COVID-19 Impact: Free Tools & Digital Services for Ecommerce

Your business needs support? The Covid-19 crisis affects everyone, so a useful free solution or tool can become a life vest for your business and help keep it afloat. Let’s see what the ecommerce ecosystem has to offer.

The majority of service and product providers offer special deals like free trials, huge discounts, contact-free delivery and gifts. In order to help you find the best for your brand and support during this hard time, we have decided to visit websites of most useful digital services for ecommerce managers and developers to find whether there are any interesting Covid-19 updates.

Now, we are ready to share it with you. Here is a list of free courses, conferences, marketing and SEO tools, CMS platforms’ offers and many more. Everything that can empower your business during the crisis you can find in the article below. So, what are you waiting for?

What Digital Services are Popular during Quarantine?
What Ecommerce Tools and Services are Free Now?

What Digital Services are Popular during Quarantine?

Covid-19 is out there and it affects every business without exceptions. Lots of companies had to close their doors, raise costs or provide huge discounts. And nearly a half of small businesses are expected to go bankrupt by the end of the year. But there are also companies that financially benefit from the situation.

When you’re self-quarantined or isolated, you might be wondering how to entertain yourself. So, there is no surprise that the popularity of social networks and streaming services is doubled. Statistically, every week Facebook, Instagram and Netflix see the increase of new users and traffic by 2% [1]. Besides, one of the most popular live streaming services among gamers – Twitch – has nearly doubled a number of average viewers per month. In March there were 1,637,064 viewers, while in the first quarter of April there are already 2,490,080 average viewers [2].

Moreover, to attract users, subscription streaming services started offering free subscriptions.

• Netflix and Amazon Prime Video now offer a 30-day free trial before officially commiting to the service till the end of the year.
• Showtime also provides a 30-day free trial for those who sign up before May 3.
• CBS All Access offers the subscription plans from $5.99 per month. But using the promo code ALL or GIFT, you can get a 30-day free trial and access to original shows and TV series.

The industry of video games and apps is booming. According to Verizon, the gaming traffic increased by 75% during peak hours. While demand for budgeting apps is as high as never before. Why? People need to track their finances and save money for the future.

To help companies, social networks provide new functionality for business accounts. Like Facebook, which now offers an ability to update working hours and add information about service changes on pages. Twitter has opened an advising resource for businesses on how to manage communication with employees and partners. Moreover, there are lots of free solutions useful for business owners. You can try various online conferencing tools like Zoom that facilitate smooth communication between team members while working from home. There are also a lot of free marketing, SEO tools and more – learn all the details below.

What Digital Services are Popular during Quarantine?

The majority of businesses, especially small ones, have to change their every day operations to weather the economic fallout. To help such businesses, a number of companies are now offering free courses, tools and services. So, here are some offers that can help organizations stay afloat during the crisis.

Free Courses

Quarantine is a good time to train and get some new inspiration to run a business. We have found some interesting free courses which can be helpful for developers, marketers, SEO and SMM specialists and various ecommerce enthusiasts.

Entrepreneur webinars

The Entrepreneur website is a good choice for those who are just at the beginning of their business path. If you launched the business several months ago and the crisis abacked you, here are some tips that can help you stay afloat on the market. There you can find courses on how to optimize cash flow during a crisis, advice on how to use TikTok for business and many other useful ideas. But the website has an interesting feature. You don’t have access to all courses at the same moment. There is a schedule with events. If you want to attend this or that course, you need to register and enter the course on time.

Moz SEO courses

If you need to empower your SEO skills, Moz has a perfect offer – free SEO courses through May 31. Their Academy courses cost from $49 up to $600, but now the majority of them are free. To get access to free courses, you need to sign up, choose a course and enter the code wegotthis at the checkout. Their courses provide SEO fundamentals, including information on how to search keywords, optimize pages, evaluate backlinks and use Moz SEO tools. Moreover, there are free SEO tools for domain analysis, link explorer, keyword explorer and more. They also have All-in-one Website SEO offers for free 30-days trial.

