Smart tools refer to any kind of software that can use data and analytics to help drive informed decisions. Today, we use smart tools in most facets of our lives.
Our smartphones and computers are laden with such apps. Some small examples of smart tools are text prediction in typing, automatic location tagging and storing when taking pictures, and of course, AI assistants. These assistant apps, in particular, are very good at scheduling things, providing automatic reminders, and generally being useful.
Naturally, smart tools are also used in business settings. One of the most popular applications of smart tools is in e-commerce. E-commerce, as you know, is the buying and selling of goods on digital platforms.
Let’s learn how we can optimize various e-commerce operations with the help of smart tools.
How Can Smart Tools Optimize E-Commerce Operations
1. Enhancing Website Security With Smart Tools
In e-commerce, the integrity of your web store is critical. It cannot have any security issues that result in loss of customer data, theft of sensitive information, or fraudulent sales.
A variety of smart tools can be used to do this. There are various tools that can be used for these things, such as network testing tools. The major security issues in most e-commerce software arise due to oversights in the network administration and implementation.
One of the most common points of oversight is the DNS (Domain Name System). The DNS setup of your e-commerce platform is one of the cornerstones of your entire operation. Without the DNS, you can’t render your services. This is due to the role DNS records play.
DNS records provide important information such as:
- What is the IP address of your domain? (A, AAAA records)
- Which email servers handle the domain’s mail? (MX record)
- Domain aliases (if any) (CNAME record)
- Authentication phrases and keys for domain authentication (TXT Records)
And many other things.
To ensure that your website does not have any shortcomings related to the DNS, some kind of audit is necessary. To facilitate this audit, you can use a DNS lookup tool to quickly check the status of your domain’s records and verify them.
Common things you want to check in a DNS audit are:
- Record propagation status
- Record values/information validity
- Missing records
- DNS security records
And many other things. So, smart DNS monitoring tools can improve the audit operation and make it faster and more convenient.
2. Improving Payment Systems with Tools
One of the integral parts of an e-commerce platform is the payment system. Providing multiple options to users to pay for their purchase is one of the basics of e-commerce.
Common methods of payment include:
- Paying with a credit/debit card.
- Paying with a digital wallet.
- Cash on delivery
- Paying in installments
- Paying with store credit
- Paying with a gift card
Integrating all of them is necessary in the modern day because people like to have flexibility in the payment methods. However, they also want more convenience.
Thankfully, you can do a lot to make the payment convenient for your users. For example, if your customer is using the desktop version of your platform, you can provide a QR code to them, which makes payment with wallet apps seamless. Users can scan the QR code with their phone using any wallet they desire and instantly complete their payment.
Of course, payment security is another important aspect of the operation. You can use tools like an IP location checker to verify that payments do not originate from known insecure locations.
IP location checkers also help to verify returning customers and protect them from fraud in case their credit card info has leaked. Basically, if a payment originates from a location that is alarmingly distant from the customer’s usual location, then the system will flag it and require further authentication to proceed.
3. Better Inventory Management
Inventory management is another crucial task in the e-commerce machine. Inventory management refers to taking note of which items are in stock, which have been ordered, and what is going to run out soon. That is the basics of inventory management.
Previously, inventory management was a wholly manual task. Nowadays, it is mostly done automatically with little to no manual intervention.
There are various tools you can use for inventory management. For example, Zoho Inventory and Trade Gecko are useful tools that track inventory in real-time. This enables you to prevent overstocking or outstocking any products.
You can facilitate this function with analytic AI, which checks which products are the most popular and which ones are the least popular. Then all items can be stocked and ordered appropriately, i.e., popular items are given more warehouse space and ordered more frequently, and vice versa.
So we can conclude that inventory management is an operation best done with the help of smart tools.
4. Marketing Personalization
An e-commerce platform can only thrive when it has a lot of clients. To increase the number of clients, the platform needs to engage in effective marketing to spread its name among new people who wish to buy its products.
Effective marketing requires a lot of personalization in the year 2025 due to several reasons. Some of them are given below.
- There is too much marketing in the world. Customers are tired of it.
- Unless the ads and marketing are directly relevant to the customer, they are not interested in them.
- Customers like to feel heard; personalized marketing tends to do that.
- Personalized marketing is more cost-effective than general mass marketing because you only use as many resources as you need instead of overspending.
These are some of the compelling reasons why personalized marketing has become a necessity in modern e-commerce.
So, which smart tools can help with marketing personalization? There are plenty of options. For example, an IP location checker can help with creating regional offers and ads that target a specific city.
The very same tool also helps you collect data to create profiles of your customers so that you can create more personalized content for them.
Innovative ads that use QR codes to provide some kind of discount or lead to a special offer are another great option. Companies can create custom codes with a QR code generator to create such ads.
Additionally, you can wire your DNS and Content Delivery Network (CDNs) to show localized content to specific areas and provide regional pricing of goods. In this way, you can personalize the marketing of your products with smart tools.
5. Ensuring High Site Uptime
In an e-commerce operation, one thing that must never happen is the website going down. When the platform is down, nobody can access it. This means no placing orders, tracking orders, or even reaching customer support via the platform.
Such events are distressing for the customers and reduce their faith in the platform. This leads to insecurities regarding product deliveries and quality. These negative emotions tend to drive away your customers and reduce your business significantly.
There are various reasons why a site can go down. Here are some of the common ones.
- Too much traffic on the servers. It can result in a “Denial of Service” error.
- Bad routing. Bad routing forces a lot of traffic through unoptimized nodes, which results in poor performance or outright denial of service.
- Outdated DNS records. They cause resolution errors.
- Domain expiry. An expired domain can no longer host a website, so any website on that domain becomes unavailable.
As you can see, most of these errors relate to networking issues. Bad routing, bad DNS records, and unoptimized flow of traffic are the most common reasons for website downtime.
Here’s how you can fix these issues.
- A good CDN setup and redundant servers can deal with “too much traffic” easily. To obtain these resources, you need to sign up with a domain provider that has a large CDN and DNS network, like Cloudflare.
- Bad routing is usually caused by other things, such as network congestion and misconfigured routers. Once again, the solution is to use a domain provider that has a vast and reliable CDN and DNS network of its own to avoid running into this issue.
- Outdated DNS records occur due to problems in DNS propagation. Use a DNS propagation checker to see if your e-commerce website records are propagated correctly. If they aren’t, contact your domain provider and report the issue to get a swift resolution.
- Domains usually don’t expire out of the blue. Keep an eye out for emails from your domain provider and stay on top of payments. Even if you miss a payment, a domain is not immediately unregistered; you are usually given a grace period to submit the arrears and keep using it.
Conclusion
Running an e-commerce enterprise is a lot of work. It requires constant maintenance and upkeep operations. We saw what some of the problematic operations are and how smart tools can help you optimize and complete these operations with ease.
So, you should start looking into using such tools yourself and improve your e-commerce operations for better success.