Before inventory and before staff, time is your most valuable resource so the eCommerce-streamline process can be essential for the future of your business. With so many different tasks, like stocking the right products, taking orders, and managing payments, pulling you in every direction, it is incredibly difficult to stay on top of it all.
That’s without mentioning your marketing efforts or your customer service endeavors!
So, how does a growing eCommerce business increase its customer base while keeping current customers happy? With eCommerce automation, that’s how. Automation is the future of tech, and with that, we’ve seen a glut of new automation tools being released for eCommerce businesses. As a store owner, it’s the best tool in your arsenal. In this article, we will show you five clever ways to streamline your eCommerce store with automation in this article.
Inventory Management
An automated inventory management system is software eCommerce stores can plug directly into their websites to maintain and monitor stock levels. Wholesalers, distributors, and partners can automatically add, delete, and amend stock in real-time. This reflects on your eCommerce site, eliminating the risk of overselling an item.
Firstly, you save time by no longer needing to update inventory management numbers on a spreadsheet, as the counts are increased or decreased when new stock comes in or when it’s sold or returned. There’s no human needed to do this, removing the chance of human error.
Order management software updates stock numbers instantly, so whether you’re doing a dozen or a few hundred transactions a day, so you’ll never sell something you don’t have.
Unifying the back and front end of your eCommerce site gives your end-users a seamless experience without the need for you to change or update anything yourself physically. This is known as headless eCommerce, and having it function properly is critical for a modern store’s success.
Customer Management
Another important step in the eCommerce-streamline process is customer retention . One of the best ways to boost retention is rewarding customers for their loyalty.
You can use some basic automation tools to track and reward loyal customers. Smart workflow automation tools can tag customers based on their purchase history. You can then program them to target these people with emails containing discount codes and thank you notes, adding some personalization. This can all be in tandem, separating.
Speaking of email, strategic and targeted email campaigns are still the best way to generate more sales. Most stores use a dedicated platform to handle email marketing. Automating workflows to improve these processes isn’t tricky if you’re the same. The easiest way to automate is by syncing an email client with your CRM system. By doing so, you ensure to segment email list as well as possible.
Order management
Order management is vital for online store operations. It’s how orders get tracked and managed, from purchase to delivery to follow-up. It overlaps customer service, project management, and more. Many of the steps involved in order fulfillment can get automated.
The numbers vary, but anywhere from 65-80% of eCommerce carts are left abandoned. Reminding customers of their abandoned carts can bring them back and be an automated process. Integrating your eCommerce software and email platform with effective remarketing is easy to send these reminders.
Another crucial factor of the eCommerce-streamline process is dispatch and delivery. Failed deliveries become a considerable expense. Often, the problems with distribution come from small, human-made mistakes along the way. A warehouse worker may mistype an address on a label, or the system files the order as complete in your system when it hasn’t left.
A warehouse management system disentangles this part of your business, making it more efficient. By adding automation here, you can get multiple tasks done in a single click, such as printing labels and marking orders as correctly dispatched. It can create tracking numbers for deliveries as well.
Sales Management
With eCommerce, there aren’t many outbound sales. Most stores get their business through visitors to their site. However, if your company does employ a sales team, there’s room for automated workflows to make their lives more comfortable.
Using automated workflows and assessment tools within CRM systems streamlines even further. If, for example, a new prospect is added to your system, a computerized device can instantly capture their details, schedule a call, and allocate that call to an agent.
But we all know that making a sale isn’t that easy. A salesperson may need to make multiple calls to close a deal. Automation is how to ensure crucial follow-ups happen when they’re supposed to. Depending on how a call goes, a salesperson’s next step differs. Automated workflows can reflect this. If a call goes poorly, for example, then that specific prospect can be marked as lost. Automating follow-up emails to this segment can be adjusted based on the email’s content and when the email is sent.
Payment management
Ideally, as an eCommerce business, you shouldn’t have to phone and talk to a customer to accept payments. There are multiple different payment gateways you can automate to make the payment process more manageable. However, there are a few things to consider before implementing them.
- Is this payment gateway user-friendly?
- Does the gateway work in the country or countries you operate in?
- What are you looking to pay in terms of usage fees?
- Is it a payment gateway, a merchant account, or an all-in-one system?
- How easily does it integrate into your website?
- Does it support the preferred payment type your customers use?
- Lastly, does your business provide gambling, adult content, or travel products? Does the gateway protect customers’ privacy in these types of instances?
An automated payment management system can integrate multiple platforms and give you a centralized way of managing your payment streams. They can also work out the extra VAT payments that change per country and offer automatic calculations on the final invoice.
Conclusion
The eCommerce streamline process boosts efficiency, productivity, and, as a result, your bottom line. The software works much faster than humans. It also won’t make the same small errors, which can grow to be incredibly costly. When those kinds of jobs are automatic, your employees can now better use their time. They can complete tasks that require more in-depth attention and care. Your eCommerce store has plenty of potentials, and by introducing automation, you can begin to unlock it.