BelVG tutorial

If you work with Magento, you should know that a good developer is a certified developer. So, quarantine is a perfect time to pay attention to your professional skills. BelVG decided to support the community and provide free tutorials for Magento developers. On our website, you can find Magento 2 Certified Professional Developer, JavaScript Developer and Front End Developer guides to pass certification exams. All the questions in guides correspond to those on the official Magento website and contain detailed answers.

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Udacity courses

Udacity School has a long list of IT courses which cost over $399 per month subscription. But now the company made all the courses free due to the Covid-19 pandemic. They offer a free month of their nondegree courses to support people who lose jobs due to the crisis. The main topic of their courses are machine learning, software development, AI, digital marketing and product management.

Online Conferences

Conferences are a good solution if you need to feel the connection with the professional community and know everything about upcoming innovations, fresh solutions and new ecommerce ideas.

Adobe Summit 2020

One of the long awaited conferences of the year – Adobe Summit 2020 – was online at the end of March. But the company decided to make free access to all the conference videos which are now available online. During the conference, speakers announced all new solutions and updates of the Adobe products, announced the new Magento version and shared some marketing and business tips. You can visit Adobe official website to watch the videos or read our article about the event.

Magento Webinar

While all the population stay at home, online shopping does not stand still. If you need to know how to come up with the shopping peak during the crisis, the Magento webinar – E-commerce best practices in peak times – is for you. The conference will be online on the 24th of April.

Marion Freijsen, Adobe Strategic Business Advisor, will share best practices on how to set business priorities and achieve greater results. During the conference, you will know how to be ready for unexpected traffic peaks, how to benefit from fast-changing ecommerce situations and drive high ROI.

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The 2020 Sellers Summit

Sellers Summit is usually a live event that gathers thousands of retailers and ecommerce enthusiasts. Due to the epidemic, the organization had to postpone the event in May. But they decided to make an online conference on May 6-8. The conference will have a streaming format, so participants will be able to ask questions to speakers live as well as take part in all virtual events. Moreover, they promise to make videos available even after the streaming. Thus, you won’t miss the event and will be able to watch it again and again. They also will have three visual masterminds according to the revenue of sellers – from $1,000 to $1 million.

Ecommerce Platforms & Solutions

Looking for a CMS solution? Lots of companies make their CMS solutions free for more time and offer their top-notch solutions for free due to the Covid-19. Why not try something new.

Shopify

Shopify is a Canadian ecommerce company that provides one of the leading solutions in the industry. To support small companies and let brick and mortar survive, Shopify decided to extend their free-trial to 90 days. It means that you can work with Shopify almost three months and only after that choose one of its pricing plans. You can pick up Basic Shopify for $29 per month, Shopify for $79 and Shopify Advanced for $299 per month. The company also offers free marketing tools for all pricing plans.

1Password
1Password is a password manager created by AgileBits. It provides businesses with the ability to store passwords, licenses and other virtual information. The information is locked with a PBKDF2-guarded master password. It offers a great security and convenience of passwords and access to online services. What is really useful in times when people need to work from home and run all the data on other devices. To support the community, 1Password decided to offer their enterprise password manager for free for the first six months of usage. A good opportunity to support the business during the Covid-19.

Magento and PrestaShop modules and themes by BelVG
The BelVG tutorial is not the only thing that we’ve made free for the community. Following the actions of top companies to support the clients, we made all our extensions and themes for Magento and PrestaShop absolutely free. Moreover, we have upgraded our Promo Popups for both platforms to let you inform customers about any changes on your website. Popups by BelVG are also free to download.

Adobe & Magento

Adobe, being one of the leading software companies, makes lots of efforts to support the small business during challenging times. For that, they have a list of unique offers for the ecommerce:

• Three free months of Magento Commerce for new users.
• Accelerated – in two weeks – launch of a website with Magento Commerce lunch package.
• Magento in partnership with PayPal offers a loan for migration from M1 to M2.

