“ Your XXXX is out for delivery.”
How many of the above messages have crowded your inbox ever since the stay-at-home restrictions are being imposed on-and-off ?
We didn’t count either, but clearly the number will outnumber any other type of regular notifications - the reason why Forbes quoted that COVID-19 has “accelerated E-Commerce Growth ‘4 To 6 Years’ “ !
That was about the numbers standing by ecommerce automation, let’s get the reasons right with the basic funda & glance through the ‘compelling reasons’ getting all the buzz around it !
Know eCommerce Automation
Business growth is synonymous to spike in demands, increased complexity, and an array of repetitive tasks but often, the management interprets the scenario wrong and opts for workforce expansion to get the enterprise going through this transformation. However, the widening gap between increase in employee headcount and hardly-any-considerable improvement in execution time, accuracy and productivity ( you can simply read, a terrible bottom-line ! ) screams aloud the dire need to pace up the process cycle & generate quality outcomes with maximized accuracy. That’s exactly when ecommerce automation comes into the play, saving the business growth curve from going flat while adding up to efficiency and effectiveness.
Put simply, Ecommerce automation is a suite of software which can be perceived as a digital driving force behind the end-to-end business processes of an ecommerce enterprise, which were previously run manually.
(Why) Do You Need eCommerce Automation?
Time surely remains one of your most valuable resources – but clearly not the only one, with factors like customer experience, sales, operational cost and more competing for it. From keeping an eye on product availability aligned with demand, updating status as confirmed / shipped / delivered / failed delivery.., payment management, accurate package calculation... all these with marketing & advertisement, process upgrade based on reviews & feedback.. (oh, did I miss proactive customer support ?).. plus a lot more, like confusing pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, keep the ecommerce masterminds up at night.
If you can’t help but nod a ‘YES’ at minimum 3 of the following questions, you are about to make way to the silver bullet, taming the ever-demanding business processes.
- Is uncontrollable sales volume taking a major toll on the team’s motivation?
- Is shipping out a single order taking forever because of essential info scattered across too many systems and tools?
- Have inventory updates started taking as much time as it takes to find a needle from a haystack (still having errors, bringing the process to a standstill) ?
- Are data silos barring you from getting those inputs right?
- Fixing customer’s issues stressing your sales team so bad that mugs of coffee are failing to help?
- Is mismanaged order processing leading to lost selling opportunity?
You have checked more than 3 already, I bet !
How do we know, you ask? Because, in these testing times, people turning to e-commerce has not been just a matter of choice anymore - it’s more of a mandate. So unless you are not running a mom and pop shop, considering the current rush in ecom, there are high chances that the above issues are pretty familiar to you by now & solving them is your trump card to the growth you have been diligently working for since so long !
Here’s how ecommerce automation will fix the puzzle for you !
- Time will be debited from the system’s day, not yours !
- Business processes will befriend speed & break-up with delay
- ERP & POS will take over your task of inventory calculation
- No more breaking a sweat to keep the customers happy!
- Fewer employees = Lesser maintenance cost
- No more holding off core business decisions to attend the repetitive tasks
- Do I really need to mention skyrocketing sales ?
- Marketing will be a cakewalk with automated emails and pre-`set social media campaigns
Automated Workflow - The Areas of Ecommerce To Focus On
Without being able to properly deploy, knowing about the benefits of ecommerce automation is only of as much use as it is to know about the features of an ultra modern bicycle when you don’t know how to ride one - absolutely a waste !
Thus, to ensure you plan your workflow automation like a pro, without missing out on a single aspect in your own unique ecommerce business, presenting a clear picture of exactly where all you have potential automation opportunities hiding in your business ( oh btw we’ve got all the nooks & corners covered too ) !
Customer experience and support
The ecommerce industry has got niche firms swarming in greater numbers lately and while the quantitative increase is providing the customers’ convenience in abundance, it’s also taking the ‘forever there’ competition to a level way higher for the driving forces behind the businesses. Amidst this struggle of standing out from the rest, the smarter lot is targeting the aspect that if tuned right, can keep them ahead in the race for a good long time - we’re talking about customer experience (CX). Let’s put up the smart (and a lot more effective!) automation tricks to improve CX for a quick win :
- Know your brand loyalists & reward them with special discounts
- Reach out to all your customers at one go through a well-thought mass email marketing plan
- Auto feedback collection & follow-up messaging to assure your customer’s that you’re listening!
