Ecommerce Automation is one of the hottest topics in digital marketing. More and more online sellers are looking for an easier way to run their online businesses.
In recent years, a new technology emerged that allows sellers to automate many of the repetitive tasks involved in eCommerce management so they can focus on things like building a customer base and growing the revenue.
To automate your business, you must give your employees and yourself the most valuable resource you have: time.
Additionally, it frees up your teams’ time to focus on high-value activities essential in the current environment, like retraining staff in new fulfillment procedures, crisis communications, negotiating new supplier contracts, resolving HR issues, experimentation, sales and marketing, and product iteration.
In this post, you will learn what exactly is eCommerce automation, and what are the most effective ways to utilize it for your business.
What is eCommerce Automation?
eCommerce automation is a technology that allows you to automate manual tasks and daily procedures in your business. The goal is to ensure your staff has the best time possible by freeing them up for tasks that need to be done.
The essence of eCommerce automation is this: it uses a piece of software, referred to as an ERP (enterprise resource planning), to automate the day-to-day processes in your business. That includes:
- submitting batch orders
- paying suppliers
- generating invoices
- executing licenses
- updating marketing materials
How Does eCommerce Automation Work?
Most eCommerce automation software packages are controlled by programming logic that allows the software to make decisions based on pre-set rules and triggers. Some vendors allow customization, but most automate functions without giving you the ability to change anything.
eCommerce automation systems work with a process-oriented view of your business. They create a “model” of each aspect of your company’s operations and are programmed so they can automatically take certain actions when certain conditions occur.
They may automatically send invoices or renewal notices once a contract is due or a license expires, or they could send order acknowledgments after receiving an order from a webshop (but before sending it to the warehouse).
5 Reasons to Adopt Ecommerce Automation
The implementation of Ecommerce Automation systems can offer enormous benefits in efficiency.
1. Stop Wasting Time on Manual Data Entry
All transactions are logged and checked. No clicking or typing is required. Businesses can automate their transactions, which means they can automate much faster the tedious and time-consuming tasks of entering historical data and creating invoices;
2. Always Keep Your Word, Automatically
Some eCommerce automation solutions can automatically respond to incoming inquiries from customers and prospects. That allows you to complete the necessary tasks for each customer at the moment of conversion (registering for a newsletter, buying something online, downloading an ebook, etc.);
3. Offer Enhanced Product Information
One of the benefits of implementing eCommerce automation is the ability to provide enhanced product information to your customers more easily and efficiently than you could previously. With the use of eCommerce automation, you can keep your online product descriptions up to date and create new products and variations quickly;
4. Concentrate on the Customer Care
As you no longer have to handle the tedious and repetitive tasks that accompany running a business, you can focus more on higher-level and more important issues, like product development, market expansion, improving customer care and lead nurturing.
5. Improve Accuracy and Consistency
eCommerce automation software can provide you with the ability to track inventory changes, ensure improved accuracy, and consistency across all listings. By removing the need for manual data entry and creating a sales history, you will have a better understanding of your company’s performance, which will allow you to make more educated decisions regarding profit and loss;
5 Effective Ways to Automate Your eCommerce Business
eCommerce automation systems vary in their design and capabilities. Below, we’ve listed some automation and tracking solutions you can use to automate your eCommerce business.
1. Automating Workflows
eCommerce workflow management, also known as e-workflow, is a type of business process management that enables you to improve communication by creating automated workflows and tasks. E-workflow systems are designed to aid in the communication and completion of project activities such as sales, marketing, and operations.
2. Automating Email Notifications
Email notifications can be automated using third-party software and services. These services integrate with your website, email marketing services provider, shopping cart, accounting software, and other tools to send alerts from your store’s point of sale (POS) system.
Automating the notifications’ delivery to customers makes the communication process more efficient and accurate. Some software companies integrate directly with eCommerce sites, while others offer notification services by accessing them through APIs.
3. Automating Fraud Filters
To make your eCommerce retailers safer, you can use online fraud prevention filters to automate your order management and security. With the help of these technologies, you will receive email or pop-up notifications when suspicious activity is discovered in your stores, such as a high number of returns, fraudulent orders, or duplicate payments.
