The eCommerce industry has changed significantly in the last decade. It has grown from being a small niche market to a multi-billion dollar economy. eCommerce Automation tools that include various software and apps are the future of business. But what are these tools, how do they work, and why should you use them?
In this article, we’ll explore these questions and see how automation can help your business succeed in the long run.
Table of Contents
A Brief Introduction to eCommerce Automation
If you run an online store, you would know that there are many moving parts. Keeping track of inventory, managing orders and shipping, and dealing with customer service can be full-time jobs. And that’s not even considering the task of marketing and promoting your products!
It’s no wonder many eCommerce entrepreneurs feel like they’re constantly playing catch-up. There’s just so much to do in considerably less time.
This is where eCommerce Automation comes in.
eCommerce Automation uses tools and software to automate the most time-consuming and repetitive tasks associated with running an online store. The technology can free up your time to focus on other, more critical aspects of your business.
Using eCommerce Automation for multichannel retail allows a company to manage all communication channels such as web stores, email campaigns, and social media in one place. A key advantage of using eCommerce Automation software is that it tracks essential customer data from various sources in real-time.
Next, your customer data is transferred into a reporting tool to analyze customers’ behavior and engagement with your brand. You can prepare personalized marketing offers based on each client segment.
How eCommerce Automation Works
eCommerce Automation, powered by intelligent platforms, reacts to website users’ activities. The core of these capabilities resides in artificial intelligence, which can mimic human actions and thought processes. Although, there is room for improvement. A simple AI performs basic types of automation with set criteria that trigger specific tasks like sending an email after a period following a customer’s action.
AI is capable of performing more advanced tasks, and some AI software can even improve and expand upon its programming via machine learning. Machine learning absorbs new information based on user interaction and uses that to enhance the intelligence of AI.
Machine learning can improve search functions in an online store by using the details provided by customers at the time of performing searches. These details include the keywords they enter and the products they browse through.
Machine learning also allows websites to customize themselves for individuals. You would have noticed that while visiting a website displaying recommended products. An AI often chooses those products.
A customer support chatbot is a form of eCommerce AI and relies heavily on machine learning. Chatbots benefits simulate live chats with business representatives. They don’t mimic humans but can collect and store information through the customer’s chat responses. Chatbots can offer questions and refer visitors to the correct department based on their responses (if needed). They can recommend products and help customers find what they may be looking for.
Machine learning enables the chatbot to improve its automatic responses and feel more organic — and more “human” — to customers.
A positive customer experience is often a combination of intelligent search solutions, recommendation engines, and chatbots. You can implement these features in your eCommerce store to streamline customer interactions and improve your website’s usability.
How Your Business Benefit from eCommerce Automation
Benefits from eCommerce Automation vary depending on your business model. In general, eCommerce Automation makes your business easier to manage by reducing manual labor costs. These automation tools handle orders more quickly and efficiently—from shipping to customer support—without adding personnel or spending much money.
eCommerce Automation software and tools can bring immediate value to your business. It does this by reducing manual tasks that don’t add value to your clients. Let’s say you have a long list of orders that has to be shipped each month, but you aren’t able to ship them out on time. Rather than manually searching these orders, sending them, and changing their status as shipped – you can use an automation tool that does this repetitive task for you. This is just one example of how an eCommerce Automation tool can simplify and improve your business processes.
eCommerce Automation enables you to manage your business more professionally while easing burdens. It lets you devote your time where it truly matters and offers the human touch where needed.
The Best-Automated Marketing Tools to Use
A few great automation tools can take your eCommerce store to another level of success. Most of these tools charge you a monthly, annual one-time fee but are worth your money. Here are a few eCommerce Automation tools you can consider using:
1) Autoresponders
Automatically send out follow-up emails based on specific actions taken by visitors. For example, after someone buys something on your online store, you can send them thank-you emails or offer a discount code for their next purchase.
2) Dynamic Content
Allow customers to choose options such as size or color and automatically show them what those choices look like in real-time so they can make their selections faster than ever.
3) Email Marketing
Send highly targeted emails to subscribers who have expressed interest in your products or services.
4) Social Media Marketing
Use social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest to market your products directly to consumers who may be interested in what you have to offer.
