User Review
( votes)E-commerce today is what the internet was at the end of the 20th century. Ever wished you purchased those Google and Microsoft shares? It’s time to consider buying everything e-commerce related. For example, shares of the companies offering e-commerce automation tools.
With over 26 trillion in the retail market in 2020, e-commerce has been growing its share exponentially, from 10.4% in 2017 to 16.1% in 2020. It is forecasted that by the year 2022, it will reach 20% of the global retail market share, essentially doubling it in just 5 years.
Infrastructure, servicing the e-commerce segment will follow the growth pattern. Moreover, solutions like e-commerce automation tools will effectively help and precipitate this rapid growth.
What Is e-Commerce Automation?
Just as we proceed with all the fun nuances, best practices, and examples, let’s first gain some understanding of “what is automation in e-commerce?”
e-Commerce automation is a segment of the software industry that aims to optimize processes related to ecommerce through the development & implementation of software solutions that result in lower human engagement, reduced costs, and errors. There exist eCommerce automation tools for every facet of the online sales business, inclusive inventory management, delivery tracking, email marketing, task, and finance management.
Technology Behind e-Commerce Automation Tools
The technology used to minimize human input into all processes related to online selling business have to do with AI, artificial intelligence.
In some solutions, machine learning and deep learning algorithms advance the functionality of such software solutions, allowing to extrapolate the learnings from the past data to new patterns.
As the infrastructure around e-commerce evolves, so do the solutions used to implement it.
The Advantages of Automating Your e-Commerce
While humans are pretty smart, machines have memory and calculation algorithms that far exceed those of the human brain.
The businesses that choose to spend a bit of time and effort to optimize their business processes with the help of modern SaaS solutions win sooner rather than later.
What are the main advantages that businesses experience when they start entrusting the machines to get the work done?
1. To Scale Or Not To Scale?
It just becomes possible. A family corner shop (even its virtual version) can exist alright without automation. No worries. You can receive and ship up to 50 orders a day. But those with the ambition to make more money might find the automation software for e-commerce a useful addition to their own brain.
2. Human Error Eliminated
Have you ever personally made a mistake? How much did it cost? In industries of scale, there is no such thing as a small mistake.
With commerce-centric algorithms like Amazon, if a merchant doesn’t have items in stock their rating drops, it takes time to get back.
With e-commerce tools for automation, you program a process once and it makes stuff happen continuously.
If you wanna stay competitive.
If you wanna stay relevant.
If you wanna stay in business.
Automate.
Best 20 e-Commerce Automation Tools By Categories
There is not a single process in e-commerce by now that does not have the supply in terms of software solutions on how to make it quicker, better, more seamless with a little human intrusion.
Let’s vivisect some of the examples of automation tools for e-commerce by category of application.
Sales Automation With Nimble CRM
There’s no blaming us for putting our product on top of the list. We are at the top of the top 20 of the Capterra ranking for CRM solutions consistently for a reason.
A CRM is a must-have for any business in the 21st century, and e-commerce is no exception. Nimble CRM allows users to automate emails, create customized pipelines, monitor team efficiency via comprehensive reporting.
Ease of use, endless customization opportunities, and transparent per-user pricing are why 140 thousand professionals trust Nimble CRM to scale their business.
Task Management Solutions
Task Management software can be part of your company’s Customer Relations Management system, integrated with your CRM, or be a standalone solution with even more extensive task management features.
This offering is varied and extensive, as these systems can be used in many businesses across the board, they don’t have to be commerce-specific.
Most of the best team task management solutions will include the following features:
- To-do list
- Calendar
- Gantt chart view
- Subtask creating
- Time tracking
- Percent-complete tracking
- Collaboration tasks
- Task assignment & distribution
- Reporting
Recommended Team Task Software solutions:
Customer Support Software
Customer support is a bit of a ninja department. They are pretty low profile bordering the status of invisibility, yet they are armed with plenty of skills to deal with the most burning issues.
Customer Service software, AKA Helpdesk software helps deal with customer issues, acting as a filter – providing an automated response for easy-to-fix regular questions in the form of a chatbot and escalating irregular issues to a live agent.
The features characteristic of Complaint Management Software are:
- Ticket management
- Self-service portal
- Complaints classification & escalation
- Automated routing
- Interaction tracking
- Real-time chat
- Knowledge Base management
- Feedback & Quality assessment management
If you are looking to automate your customer service, you may anticipate a 30% saving on customer service department costs. These are some of the best customer service solutions:
Bug Tracking Software
Some bugs are harmless and some wreak havoc.
Not all businesses can afford an expensive IT department and not all IT department staff has the experience and know-how to recognize & address all bugs across all environments and digital properties a company owns.
This is when Bug Tracking Software is so important.
