How to automate your e-commerce business as fast as possible

As an e-commerce store owner, you must be hands-on in pretty much every aspect of your business, ranging from something creative like marketing to something operational like logistics. We also understand that it must be quite fulfilling for you to create a direct impact on your store’s growth from every angle. But this is where most store owners go wrong!

Besides being omnipresent in their store operations, most store owners embrace a multitude of manual workflows to get their stores up and running. They fail to realize that without automation, it is impossible to scale their business. A vast majority of these store owners shy away from automation primarily because they do not know how to go about it. 

And that’s where this post can help as we take you through key areas in your e-commerce store that you can automate. Let’s roll…

1. Inventory Management

Inventory may be the heart and soul of every e-commerce store, but it is also one of the most challenging parts of it. For instance, if you have inventory stored in multiple locations, it can be an uphill task to keep track of your stock levels in all of these places. Similarly, it is quite difficult to accurately predict how much of each product will sell in a particular period. This can lead to shortages or excess inventory. 

Now when you are managing these tasks manually, not only will they be error-ridden, but they will take a major chunk of your time on a daily basis. This is where automating most of these tasks can help, as it will let you focus on more mission-critical activities instead of handling the basics of inventory.

Here are some tasks you must automate in inventory management - 

• Tracking of inventory levels
• Generating reports on inventory levels, sales, and other important metrics
• Reordering of SKUs when your inventory reaches a preset level
• Tracking and managing stock levels across multiple channels

2. Customer Support

Automating customer support is all about finding ways to respond to customers instantly or by encouraging customers to find the answers on their own. When you automate your customer support department, the workload of your agents reduces. Your agents can instead handle more pressing and high-priority tasks, thereby improving their overall productivity and effectiveness. 

All of these help in saving time and money for your business. And the best part is customers get instant responses to their queries, which results in improved satisfaction. 

Here are some tasks you must automate in customer support-

• Handling customer queries and providing instant responses with the help of chatbots and frequently asked questions page
• Collecting feedback from customers to improve the overall purchase experience of customers in future orders.
• Responding to customer queries and complaints with an auto-reply
• Assigning customer tickets to the right team/agent

If you are a Vajro customer, you can integrate your store with popular chatting platforms like Tidio, Zendesk, WhatsApp, Gorgias, and Tawk.to to automate your customer support operations. Check out the complete list of integrations here.

3. Marketing

If you have been closely involved in the marketing activities of your store, you must be already aware of how taxing it is. The amount of time, labor, and resources you spend on marketing efforts is probably higher than other activities. After all, it is that one differentiating factor that drives more sales, generates more leads, and increases your revenue. 

Now, the only way to enjoy the fruits of marketing without spending thousands of dollars on it is by adopting marketing automation. When you unlock the limitless potential of your marketing automation platform, you will experience a tectonic shift in your ROI.

Here are some tasks you must automate in marketing - 

• Sending targeted and personalized emails to customers based on their actions or inactivity
• Scheduling and publishing social media posts on pre-set time
• Delivering ads to the right customers at the right time by using customer data and behavior
• Segmenting customers based on purchase behavior and delivering personalized experiences

4. Accounting

Bookkeeping is a complicated and cumbersome process. More importantly, it carries the risk of a costly mistake. If you own a large store, then reconciling the voluminous amount of sales your business makes each day can seem like a gargantuan task. And let’s not even get started on handling the sales and inventory fluctuations common in e-commerce and their impact on the accounting process. 

This is where accounting automation helps, as it keeps your financial data clean and organized, enabling you to pull accurate data quickly. It is also quite handy when you have to file your year-end taxes. 

Here are some tasks you must automate in accounting -

• Creating financial reports, such as profit and loss statements and balance sheets
• Creating and tracking budgets to monitor the performance of the investment and make informed decisions
• Managing accounts payable, such as approving invoices and making payments
• Managing accounts receivable, such as sending invoices and tracking payments
• Calculating sales tax to ensure that the correct amount of sales tax is collected and remitted 

5. Order Fulfillment

Order fulfillment involves all the processes the business engages in to ensure that the product reaches the customer’s hands once the order has been placed. Successful businesses automate their order fulfillment by speeding up their deliveries and simplifying the tracking process for customers.

They enjoy improved efficiency as the time and labor needed to fulfill orders reduce due to automation. This ensures that they can process more orders in less time. Also, when you automate order fulfillment, you will be able to reduce errors in the process, such as mis-picking or wrong labeling. This will result in a reduction of returns and customer complaints.

Here are some tasks you must automate in order fulfillment -

• Process orders as they are received, including tasks such as verifying payment and verifying shipping information
• Picking and packing orders
• Printing labels and scheduling carriers
• Handling returns, including tasks such as issuing refunds and restocking inventory
• Sending updates and notifications to customers about the status of their orders

Wrapping Up

It doesn’t matter whether you are an e-commerce veteran or a new kid in the block, there are plenty of ways to make your life easier while running your online store. Automation is certainly one of the ways, as it helps you to lower costs, improve productivity, and scale effectively. Ensure that all the above 5 areas are fully automated in your store to enjoy the above benefits.

If you are looking to build an e-commerce app for yourself, try Vajro today. We are a low-code/no-code app builder who can help you create your dream app in a few hours. To know more, book a demo now.