Top 8 E-commerce Workflow Automation Processes With Examples

Top 8 E-commerce Workflow Automation Processes With Examples

Running an online business as a solopreneur is not a piece of cake. With everything from making sure you never run out of stock to keeping track of all your orders and payments, it can be difficult to keep up.

You definitely need superhuman powers to stay on top of everything and find time to focus on improving marketing strategies to generate more sales.

Well, superhuman powers may seem rather far-fetched, but we have a solution for all your problems – automation! 

What is E-commerce Automation?

Automation is the practice of optimizing a workflow that increases productivity and decreases human input.

Thanks to emerging tech and sophisticated data processing techniques, there are numerous data tools available for automating an e-commerce venture.

These tools automatically execute mundane and time-consuming tasks with high accuracy. As a result, you save loads of time to invest in creating an online presence, solving problems effectively, and promoting your business.

In this article, I will discuss some e-commerce processes that automation can handle and the related tools for each process.

1. Inventory Management

Inventory management is a very tedious but very crucial part of running an online store.

Incidents such as product overstocking and outages can increase warehouse costs and impact sales respectively.

Most inventory management systems allow you to keep a record of purchase orders, update the remaining amount of products in stock, send alerts on low stock, and inform you when to place another order.

Softwares such as Quickbooks and Zoho Inventory can be used for smooth inventory management.

2. Invoicing

Next in the list of boring tasks is generating invoices and then sending them to each customer.

Sounds doable at the start but as soon as your business gains popularity, more and more orders pop in every day. 

In such cases, using online software such as Wave Accounting and Quickbooks can keep you from going insane. 

3. Reward Loyal Customer

Nothing screams special treatment than loyalty points offered to your regular customers who make frequent purchases from your online stores.

E-commerce portals such as Shopify lets you integrate tools like ActiveCampaign that segments customers based on several criteria.

It can be configured to send customers special rewards based on their number of orders or lifetime order value.

4. Customer Support

Highly responsive customer support is an essential part of building customer satisfaction and loyalty. The cost of hiring individuals to answer customer queries 24/7 can be quite high. 

On the other hand, investing in an AI-based chatbot will lower the operational cost as well as provide always-on support. Tools such as Zendesk can be used for automating customer support.

5. Reviews

Every business understands the importance of gathering honest feedback from customers to help improve their products. Moreover, these reviews might help convince potential customers to buy from you.

So with the help of platforms like MailChimp, you can schedule an after a certain time of making the purchase asking them for feedback. You can also share the link with them to a webpage where they can post their honest reviews.

6. Abandoned Cart Emails

According to research, almost 3/4th of online shopping carts go abandoned without actually reaching the checkouts.

The use of software that sends email reminders to customers about abandoned shopping carts can greatly increase sales.

E-commerce software such as BigCommerce has integrated features that automatically send out abandoned cart emails.

According to data collected by them, on average 15% of the lost sale can be recovered by enabling just this single feature.

7. Website Analytics

Tracking web analytics for small businesses with finite resources can help make more informed and better decisions based on data.

By recognizing which activities generate the most leads, you can better understand consumer behavior. 

Using a tool like “engage” that collects all the data from your e-commerce platform, tracks everything down to a single event, performs analysis, and then allows you to use the valuable insights for powering your decision-making.

A complete package for effective planning of marketing strategies.

8. Shipping Labels and Tracking ID

We are all aware of the dopamine rush induced by seeing the notification that reads “your order has been shipped and is on its way”.

Well, there are shipping platforms that can automatically print shipping labels, generate tracking ID and then send the email for package tracking.

Integrating ShipStation, a shipping portal with various e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, Shopify, and Etsy, allows you to automate this entire process with 100% accuracy. 

Conclusion

These are a few operations you can streamline to keep your business going with minimal effort, thus saving you time to focus on the bigger picture.

By using e-commerce automation, you can dedicate your energy to tasks that generate a higher level of impact with your creative abilities and critical thinking skills.