What is eCommerce Automation? Its Benefits and 6 Best Strategies

Automating the various repetitive tasks involved in running an e-commerce business can help drive results cost-effectively and without getting drained.

This will help them stay abreast of the current digital marketing trends, beat the competition, and enjoy growth. That’s why e-stores that haven’t adopted eCommerce automation strategies should do so at the earliest. 

This post will discuss what eCommerce automation is, and its benefits, followed by the 6 best eCommerce automation strategies to kick start business growth. 

What is eCommerce Automation?

eCommerce automation is the use of technology to help execute different tasks like inventory management, marketing, market segmentation, personalization, product order management, handling shipping, account keeping, and more involved in running an e-commerce store.

Ecommerce marketing strategies refer to the combination of plans your e-store employs to achieve its business goals and enhance its market position. There are different types of strategies you can choose and blend together to accomplish your objectives effectively. 

Benefits of Ecommerce Automation

Automating your e-commerce store’s activities can bring you several benefits. The best of those are discussed below. 

1. Eliminates manual data entry

Ecommerce stores have to enter various data like shipping address, order number, etc. manually. This is not only a hectic and time-consuming task but also an error-prone one.

By automating data entry, e-stores can greatly reduce the time spent on data entry. This can leave your employees with more time to focus on more critical tasks. 

2. Saves time and money

Automating the repetitive and time-taking daily tasks saves a lot of time for your e-store staff. This in turn improves their productivity.

Automation also lowers the manpower requirement as the software takes over several tasks that otherwise would have to be performed by human staff. It will let you a lot of money. 

3. Improved marketing campaigns and conversion rates

Automating your e-store’s marketing activities will facilitate the continual improvement of campaigns. For, various analytic data such as click-through rates, email performance, social media engagement, etc.

Automatically collected from different campaigns can be used to optimize your future campaigns. Advanced software functionalities can even suggest the next best steps to be taken based on that data. These can even turn out to be your best customer retention strategies. 

4. Timely shipping

E-commerce automation also helps in promptly processing the right data between different systems. This facilitates shipping the items that customers buy in a timely manner.

This can also have a favourable impact on your bottom line as people prefer buying from e-stores that offer quick shipping.

5. Improves customer experiences

Automation can provide a seamless customer experience by facilitating coordination between the various departments of your e-store.

For, it would ensure providing quick info on the products customers are searching for, preventing the display of unavailable products, and enabling them to quickly carry out actions such as placing orders, interacting with a sales rep, etc.

You can also improve customer experiences by avoiding these common eCommerce marketing mistakes. 

6. Improves Product Information

People who shop online depend a lot on the product descriptions presented by e-stores. They go through them to be confident that they’re ordering the precise item they’re looking for. 

Automation ensures apt product descriptions by integrating with your POS or ERP system and accessing product information therefrom.

7. Simplifies complicated processes

Automation can simplify complex business processes such as displaying on-hand inventory, handling product returns, dropshipping (collaborating directly with suppliers to widen product assortment), multi-location fulfillment, etc. All these can improve customer experience. 

6 eCommerce Automation Strategies for Better Business Growth

Here are 6 strategies that you can employ to catapult the growth and success of your e-commerce business. 

1. Use dynamic content to engage customers 

Dynamic content means customizing your website’s content for each visitor. The text and images on your pages adjust to their demographic data, in-session behavior, and attributes.

This is beneficial in two ways. One is that the relevancy it offers helps in lowering bounce rates and improving conversions. The other is that it ensures personalized experiences.

For instance, Amazon, a leading e-commerce platform, generates several product recommendations based on the user’s purchase pattern or search history.

It also recommends bundled products optimized based on the browsing behavior of its customer base. So, employ the eCommerce automation strategy of delivering dynamic content to users. 

2. Employ chatbots for customer service

Your e-commerce store operates round-the-clock; your customer service also should. It will let you generate more business and revenue. Use chatbots for rendering your customer service. 

These may have different forms like:-

• Providing product recommendations: AI-powered chatbots can facilitate tailored shopping recommendations via knowing their style and preferences through personalized customer interactions.
• Providing speedy support: Customers who shop at your store would have queries to make. Employ a chatbot to provide apt answers to their questions in real-time. 
• Providing personalized experiences: You can also employ chatbots to provide highly personalized experiences. For example, Nike, a renowned manufacturer, and marketer of footwear, apparel, and accessories, has a StyleBot that interacts with users to mix and match and create their designs. 

3. Employ pricing automation

A vital factor that determines the success of an e-commerce business is its pricing. You should offer your products at competitive prices. You can do this by using a price automation tool.

It can track your competitor’s pricing of products. It will help you ensure value-based pricing. That is, pricing a product based on how a customer would value it. 

For instance, Gucci, a high-end luxury fashion store, sells its products at increasingly higher prices going by the brand’s perceived value. So, invest in a pricing automation tool to enjoy an incredible advantage.

For, it’ll let you know, match, and beat anyone’s price in the market. The best part is that you’ll get to do it automatically in a jiffy. 

4. Recover Abandoned Cart Emails

Stats say that about 70% of carts are abandoned daily, causing e-commerce businesses around the world to lose  $18 billion annually. You can recover these lost opportunities by sending your cart abandonment retrieval email campaigns.

For, a study says that 45% of people open them, 21% click-through, and 11% go for buying the things left in their carts!

Automate the sending of your abandoned cart retrieval email campaigns at scheduled intervals. Come up with a witty message that expresses gratitude to your cart abandoner for exploring your site before talking about their abandoned cart.

Also, have a link to their cart embedded in your message so that they can conveniently click through and make a purchase. 

5. Social media marketing

Today, e-commerce businesses can’t afford to miss out on social media. It serves as the cheapest and fastest way of connecting with your audience.

These networks influenced the purchasing decisions of 74% of shoppers (2019 data). So, implementing an effective social media marketing strategy is indispensable for growth. 

You can use automation for the following:-

• Scheduling posting of social media posts at peak audience times.
• Scheduling posts to be published days, weeks, or months ahead of time.
• Analyzing social data and reporting key metrics like reach, impressions, and engagement levels. 
• Setting up automatic responses to customers. 
• Being active on social media beyond your business hours. 

6. Social listening

As per 2020 statistics, over 3.6 billion people are active on social media worldwide. People discuss their favorite brands, their experiences, opinions, and concerns about different brands on social media.

This can be a boon or a curse depending on whether they’re talking about you positively or negatively. This makes real-time monitoring of social media mentions crucial.  

Automating social listening can help you respond to brand mentions as soon as possible. You can thank your supporters and fans for expressing their appreciation for you.

This will strengthen your reputation further. And when there are negative comments, you can take steps to resolve those quickly. This way, you’ll be preventing big havoc. 

Wrapping up

Ecommerce automation can be beneficial to eCommerce businesses in many ways.

These can eliminate manual data entry work, save time and money, improve marketing campaigns and conversion rates, increase productivity, enhance customer experience, improve product information, enable prompt shipping, and simplify complicated business processes. 

Some areas where automation can greatly aid your e-commerce business are generating dynamic content, providing customer service, employing price automation, social media marketing, social listening, and abandoned cart retrieval. 

Also Read:

• 7 Best Ecommerce Workflow Automation Ideas
• 11+ Well-Proven Ways to Boost Your Ecommerce Sales
• 12 Powerful Marketing Tips To Increase Your OnlineSales