Suggested Tools for Small Businesses

[Thevioletfox]

Happy Friday, everyone! I'm always looking for tools to make my life a little easier. Right now I use (and love) the following.  I'd LOVE to hear what other tools you all use and love!

• Square - OBVIOUSLY!
• PirateShip - discounted shipping for free!
• Mailchimp - for my email newsletter
• Canva - to create social media graphics
• Melio - to send payments to vendors who are not on payroll
• Creator Studio - lets me schedule social posts to Facebook and Instagram ahead of time
• Linktree - one URL for all my business links

What else is out there that you find helpful?

[alexandriak]

Bit.ly - free link shortener
Klaviyo - little more robust than Mailchimp
Photoshop Express - product photo editing on my phone
Shopify - website
Wave - free accounting software

[Thevioletfox]

I gotta check out a few of those. Thanks!

[JK_Fiber_Art]

Quickbooks Pro Plus - great for keeping track of taxes and other reports

Microsoft Excel - we created some custom spread sheets for various quick stats stats

paint.net - similar to photo shop in function (also free)

Gear for taking product photos:  tripod, iphone, studio lights including several ottlights for better color

JK

[DinaLRosenberg]

Hi there...

we use Picmonkey instead of Canva.

We choose to use square marketing instead of other email marketing programs as we like to follow the sales per email sent out.

Same goes for Text Marketing through square which we started implementing and it is definitely increasing online sales as well as increasing viewers on our live Instagram sale.  I really appreciate the reporting when we keep all the marketing native to square. 

We use stamps.com for shipping

All about Uline for boxes, packaging, toilet paper, cleaning supplies etc.. they are a one day ship to us and it's nice to know we can get the stuff we need pretty quickly 

My favorite business tool is the freelancer we hired to take photos for social media- she loads all the photos in dropbox (another great tool) and we always have photos and videos to post.

[TCSlaguna]

Tools for Online Store: 

Canva : Agree, makes creating flyers so easy. 

remove.bg : Great website for removing backgrounds of product images (will not need when a certain Square feature comes out of Beta).

Google Drive: backup, backup, backup

Tools for Retail Store: 

Apple Home app: smart lights and door sensors

Google Wifi: reliable set of wifi mesh routers, can check status of internet remotely

Chrome Remote Desktop: fix a computer issue remotely

Apple Shareplay: haven't tried yet (released last week), but should be good for remote help with iPads/Square Stands

[DinaLRosenberg]

Oh re: link tree- 

not sure If this is really a thing. but I heard if you have an e-commerce site that your Insta should link to that page and NOT to a link tree.. we used to have one but ditched it.

oh... and I gotta say my iPhone is a huge tool- I take all product photos on it- just upgraded to the 13 and the camera is bananas

[Thevioletfox]

Interesting. I'd be curious to know if LinkTree vs. ecommerce site makes a real difference. Thanks for the food for though.