eCommerce automation is a true blessing. When you give a close watch over the successful eCommerce companies, you can see that their strategy relies on automation.
After your automation, if your eCommerce store gets good numbers, it is wise to take over further. If not, you are letting go of something important. It is the right time to know the ways to automate your eCommerce business.
Why should you consider automating your eCommerce Business?
When you have a dull eCommerce business, swapping your employees or new hire never matters. Instead, you can consider automating your eCommerce business with the right plugins available online.
According to Forrester’s report, companies spending on marketing automation tools might increase up to $25.1 billion by 2023.
What are you waiting for?
Let us get into the benefits part to know how well automation will boost your eCommerce business:
1. Improved Product Information
In an automated eCommerce business, you can address thousands of customers at a time. Using automated emails, you can include many information about your product besides your order information and inventory data.
Online shoppers always rely on product listings with perfect product information. Automation helps you have clean and accurate data of your products available in your store. It brings confidence to the customer about the product they wish to purchase.
2. Increased Productivity
Everything we have revealed so far is a plan to lay off your employees. Automation tools let you get the most out of your employees and make the most of their time. Superior business process management (BPM) is the goal of workflow automation, not job cuts.
Staff can focus on other tasks when critical but repetitive activities are automated. They will be able to devote their time to activities that require intelligence and personal service. Thanks to automation, they have more time to design new items. It allows them to spend more time nurturing relationships and interacting with clients. As a result, your company’s productivity will skyrocket.
3. Increased Customer Satisfaction
Customers are the king of any eCommerce store. In that case, satisfying the customer’s needs is very important. We all know that customer satisfaction is a crucial element to the growth and profit of an eCommerce store. Automating your eCommerce business is one of the most incredible ways to ensure customer satisfaction.
Customers will receive more accurate and consistent products/services as a result of automation. Their loyalty to your firm grows when they rely on your store to meet their need.
4. Reduce Costs
If you have been keen on reducing the costs of your eCommerce business significantly, automating your eCommerce emails helps you save time and reduce manual costs. It is not necessary to follow the old methodology. You can carry forward your eCommerce store automation to the next level with advanced plugins.
5. Improves Efficiency
Many eCommerce tasks are tedious and time-consuming. It doesn’t change the fact that they’re necessary.
What it does indicate, however, is that if a human is required to complete them, they will take a long time. Take, for example, order management. That aspect of your business may necessitate a significant amount of data entry. You might also need to send customers dispatch emails and print shipping labels. The entire procedure can be automated with order management software.
Bottlenecks in your operations are caused by repetitive actions. Rather than moving steadily, you can slow down when the time-consuming tasks are completed. A workflow automation technology can help you break down those barriers. Routine tasks are automated and finished in a fraction of the time. Your organization’s efficiency will improve as a result.
Best 7 Ways to automate your eCommerce business
Modern customers value prompt and high-quality service. Trust and loyalty are two factors that contribute significantly. Automation streamlines customer service and increases efficiency.
For example, with automation in place, the customer support team or the sales and marketing team can get information at record speed without having to sift through a stack of papers.
Here are seven automation strategies that eCommerce stores should adopt in order to be successful. (Believe me, It would be your lifesaver)
Marketing Automation
Your eCommerce business needs to be everywhere. Customers always shop in a messy way. We cannot expect them to follow a disciplined track of purchase. Even if you have a well-defined customer journey, and they may not purchase through a single channel. Have a look at how automation works well with different marketing strategies/channels.
1. Email Marketing Automation
Email marketing is critical to the success of an eCommerce business. It has a role to perform at different times throughout the client experience.
Welcome emails, post-purchase emails, shipment information emails, post-delivery emails, and so on are all required for running an eCommerce business. You can use email automation plugins to collect email addresses and schedule emails to be sent at each of these touchpoints.
You can also apply automation techniques that will help you increase sales, generate more repeat purchases, and reduce cart abandonment using email marketing automation plugins.
2. Abandoned cart reminders
The majority of individuals who add items to eCommerce carts never buy them. Nearly 70% of shopping carts are abandoned, according to the Baymard Institute. That’s a lot of potential customers you’re passing up. Abandoned cart emails are a tried and true approach to reclaim some of your customers.
When a shopper abandons their cart on your site, many tools can record it. After the length of time that you specify, an email is sent automatically in an attempt to re-engage the consumer. This method has the advantage of being able to tailor the messaging. The email can mention the items they added and explain why they might still want to purchase them.
3. Welcome/thank you emails
Instead of sending a single email, many organizations will employ a welcome email series, which delivers many messages.
In the above example, the first email will thank subscribers for signing up and give them a cash reward for their orders. On the other end, you can also ask them to confirm their subscription by clicking a link (this is what makes an email list “double opt-in,” the gold standard for lists), and set expectations for the rest of the emails in the series.