Besides, Adobe provides free usage of Acrobat PDF tools till May 31. Adobe provides opportunities to use the tool up to 10 times per day. There are also special deals for Adobe Connect, Adobe Portfolio and other solutions.

Marketing Tools

Want to empower your marketing? It’s time to try new tools to market your brand. Various companies made their solutions free, so you can’t miss your chance.

GoDaddy
GoDaddy is a web hosting company and domain registrar and web hosting company that has a special deal for ecommerce. During the pandemic, the company provides free Website + Marketing for all the users. The company planned to release a free website builder, but they decided to speed up the launch due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The company’s main goal is to support small business during the crisis. Their Website + Marketing free has different options including unlimited pages and social media tools, one-time appointments, email marketing solution, PayPal and SSL. Moreover, they provide a gift card widget to simplify the purchase of such cards.

SEMrush
SEMrush is a US company that develops online visibility and marketing analytics software. To help marketers in times of uncertainty, SEMrush decided to open free access to their social media and top products and services. What products are free now?

• Social Media Toolkit is a solution to track and manage social media profiles on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram and others. It is useful to schedule your posts, track competitors, get insights and create ads.
• Oppty is a tool for freelancers and digital marketing agencies. It helps to find marketing support and connect with businesses. So, it’s useful to expand the client base which can save several businesses now.
• SEMrush Academy courses are necessary if you don’t know how to use SEMrush tools or need to know some digital marketing fundamentals.

Unbounce
Unbounce is a Canadian software developer. And like other top developers, they have something special for their clients. Unbounce decided to provide their essential plan for free but only for healthcare, education, nonprofit industries and government. To try their landing page builder for free, you just need to sign up to Unbounce till June 1. This free plan will be available for three months since the sign up day. The essential plan usually costs $79 per month and includes 75 landing pages and 8 popups and sticky bars.

SEO Tools

Search engine optimisation is essential for all websites, and when developers provide free SEO tools, it’s better not to lose such an opportunity. What can you try for free right now?

BrightLocal
BrightLocal is a SEO platform that helps users to increase the online visibility of their businesses and attract more customers. They have decided to reduce costs for services like local SEO audit and sales reports by 90% [3]. So, if you buy 50 reports now, you pay $1. Moreover, BrightLocal has made the local SEO sales pitch deck templates available as well as offers online walkthroughs.

Ahrefs
Ahrefs is a popular tool for backlinks and SEO analysis. It is a good way to analyse your website and compare with the competitors. Find needed keywords and audit your website. But unlike all the previous solutions, Ahrefs doesn’t provide extended free trial for new users. If you need it, you can start a 7-days free trial for $7. However, Ahrefs decided to support its loyal users. If you are already signed in, it can provide you with a free lite subscription for a month. So, if you have Ahrefs, check it right now for the popup with the offer.

Covid-19 Updates Tracking Services

This list of services might seem not so important as previous ones. But when you have a brick and mortar or see that your products aren’t in demand now, you need to find something to stay afloat. So, services with data and insights on coronavirus can be useful. Moreover, if you are a copywriter, you need to know what’s in trends now.

SimilarWeb
SimilarWeb is a website on which you can find ongoing data on the coronavirus epidemic. But no, this is not a site with a number of cases and WHO recommendations. SimilarWeb provides an assessment of the Covid-19 business implication. It helps merchants to understand the changes in customer needs and their behaviour during the crisis. There you can find coronavirus related keywords and the influence of epidemics on different business sectors with infographics.

Alexa
Alexa provides an opportunity to check how people are publicly sharing the Covid-19 articles on social networks. It’s a good way to understand how several articles show up in search rankings and how users find them. Alexa has already analyzed over 220,000 articles and divided them according to themes like quarantine, social distancing, impact and others. There are also graphics with total publishers and social engagement per week.

Conclusion

It is a unique situation and we try to do our best to help the community keep developing. We hope that you were able to find lots of useful tools and digital services to support your business or improve your professional skills. Anyway, we wish you don’t give up and stay home. Together we will overcome all the difficulties.