Ecommerce Automation: Way to Automate Ecommerce Business

An eCommerce venture involves several tasks to run the business and is not limited to order fulfillment. There are many other aspects of eCommerce business like accounting, customer service, website development, and many others. Most eCommerce sellers do all these tasks manually which takes more time and resources. This is where eCommerce automation comes into the picture. It is a method to automate all these processes that provide multiple benefits to sellers. It helps them save time, cut costs, and generate higher revenue.

In this blog, we will take a look at the key benefits of eCommerce automation that supercharges growth and profits.

What is eCommerce Automation?  : Speed Up eCommerce Journey

eCommerce automation is the process of automating the various aspects of eCommerce. These include inventory management, order management, order fulfillment, shipping and much more. Manual order processing consumes a huge amount of time of the sellers and also makes it full of errors. To overcome these issues, eCommerce automation comes as a solution that not only speeds up the eCommerce process but also make it more efficient.

Types of eCommerce Automation: Which Domains can be Automated? 

The first question that might arise in the seller’s mind is what can be automated in eCommerce as many processes are involved. To understand this, let us see, what are the types of eCommerce automation and which eCommerce tasks every seller should automate.

1. Make Order Processing Efficient with Automated Order Processing  

For eCommerce businesses, a large portion of the order management process is now automated. A lot of automation is likely take place without realizing it if you sell through a popular sales channel like Shopify or Amazon.

Here are a few instances:

• Automated online payment processing and order confirmation for customers
• Customers receive automated order status updates
• Automated creation of shipping labels and tracking numbers for delivery
• Chatbots driven by AI to handle routine consumer inquiries
• Automated offers for upselling and cross-selling based on consumer behavior‍
• Order management automation can facilitate dynamic fulfillment allocation for companies with numerous storage sites based on real-time stock levels, optimized route planning, and transportation costs.

2. Automated Inventory Management for Real-Time Stock Update

Inventory management is the backbone of order fulfillment as it helps eCommerce businesses to deliver on time. If the inventory is not kept in check, it leads to order failure which has dual disadvantages - one is financial as you lose a possible deal and the second is that it affects your brand image. This is why automating inventory management can be a good idea to manage the real-time inventory and provide correct stock information on the eCommerce portal.

3. Supply Chain Automation for Efficient Shipping Management

It is quite difficult to manage order shipping if it is done manually. In case, any e-commerce company is manually managing the shipping, it must be time-consuming and less efficient. Thus, supply chain automation helps in the following:

• Manage shipping efficiently as it takes less time.
• Predict optimized shipping routes while considering real-time traffic, weather, and fuel costs.
• Identify historical trends and predict demand.

4. Marketing Automation for Targeted Reach

What is better than marketing your products to expand the business and make the audience aware of the brands and products? It helps them sustain their online presence and reach the audience in multiple ways. Whether it's handling email marketing or deciphering digital platforms, manual marketing procedures take a lot of time. You may save a lot of time and personnel by incorporating automated procedures into marketing systems. This will also open up new possibilities and ideas for the business. The secret to success is getting the appropriate message to the client at the right time. Sending appropriate messages without upsetting customers is much easier with marketing automation.

5. Sales and Process Automation

Sales and promotions play an important role in increasing traffic and conversions. However, It can be time-consuming to schedule and manage them manually. Hence, if this process is automated, it may better target particular segments with promotions, timing, and discounts. In order to maximize earnings, they can also modify pricing based on market movements or stock levels.

• Use automation technologies to plan promotions.
• Use demand-driven dynamic pricing models.
• Automate email and social media campaigns.

6. Filter Frauds for No Loss

Did you know that the e-commerce industry lost 41 billion U.S. dollars globally in 2022 in online payment fraud? eCommerce frauds are increasing rapidly and causing more losses. It is not humanly possible to get away from these online frauds and hence, automated filtering of frauds is required. These frauds are not just in terms of finance but also in terms of fake orders which cause equal losses. Real-time transaction data processing becomes easier with automated fraud detection systems. This helps the systems to spot suspicious activity easily which reduces the likelihood of fraud, giving the company and clients more protection.

Here are some tips to prevent eCommerce fraud:

• Make use of sophisticated fraud detection tools.
• For the transaction, use multi-factor authentication.
• Keep updating security protocols regularly.

