How to Choose the Perfect Software for Your Online Business

Could the software you choose today revolutionize your business tomorrow? Join me as I walk you through the key steps to choosing the ideal software for your online business. From navigating the complexities of your business’s unique requirements to evaluating potential software solutions, by the end of this episode, you’ll be equipped to make a thoughtful, methodical decision that enhances your business productivity.


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Chapters

• 0:44 Choosing Software for Your Online Business
• 11:15 Evaluating Software Features and Pricing
• 19:12 Maximizing Software Selection for Business

Transcript

Carrie Saunders: 0:44

When running an online business, looking for tools and software that can help you streamline your business operations, improve productivity and ultimately boost your bottom line is very critical and crucial to your operations. But with so many options out there, how do you evaluate which online software is the best fit for your business and what are some aspects to consider that you may never have thought of? Join me as we explore how to make informed decisions that can propel your business forward. Welcome to the e-commerce made easy podcast. I'm your host, k Saunders. When we started this business, all I had was a couch, a laptop and a nine month old. My main goal to help others. Now, with over 20 years in the e-commerce building industry and even more than that in web development, I have seen a lot. I love breaking down the hard tech into easily understandable bits to help others be successful in their online business. Whether you're a seasoned e-commerce veteran or just starting out, you've come to the right place. So sit back, relax and let's dive into the world of e-commerce together. So sit back, relax and let's dive into the world of e-commerce together. Welcome back to the e-commerce made easy podcast.

Carrie Saunders: 1:56

Today, we're focusing on a critical aspect of running an online business evaluating online software that you need to find the best fit for your business. With so many options out there available, it can be so overwhelming to decide which one truly can meet your needs. Even as software developers ourselves, we sometimes run into this as well, as because, while we could make any software out there that we truly need to run the business, it's many times not cost effective for us to do that and we should be serving our clients instead. So we have to do this on a decently regular basis to evaluate the softwares and systems we're using from other vendors. Now it may seem like an obvious first step, but when you're evaluating software, it's clear to identify your business needs. But hang with me here because I have some extra thoughts along this besides. Just, you know, listing out your business needs, we really kind of need to get deeper there. But first we want to just do a brain depth of what are some specific problems you're trying to solve with this software, make a list of the tasks you need the software to perform and prioritize them. Again, this is kind of an obvious thing to do, but if you don't actually sit down and do this and write this out, you don't actually sit down and do this and write this out.

Carrie Saunders: 3:11

It's going to be easier for you to look over the features you may need or get attracted to some nice little shiny object that you don't actually need in some software, and it will really help you narrow down your options and focus on solutions that address your specific, most pressing needs. So, for example, if you're looking for a project management tool, you might need features like task management, assignment, deadline tracking and, potentially, team collaboration. But if you're seeking an e-commerce platform, your priorities might include inventory management, payment processing and customer analytics and how do you reach those customers better? But once you get that high level of list of features you might need, then I challenge you to go even more specific, really drill down a bit further. For example, for task assignment, do you need to be able to assign those tasks to multiple people in your team? Do you need to have a lead person for that task? Think about how your business processes currently work and any ideas on how you would like them to work even better, and really think this through and put yourself in the shoes of using the software and find those little, very specific type of needs that you need for your software. That's going to really help you narrow down rather than being really generic and saying I just need task management and team collaboration. Really, get very specific. How do you want this work to work? How do you want the flow to work? Do you want people to get email notifications when they get a task? Would you rather them get a Slack notification instead? How do you want that all to work? Really, really think about the details here. It's going to save you a lot of time and money in the long run.

Carrie Saunders: 4:53

And then another example that you could look at is if you're selling physical products on a website and you're looking for an e-commerce system, how do you need those orders filled? What happens when a customer orders? Do you need the order to send an email to a supplier who's going to mail the product to them directly, or do you mail the products yourself? If you mail them yourself, do you need to notify a specific person who does your shipping for you? How would they need to be notified? Do they want an email? Do they want something else Like, how do you want to do this? Do you want it to be a downloaded in an Excel sheet so they can fill, fulfill orders that way and maybe import the addresses into a shipping label system.

Carrie Saunders: 5:33

So this is what I mean when you really need to get specific, because it's really going to help you narrow your focus on what products you might need, because there's so many options out there. We want to make sure we're specific. Don't worry about being specific to you know kind of eliminate too many pieces of software. Being specific can help you eliminate the ones that you know you don't need and help draw you to the ones that you do need, and so this is going to really help you from getting distracted with unnecessary features. Like I mentioned before, you might get a little bit of a shiny object syndrome when you're looking at new software.