The following are some suggestions for creating a very effective welcome series campaign:
- As an incentive to enroll, provide a discount or a free trial, which can boost immediate conversions while also raising the likelihood that they will open the rest of your emails.
- Make sure the autoresponder email is sent right after a new subscriber signs up — when they’re still interested, and your brand is fresh in their minds.
- To create familiarity and cross-channel interaction, include CTAs to follow you on social media or visit your blog.
- Avoid spam trigger words, which might cause your message and domain to be immediately reported by popular email clients.
Workflow automation
Order management is a catch-all term for a critical aspect of running an online store. It’s the method for tracking and progressing customers’ orders from beginning to end. It’s a business procedure that touches on project management, customer service, and a variety of other topics. Many company procedures may be automated, from order placement through post-sale.
4. Schedule Social Media Posts
For eCommerce enterprises, social media is a powerful marketing tool. The number of people who utilize social media reports on a global scale is huge and growing. 54% of social media users conduct product research on their chosen site.
It’s no wonder that online shops devote a significant amount of time and effort to social media marketing. Social media marketing is a continuous process. You must continue to generate and distribute engaging material with your audience.
Look at this example to know how scheduling social media posts work.
With process automation in this area, your company can reap the benefits of having a social media presence without devoting as many personnel hours. There are numerous online apps and other solutions available to help you automate your social network posts. You can create posts in bulk and then schedule when and how they’re distributed using tools.
5. Automated Continual marketing
There are numerous touchpoints in the consumer journey. Not every customer will come to your site, see something they want, and buy it straight away. Some people may return multiple times. They may spend time studying and pondering the purchase in the meanwhile.
You can also invite them to your webinar or next big community event as a part of your eCommerce store marketing. (Ref Image)
You can influence their decision if you have their contact information and permission to contact them. Lead nurturing is based on this principle.
Automated lead nurturing is akin to email-based client retention. You can automate the process of sending valuable, persuasive content to prospects. If you pitch the information well and provide it on a regular basis, you may convert a shaky lead into a paying customer.
Sales Automation
In ecommerce, there aren’t as many outbound sales. The majority of online retailers rely on visitors to find and purchase their products. If your company has a sales team, automated workflows can help them work more efficiently.
6. Customer Chat Support
One of the key areas of attention for eCommerce firms is customer service. You can enhance conversion rates, order values, and client retention by providing superior customer service.
You can glance at the attractive customer service email from Groove.
Client service necessitates the use of committed resources who are available to answer customer questions 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Furthermore, the questions that your customer support representatives answer are sometimes repeated and redundant. As a result, you can go on to other automated self-service solutions, such as AI chatbots, to save money and increase productivity.
7. Automate Customer purchase Follow Up
Making a sale is difficult. Before a lead becomes a customer, a salesman must contact them several times. Sales Automation is a great approach to make sure that important follow-ups happen on schedule and without a hitch. A salesperson’s next step varies depending on how well discussions with prospects go.
You can create automated workflows that reflect these many options. If a sales call goes badly, for example, the immediate chance of a contract may be lost. In their automation tool, an agent can label a prospect or trade as lost. A follow-up email or other form of communication can then be scheduled at a later date. The follow-up is automatically delivered when that time comes as in the image.
Bonus – Inventory Management Automation
Yes, it’s time for a Bonus!
As such, we have seen different automation ways for your eCommerce business. Now, let us see how automation works well in the inventory management of an eCommerce store.
Source: Google
All online stores require inventory management. Stock management and tracking can make all the difference. You’ll be unable to fulfill key orders if you’re understocked. You’re squandering precious warehouse space if you overstock. You can make warehousing and fulfillment a breeze by automating inventory management.
Inventory automation software can help you achieve the following workflow:
- A new order is received by your sales system.
- Stock is allocated to the order via inventory management software. You can also create criteria to verify that it comes from the correct warehouse or business.
- The order in your system receives a “ready for dispatch” tag.
- The order’s details, shipping label, and any other pertinent information are forwarded to personnel in charge of warehouse management.
- Warehouse employees can pick the stock, pack it, and ship it out.
- The stock withdrawal is documented, as well as a new, precise inventory volume.
- When stock levels fall below a predefined level, a message is sent out, which in some situations can even result in an automatic purchase order being placed with your supplier.
Instead of manually cataloging and organizing your orders before sending them to your foreign storage facility, you may completely automate the process.
You may also attain client satisfaction with the help of an inventory management tool. Do you want to let your consumers down just because they ordered an out-of-stock item?
Wrapping Up
Automation is everywhere. And, eCommerce companies have adapted to it. In your eCommerce operations, doing redundant, ineffective processes and risking manual errors can be the biggest roadblock to your company’s success.
You can easily overcome these obstacles by implementing eCommerce automation technologies, which will allow you to speed up the process while maintaining accuracy and productivity.
The suggestions in this article will assist you in determining which automation tools to use in order to boost your company’s ROI significantly. Happy Automation!
