Before the digital era began, if you wanted to run a store, you needed a physical, brick-and-mortar location. That meant that starting a business was often a difficult process. After all, not every would-be entrepreneur had the cash required to buy their own building.

Let’s compare your business to a house. Depending on your needs you might need a different combination of people to help with that. At the very least you will need an architect and an engineer but you might not need an interior designer or a landscaper just yet. Like choosing the right people for the job at hand your business needs to choose the right combination of technologies and just like there's a specialist for each job at hand there are tools to fit just about any ECommerce-related purpose out there. So, which one’s right for you?

Best ecommerce tools for small businesses

1. Product Information Management (PIM): All the potential pieces of an eCommerce tech stack. Product information management or PIM might be the most essential. It refers to the process of storing, organizing, and handling all the data, content, and other materials needed to market and sell your products both online and off. Historically, all this content is kept in a different location like multiple spreadsheets and various folders. A PIM tool centralizes all that content into a single source of truth, keeping it up to date and accessible across your organization and thus streamlining the process of selling your products. It also helps to automate the creation and optimization of product data both for internal use and for distribution actress your marketing and your sales channels, which is the first step to scaling your business.

1. Digital Asset Management (DAM): digital asset management refers to how organizations Store and organize their digital assets.  These assets can be anything in the digital format so as photos, videos, PDFs, you name it. Digital asset management software stores all your assets in one repository and it uses asset metadata to catalog them and make them easier to find and use. Some DAM systems help with importing and exporting assets versioning, creating a preview or a thumbnail view, or converting and resizing files. As you might have noticed PIM and DAM are closely related to one another and actually, most PIM platforms come with DAM features and functionalities

1. Product lifecycle management (PLM): Product lifecycle management refers to the process of handling a good through the different stages of its lifecycle. PLM systems facilitate collaboration between everyone involved in the product’s lifecycle from the designer all the way to the consumer to keep the process moving efficiently. PLM software isn’t necessary for all online retailers but it is absolutely needed for any eCommerce brands that are involved in the manufacturing process of their products.