4. Marketing Automation Integrations
Suppose you want to automate your marketing and analytics. You can integrate your eCommerce store with a marketing automation platform that connects directly with your analytics program and email service provider. These platforms enable you to integrate customer data and create automated workflows based on specific criteria.
5. Automating Customer Service
You can integrate your eCommerce website with the best CRM software to automatically track customer actions and communications. Most of these tools include chatbots, so that you can automate the most common customer queries.
For personal connection and efficiency, these CRM tools show an entire conversation history and all the touch points with any particular customer or visitor.
Using these technologies, you can automate and personalize your customer support efforts and better communicate with customers, establishing a more personalized relationship.
3 Main Benefits of eCommerce Automation
Ecommerce automation has many benefits that are directly related to your business. Below, we’ve listed some of the top benefits of e-commerce automation and how they can impact your business.
- Saves time: Automation saves time and effort. Many automation features can be enabled automatically without an employee's input or effort. That means that you will save time on efforts that are not profitable for your business, allowing you to focus on higher-level issues;
- Offers consistency: Automation can provide consistency as best practices are built into online systems, which can be implemented in a way that ensures that your customers always receive the same experience and level of service;
- Allows for A/B testing: Automated testing options provide highly customized marketing and sales options that allow you to easily compare different options and measure the results to develop a strategy that will work best for your business.
5 Best eCommerce Automation Tools
Once you understand what automation is and how it can benefit your eCommerce business, you’ll need help getting started with implementing it into your business processes and daily routines.
Below, we’ve listed some of the most popular eCommerce automation tools and explanations of which parts of your eCommerce business it helps to automate.
1. OrderHive: eCommerce Batch Order Processing and Automation
The order management systems can automate and smoothen the order processing by constantly updating the inventory, storing the vendor and customer data, managing returns and keeping records of bills, payments and order processing records.
The order processing system can be called the centerpiece of the eCommerce fulfillment process. It can also be integrated with other software to make the entire order fulfillment process smooth, quick and seamless.
2. Tidio: eCommerce Customer Service Automation
For businesses to interact with customers, Tidio is a customer service automation platform that uses chatbots and live chat.
You can find out more about the people who visit your website using the available chat surveys and in-depth analytics. You no longer have to manually respond to every question your customers repeatedly ask.
3. Rivo: eCommerce Marketing Automation
One of the best retail automation tools for Shopify is Rivo.io. Your marketing team can target users with loyalty programme emails, push notifications, SMS messages. Loyalty programmes are an effective way to enhance your marketing campaigns and boost checkouts from shopping carts on your company website.
It can also assist in converting risky orders from abandoned carts into profitable sales. With the help of this software, you can cross-sell your products and keep track of your progress with reports so that you can make smarter business decisions in the future.
4.Monday.com: eCommerce Task Automation
Monday.com is an eCommerce task automation tool that helps your team to communicate over email and collaboratively manage tasks. It enables your company to prioritize projects and manage workloads by creating automated workflows and tasks.
You can also use this tool to improve collaboration between team members, organize your processes, and develop actionable strategies for your eCommerce business.
5. Klaviyo: eCommerce Email Automation
Klaviyo is a powerful marketing automation solution that offers subscription management, targeted marketing, and analytics to help e-retailers boost sales and stay ahead.
It not only automates your email campaigns but also monitors the content of emails to improve deliverability rates and overall ROI. For shop owners, Klaviyo can instantly update your store with data from Google Analytics and Shopify.
Key Takeaways from eCommerce Automation
A key component of any successful eCommerce business is using eCommerce automation to streamline your online processes and procedures.
By automating the order fulfillment, customer support, ecommerce email marketing and task automation processes with the help of specialized software or services, you can save time and money and focus more on important issues.
It’s also worth noting that many business owners find it helpful to outsource their e-commerce operations. Shopify development and e-commerce automation services are designed to help you streamline your business and improve your revenue and profit and ultimately increase your eCommerce valuation.
