Hobby Store Group: Performance Push with Automation
About Hobby Store Group Hobby Store Group is one of the European leading transporting toys and gift retailers. The company prides itself on stocking and delivering some of the famous model railway and aviation brands in more than 100 countries. Both of their stores – Aircraft Model Store and Railway Model Store – are implementing Atom8 Automation in daily operations. A push in business performance Being a large transportation model retailer, Hobby Store Group has to deal with thousands of orders per day. The listing and fulfillment process took up a lot of time and human resources. The company’s staff had to repeat the same tasks over and over again, from labeling products to adding order notes and informing the delivery partner. Manual operation is clearly not an appropriate choice for the business. If they want to make a leap in business development, automation is required for as many repetitive tasks as possible. Automation in inventory management One issue within inventory management is to highlight new products on the storefront so that visitors know about your offer as soon as they arrive at the website. Initially, staff had to go through every product page and add them to a category. However, for a store with hundreds of products like AMS or RMS, manual adding and removing is extremely daunting. Therefore, the solution is to set up a workflow to put a product in a given category when the inventory level is updated in the store backend. With this, their staff only need to fill in the stock level without worrying about the later steps. TRIGGER: When the product information is updated CONDITION: If the inventory level is greater than 0 ACTION: Add the product to a category: New arrivals DELAY: After 30 days ACTION: Remove the product from a category: New arrivals Automation in order management HSG was able to decrease the inbound number of tickets from customers by automating their email chains. Customers are informed immediately of their order status and any potential delay. On the other hand, Atom8 can also notify their internal team of special orders, important tasks without having to check every day and get their hands off various manual tasks, for example: Segment customer by purchase history Email promotion to customers when they met the condition Auto-merchandising according to inventory level Wrapping up Overall, Atom8 was “a very good software that allows us to create automation for repetitive tasks. The software is very easy to use and gets quite a lot done”. Hence, HSG was able to get started quickly even when they had no prior experience with any automation app, especially with complimentary customer support to make sure all confusions and issues are cleared asap.
eCommerce holidays shopping 2021 trends and recommendations for merchants
The pandemic has made 2020 unpredictable for every industry. However, experts have been anticipating the immense growth of eCommerce. And it’s true, it has been a remarkable year for online shopping. Year-over-year online sales rose 20.6% in the U.S. during Cyber 5, and 60% during Black Friday weekend sales on Amazon. This year, with restrictions still around, eCommerce merchants might want to watch out for the following eCommerce holidays shopping 2021 trends. Early bird gets the worm Most customers might choose to shop early before items go out of stock since 70% of them chose to do so and avoid the crowd last year. To catch up right when they start, make sure you keep track of what people are searching for on your website, asking your customer service staff, or what your competitors are doing. Furthermore, you can even use your own discounts and promotions to encourage them to shop earlier. This also means that you might need to prepare inventory early. There is still plenty of time between the busy summer sales and holiday season, so make sure your team can catch a breath as well as plan carefully for the coming hectic period. Inventory should be recounted, reorganized, and restocked. Moreover, you can discuss with suppliers and arrange means to take backorders if popular items go out-of-stock right in the middle of sales programs. Knowing that it’s going to be lively, don’t let yourself be overwhelmed and start looking for strategies to improve productivity. An advantage of eCommerce is the huge number of tools you can find online. So if you encounter any bottleneck, you can always find tools like automation to help with it. Unique customer experiences During the peak season, it’s going to be extra difficult for merchants to compete on prices. Therefore, make sure you focus on creating exceptional customer experiences, retaining current customers, and then attracting new customers. Convenience should be the top priority of both merchants and customers. It’s best practice to analyze consumer’s behavior from last seasonal sales and create a policy with various scenarios of customer requests. Customers surely will favor a site that allows them to shop when and however they want, be it pick up in-store, instant delivery, or easy exchanges and returns. Mobile-first has been constantly recommended to online merchants since more and more people are shopping on mobile devices. However, it’s important to note that the cart abandonment rate is also high on mobile. Therefore, capture those leads with a form or coupon code before they leave your site. While preparing for the next season, remember to ask your current customers to leave reviews for their last orders. Testimonials are powerful for increasing conversion rate and trust for any eCommerce business. Essential marketing channels Omnichannel marketing contributes greatly to creating a seamless customer experience, by providing consistent interactions across online and offline channels. This can be achieved with a suitable buyer’s journey, clear brand messages, and touchpoints, as well as personalization. Experts have found that the pandemic empowered SMS marketing and social media. So merchants should be optimizing these channels to sell more this season. Top-notch social media content can help more shoppers to discover your brand and products. Plan for other shopping channels That said, it doesn’t mean that retailers should focus only on online channels. Customers can gather information on your website throughout their decision-making process and choose to pick up in-store instead of waiting for shipment. While some prefer to shop online for safety, others might be eager to go out. So, make sure that you can adapt fast in case consumer behavior changes again. Be sure to check out the 2021 holiday calendar and other helpful eCommerce tips on our blog.
