Skyrocket eCommerce Growth Through Automation
Managing an online store often still requires stitching together dozens of disjointed manual tasks – entering orders across multiple platforms, copying customer data between apps, scheduling social media, fulfilling orders, tracking finances, and really just keeping all the plates spinning.
As an ecommerce business owner, instead of doing all the mundane daily operations work yourself, what if you could automate 80-90% of those repetitive tasks?
According to VentureBeat, “companies that have embraced automation say they’ve seen productivity gains of 10%-30% and cost savings of 8%-12%.”
This guide will explore essential integrations to set up an automated infrastructure for your ecommerce operation. Data seamlessly flows between systems accurately while lightening your workload so you can focus on high-level growth strategy.
The Ecommerce Tech Stack
Before diving into specific automation tasks, let’s briefly visualize the various technologies involved in running an typical ecommerce business.
(Image credit: Zapier)
While each ecommerce business is unique, most will utilize a similar stack involving:
- Ecommerce Platform: The core storefront and data hub – Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, etc.
- Order Notifications: Communication channels to notify team of new orders – Slack, Email
- Sales + Customer Data: Centralized tracking in spreadsheets/BI tools – Google Sheets, Trello
- Email Marketing: Managing subscriber lists and campaigns – Mailchimp, Klavvio
- Shipping Carriers: Getting purchases to customers – USPS, FedEx, UPS
- Accounting: Financial reporting – QuickBooks Online, Xero
And likely other tools for inventory, logistics, marketing, and more. As you can imagine, constantly manually transferring data between these systems is tedious, inefficient, and prone to human error.
That’s where Zapier comes in. As the leader in easy automation, Zapier connects these essential apps you already use to automatically pass purchase data, customer info, financials, and more between them. No more manual exporting reports from one dashboard and importing into others.
Let’s explore some of the top ecommerce automation tasks you can set up in just minutes with Zapier.
Key Benefits of eCommerce Automation
Before looking at practical examples, what impact does automating operational tasks really have on ecommerce businesses? Some impressive stats:
- eCommerce businesses that heavily utilize automation see on average 10-30% higher productivity compared to traditional manual processes (VentureBeat)
- 75% of top-performing companies have more automated processes than lower performers (McKinsey)
- 43% of ecommerce leaders say increased automation is one of their top priorities for growth over the next 5 years (Square)
Additionally, business advisory firm FinancesOnline found that:
- 83% of organizations that implemented automation say it helped them improve work efficiency
- 53% report increased customer satisfaction from faster response times
- 44% saw increased sales revenue as a result of automation
The numbers speak for themselves – automated ecommerce businesses simply work more efficiently, deliver better customer experiences, and bring in higher profits. Now let’s see some real-world examples.
Order Notifications Across Teams
Missed orders result in unhappy customers and stalled cash flow waiting for shipments to go out. But constantly checking multiple admin dashboards across your business isn’t realistic.
The solution is to set up automated order notifications with Zapier to post all new purchases instantly into communication apps your team collaborates in like Slack or Microsoft Teams. Configure notifications to be sent as both public channel messages visible to the whole company as well as direct messages delivered privately to the specific team members responsible for processing that order.
You’ll never miss an order again. Your fulfillment staff or 3PL can immediately begin assembly, packaging and shipping when the Slack alerts come in. Customers receive fast delivery and your business gains reputation for being highly responsive.
For offline associates not on Slack, important order details can also be forwarded automatically into an order notification email template and sent via Gmail.
Bring All Sales Data Together
Instead of manually compiling spreadsheets, use Zapier templates to automatically import all ecommerce sales data in real-time into cloud-based business intelligence tools like Google Sheets, Smartsheet or Airtable.
Pre-built reports and dashboards segment order volume, revenue and margins across multiple dimensions – by product line, profit center, sales channel, regional markets, etc. No more chasing down the latest numbers needed for quarterly investor presentations or board meetings. All data is visible in one place and constantly up to date.
