Throughout the day, eCommerce store owners complete little tasks that require anywhere between one to ten minutes. They rarely feel like time wasters on their own. However, collectively they prevent you from growing your business in the big picture. Over time, manual tasks add up, become inefficient, and start to fail. That’s where eCommerce automation comes in.
eCommerce automation is the use of software to convert manual tasks and operations into automated workflows. They can send emails or alerts. They will trigger actions in other programs, like adding new customer interactions to your support system.
Automation of eCommerce is all about providing yourself and your teams with the most valuable resource—time. It frees up your staff to focus on more important tasks such as improving your cash flow, negotiating better deals with vendors, establishing better logistical processes, and product research and development. This is how companies accomplish more with less. If you’ve been looking for ways to save money and time, here are six eCommerce automations you can implement today.
Customer Segmentation Automation
Differentiating your customers based on their purchasing behavior helps you better understand their specific interests and demands. You may label or segment them according to demographics such as gender or buying location, as well as the number of purchases, lifetime spends, or subscriptions. The key is to track and group your customers automatically based on their engagements or information you collect.
Customer Rewards Automation
Retaining customers is important for all types of businesses, particularly eCommerce. You should always keep track of your most active buyers and incentivize customer loyalty. You could categorize customers according to their lifetime purchase value and send out regular emails with varying rewards like vouchers or discount codes. Alternatively, you could always include complimentary gifts or free shipping with any orders above $200, for example.
Email Marketing Automation
Most of the leading online platforms offer built-in integrations with eCommerce marketing automation tools. Use them to generate mailing lists, newsletters, and campaign workflows. Email marketing software can tag and compile the email addresses of customers who engage with your emails, allowing you to send them special deals through a dedicated mailing list.
Email automation tools can also be used to collect reviews effectively. It sends customers follow-up emails a specified number of days after their purchase has been completed, with a URL to where they can leave their feedback.
Shipping Automation
When you connect your eCommerce platform with shipping automation tools like ShipStation, you can execute multiple labor-intensive operations all with a single button. With the shipping automation tool, you can easily synchronize your orders, generate and print shipping labels, check off your orders as fulfilled, and send out custom emails with each buyer’s tracking number attached.
Inventory Automation
When a product suddenly runs out, it could result in lost revenue or disappointed customers. It can also result in marketplace stock outs, which can have long term negative effects on your listings and search rankings. Prevent the dreaded stock outs by tracking inventory automatically, as alerts will notify you any time a product quantity falls below your limit. This way, you can restock your products immediately.
Abandoned Cart Automation
Nearly three out of four online shopping carts are abandoned, according to research. Therefore, automatically sending out abandoned cart email reminders is important for drawing buyers back to your website without you lifting a finger.
When you first begin your eCommerce business, it’s easier to manage all the little things yourself. Though you never want to lose visibility of your operational details, you will certainly want to build efficient processes to keep them running automatically. The less you have to worry about time-consuming manual tasks, the more you can focus on growing your eCommerce business.
