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An eCommerce automation workflow involves using software and technology to automate and streamline several processes and tasks on an online retail platform. Automation can include areas such as customer support, inventory management, payment and order processing, marketing, and data-driven decision-making for more growth opportunities.
ECommerce businesses can use automation software to make more precise, data-driven decisions. Let’s discuss the benefits of eCommerce automation, the different types of automation technologies, and the best platforms to consider.
Key Points
- An eCommerce automation workflow uses software to automate and streamline online retail tasks.
- Some benefits of eCommerce automation include reduced errors and operational costs and scalability with existing talent.
- eCommerce automation downsides include reduced human touch, high initial costs, and risk of over-reliance.
- The best eCommerce automation software platforms are MailChimp, Seon, ChannelApe, and Shopify Flow.
Table of Contents
eCommerce Automation Benefits
In the fast-paced world of eCommerce, leveraging automation technology can be a game-changer for businesses. This technology offers numerous advantages that can reduce costs, enhance efficiency, and more.
Here are the top five benefits of eCommerce automation to consider:
- Decreased number of errors
- Scale with existing talent
- Reduce costs, increase revenue
- Improve employee happiness and value
- Happier customers
1. Decreased Number of Errors
Repetitive, high-volume tasks in eCommerce management hamper efficiency and increase the likelihood of errors. Automation eliminates this risk by ensuring consistent accuracy without the strain of manual efforts. Automated processes operate flawlessly without fatigue or errors, which helps enhance overall operational reliability.
2. Scale With Existing Talent
eCommerce automation allows businesses to optimize workflows and processes, facilitating growth without significant team expansion. This enables you to maintain a lean budget by reducing the need for additional staff. Savings from automation can be reallocated to other business areas, helping you thrive even during labor shortages.
3. Reduce Costs, Increase Revenue
Automation positively impacts the bottom line by enhancing efficiency and keeping costs low. It drives more sales through retargeting and cart abandonment workflows, while fulfillment automation ensures constant stock monitoring. This reduces shortages and keeps customers satisfied. Additionally, automated delivery tracking and notifications improve customer retention and support.
4. Improve Employee Happiness and Value
Automation of repetitive tasks such as inventory checks, out-of-stock notifications, and shipping label generation can significantly enhance employee efficiency. Such capability allows employees to focus on more meaningful, critical-thinking tasks, making them feel more valued and impactful. Consequently, job satisfaction and overall workplace morale improve.
5. Happier Customers
Customer support automation significantly raises customer satisfaction by providing fast and accurate responses. Automated shipping notices, order confirmations, fulfillment notifications, and consistent updates all help make a seamless customer experience. These enhancements not only meet but exceed customer expectations, fostering loyalty and repeat business.
eCommerce Automation Downsides
While eCommerce automation brings numerous advantages, this technology also has downsides. Understanding these potential drawbacks is crucial for businesses looking to integrate such automation into their operations.
Here are some key disadvantages of eCommerce automation:
1. Reduced Personal Touch
Automation can sometimes reduce the human touch that customers appreciate. Automated responses and processes can feel impersonal, potentially alienating customers who value human interaction. Balancing automation with personalized customer service is essential to maintain a positive customer experience.
2. High Initial Costs
Implementing eCommerce automation can require a significant upfront investment. The costs of purchasing software, customizing it to fit your business needs, and training staff can be substantial. For small businesses or startups, these expenses might outweigh the immediate benefits and make it challenging to proceed with automation.
3. Risk of Over-Reliance
Relying too heavily on automation can create vulnerabilities. If the automated system fails or experiences a glitch, it can disrupt the entire operation. Over-reliance on automation might also lead to complacency where employees become less engaged in monitoring and managing processes manually.
4. Complexity and Maintenance
Automated systems can be complex to set up and manage. They often require ongoing maintenance and updates to function correctly. This complexity can lead to increased dependency on technical support and cause disruptions if issues arise.
Types of eCommerce Automation
The following are the types of eCommerce automation and processes you can streamline with this technology.
- Inventory management
- Fraud management
- Marketing automation software
- Customer support
- Fulfillment
- Accounting
- Personalization of the customer journey
- Advertising
1. Inventory Management
One of the most common use cases of eCommerce automation is inventory management. For example, automation can help you hide your out-of-stock goods until they become available again.
Several tools will monitor your retail network and inventory levels. In most cases, you can also set up automated alerts to signal when you might need to restock.
2. Fraud Management
Fraud management tools automatically scan and identify high-risk orders, pausing them for further investigation. These tools use machine learning models and complex vectors to identify anomalies and unusual patterns in large datasets.
As the algorithms evolve, the software becomes more accurate, reducing fraud risk. For example, an eCommerce platform might flag orders with mismatched billing and shipping addresses for review.
3. Marketing Automation Software
Automated marketing workflows help send targeted emails, apply discounts, and publish new content. They also address cart abandonment by sending reminders to users who still have items in their carts.
For instance, an eCommerce store can use automation to send promos to customers who gave up on their carts and encourage them to complete their purchases. This strategy can significantly improve marketing effectiveness and revenue.
4. Customer Support
Customer support automation efficiently manages incoming complaints and questions, creating priority lists and suggesting FAQ responses. Chatbots can handle multiple tasks, providing quick answers and support to customers.