- Acknowledge negative reviews through NLP hate word detection and let the customers feel you’re genuine
- Opt for segment marketing, grouping your customers broadly based on their buying preferences to provide crisp recommendations
Marketing
An exceptional CX implementation is crucial to retain the existing clientele - but what if you don’t have a solid acquisition strategy in place? Simple, you can’t magnet in the customers diverging away from your business towards the ocean of choices available in the market. It’s NOT too late to get the strategy right, if you automate :
- Social media campaign scheduling for a wider reach
- Collecting data related to customer’s buying behaviour & sending them tailored content to stay in touch
Purchase order & inventory management
Let’s start with a situation - you have 10 mi to travel and you have a car, would you still choose to walk all the way?
That’s exactly why there’s no valid reason why you shouldn’t automate the “determine stock - compare suppliers’ pricing - select the one with least price and best quality - place order..” saga ! Don’t forget to automate :
- Order to stock mapping
- ‘Ready to dispatch’ tagging
- Tasks associated with warehouse management
- Determine and modify inventory count
- Triggering purchase order when stock goes below a predetermined level
Vendor and supplier onboarding
Change is the only constant in the business world and the need to switch to a different vendor when a specific requirement arises or get a new supplier onboard is no exception. Since this happens to be a non-recurring activity, recruiting an employee full time into it doesn’t sound right and at the same time, allocating one for the same in need will detrack his/ her primary tasks off the deadlines. An online supplier portal is the saviour you have been seeking to solve the dilemma - making share and receipt of all essential information a matter of a few clicks and taps, could it be any faster, more accurate, and productivity-boosting ?
Order management
Order management is a gold-mine for ecommerce automation, with a good load of tasks to be taken over by the system to add to efficiency & cost-saving. From accepting orders 24X7, payment acceptance & confirmation, delivery date estimation, post purchase reviews & feedback and more, by sticking to manual execution, you only compromise your time, resources & operational costs.
Sales
Remember how computers made our lives easier & then there was no going back? Automated workflow is going to be that key to convenience for the businesses from almost every industry slowly (& faster for ecommerce with COVID around) ! Let the system take care of :
Track & follow-up with every potential call so you don’t miss a profitable opportunity because of a missed follow-up
Logging customer details, sales call scheduling - browsing through sales agents’ availability, and transferring the call to one of the sales agents free at that moment.
Tips From Binaryfolks For Foolproof Ecommerce Automation
There’s always a right (and numerous wrong) way of doing almost everything & ecommerce automation comes under the same squad.
With the power to make a big difference to your business inside out, in terms of every impacting factor from ‘efficiency’ to ‘effectiveness’, ecommerce marketing automation might look like it is a bridge too far - but surprisingly, it’s no big ask !
Back to the point : how to integrate workflow automation into your ecommerce operations?
Here’s how !
- You know where your precious human resource is wasted over redundant tasks, so make a detailed list of all such repetitive tasks across your business.
- Once you have the pain points documented, think of the extent to which you want the solutions to reflect the subsequent effects in your business, by defining your immediate business goals clearly.
- Selecting the software development vendor has a crucial role to play when it comes to ecommerce automation. Like you shouldn’t go just by the glitter while getting gold, you shouldn’t settle for a software vendor going by their words too ! So make sure you only settle down for the right software development team.
- Outsource doesn’t mean outgrowing your ecommerce automation project till the time it’s entirely executed - unless you prioritize the development team’s convenience over yours ! So, break your projects into practically achievable, realistic milestones at the beginning & constantly communicate with your development partner, discussing every milestone after completion. Doing so won’t just save you from an unwanted surprise at the end, but also guarantee that you get what you wanted with every detail done your way.
Long Story Cut Short
It’s no hush-hush affair that lockdowns will be lifted in due course of time (like it has been lifted in some places already) after COVID-19 starts to affect less (or, at lesser extent, maybe!), but what about the millions of people who have been growing and nurturing new online purchasing habits? Hasn’t your family, too, replaced those routined mall trips with online shopping for possibly everything - from ‘grocery’ to ‘cosmetics’ , ‘electronics’ to ‘entertainment’..by now? These habits are certainly here to stay long after (read, permanently) the vaccine is out , all thanks to the ease & convenience of online shopping explored recently.
So, the competition isn’t getting easier anytime soon but you sure can lead it with ecommerce automation..wishing you could have a quick recap of the above discussion (and some more info that will help! ) ? Here it is :
- Reward your customers’ wish (lists) providing custom discount codes so that they extend the list, indirectly adding up to sales
- Incorporate TCA (Transaction Cost Analysis) module so no fraudulent order gets through your business
- Show your customers what they tend to buy (taking cue from their purchase history!) & see them buying it faster than they would do by browsing through the entire lot
- Minimize customer churn by analyzing what makes them fall off the radar, based on reviews and factors of the like and run streamlined incentive programs to glue them back
- Let the customers know when their searched product that was once out of stock, is now restocked, to increase number of positive experiences
- Categorize leads by channels from which they are captured & let them invite others to expand your customer base
