There is so much online competition that you can't just have a website and expect the business to flow in - if you really want your website to work you need to create ways to get traffic to it.

Making a name for any business and sustaining it is extremely difficult in the online world. There are endless businesses to compete with, the social media rat race, search engine challenges and expensive marketing tactics galore. The whole experience can become totally overwhelming.

Yet, despite the difficulties, the online environment offers a huge range of possibilities for building a retail business. The power of marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, and others has allowed for anyone to go into business for themselves. But even ranking on Amazon can be a massive undertaking with the myriad of other sellers to compete with.

If you are one of the many online retailers looking to increase your sales, you should look to one of the most powerful forces online today - social media. Websites like Facebook and can be reached at the click of a button. By integrating your offerings with platforms like these, you can potentially drive loads more sales than you would elsewhere.

To help you boost the number of purchases made through your business, here are two apps that can leverage the power of social media to help you sell big.

1. Spreesy

Most are aware that they can transform their business’ Facebook page into a digital storefront. With Spreesy your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest profiles all become miniature shopping websites.

Spreesy is a social eCommerce application that reforms nearly all of your social profiles into shop-friendly storefronts. Product posts can be created in seconds and instantly posted to various social networks. Customers can make purchases directly on the platforms by simply leaving a comment with their e-mail address. The app will then send the consumer a checkout link and they can pay via PayPal. Additionally, when users link their social accounts with Spreesy, the app generates a free shopping site within the platform. Spreesy also offers useful features such as a subscription tool that allows customers to subscribe to your social stores and receive e-mail notifications on new product posts.

Spreesy is already in use by a huge number of merchants across the globe and continuing to grow. Spreesy is also free to use - they just charge a flat 3% transaction fee.

2. Shopseen

Shopseen (Google it to see how to download the app) is another eCommerce platform capable of integrating with various social networks to help drive traffic and boost sales. Shopseen harmonises with Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr and it even allows users to integrate other shopping platforms like Etsy, Shopif, and more.

Shopseen is easy to use — merchants just upload their product photos and the price in the caption. From there, the image will also appear on a mobile page where consumers can purchase the item using their credit card or Stripe account. And Shopseen does not require consumers to set up an account to make a purchase.

The app allows users to schedule social media posts for products, create buy buttons on platforms like Twitter (along with a scheduling feature for that too), and it integrates with shipping services like USPS, UPS and FedEx. Shopseen also shows users all of their orders across all of digital storefronts in a single place, allows for shipping labels to be purchased at reduced rates, and offers various price scales to meet a variety of budgets.

Taking advantage of social media is one of the most powerful things an e-retailer can do. Not only do these platforms have near unlimited potential for growth, but they make it possible to tap into a market that is already aware of your existence and likes your offering - they wouldn’t be following you otherwise. These apps allow for business owners to take advantage of the hard work they have already done on other platforms and bring those benefits to new platforms or deliver the goods straight to consumers via social media - either way it is a win-win situation for your business.