For online retailers with both direct-to-consumer and wholesale channels, visibility is even more critical. Setup Zaps to combine data feeds from all sales sources whether that’s Shopify and Amazon for your own web stores as well as bulk order downloads from distributors like Walmart and Overstock.
Eliminate disjointed data tracking between different platforms. Strategic business decisions depend on accurate unified reporting.
Segment Customers and Subscribers
Collecting visitor emails at checkout to build an audience for marketing campaigns and future sales is standard practice. But importing new contacts manually into email services like Mailchimp, Klaviyo or Constant Contact can be tedious.
Optimize this process by setting up Zapier to automatically add purchasers from your ecommerce platform into designated groups in your email platform segmented by previous order history.
Welcome subscribers with a customized nurturing track based on what they’ve bought from you already. New customers get an onboarding sequence introducing your brand. Clients that have repeatedly bought a certain product category receive targeted promotions for related items. Subscribers get updates and incentives timed for when they may need to replenish purchases based on volume previously ordered.
CRM tools like Hubspot and Salesforce similarly integrate with Zapier to classify customers by lifetime value bands, automatically triggering elevated service levels like expedited shipping and dedicated account management for top-tier patronage levels.
Fulfillment Automation
Handling packaging and shipping workflow manually for each order that comes in cuts significantly into operating margins and hampers your capacity for growth.
Eliminate this friction through shipping automation connected with your ecommerce platform. As purchases come through on Shopify or Magento, Zapier detects new orders and immediately dispatches the required customer and product details over to USPS, UPS, FedEx or your preferred logistics provider.
Shipping labels generate automatically with pre-configured size options based on the items purchased. Pick lists notify warehouse staff which shelf locations to pull those specific SKUs from. Batch label printing enables bundling multiple orders to optimize box space. And don’t forget automating scan sheet uploads at the post office counter when dropping off large volumes.
For B2B clients or FBA, PO details, shipping names and final destination addresses can be automatically shared with your 3PL for packaging and delivery coordination rather than re-entering into their separate portal.
Automating shipping procedures significantly increases fulfillment capacity and accuracy without onboarding additional labor. Packages go out faster with exact itemization and tracking tied to each order across the supply chain.
Accounting and Financials
Perhaps the least exciting but equally critical component of ecommerce operations – accurately recording all transactions for bookkeeping and financial reporting. Skipping this step likely means scrambling during tax season.
Rather than exporting weekly sales reports out of Shopify then manually inputting figures across ledgers in Quickbooks or Xero, fully automate the flow of order data into your accounting platform with Zapier.
Configure integrations to import latest online purchases multiple times per day. Connect banks and payment processors like Stripe to automatically synchronize deposited amounts each day. Reconcile without manual matching hundreds of order IDs or customer names across systems.
Accounting automation removes continuous manual bookkeeping effort while guaranteeing entries match to the penny. Built-in reports clearly break down profitability across your omnichannel ecommerce operation with graphs tracking product margin trends, fulfillment costs per order, periodic growth spurts from marketing campaigns, and more FIcritical analysis.
Closing
Automating mundane repetitive tasks across essential ecommerce operations – taking orders, managing customers, shipping physical products, tracking fiscal performance – liberates online merchants to focus energy on big picture growth strategy.
As this guide outlines, workflows that may take hours across dozens of systems can be simplified into a few automated steps between platforms talking seamlessly to each other. Orders flow directly from stores to email inboxes to shipping labels to financial reporting automatically in minutes.
While directions may differ slightly across the hundreds of specific app combinations available, Zapier makes integration easy with pre-built templates, no coding requirements, and step-by-step guidance.
Most importantly, research shows disproportionate business growth tied directly to higher degrees of automation across processes. The numbers speak for themselves – 10-30% increased productivity, 50%+ faster response times leading to higher customer satisfaction, double digit larger profit margins.
Still managing your ecommerce operation manually? Leverage the automation solutions outlined here to tap into server-powered productivity that scales as your business grows. Managing platforms should accelerate success, not hold you back.
Start automating your workflows and seeing sales climb today – claim your free Zapier account to build your first few Zaps and let technology run on auto-pilot from here.
