in the world by sending an email.

If you’re making ongoing payments to an employee in a different country, consider a payroll service that understands the currency and compliance issues involved.

ADP is the largest payroll provider in the U.S., and also covers global needs.

CloudPay, rebranded after 16 years of being called Patersons Global Payroll, is a major contender in 160 countries and 30 currencies.

Customer Support

Live Admins offers a web greeter service that allows you to provide your customers with live 24/7 online chat support.

Monthly packages are available that include a set amount of chat support time, and you can choose to use their support only when you’re not in the office.

If you have customers calling in for support, provide a toll free and international phone number for customers to call in for free. There are several VoIP service providers out there that cater to small businesses and offer prepaid packages or pay-as-you-go plans with low internet calling rates.

Whether your small business is a startup or a growing international ecommerce store, these practical business tools are relatively easy to set up and can also grow with your business.