Inside this article
If you’re an online retailer and interested in eCommerce automation, chances are you’re already investing more time in putting out fires than in growing your business. If you’re truly focused on business growth, you need to focus your energy on tasks that move you towards your goal. However, it often seems like you’re being held back by repetitive activities that could be automated, right?
Knowing when it’s time to work smarter instead of harder is key to the future of your business. To do so, transform all those inefficient processes into an automated system that carries out activities on auto-pilot, making your eCommerce operations run smoothly, without your intervention.
What is eCommerce automation?
Running an automated eCommerce business requires a holistic view of eCommerce operations — one that sees them as the engine of the store and a source of profits rather than problems.
Ultimately, eCommerce automation starts by maximizing the most precious resource: time. By enabling your employees and yourself to rely on technology and machinery to minimize repetitive tasks that bring little value to your business, you’ll be able to focus on those parts of the business that require human intervention.
Benefits of eCommerce automation
To put it simply, eCommerce automation takes manual tasks and transforms them into automated workflows, increasing staff productivity and business efficiency. But there are also other benefits of automated stores:
- Engaging tasks: Instead of focusing on mundane or repetitive tasks, employees will be engaged in high-value activities that bring measurable results for the company and keep them motivated.
- Clear vision of the past to better plan the future: Automation brings with it the resources to track and check past data. When all of this information is automatically updated, your staff will be able to plan and predict future trends and prevent situations like stockouts.
- Higher customer satisfaction: Thanks to the implementation of automation tools, your departments will be connected, allowing them to share customer information and provide better customer service.
How to automate your eCommerce business
Automated stores are an appealing concept on their own, but the process of actually getting things automated may not seem as straightforward. Online business automation starts by implementing the following measures:
1. Implement an eCommerce automation software
Without automation tools, talking about eCommerce automation would be pointless. In this sense, implementing an eCommerce automation software that allows you to automatically carry out repetitive tasks is the way to go.
As biased as it may seem, we can’t recommend any other tool besides Outvio.
This automation platform streamlines all operations that take place after the sale: order processing, picking and packing, the selection of couriers and shipping methods, package tracking, returns management, and much more!
Otherways to automate your eCommerce business include email marketing automation tools and accounting systems.
Thanks to automation, you, as a retailer, will only need to worry about high-value activities while letting warehouse operators fulfill online orders with tools that guarantee 0 errors in the fulfillment stage.
2. Automated eCommerce workflow
Once the right automation tools have been implemented, the next step is to design your eCommerce workflows to make them run automatically. The most efficient way to do so is to come up with automation rules that work on the logic “if X, then Y.” These “premise > action” will save you time by eliminating unnecessary and repetitive tasks.
To learn more about shipping automation, read our extensive article on the topic. There, we discuss all the possibilities behind shipping and return rules.
Working with eCommerce automation software such as Outvio isn’t enough. You also need to design workflows to get the most from your automation tools and make your eCommerce operations as efficient as possible.
You can start by setting up a process of how the order management flow should work. For instance, when should orders be processed? You can establish a specific timeframe for operators to fulfill these orders and a specific method. Do you want them to use the same packaging for all items? Should Amazon orders be processed before Shopify’s? Do you want them to separate multi-item from single-item orders?
These and other day-to-day decisions can be automated with Outvio. For instance, its AI-based algorithm can detect when a delivery went well and then send an automatic review request.
Honest feedback from other clients is an incredibly powerful tool that shouldn’t be underestimated. Automate the process to enjoy all of its advantages without investing time in this repetitive task. Learn how to ask for reviews and more about their importance so that you can master this aspect of your eCommerce business.
3. Automate operations
With the right eCommerce automation software and your workflows set in place, it’s time to automate operations as much as possible. To do so, think about all those repetitive tasks that consume your time and find a way to automate them.
If you run an online store, chances are that you’ll find all the automation features you need in Outvio. Everything that happens post-checkout is taken care of on this platform. Simply sign up and connect your online store in less than 2 minutes.
Even customer service can be automated and streamlined with Outvio. This task, which is for sure one of the most time consuming, can be easily optimized by centralizing communication and having the adequate tools to organize and track support tickets from all channels.
4. Start using email automation solutions for eCommerce
Last but not least, automating the communication between your online store and customers is one of the most time-saving decisions you can make. By sending automatic email notifications on the status of orders, you’ll be able to reallocate the workload from your communication and customer service departments.
Outvio ensures the timely delivery of these emails, as well as SMS and WhatsApp notifications, and it even provides pre-configured messages that can be personalized with your branding and translated into as many languages as you want.
Conclusions
Automated stores enjoy a series of benefits that businesses who lack the necessary tools can’t even imagine. If you want to get rid of repetitive tasks that waste your time and resources and don’t add value to your eCommerce operations, the first step is to think about eCommerce automation.
Only by implementing automation software can you transform everyday processes at your eCommerce business to maximize results and productivity levels.
In this sense, Outvio is the most advanced eCommerce automation tool on the market. With Outvio, everything from fulfillment to shipping, tracking, returns and post-purchase customer service can be automated and centralized in a single interface that gives you the power and control to manage all your post-checkout eCommerce operations.