5) Mobile App Integrations
Integrate with mobile apps that let users scan barcodes on products with their phones and add items directly into their shopping carts.
6) Product Reviews
Let shoppers leave product reviews directly on your site so other shoppers can learn more about what they’re buying.
7) Sales Tracking
Track how many people buy each item and which promotions drive more traffic to your site, so you know which ones are working best for you.
8) Voice Search Optimization
Make sure your website is optimized for voice search, allowing people to find what they want without typing anything.
9) Website Analytics
Track everything from where your traffic comes from to how long people stay on your site.
10) Website Builder
Choose from hundreds of templates designed specifically for e-commerce stores, so you don’t need technical skills to build a professional-looking online storefront.
Also Read: 9 Free Business Tools for Startups and Entrepreneurs for Growth
Steps of the Marketing Automation Process
You don’t just have to handle customer service when you run an eCommerce business. Marketing is another major responsibility you have to take care of. You can use the following five steps to do that without getting overwhelmed.
Step 1
Create a campaign using your email provider’s automation tool. This step is as simple as setting up a series of automated emails for each transaction your customers may make, for example, sending out a receipt or shipping confirmation email when someone buys something from your store.
Step 2
Set up a rule so that if someone opens one of those emails, they automatically receive more information about your company. For example, if they open their receipt email, they’re sent more information about how to return an item if they aren’t satisfied with it.
Step 3
Let people know what you’ve done after you’ve followed steps 1 and 2. Let them know what has happened in their inbox! That way, everyone knows where to go if you want to learn about what you did.
Step 4
Ask for feedback and learn If there are any problems with your new automated system and fix them as early as possible. If not, tweak your process until it works perfectly. Use surveys to find out whether your customers understand what you’re doing and whether they think it helps them.
Step 5
Keep testing every day! Thousands of businesses send their customers emails asking for reviews on platforms like Yelp or Google+. But how many businesses follow up on those reviews? Not many! And yet there’s no better way to improve your business than by listening to what people say about you online. So why not automate that too?
All you need to do is log into your review platform once every few days and leave a comment thanking customers for taking the time to leave feedback.
How to Start Your eCommerce Automation Journey?
Different software handles different types of automation in eCommerce businesses. There is software for almost every task, from shipping carts to sending confirmation emails and prompting customers to share reviews. You can hire an eCommerce development company to include several built-in automation features developed to meet the needs of your business.
Automating Workflows
Workflow automation tools can handle your business’s administrative and organizational tasks. These tools assist you with daily tasks such as inventory control, customer management, & optimizing your marketing strategies.
Automation Rules
A robust and versatile feature, automation rules set up automated actions when a customer’s order meets certain conditions. These rules can be applied to transactions and customer records in various ways.
Add customers to a pre-defined Customer Group when they buy a particular product, such as a membership plan that gets them access to a premium group with special offers.
Flag all orders of a certain status with a specific color in the order management interface to quickly differentiate between order statuses.
Set all orders from a specific customer group to shoot a particular email autoresponder campaign.
Put multiple automation tasks under one rule, so they are all triggered by the same event.
Automating the process of changing the status for orders containing a specific product, using a certain shipping or payment method, coming from a particular distributor – takes away one less responsibility for you to think about.
Send a specific email to customers who register on or subscribe to your eCommerce website under a particular Customer Group, such as. “businesses” and “individuals,” so you can easily manage both B2B and B2C.
Add customers automatically to a group based on the price range of their order, with the ability to sort a minimum and maximum amount rather than a specific price. You can add customers who spend $50-$200 to Group 1 and customers who spend $200.01-$500 to Group 2.
These are some valuable ways you can use Automation Rules to streamline otherwise time-consuming and confusing work.
With eCommerce Automation at your disposal, performing manual tasks like grouping customers, adding them to email campaign lists, browsing through orders, and changing status under exceptional circumstances is unnecessary. The technology can also develop a highly personalized marketing strategy and set automation rules to manage different customer segmentation and order management.
SmartCategories
SmartCategories are auto-generated product groups that automatically populate based on specific parameters. It saves time by letting you consolidate your various product categories into one convenient location while maintaining the integrity of your current organizational structure.
