Free resources from the design community can enhance an ecommerce site. Here is a list of new web tools and design elements from winter 2024. The tools include generative AI shortcuts, logo creation, mockup generators, coding, animations, background images and audio, domain names, free fonts, and more.

All of the tools are free or have free plans, though most also offer premium versions. The fonts are free for commercial projects. Before using a font, be sure to verify its terms.

Free Design Tools

ThinkBuddy AI is a native ChatGPT client for macOS. Use voice or screenshots to ask AI, execute commands with text selection, create and save custom prompts, customize shortcuts for quick use, and dictate with Whisper. Choose from the selection of AI models to customize your macOS AI experience.

Gem Domains is a free search engine for expired domains. Enter keywords, organic search data, price range, and more. Use it to find the domain for your next project.

Logo Packer is a web app that generates logo variations. Instantly create the variations (black, white, and inverse color), export in multiple formats, and stay organized with structured folders.

Shotune is a screenshot mockup generator. With its library of device frames, Shotune supports a wide range of devices, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktop computers. Generate backgrounds to complement your mockup. Easily add text, shapes, and overlays to create a unique and personalized look.

Smudge.ai is a Chrome extension that provides online access to ChatGPT-powered shortcuts. Create and edit engaging content, or bridge language barriers with AI-powered translations.

Slogan Generator is a tool to generate one-sentence marketing summaries for your business. Enter your business description and audience, and generate 30 slogans for free. It’s a fun tool to help find the perfect hook.

Recraft is a generative AI design tool for creating and editing digital illustrations, vector art, icons, and three-dimensional graphics in a uniform brand style. Upload an image, and Recraft will replicate more in the same style.

Codingoals is a platform to learn how to code JavaScript, React, and CSS through puzzles and challenges. Learn how to build a single-page application using JavaScript and understand the benefits of modern frameworks such as React or Angular.

Mix.audio is a multimodal AI music generator that creates and customizes quality background music. Use the wizard to generate royalty-free music by scanning your ideas through text, images, and even audio information.

Creatica is a web app that generates unique SVG and vector backgrounds. It offers a vast library of designs, from intricate geometric patterns to fluid gradients. Use the real-time preview to see how each customization impacts your design.

BlitzBear is a web app for search engine optimization that cuts the manual work of improving your content. It combs through your articles and compares them against your competitors’ search engine result listings. It then serves your optimized pages after you preview and approve changes.

Audio Note AI is an app that turns thoughts into practical text. Speak your ideas, and let AI refine them into formats of your choice, such as journal entries, tweets, notes, lists, or LinkedIn posts.

Lottiebox is a Lottie animation library and set of animation tools to help users stand out from standard web experiences. Utilize pre-made, eye-catching animations for websites, presentations, newsletters, mobile apps, decks, email, and social media.

Data Dead Drop is a data storage bank that self-destroys content after access. Upload content and specify how long it should be kept. Share your link, or use it to download your file, which is automatically destroyed after being accessed a predefined period or number of times.

Free Fonts

Leentank is a sans-serif display font in four styles. Rounded and geometric, Leentank is suitable for eye-catching displays and logos.

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Kids Ballad is an all-cap handwritten font that’s friendly yet legible.

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Voye is a striking geometric sans-serif font for headlines, displays, and small paragraphs. Its simplicity conveys a modern elegance.

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Pingsan is a chunky, rounded display font with comfort and cheer. The feel-good characters lend a good vibe to any message or brand.

Here’s a batch of new ecommerce books to start the new year. There are titles on launching a company, daily marketing, branding, generative AI, streamlining development, building a team, and creativity.

I compiled this list using Amazon. From the “Books” category, I selected “Business & Money.” From there, I chose the “Processes & Infrastructure” sub-category and selected “E-commerce.” Then I handpicked titles from that group based on customer ratings and relation to ecommerce. I also selected a few titles from the “Business Development & Entrepreneurship” sub-category.

New Ecommerce Books

Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours by Noah Kagan

By the founder and CEO of AppSumo.com, “Million Dollar Weekend” is a practical guide to launching a successful startup over a weekend. Learn to tap your creator courage, get others to give you money, and automate your business so it can grow while you sleep. Follow Kagan’s simple method that he’s used seven times to launch seven-figure businesses. Hardcover $27.00; Kindle $15.99.

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The Best 90 Days Ever: How 10-minute marketing can transform your business one day at a time by Hannah Isted

Entrepreneurs are usually too busy running a business to be able to spend much time marketing it. “The Best 90 Days Ever” presents an essential blueprint to market a business with daily 10-minute tasks successfully. The guide provides weekly themes, such as email and video marketing, to grow an audience. After 90 days, you will have completed the series of efficient and essential actions to promote your business and achieve the results. Hardcover $30.99; Paperback $18.99.

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All In: How Great Leaders Build Unstoppable Teams by Mike Michalowicz

“All In” shows you how to build an unstoppable team where everyone flourishes, including you. Learn to recruit the right talent, transform struggling employees into superstars, match individual abilities to client and company needs, and elevate your company to where every employee cares as much as an owner. Hardcover $26.10; Kindle $15.99.