Carrie Saunders: 6:09

So, really thinking about this, before you do any research on the software out there, make sure you go through this process on your own, okay, so once you have this list of all the features you need and very detailed when possible then I want you to go searching for some potential software out there. Start by reading reviews and testimonials from other businesses similar to yours and that's pretty key here, because certain businesses you know need certain features more than others. So when you're researching, and make sure you're finding it for similar businesses to you because it's probably going to solve your problem a lot better, and I want you to look also for case studies that highlight how the software has helped these other companies achieve their goals. Case studies are a really great way to kind of get down on the depths of how the software is really helping them, and I want you to create a short list three, five at most pieces of software that's going to solve your needs that you can find out there. I want you to pay attention to both positive and negative feedback on the software. Many times negative feedback can really help me get a good sense of that piece of software and many times it persuades me to want to get that software because I see the negative feedback and I see how the company responds to the negative feedback, and if it's responded to in a very positive manner, then I know this could be potentially a really good piece of software, even though this one customer gave a negative feedback for it. It could have been just their situation, or maybe they were having a bad day that day. So really look through both positive and negative reviews and feedback on software. Obviously, no software is perfect, and so the goal here is to find the software that's the best fit for your specific situation.

Carrie Saunders: 7:57

And one tip I like to do when you're doing this research and trying to find, you know, the top three to five candidates that will fit your needs is I like to use the search engine DuckDuckGocom you just literally spell it out, duckduckgocom and I like to use that instead of one of the major search engines because it's less biased. It does not store all of your searches and all your prior searches, your location and things like that, and then it doesn't give you what I would consider to be filtered results to you. It's going to give you the best articles out there on the internet I have found whenever I use it, rather than biased articles based upon what Google or Bing thinks you want to see. Now, duckduckgo does have some advertisements at the top, similar to the major search engines, but I find it has a lot less advertisements, a lot less clutter, and really gives you some clear answers to your questions. Obviously, to be very specific when you're searching for it, you know you might want to search task management software for online business coaches or e-commerce solutions for digital service providers. You know, be pretty specific on what you're looking for when you do the searches if needed, if you get too much of a generic result when you're just searching for a task management software. But using DuckDuckGo can really help you get some better results, I feel like, than some of the major search engines, just because it doesn't store all your information and give you biased information.

Carrie Saunders: 9:32

Okay, so then, once you have this short list of three to five softwares that can solve your needs, it's time to dive deeper into the features and usability of each software option. So, when possible, request demos or sign up for free trials. Almost every piece of software out there does provide a demo or a free trial, whether it's seven, 14 days or what at least provide this. And during this evaluation, make sure you're testing the software to see how intuitive and user-friendly it is. It needs to be easy for you to use, and I want you to make a list of the pros and cons that you experience while you're using the software. And then, if you have a team or staff or maybe some regular people who work with you, make sure you have them test the software too, especially if they were going to be using that, make sure they list some pros and cons for each as well. And so, while you ultimately have the final decision on making sure the software suits your business needs, reviewing it with others is going to help you evaluate it to make sure it works for the majority of the people that work with you. So it's kind of important to get some good feedback from them as well, because they may see some things that you don't see as well. So you know, getting a different perspective is always helpful when you're evaluating a software and systems, especially ones that you're going to be using and being dependent upon for your business. And then you might also want to consider how easy it is to integrate the software with existing systems if you have them. So I would get a trusted tech partner if needed to review this part if you're not comfortable evaluating how systems integrate yourself.

Carrie Saunders: 11:15

So customer support is the next thing you really want to look into when you're evaluating the software, especially whenever you're doing the trial and demos. If you run into trouble, what's the customer support like? Even the best software out there can encounter issues. You want to make sure that you have reliable support when you need it, and this can really sometimes be the really great deciding factor between a couple of top running pieces of software you're considering. I know that we have made decisions based upon a customer support. Even if a product didn't quite solve specifically every single need, we could still work around it. We wanted to use a specific software just because our customer support was that good. So make sure that they have easily to get a hold of customer support chats, email, phone calls. Is it easy to get a hold of somebody when you actually need it and see the responsiveness of it? And look at other customer reviews when you're not specifically on their website? Maybe you know external reviews can help you better evaluate the customer support behind the product too. So make sure you're digging into that as you're evaluating this software.

Carrie Saunders: 12:34

And then next we want to talk about pricing. Obviously, pricing is always a significant factor in the software you're choosing when you're a business. Look at all the pricing plans for each option and compare them against your budget. We want to make sure that we factor in any additional costs that there might be, such as setup fees, training Maybe they have training software that you need to use, depending on how complicated it is or ongoing maintenance. And I want you to also think about scalability will this software be able to grow with your business? And when it does grow with your business, how much is that going to cost you? Is that scalable for you? Does it offer features that can accommodate your future needs as well? So we want to make sure that we're investing in software that we have pretty good confidence in that's going to be able to grow with us as we expand. Now there are some hidden price increases to look for as well.

