This week: we’re diving into the world of ecommerce.
It feels like everyone is selling something online these days: digital products, courses, physical goods, you name it. And honestly, it’s never been easier to get started, with virtually zero barriers to setting up shop. The tricky part is finding the right tools that won’t drain your time or your bank account.
I’ve been exploring some options for a friend who asked for help, and I’ve also been getting some great recommendations from the team. So this week, I’m sharing a few powerful tools to help you sell more effectively online, whether you’re just starting out or looking to scale up.
Plus: a simple & brilliant tool my colleague Cai shared with me, a game-changing email hack, and a crazy AI fail (scam?).
Robert, a usual contributor to this newsletter who has spent years analyzing website builders and email marketing tools, recommended I check this one out. Stan.store is a "link-in-bio" tool that lets you build a simple, mobile-friendly ecommerce store right on your social media profiles.
It's designed for creators who want to sell digital products, coaching sessions, or courses without the headache of building a full website. You can set up a storefront in minutes, customize it to match your brand, and start selling directly to your audience on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
Stan.store will let you trial their solution for free (14 days), but sadly, no free plan is available. And it’s not the cheapest tool around – it starts at $29 a month.
It’s dead easy to add products, set up payment options, and even create lead magnets to grow your email list. It’s a fantastic all-in-one solution if you want to monetize your content without getting bogged down in technical details, making it perfect for creators.
If you’re serious about selling on Amazon, you know that finding the right product is half the battle. Jungle Scout is a market intelligence and product research tool that helps you uncover profitable opportunities on the world’s biggest ecommerce platform.
It gives you access to a massive database of Amazon products, allowing you to filter by category, sales volume, and competition level. This means you can identify high-demand products with low competition, giving you a much better chance of success. It also has features to help you find suppliers, track your sales, and optimize your product listings with the right keywords.
It’s a solid starting point for selling on Amazon, but it doesn’t come cheap. Even the $29 a month starter plan has its limitations – no AI features, no advertising insights. And if you're planning to sell outside of Amazon, this won’t be much help.
🛠️ Alternative to: Helium 10, Viral Launch, AMZScout
My colleagues at EmailTooltester, have tested dozens of email marketing platforms (I’ve also reviewed a few), and Omnisend consistently stands out for ecommerce. It’s a marketing automation tool that goes beyond email, allowing you to connect with your customers through SMS and push notifications as well.
What makes it unique for ecommerce is its deep integration with platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce and BigCommerce. This means you can create highly targeted and automated campaigns based on your customers’ shopping behavior – think cart abandonment emails, product recommendations, and welcome series that actually convert.
We have a very detailed review of Omnisend on EmailTooltester if you want to dive deeper, but in a nutshell, it’s an email marketing powerhouse for online store owners. If you’re looking to build sophisticated, automated marketing campaigns that drive sales, Omnisend is definitely worth a look.
🛠️ Alternative to: Klaviyo, Drip, Mailchimp for Ecommerce
Some useful tool deals we spotted this week, which are worth a look if you're into smart savings.
💸 TeamPal: Build your own no‑code AI workforce with customizable AI agents to automate workflows across departments. Lifetime deal for $69.
💸 Youbooks: An AI-powered platform that transforms your ideas into full-length, publish-ready non-fiction books up to 300,000 words. Lifetime deal for $49.
💸 Dadan: An AI video platform to create stunning interactive videos with forms, polls, and quizzes. Lifetime deal for $69.
My colleague Cai (thanks 🙌) recently recommended this tool, and it’s one of those simple ideas that’s incredibly useful. Screen Ruler Pro is a free, lightweight digital ruler for your screen.
It’s perfect for designers, developers, or anyone who needs to measure elements on their screen with pixel-perfect accuracy. You can drag it around, resize it, and even rotate it to measure angles. It’s a fantastic little utility that I’ve already used a handful of times since he told me about it.
It’s one of those tools you don’t know you need until you have it, and then you can’t live without it. It’s a simple, no-frills tool that does one thing and does it perfectly.
Here’s a simple trick that can help you organize your inbox and track where your email address is being shared. If you have a Gmail (or Google Workspace) account, you can add a “+” and any word to your email address, and the emails will still land in your main inbox.
By the way, this trick will also work for some other email providers like Outlook, Hotmail, or Microsoft 365. However, they may require enabling a setting in your account.
For example, if my email is josep@email.com, I can sign up for a newsletter with josep+newslettername@email.com or for a new SaaS service with the address josep+servicename@email.com.
This is incredibly useful for a few reasons:
Filtering: You can set up filters in Gmail to automatically label or archive emails sent to these specific addresses. For example, all emails to josep+newsletters@email.com could be automatically moved to a “Newsletters” folder.
Tracking: If you start getting spam to one of these addresses, you’ll know exactly which service sold or leaked your data 🕵️.
Multiple Accounts: You can use this trick to sign up for multiple accounts on a website with the same email address. Yes, a bit cheeky, I know 🦊.
It’s a small thing, but it can make a huge difference in keeping your inbox organized and your privacy a bit more tight.
🍿 Plot Twist of the Week
A while back, a company called Builder.ai was making waves in the tech world. They claimed to have an AI-powered platform that could build apps and websites with little to no human intervention.
They raised hundreds of millions in funding and were valued at over a billion dollars. Investors included Microsoft and the Qatar Investment Authority 💸🔥.
While the company claimed their AI, “Natasha,” was doing the heavy lifting, it seems that much of the work was being outsourced to human developers. This story is a stark reminder of the hype surrounding AI right now. It’s important to remember that not everything that codes is AI – sometimes it's just 700 real engineers in disguise.
Lesson learned: Don't buy into AI companies without doing your homework. Then again, unless you're secretly a venture capitalist, you're probably safe. But hey, stranger things have happened.
That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading! Next time, we’ll be diving into lead generation, and how to find and attract new customers for your business. We'll look at some clever tools and strategies to help you grow your audience.
🧰 Smart tools. Useful tips. Weekly. Hola friend 👋, I’m Josep. Each week, I hunt down practical tools and productivity hacks to help digital doers like you do more with less effort. Know someone who’d love this newsletter? 2,000+ readers already do (thanks 🙌). Share it with friends & colleagues so they can join too. This week, we're celebrating a special issue (#20), so I wanted to do something a little different. Instead of just sharing tools I love, I thought it would be fun (and useful) to...
🧰 Smart tools. Useful tips. Weekly. Hola friend 👋, I’m Josep. Each week, I hunt down practical tools and productivity hacks to help digital doers like you do more with less effort. Know someone who’d love this newsletter? 2,000+ readers already do (thanks 🙌). Share it with friends & colleagues so they can join too. This week: tools for the lonely wolf. I love the freedom that comes with being a solopreneur: flexible schedules, the ability to choose what I work on, and exposure to all aspects...
🧰 Smart tools. Useful tips. Weekly. Hola friend 👋, I’m Josep. Each week, I hunt down practical tools and productivity hacks to help digital doers like you do more with less effort. Know someone who’d love this newsletter? 2,000+ readers already do (thanks 🙌). Share it with friends & colleagues so they can join too. This week: tools to master the art of sending emails. Unlike social media, where algorithms decide who sees your content, email gives you a direct line to your audience. It’s one...