Benefits of Order Automation and Processing Using Shopify Integration
Formerly, you’d have to enter orders in spreadsheets or databases and update your inventory manually on your website.
Payments were processed using credit cards and entered manually into the POS system. Your employees have to pick, label items, and track shipments the old-fashioned way. Customer support had to get on endless calls and email threads to resolve customer issues.
Overall, managing and processing orders was stressful, time-consuming, and error-prone, making it difficult to scale your business. Automation has since streamlined these processes and made it possible to improve accuracy and cut down order processing time.
Today, we’ll talk about the benefits of order automation and processing using Shopify integration and how you can get started.
Key Takeaways
- Order automaton and processing can reduce costs by 15% and minimize order processing time to 1-2 hrs.
A Shopify integration can help you sync your Shopify inventory data with your POS.
Adopting manual and repetitive tasks may likely lead to errors and order delays.
Identifying your automation goals and tasks is key to setting up an efficient automation workflow.
What is Order Automation and Processing?
Order automation and processing involves the use of technology or software to automate repetitive tasks to improve efficiency, save time, and boost the overall user experience. Any task can be automated right from when the order is placed to when it is delivered.
Automated systems can update your product inventory in real-time by showing the items that are running out of stock and those that are having low sales. It can be used in different stages like order processing, payment processing, shipping, and order tracking.
The applications are limitless because they can be used in any sector of your Shopify store, including customer service and marketing.
Why is Automation Needed in Order Processing Systems?
As humans, we are prone to error due to fatigue and boredom, which can result in misplaced order items, wrong order numbers, or price discrepancies.
When your business begins to grow, the work becomes more tedious, spreadsheets become messier, and tracking data is more difficult. Handling bulk tasks will require more hands(or employees), which will lead to a bump in costs with little progress in your bottom line.
In either case, you’ll need to automate your order processing system, and you can use integration with Shopify, like SKUPlugs, to help you out.
Let’s take a look at the benefits of automating the processing of your order in your Shopify store.
How to know if you’re Eligible for a Sales Channel?
You can check if you’re eligible for a sales channel through your Shopify admin. If it’s unavailable then you can click on “You can’t add this channel” to learn why you aren’t eligible.
Each sales channel has different requirements, terms, and conditions, so you might need to check it before using a channel. Once a sales channel has been added you can monitor the performance from your Shopify admin dashboard.
Factors to Consider Before Choosing a Sales Channel
Here are some factors to consider before choosing a sales channel.
Target Audience: Who is your target audience? Which platform do they use to compare products? Where do they spend time the most? Answering questions like this will give you cues on which channel will be a good fit for your products.
Nature of your Product: If you’re selling beauty and skin care products, then social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TiTok will do fine. Whereas electric gadgets will sell better marketplaces like eBay and Alibaba.
Marketing Budget: Each channel comes with its expenses in terms of fees and logistics. For instance, Amazon bites off a chunk of your profit for warehousing and delivering your goods.
Level of Competition: If a sales channel is flooded with established competitors, you might find it difficult to stand out. Unless you’re willing to allocate more budget for running ads or marketing your store.
Best Practices for Multichannel Selling on Shopify
Adding new sales channels means that you’ll have to invest more time and resources, and these strategies will help you to grow on each of your sales channels.
Use a Unified Inventory Software
You need a unified inventory software to effectively manage your sales channels. So you won’t run into overselling or underselling roadblocks.
Shopify has an in-built inventory system to manage your stock across your channels but investing in a Shopify inventory integration like SKUPlugs will give you even more customizable features.
Maintain a Consistent Brand Identity
To grow brand awareness and credibility, you have to maintain consistent brand colors, messaging, pricing, and deliverables in all your sales channels.
This will increase customer loyalty and improve your brand perception. Platforms like Google Shopping will not list your products if you have varying product information on your sales channels.
Deliver Excellent Customer Service
You have to always be available to answer your customer inquiries and resolve issues promptly. This might mean employing more customer service staff to handle customer queries on different platforms.
Even if you don’t have full control of your customer experience in third-party channels you can do your best to deliver when needed.
Optimize your Pricing Strategy
To get more customers you might consider running discount promotions in specific channels to boost sales. However, your product pricing may vary on different platforms because of service charges and competitor pricing. So you might slightly alter your product pricing on different channels.
Optimize Product Content
Different platforms have different product requirements, which are not limited to high-quality images, descriptions, and features.
You need to study each channel, whether social media platforms like Instagram or marketplaces like Alibaba, to find content that will suit your audience. Some platforms, like Amazon, may require you to use certain keywords and phrases to gain more visibility.
Improve your Order Fulfillment
If you’re selling physical products you may need to deliver the product directly to your customers or have them come and pick it up. In either case, your order fulfillment needs to be accurate and timely to improve customer trust.
You can also collaborate with a third-party shipping carrier to fulfill your orders. This also depends on the sales channel you are using.
Connect with your Customers via Email
There are far too many distractions and competitors in different sales channels so you need to divert your traffic from different sources to your sales funnel to enable you to send personalized marketing emails.
These emails can go out during festive holiday periods or regular days to remind a customer about an abandoned cart or new deals based on their purchase history and preferences.
Analyze your Data
Cold hard data and statistics don’t lie; they will help you to know when a sales channel is booming or declining. Shopify provides data analytics on each sales channel dashboard so you can monitor its traffic and sales. Analyzing this data will help you to know the marketing strategies that work for your business.
Best Way to Grow Your Shopify Online Store
One of the best ways you can leverage multichannel selling is by using Shopify integrations like SKUPlugs. It will help you to sync your inventory across multiple channels including your physical shops.
Plus, it can provide you with an ERP Shopify integration to manage and process your orders. You can also sync unlimited orders from your site to your POS using its POS Shopify integration. Additionally, SKUPlugs can integrate with Shopify, and the inventory of your products in your favorite marketplaces.