One example is a chatbot on an eCommerce site that assists with order tracking and common inquiries, which helps lower the workload on human support agents and enhance customer experience.
5. Fulfillment
Automated fulfillment workflows send trigger texts and emails to inform customers about order status and product availability. These notifications keep customers updated and satisfied.
A great example is an automated system that notifies customers when their order has shipped, enhancing transparency and trust. Fulfillment software can also streamline supply chain processes while speeding up order picking and shipping.
6. Accounting
Accounting processes like reconciliation and invoicing can be automated with the right tools. Integrating automation with shipping and inventory software allows for seamless expense monitoring.
An ideal example is an eCommerce platform that automatically generates invoices and tracks expenses to reduce manual work and minimize errors. This integration ensures accurate and timely financial management.
7. Personalization of the Customer Journey
Automation helps retailers meet modern demands by personalizing the customer journey. With multiple users accessing different devices and profiles, automated systems can create tailored funnels for each user, targeting them with relevant offers or ads.
A good example is segmenting your audience according to their preferences, so you can send personalized emails or product recommendations. This approach increases conversions and enhances customer satisfaction by providing a customized shopping experience.
8. Advertising
Automated advertising tools enable businesses to create optimized ad campaigns and monitor key metrics like ad spend, cost-per-click, and click-through rates. These tools can automatically adjust bids based on keyword performance.
An excellent example is a tool that generates multiple ad copy variations based on existing ads. This automation streamlines the advertising process, which makes it more effective and less time-consuming.
4 Best eCommerce Automation Software
When it comes to eCommerce automation, several outstanding platforms can simplify and enhance your operations. Here are four of the best eCommerce automation software to improve your organization’s processes:
1. Mailchimp
Mailchimp offers an all-in-one approach for retailers and marketers. Offering automation features such as customer journey builders, retargeting options, and automatic email personalization, Mailchimp allows you to automate the aspects of your business that help you increase your ROI. It also covers marketing essentials (A/B testing, campaign management), content creation, audience management, and analytics.
Pros:
- A free basic plan under 500 subscribers/1,000 emails
- Comprehensive reporting
- Great Integrations/wide scope of features
Cons:
- Email scheduling is not included with the free plan
- Extra charges for inactive subscribers
- More elaborate plans are high-cost
Pricing:
- Free for 500 contacts
- Essentials: $13/month
- Standard: $20/month
- Premium: $350/month
2. SEON
SEON is a comprehensive fraud prevention system that automatically identifies high-risk orders. The tool examines digital footprint data and social signals to prevent potentially fraudulent transactions. Using machine learning and AI, SEON can adapt to any business to evaluate risks while running in the background.
Pros:
- Flexible, pay-as-you-go pricing options
- 30-day free trial
- Intuitive UI
Cons:
- Unclear documentation
- The Base package comes with limited help
Pricing:
- Base package: Free
- Starter pack: $599/month
- Professional: Contact for custom plans with flexible pricing.
3. ChannelApe
ChannelApe automates both shipping needs and warehouse management in one system. The software is highly customizable and comes with features like carrier rate shopping, order tagging, distributed order management, and more. It’s a complete fulfillment software that allows you to scale your operations locally and worldwide.
Pros:
- Completely automates inventory
- Minimal user input is required
- Create business rules easily
Cons:
- UI can get confusing
- Requires a steeper learning curve
- Limited reporting features
Pricing:
The basic plan starts at $450 per month.
4. Shopify Flow
A dedicated add-on for Shopify, Shopify Flow enables business owners to automate different workflows through a single interface. The automated features include automated email campaigns, customer tracking and tagging, order cancelations, review requests, inventory management, gift and discount incorporation, and more.
Pros:
- Available for basic plan users as well
- Easy drag-and-drop editor
- Offer pre-built eCommerce templates
Cons:
- Limited integration
- English version only
- Can be laggy
Pricing:
Free to use for all Shopify users.
eCommerce Automation Conclusion
eCommerce automation offers many benefits by taking over mundane, repetitive tasks, reducing costs, and allowing you to scale. These workflows enable both business owners and their staff to focus on more consequential problems, which fosters business growth.
Finding the right tools might be time-consuming and requires thorough research. However, once you identify your main pain points and goals, opting for the right application becomes much easier. Hopefully, this guide has helped you identify the areas where your business could benefit from eCommerce automation. If you need more help, consider consulting with top marketing automation consultants.
eCommerce Automation FAQs
1. What is online business automation?
Online business automation means using technology to perform repetitive tasks and processes automatically, thus improving efficiency, keeping costs lower, and enabling employees to prioritize more important tasks.
2. Can you automate everything in an eCommerce store?
No, you can’t automate every aspect of your online store, but it’s slowly becoming a reality. Almost every aspect of an online business can be automated, from logistics and marketing to customer service and support.
3. Do you lose control after automation?
No. After automating certain processes, the site owner may gain more precise insight into how their workflows operate and detect possible weaknesses before they become major issues.
Also, most strategic aspects will still require human intervention, meaning that automation is merely a complementary aid that enables retailers to make smarter business decisions to improve customer satisfaction and their marketing efforts.