Most issue tracking solutions will have these features:
- Audit trail
- Ticket management
- Backlog management
- Audit management
- Issues auditing, prioritization, and scheduling
Check out these best bug trackers:
Email Marketing Automation
With the ROI reaching sky-high 4400% in some cases, email marketing is the good old, tried, and tested method no reputable marketer can afford to shy away from.
These are features customers are looking for in the best email marketing software:
- Autoresponders
- Template management
- Mailing list management
- Customer surveys
- Drip campaigns
- A/B testing
- Subscriber management
- Event-triggered emails
- Dynamic content
Below are a few of the best e-commerce automation tools to help you optimize your email marketing:
Accounting & Finance Management Software
Invoicing, vendor management, and tax filing are the fun part of the business that most entrepreneurs have a love-hate relationship with. When done well, finance can help save costs and optimize spending across all expenditure centers. But it’s a bore with lots of important nuances.
Even though different countries will have varying legal foundation & tax filing, most of the accounting software solutions have USA-specific default embedded in them and extra offering by-the-country.
Make sure your financial management solution features these characteristics:
- Billing & Invoicing, Purchase order management
- Fixed asset management
- Accounts receivable
- Bank reconciliation
- Tax management
- Payroll management
- Expense tracking
These are some of the best accounting software systems on the market:
Web Analytics Solutions
Your website is the front of the house of your business. There are plenty of e-commerce automation systems that help online store owners manage their website traffic more efficiently.
Let’s look at the top sought-after features of a website analytics software:
- Site search tracking
- Referral source tracking
- Campaign management
- Keyword tracking
- Goal & conversion tracking
- User interaction tracking
- E-commerce module
Best website analytics solutions, both free and paid for, include:
Inventory Management Systems
Inventory control software is designed to ensure you have enough stock at all times and your shipment is flawless. Automating this part of the job is simply the matter of survival for any 100+ SKUs online store.
Ensure your inventory management software has these features:
- Barcoding
- Item Management
- Cost tracking
- Reorder management
- Inventory optimization
- Supplier management
- Serial number tracking
- SKU/UPC Code module
Some of the best inventory control solutions include:
Order Management Software
With multi-channel & multi-store e-commerce gaining traction, fulfillment is on top of everybody’s mind.
This is what e-commerce entrepreneurs are finding as vital modules when it comes to choosing order management software:
- Backorder management
- Shipping management
- Catalog management
- Returns management
- Inventory management
- Recurring order management & tracking
- Order entry
- Order fulfillment & tracking
These e-commerce automation software tools will help optimize your fulfillment process:
Social Media Management Solutions
Social media presence is not only great for your online reputation and organic audience growth, but it also is a vital part of the Google search ranking algorithm.
This is why any business needs to ensure social media presence and engagement across all channels. But handling them all is a science on its own, leave alone creating relevant content that resonates with users.
Post scheduling is the part of automation for social media management, that’s vital to save time.
Other useful features of such systems usually include:
- Content management
- Automated posting
- Customer targeting
- Post scheduling
- Conversion tracking
- Keyword filtering
- Analytics
Popular social media marketing software:
Compiling Your e-Commerce Tech Stack
When working on your e-commerce tech stack, it’s good to take into account a few factors:
- The size of your store now [small, medium, or big business? How many SKUs do you have in your inventory?]
- The size of the company in 1 year. [This needs to be backed by some figures and business plans, not only your dreams. Do you plan to invest a 5-digit figure in marketing? What’s your ROAS? How is the competition where you sell? It’s good to have an understanding of your ambition because software takes time to integrate, so you’d better take a solution that can be scaled later on if this is your plan].
- Budget expectations: total & by category [for the sake of the exercise, it’s best to find out some market info in terms of ROI, that each of the tools provides and how quick].
- Priorities: what is not an expert in and need help desperately and what can you keep juggling around while more funds flow in.
- What are your competitors using? Will you be better off with the same tool or an alternative?
Pro Tip:
Zapier automation solution is an amazing way to integrate all the apps your business uses together seamlessly.
Another pro tip is to keep trying.
Companies with competitive pricing, low churn rate, and high value for money index usually give away a generous week or two of a free trial.
Keep trying different e-commerce automation products, but ensure somebody on your marketing or sales enablement team dedicates 1-2 hours a day to working with solutions for best decision making.
About Nimble CRM
E-commerce sales automation is one mission Nimble CRM handles too well not to mention it.
Over 140K professionals world over love using CRM to grow their business, maintain relations with their clients, vendors, partners, and team.
If you are only starting your business, growing it, or managing a big e-commerce company, agile Nimble CRM will ensure smooth client relations management across all departments.
Like arriving at your own conclusions? Be our guest & enjoy Nimble CRM for 2 weeks absolutely free. All you need to start your personal e-commerce store automation is an email.