Carrie Saunders: 13:32

So does the software charge per user? This can sometimes get really pricey whenever software out there charges per user. This can sometimes get really pricey whenever software out there charges per user. I know for us I have decided not to use specific software because we're in this awkward range of number of employees and how many people I need to serve with the software, and sometimes it's, in my opinion, a bit too expensive for what I'm getting for the software, and I understand and respect creating software, since that's what we do too. But I also want to make sure I'm getting my bang for my buck on value on the software. So make sure you're checking does it charge per user? So if you're a solo entrepreneur but you're looking to grow your staff in the future, how much is that going to charge you in the future when you do add a staff member or two and does the software have limitations on the number of things within it?

Carrie Saunders: 14:25

And when I mean things, I'm talking about tasks, if it's a task management system, products or customers, if it's like, say, an e-commerce system or let's say it's a customer relationship management system. Is there a limited number of customer accounts you can have in there and does it cost you more as you get more customer accounts? Is that something scalable? Sometimes something like that let's talk about customer accounts in the CRM is not scalable for some, because some people out there sell to many people, not repeat, sell to a certain number of people. So they're going to get a whole bunch of unique customers every week or every month. So, but maybe their profit margins aren't really high. So then something that's limited based upon the number of customers you can have in it and cost more for more customers, might not be something viable for that type of business model. So make sure you're looking at the limitations of how many things you can have.

Carrie Saunders: 15:27

Whatever the things are that you're looking to solve, make sure there is a limitation on the pricing and, if there is, make sure that pricing increase is in alignment with your projected future business needs. Also, are there any yearly renewal costs? Make sure you're looking for this. Some software out there have very reasonable yearly renewal costs. Maybe they're a certain cost up front and then the renewal for them is a lot cheaper for the future years. That's great. Some of them get even more expensive. So really look for that. Also, make sure you're not getting hooked into a special first time customer pricing that the long term pricing is not going to be in your budget. So look at, make sure you're what you're buying is what you're going to be getting down in the future. I know there's some places out there that have, you know, maybe a dollar for the first month, but then maybe it raises up to $200 for the months thereafter. Is that sustainable for you? Make sure that that end price, once you're through their trial or their promotional period, is a price that you can afford in your business and is sustainable. So look at that as well. And then, something you might not think about is really read the fine print before making a final decision. Look at that.

Carrie Saunders: 16:48

Understand the terms and conditions, including any cancellation policies that might be in place for the software you're looking at. What's your contract length who owns the data that's in their system. It's essential to know what you're committing to and what your rights are as a user to make sure you're protecting yourself and your customers' data privacy. For some businesses out there, you may be restricted to where your data is stored. So be sure to know any regulations you have and the location of the software services you're considering considering. For example, if you're in a healthcare and you're an official healthcare person, you may be restricted to what countries you can have your data stored in and whether they have specific protection regulations around that software. So make sure the software qualifies for that. It's something that's not really something we think about all the time, but it's definitely a thing to be considered.

Carrie Saunders: 17:43

Depending on your services and what you're selling and you know kind of your ideals, do you want to make sure some people love that are in the United States, love to keep the software in the United States? They like to you know, keep, you know the income and revenue within their country. So is that important to you as well? So think about that. You know, say you're in Canada. Maybe you want to make sure the software you use is Canadian made. Make sure you look into that that's an important factor for you.

Carrie Saunders: 18:15

So then, once you're done thoroughly evaluating your options, you need to make a decision, and I want to encourage you not to be afraid to make a decision. If you have a pretty good feeling on a software or two, go with your gut. If you have two that's in your in your mind that you're considering and just go for it. Give it a run. Give it, you know, at least a three month trial if it is potential possible for you to try it. But give it a good go to make sure it is what you need.

Carrie Saunders: 18:47

As we grow, our businesses change, our software needs change. So don't feel badly if what you choose now is not going to serve you in the future. Obviously, this episode is about trying to help it help you make the decision that will make help it serve you in the future but that you can't always predict everything. So do your best. You can't move forward if you don't make a decision, so make sure you do All right.

Carrie Saunders: 19:12

So that was a lot packed in this episode and I know evaluating online software can be daunting, but hopefully these steps that we outlined in this episode will help you, make this a lot easier process and you can have more confidence in the decisions you make.

Carrie Saunders: 19:28

Remember, picking the right software can significantly enhance your productivity. So take the time to do this and don't feel like it's a waste of your business time. It is very important to really step back and do this very thoughtful and methodically. Basically, thank you for joining me for this episode of the E-Commerce Made Easy podcast. If you found this episode helpful, we would be forever grateful if you shared the podcast episode with some of your business friends, and please rate us and review us on Apple Podcasts. That really helps grow our audience and help more business owners, just like you. We love hearing your feedback, so feel free to drop us an email at podcast at bcsengineeringcom, or you can even text message us right on the Buzzsprout app to our podcast episodes. That's all we have for this week and we will see you next week.