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Generative AI: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review by Harvard Business Review, Ethan Mollick, David De Cremer, Tsedal Neeley, and Prabhakant Sinha

“Generative AI” will help you to understand and explore ChatGPT and generative AI technologies. Deepen your understanding and discover how this new tech will affect your business with insights from the Harvard Business Review series. Explore a foundational introduction and practical case studies with reliable research, interviews, and analysis to prepare you and your company for tomorrow. Hardcover $46.00; Paperback $22.95; Kindle $11.99.

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The Brand Benefits Playbook: Why Customers Aren’t Buying What You’re Selling — And What to Do About It by Allen Weiss and Deborah MacInnis

“The Brand Benefits Playbook” is a guide for businesses to adopt a benefits-based model to transform the organization and win in the marketplace. Learn how customers perceive a brand in terms of benefits. Find the most effective way to segment a market and position a brand in terms of benefits. Hardcover $30.00; Kindle $14.99.

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The Lean Tech Manifesto: Learn the Secrets of Tech Leaders to Grasp the Full Benefits of Agile at Scale by Fabrice Bernhard and Benoît Charles-Lavauzelle

“The Lean Tech Manifesto” helps businesses excel by streamlining digital product development. Get ahead of the competition without the need for massive investment in staff and resources, which inevitably results in higher organizational confusion and waste. Learn to create a culture of problem-solving and knowledge sharing, deploy faster implementation, measure client satisfaction, and more. Hardcover $32.00; Kindle $30.00.

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Don’t Make It Weird: An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Being Human on the Internet by Colleen Nichols

“Don’t Make It Weird” is a guide to being authentic online. Learn to connect with followers by bringing your whole personality — the messy, the awkward, and the mundane — to your online presence. Show your authentic self to resonate with today’s audience and create genuine connection and community. Paperback $19.18; Kindle $9.99.

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Born to Create: How Creativity Sparks Connection, Innovation, and Belonging in our New World of Work by Anne Jacoby

“Born to Create” helps businesses tap creativity to produce a more effective, joyful, and authentic workplace. Access the skills developed by artists to build creative confidence and resilience, lead others in the creative process, and foster a thriving culture to achieve business value and personal fulfillment. Get practical exercises and assessment tools to achieve your potential and realize a creative life. Hardcover $26.95; Kindle $9.99.

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Better & Better: Creating a Culture of Purpose, Excellence, and Transformative Human Engagement by Bob Stiller

“Better & Better” is from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters founder Bob Stiller. The book details how he created a company with a mission to build an engaged workforce focused on innovation. Green Mountain Coffee Roasters became a place where employees were heard, empowered to make a difference, rewarded fairly, and encouraged to grow. As a result, the company became one of the few coffee roasters to reach $1 billion in sales. Follow the lessons of a veteran entrepreneur to help increase engagement, retention, and revenue. Hardcover $28.00; Kindle $26.60.

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Beginner’s Guide To Selling On eBay: 2024 Edition by Ann Eckhart

“Beginner’s Guide To Selling On eBay” can help anyone quickly earn money on that marketplace. Get a step-by-step guide through the entire eBay listing process. Learn how to take and upload product photos, set up shipping and print labels, process orders, manage and market the store, and handle customer service. This 2024 edition includes eBay’s newest listing and shipping forms, sourcing information, and more. Paperback $23.99.

Investing in Web3 gaming has required a greater level of due diligence through a testing cryptocurrency bear market, according to Animoca Brands CEO Robby Yung.

Yung, who is also co-founder of popular Metaverse platform The Sandbox, highlighted more robust check-boxes when considering Web3 gaming investments while speaking at the European Blockchain Convention in Barcelona.

Related: Animoca still bullish on blockchain games, awaits license for metaverse fund

The Animoca Brands CEO said that investment propositions involve finding a mix of passionate teams with specific skill sets who are building product ideas that have a clear market fit:

“Now that we’re in a sort of crypto winter and an economic downturn, from the investor perspective, we can afford to be quite choosy because obviously, capital is scarce.”

Yung added that the stage of development of prospective projects that Animoca Brands considers investing in is typically more mature when compared to the standards it had a couple of years ago. 

Investors are more demanding as a result, requiring tangible progress for projects that are seeking to raise capital:

“You have to have an alpha build. Ideally, you have some kind of user testing out there when you first go out and look for external capital. It’s very difficult to raise just on the basis of the business plan in this market.”

While investors may be more discerning, Yung also conceded that companies continue to raise money and that the second half of 2023 has been a testament to that with a number of deals being done:

“It has improved a lot, but there has been a flight to quality.”

User acquisition also remains a hurdle for the Web3 gaming space, which Yung attributed to challenges around the distribution of games. He pointed to hesitance from mainstream gaming platforms to list games that have Web3 infrastructure:

“We’ve historically been unwelcome in most traditional gaming distribution platforms, whether that’s mobile app stores, Steam or console platforms.”

Yung believes that mainstream players remain uncertain about the implications of including Web3 infrastructure in their offerings, which has initially led to a knee-jerk reaction:

“I think that the idea of putting Web3 infrastructure in would bypass their business models, as in the fees that they take for distribution.”

The Animoca Brands CEO added that the conclusions drawn prevented players like Steam, EA and Epic Games from learning more about the possibilities and engaging with the Web3 community to find solutions that cater to the wider gaming market.

Magazine: Blockchain games aren’t really decentralized… but that’s about to change