Guide to Automate Your Ecommerce Website

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Ecommerce Automation 101: The Ultimate Guide to Automating Your Ecommerce Website

Your Ecommerce brand is growing every day. Your team is expanding. Your revenue is skyrocketing and more and more leads come your way. It means you have less and less time to take care of manual operations. Not to mention that there is no room for error when you grow.
This is why every company needs to include Ecommerce automation as part of its strategy. Every minute you waste leads to loss of productivity and stunted growth. With Ecommerce automation in place, you can streamline your business's repetitive tasks. But this way you have more time for other important tasks.

What Is Ecommerce Automation?

Ecommerce automation is software built to complete everyday mundane tasks for you. It converts processes within your business to automated tasks. The automation software executes tasks as and when needed. But without any manual support.

What Is the Primary Purpose of Ecommerce Automation?

You can convert all the manual, repetitive tasks into self-fulfilling, automated tasks. Every business wishes to get rid of intense workload and complex processes. The perfect solution for this, the need and word of the hour, is Ecommerce automation.

Few Examples of Ecommerce Automation:

Sending an email to a customer who purchases for the first time from your store.
Sending newsletter at regular intervals with relevant product update
Order confirmation emails with all the necessary order details
Emails requesting product reviews and feedback
An abandoned cart email to remind customers of what they had left in their shopping cart
Updating credit card information along with shipping address

These are a few of the many repetitive tasks that you can automate to cut downtime and cost.

How Ecommerce Automation Works?

Smart platforms drive Ecommerce automation. They design these platforms to adjust to the actions, input, or feedback of website users. At the heart of any of these smart platforms is artificial intelligence (AI). And AI can mimic human actions and thought processes to a certain degree.
A simple AI performs basic automation with a list of criteria. These act as triggers after a preset period following a customer's action.
Consider a chatbot that you see as the first thing when you visit an Ecommerce store. They simulate a live chat with a representative of the business. Chatbots can answer some questions and direct the customer to the next steps. You have to feed in the predefined criteria.

Benefits of Ecommerce Automation

Ecommerce automation provides many benefits to your Ecommerce business, such as

It allows you to do tasks that are difficult to do in manual operations.
It helps with tasks that involve constant monitoring and collecting information.
It acts immediately, looking for specific parameters and follows a particular procedure.
It requires no help once everything is set up. That means more time for employees.
It helps you focus on growing your business and engaging your customers.
It offers consistency and accuracy at the best level.
It avoids any manual errors resulting in more efficiency.

How to Use Automation for Your Ecommerce Website?

Ecommerce websites can use automation in several ways. There is no hard and fast rule when it comes to Ecommerce automation. Many Ecommerce automation software comes with exciting features. They can be both built-in and customizable (We'll learn more about it in the next section).
Here are a few ways to use automation for your Ecommerce website, to begin with.

Workflow Automation

Automation tools with workflow features help you manage administrative and organizational tasks. Let's see more about how to automate different tasks for your business.

Ecommerce Automation in Customer Experience and Support

Customer Experience is a strong differentiator for Ecommerce businesses trying to stand out. With automation, you can improve interactions throughout the customer journey. It is a great way to boost loyalty.
Check out these five exciting ideas for workflow automation to improve Customer Experience.

1. Reward Your Most Engaged Customers

Customer Retention is the key to any successful business. We will let you know one overlooked fact. It isn't easy to sell to a new customer compared to an existing customer.
The best way to boost retention is by rewarding customers for their loyalty. Automation helps you to track those customers and reward them at the right time.
For example, you can set automation rules to target customers. Focus on the ones who have purchased more than $300 from you. Then automatically send a discount code by email to customers who've spent over $300.

2. Sync Customers to Your Email List

Email marketing is the best marketing tool any day. Targeted email campaigns help you generate more sales. Use Ecommerce automation to sync an email client with your CRM system. This not only helps you with growing your email list but also with segmentation later.
By doing this, you can send targeted marketing material based on consumer's interests. Relevant content increases the conversion rate from prospect to customer. For example, a customer has purchased more under the 'Kids' category. You can send them emails relevant to offers on these products and use DIY kits to engage kids.

3. Garner Feedback After Every Sale

Learning your customers' perception of your products is crucial. The best way to gather customer feedback is by asking them. How will you collect feedback when people make so many purchases on your website?
Ecommerce automation streamlines this process for you. By automating your workflow, you can send follow-up emails to collect feedback automatically. Nowadays, customers are quick to turn to social media to register their displeasure. So, you should collect feedback and work on them to enhance your brand's reputation.

4. Don’t Miss out on Negative Reviews

Customers leave negative reviews more than positive reviews. It’s human nature to register dissatisfaction rather than contentment. You must not miss out on such reviews. And also, these reviews need an immediate response as damage control.
Ecommerce automation helps you here as well. It ensures no negative review will slip through the cracks.
For example, you can set up an automation rule for the software to identify reviews with two stars or fewer. The automation software will detect these reviews immediately. And also, will refer it to a customer service team member for issue resolution.

5. Smart Segmentation for Customers Based on Purchase Behavior

Smart segmentation is essential for personalization. And personalization is the key to tailoring the customer experience. You need to track customer behavior to create experiences that customers love. Segmenting your list helps you here.
Ecommerce automation helps you with smart segmentation. It enables you to segment based on different characteristics. You can segment them by age, gender, or order value, for example. After segmentation, automation helps you with offering tailored services to these customers.