For example, using SmartCategories to show all products on sale at once makes shopping much quicker – without you needing to create a new category or remove other ones so people don’t miss out during a limited window of opportunity.
You can also use smart categories to let shoppers browse all new products or products on sale or have free shipping.
Newsletter SmartLists
This step in the workflow automatically groups your customers and mailing list subscribers based on customizable criteria, providing an effortless way to put together different newsletters for specific subgroups. With a few clicks in the dashboard of your automated software, you can set up dynamic lists that account for customer order status, location, purchase date, signup date, product cost, and all sorts of factors.
When someone satisfies the set conditions for inclusion on one of these lists – which are already configured out of the box, thanks to some handy automation – they’re automatically added or removed from them. And if required, you can edit those handy SQL statements controlling all this automation yourself!
Scheduled Exports
eCommerce Automation allows you to export your store’s data into a CSV file format, including customers, orders, products, reward points, categories, pricing, and more. Some eCommerce businesses require regular CSVs for various purposes, such as accounting. You can hire eCommerce developers to simplify the process of exporting files sent automatically to an email address or FTP server of your choice when scheduled.
When configuring CSV exports, you can choose from different data types to export, specify the filename, decide who receives it via email or FTP, set the frequency for exporting and saving the file, and more.
Automated Fraud Alerts
When you sell online, it is in your best interest to protect your business against fraud. And using automation software can help you save time while increasing security.
With automated fraud alerts on your e-commerce site or shopping cart platform, you can keep an eye out for suspicious activities. Find a tool for real-time alerts and receive a notification whenever customers make credit card payments from countries with a high level of risk. The real-time warning gives eCommerce business owners enough time to determine whether a purchase is legitimate or fraudulent before any irreversible damage is done.
This service also comes with customizable settings, allowing users to choose how they want their information delivered—by email, text message, or both. You can also set up automatic rules based on your customers’ purchasing history. If they’re known for making low-value purchases from different locations over a short period of time. In that case, their information could be sent directly to a folder where you could personally check them out.
These services aren’t limited only to payment methods; similar options exist for shipping addresses as well—an essential feature if you’ve noticed orders coming in from addresses outside your shipping area.
On a Final Note
eCommerce Automation offers a seamless experience for your customers. It gives you full control over every aspect of your online store without any hassles from programming.
You can use this technology to set up comprehensive sales promotions, discounts, or even new products with little or no effort. Plus, it saves you time so that you have more of it to spend with your family! Overall, having an automated system allows you to focus on what matters most – ensuring that customers get exactly what they want when they want.
When running a business, online automation can only benefit you; once it’s up and running, managing an online store becomes much more manageable!
Also Read: Benefits of Automated Testing in Application Development
Frequently Asked Questions
How Do I Begin Using eCommerce Automation?
You can build your online store with PixelCrayons, one of India’s leading eCommerce Automation development companies. With features like automation, autoresponders, back-in-stock notifications, and more – built into the application – you can significantly save time from day one. You can expand your automation capabilities by integrating FraudWatch, MailChimp, Zapier, and other tools and apps.
What kinds of eCommerce Automation tools can I use for my business?
There are multiple eCommerce Automation tools available on the market today. The most popular ones are:
Shopify: A platform that allows businesses to create and manage their own online stores.
Bigcommerce: This platform provides businesses with everything they need to create and operate an online store.
WooCommerce: A plugin for WordPress that turns a WordPress site into a fully functioning eCommerce store.
What are the Benefits of Using Automation Tools for My Business?
Benefits of using automation tools for eCommerce businesses include:
- Increased efficiency: Automation can help businesses save time by automating tasks that would otherwise be done manually.
- Improved accuracy: Automating tasks can help reduce errors and improve accuracy by ensuring that tasks are completed the first time correctly.
- Increased sales: Automation can help businesses boost their sales by making it easier for customers to find and purchase products.
- Improved customer service: Automation can help businesses improve customer service by providing customers with faster and more accurate responses to their inquiries.
If you have an interest in using automation tools for your eCommerce business, be sure to hire eCommerce developers who have experience in using these tools. Alternatively, you can work with an eCommerce development company. It will provide you with the resources and expertise you need to start your business.
