Time is your most valuable resource when running a business. As your business grows, tasks and processes grow with them, eating into the available hours you have. Although you can’t add hours to your day, you can get more done in less time with e-commerce and sales automation tools.
E-commerce tools can smooth the shopping experience for buyers. From updating your inventory in real-time to generating follow-up emails and turning abandoned carts into opportunities, e-commerce and sales automation drive growth. They also give you back valuable hours to spend on other aspects of your business. The key is to choose the right tools and ensure they work well together.
E-Commerce Automation Software for Store Management
There are plenty of e-commerce automation tools around for managing your online store. No doubt you’ve heard of some of the big names like Shopify, WooComerce, and BigCommerce.
BigCommerce has plugins and a wide range of built-in features designed to optimize the shopping experience and automate e-commerce processes. Shopify includes a multitude of productivity apps to streamline processes. If you’re making over $1 million per year, Shopify Flow, which comes with its Pro subscription, is great for setting up automated workflows. WooCommerce also has its fair share of extensions for e-commerce automation, many of which are free to use.
Whether you choose Shopify, WooCommerce or BigCommerce, you’ll want to make sure you have the right e-commerce automation functionality to take a little of the store management off your shoulders. The e-commerce software you choose should also integrate well with other sales automation tools to give you back more of your day while making the most of each visitor’s visit to your store.
Integrating Sales Automation With Your E-Commerce Store
Along with e-commerce automation tools for store management aspects, integrated sales automation” improves efficiency, provides a smooth sale progress, from contract management reviewing to esigning, and “helps to boost conversion rates so sales can growSales automation tools that are perfect for e-commerce stores include automated follow-ups, personalized email and SMS drip campaigns, and automated loyalty programs that keep customers coming back for more.
Esigning, in particular, streamlines the final steps of sales, ensuring a seamless and digitized process from contract review to a signed agreement.
One of the biggest missed opportunities for e-commerce store owners is abandoned carts. Google calculated the average abandon cart rate was 70%. These visitors have a high level of intent, so following up with them makes sense. Emails about abandoned carts typically win back 3 – 14% of lost sales. It’s an even bigger win with SMS follow-ups. Around two thirds of shoppers complete purchases when reminded by SMS.
Kixie’s sales automation software automates the follow-up emails process for abandoned carts with email, SMS or both, boosting sales and helping your business to grow fast. It’s simple to set up and can increase conversions from day one.
How Sales and E-Commerce Automation Improve Your Customer’s Experience
Customers expect exceptional, personalized experiences. When their expectations aren’t met, they’ll go somewhere else.
But the only way to effectively manage your customer’s experience without losing days each week is with technology, specifically e-commerce and sales automation tools combined with best seo tactics for ecommerce.
E-commerce automation software can help you manage your store and even automatically collect customer feedback. Sales automation can connect information from your e-commerce store to your CRM to enhance sales and marketing campaigns. They also increase speed to lead, let salespeople deliver information faster, and send offers that enhance your customer’s experiences.
Proactive engagement with customers and visitors via automated workflows makes for happier salespeople. It cuts down on boring administrative tasks so they can spend more time selling.
It also creates satisfied customers because they’re getting what they want when they want it.
Automation creates an undeniable win/win for your business, and it’s not difficult to implement.
Automation creates an undeniable win/win for your business, and it’s not difficult to implement.
By leveraging these e-commerce and sales automation tools along with best SEO tactics, you can improve your customer’s experience and increase their satisfaction even further.
5 E-Commerce Automation Tools You Need Today
Try putting yourself in your customer’s shoes. When they go to your webstore, is the messaging clear and consistent? Is it easy to browse and buy your products? Are the items for sale actually in-stock? These things seem simple expectations from the customer’s point of view, but they can be extremely time-consuming to maintain from your business-owner perspective.
That’s why automation is so important, it saves you time and helps you to meet customer expectations too. Some tools can even help you direct your efforts to exceed expectations and win more sales. Here are a few that we love.
- Sales automation for omnichannel customer messaging. When visitors come to your store, they present an opportunity for your business – whether they immediately make a purchase or not. Kixie’s automations send a cadence of messages via email, SMS and phone to bring customers back and boost your sales.
- Automated coupon management. Complex checkout procedures are just one reason buyers abandon their purchases. Coupon codes that don’t work are another top reason you’re losing sales. E-commerce automation to help manage discount codes leaves you with one less headache and one less reason for customers not to buy your wares.
- Ecommerce automation software for inventory management and syncing. Is it more frustrating than falling in love with a product only to find it’s out of stock when you reach the checkout? Probably, but it’s a top peeve for ecommerce customers. You can avoid this problem with automated inventory management.
- Pricing management ecommerce tools. Endlessly scrolling through spreadsheets to update pricing is boring, time-consuming and prone to error. It can cost you big if mistakes are made. Make price list management easier with simple to use ecommerce automation software.
- Sales automation for customer loyalty. You’ve probably heard that it costs more to win new customers than keep the ones you already have. Loyal customers buy more often and spend more when they do. Automating your loyalty program can increase revenue by 5 – 10% with minimal effort.
Using E-Commerce Automation for Business Growth
You want your e-commerce business to grow, but as it does, there’s way more to do less and time to do it in. 75% of businesses already use automation of some sort or another. Automation is the best way to off-load some of the essential e-commerce tasks.
The return on your investment in ecommerce and sales automation can be realized in as little as six months, and certainly within a year. Sales automation improves customer engagement, boosts sales and grows your bottom line. E-commerce automation tools improve your customer’s experience, which in turn boosts your brand reputation to help you grow.