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Ecommerce Automation in Marketing

Customer experience is not about customer retention but also acquisition. You need to win new customers to grow and flourish. Customer acquisition is the goal of any brand’s marketing. Here are a few ways in which you can use Ecommerce automation for marketing.

1. Automatic Scheduling of Social Media Posts

Social media is the fast-growing ecommerce marketing channel. The total number of global users of social networks is skyrocketing every day. Research reveals 54% of social media users use social media platforms for shopping.
Every Ecommerce brand needs to invest time and attention in social media marketing. But effective social media marketing is an ongoing process and a challenging one too. But it is impossible to schedule posts manually all the time. It is not efficient as well.
Ecommerce automation helps you create posts en masse. And then you can schedule them well in advance.

2. Nurture Leads Constantly

A customer’s journey has many touchpoints. Not every customer will buy on the first visit. This is why you have to engage and nurture them constantly. Along the process, they will end up becoming your customers.
Ecommerce automation helps effectively in lead nurturing. All you need is their contact details and permission to reach out.
Automated lead nurturing is like customer retention via email. With automation, it is easy to set up a process to send constant updates to customers. You can send helpful, persuasive content at the right time to keep them engaged. Collect real-time data on customer behavior and include what they prefer.

Ecommerce Automation in Order Management

Order management is a complex process. It is one of the processes where your reputation is at stake too. Order management overlaps project management, customer service, and many other areas. Automating these processes end-to-end will save you time. It will also help you avoid errors.

1. Automating Purchase Orders

Keeping your inventory stock balanced is challenging. You need to keep track of the stocks. Place an order when they are about to run out of stock and repeat the same. That means flipping between stock sheets, emails, and other documents.
But with Ecommerce automation, order purchase is smooth and effortless. Set up rules with your automation software.
For example, your stock for cartridges hit a predetermined level. This is the rule you have set up. Then the automation software generates the order automatically.
You have also created rules about first-choice suppliers for different items. So, the automation software places the order with the specific supplier without friction. Simple!

2. Automating the Generation of Shipping Labels

Dispatch and delivery are very important. There is no room for errors when it comes to these two. A worker handling so many orders will make mistakes on a shipping label. It could be an address or contact number or anything. But the expense is huge.
Ecommerce automation helps you streamline this part of your business. By doing this, it also becomes faster and more efficient. You can print accurate shipping labels in just one click. The automation software will generate the tracking number for deliveries automatically.

3. Automated Reminders for Reorder

You should not be happy with your customer’s single buy. Upselling is essential to increase your bottom line. And you can automate this process of reminding your customers.
All you need to do is study their purchase pattern. Once you set it up, the automation software will send reminder emails at the right time. You can even go a step ahead and offer them discounts for reordering.

4. Recovering Abandoned Carts Using Abandoned Cart Emails

Not all your visitors complete their checkout process. Shopping cart abandonment is a plague that you should eradicate at the nib. Nearly 70% of shopping carts get abandoned, according to Baymard’s study. Abandoned carts mean lost revenue for you.
The best way to recover abandoned carts is by sending abandoned cart emails. You can set up an Ecommerce automation with an abandoned cart email sequence.
For example, recover these carts by sending an abandoned cart email sequence. This usually includes reminder emails. The first one will go out one hour after cart abandonment. This email includes the product image to jog their memory.
The second one goes out one day after it, along with a coupon code. And the third one goes out two days later, including a message that conveys urgency.

Ecommerce Automation in Sales

The sales team works on so many clients, including inbound and outbound strategies. Automating workflows for your sales team will make their lives easier.

1. Everyday Repetitive Sales Tasks

A salesperson should be focusing on running down leads and closing deals. But this happens only in an ideal workplace. More often, salespeople get stuck with repetitive tasks. These are also time-consuming problems that hinder their performance.
Ecommerce automation will cut down the time spent on these mundane tasks. Automated workflows in CRM systems will streamline processes. For example, a salesperson receives an inbound request. The automation tool will instantly log their details. As a next step, it will schedule a sales call and allocate that call to a sales agent.

2. Dealing with Follow-Ups Is No More a Big Deal

Completing a sale is a lot of work. Salespeople have to follow up with the lead many times. If you fail to follow up at the right time, you might lose a potential customer.
Automation is an excellent way to streamline this. It will ensure these crucial follow-ups happen at the right time. You can mark the status of different prospects in the automation tool. For example, if you feel prospect A is not needed, you can mark them as lost.
At the same time, prospect B might be between poor and good. You can automate this process and ensure a follow-up email reaches them. This can act as the spark that helps you close a deal.

3. Track Your Calls with Prospects Without Delay

Your sales team might even make hundreds of calls in a day. Track every call for reference. Ecommerce automation helps you in a huge way here.
You can set up processes with an automation tool. Every salesperson has to log in with all call details and data. This will become a database for future reference. In the next step, even another salesperson does not have to search for the details. By automating these processes, you can avoid the missteps that may lose them a deal.

Best Ecommerce Automation Tools in the Web

We are aware of the different ways in which you can automate your Ecommerce website. But what's the next step? It is to find the right Ecommerce automation tool. There are so many tools out there. We have curated the best seven tools based on:

Features
Pricing
Customer Support
Scope for Growth

Ecommerce Automation Tool #1: Klaviyo

Klaviyo is a comprehensive marketing automation platform for Ecommerce companies. Klaviyo's main goal is to "increase lifetime customer value with better marketing."