Fraud filtering is even more important for companies that handle high-risk purchases.  

7. Product Management Automation

It might be challenging to keep everything updated across all platforms when a new product is launched. Automation makes it easier to manage stocks, notify consumers, and update products on time. It allows you to focus on the launch plan while the system handles the monotonous work.

• Utilize project management software to monitor deadlines.
• Set up automated consumer alerts for new arrivals.

8. Accounting Automation

Managing accounts is an extremely boring and tedious task. Because of its calculative nature, it is highly susceptible to mistakes. However, even the slightest accounting error can cause a big loss to the e-commerce company. Therefore, automating the accounts is a practical strategy to avoid losses. It even makes the accounting process faster and more efficient.

9. Personalized Experience for Each Customer

Everyone loves a customized service experience catered to their personal requirements. However, if any eCommerce business is manually trying to connect with its customers, it won’t be able to connect to all of them. Even if it does, it would be difficult to provide a customized experience to all customers. According to Hubspot, consumers are impatient as 90% of consumers believe that immediate response is the most important aspect of customer service. Hence, automated customer service can help build stronger trust with customers.

How does eCommerce Automation work? How it Spells the Magic

eCommerce automation spells its magic works using specialized software to handle repetitive tasks. It helps streamline the workflows and improve efficiency for eCommerce stores. This process has 3 simple steps which is called the Trigger-Condition-Action (TCA) method, where: 

• ‍Trigger – An event that starts the automation‍
• Condition – A rule that determines if the action should happen‍
• Action – The automated task that takes place

Let us understand this with the help of an example!

Example: Cart Abandonment Email  

Trigger – A customer adds items to the cart but doesn’t complete the purchase within 30 minutes.

Condition – The cart value is above $50, and the customer has provided their email.

Action – An automated email is sent with a discount code to encourage the purchase.

This method can be used for order confirmations, stock alerts, customer segmentation, and more, making eCommerce operations smoother and more efficient

Benefits of eCommerce Automation to Ease Your Sales Journey

1. Saves Time

Automation is directly proportional to less time. The more the automation, the lesser the time taken to complete the process. Be it sales and promotions or marketing or even accounts, automation in all the fields saves time like a pro. This saved time can be utilized in other important business tasks like marketing and advertisement.

2. Lowers Operational Costs

Apart from saving time, automation reduces the operational costs as well. This helps businesses to increase profits and invest in other important domains.

3. Higher Revenue

When the process becomes efficient and the businesses focus more on growing rather than managing, it helps them generate more revenues. Hence, automation not only simplifies the process but even helps eCommerce businesses attain financial success.

4. Reduces Errors

Automation minimizes human errors that often happen because the eCommerce process is handled by manpower. It ultimately increases the efficiency of the entire eCommerce process.

5. Faster Order Delivery

With automation, it becomes easy to make an efficient management of all the orders. It helps in the strategic shipping of the orders which makes the order delivery fast.

6. Improves Customer Experience 

Timely delivery of the order is the most valued aspect of the customer satisfaction. Automation not only works in faster delivery to enhance customer experience, but it also helps resolve the customers’ queries faster. This way customer feels more connected which turns them loyal for a longer period.

7. Data Insights

When the whole eCommerce process is digitized, it comes with a lot of useful data. Automation helps in finding useful data insights that businesses can utilize to make informed decisions.

Leverage the Magic of eCommerce Automation

Automation is not merely a tool, it is a magical fuel that drives the vehicle of sales, order, inventory, accounting, shipping, and many others effortlessly in the eCommerce journey. eCommerce automation comes with benefits that save time and resources thus, helping eCommerce businesses to focus on growth and profitable ideas. Also, it helps eCommerce companies deliver orders faster and improve customer experience. If you are also looking for an eCommerce integration tool that helps you reap the benefits of eCommerce automation, MapMyChannel is here to assist you. With MapMyChannel, you can integrate the marketplace with robust ERP like NetSuite, efficient fulfillment channels like Amazon MCF, or even any other 3PL.

Any questions? Drop us an email or Contact Us, Our team of eCommerce fulfillment experts will assist you figure out the best solutions for your business.

So what are you waiting for? Start your automation journey today!

Till then.. Happy Selling!