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Do you have an idea about the current level of automation in eCommerce?
The Iliad Project is working on robotic forklift trucks that do everything from packing, palletizing and transport of goods. Another startup, Startship technologies has a functional fleet of 150 delivery robots that make completely automated deliveries in cities all over the world.
With automation taking over delivery and warehouse management it’s only natural that we extend its wings to automating data movement. The advantages are plenty: Automated data flows ensure that errors are minimized and nothing helps manage workflows so effectively as this. Again, without any sort of automated data movement— scaling an eCommerce business is next to impossible.
What does Skubana do?
Skubana helps automates inventory management, tells you which products are profitable, manages supplies from partner stores and gives you a life outside your business. Here’s how we do that.
Gather feedback after purchase is done
After the purchase is done, wait a few days to so that customer gets the delivery. Post-delivery wait a couple of days more when the customer makes himself comfortable with the product. Around after 8 to 14 days after the order is placed, the customer is primed to share feedback either privately or post a public review. Studies have shown that customers are more inclined to post reviews if you ask them to. Also, it’s needless to describe the advantages that customer reviews provide. Positive reviews increase sales, build trust and motivate others to spend more. Are you going to track every purchase and then send an email thanking them for the purchase and then ask them to post a review? An automated data flow system captures the purchase and triggers an automated feedback email in response.
Automated reminders to purchase consumables
Several categories of products like electronic gadgets often run on consumables like batteries. For purchasers belonging to those categories you’d want to send reminders to allow customers to purchase once again based on average refill order rates. Again you wouldn’t be able to track every purchase manually and send mails.
Send automated cart abandonment emails
On an average, 68% of shopping carts are abandoned. But several studies including one from Baymard Institute say that a large amount of that is recoverable. 7 years of studies prove that if checkout flow and design is improved there can be a 35.26% increase in conversion rate though better checkout design. That alone is $256 billion recovered value. Another way to recover lost carts is by sending automated cart abandonment emails. It’s always feasible to send emails within the first 2 or 3 hours before customers completely forget about the product. With 48% of cart abandonment mails getting opened there’s a good chance of recovery. Are you going to track every cart abandon manually and send an email or let a system do the heavy lifting for you?
Automated upsells based on purchase history
For instance, jewelry retailer ArtBeads increased conversions by 208% by targeting customers based on past purchase. They segmented their list and sent upsell emails to high value customers. These emails resulted in an open rate of: 20.25%, CTR of: 4.36%, purchase rate of: 0.71%. For any online store, cross-sells and upsells are the bread and butter. You might want to send automated reminders regarding upsells to your customers to increase the average revenue per customer. Another way to segment customers is by having customer service agents tag customers by order value, number of orders, queries and interests and then send them automated mails.
For instance, jewelry retailer ArtBeads increased conversions by 208% by targeting customers based on past purchase. They segmented their list and sent upsell emails to high-value customers. These emails resulted in an open rate of: 20.25%, CTR of: 4.36%, purchase rate of: 0.71%. For any online store, cross-sells and upsells are the bread and butter. You might want to send automated reminders regarding upsells to your customers to increase the average revenue per customer. Another way to segment customers is by having customer service agents tag customers by order value, number of orders, queries and interests and then send them automated mails.
Save time on inventory management
Be it small number of products or a large number— updating inventory when stock runs out is a time consuming process. And if you fail to do that you cause customers much inconvenience. Not keeping track of inventory is a recipe for disaster. Nobody likes it when an order they placed gets cancelled by someone other than them. So avoiding inventory management isn’t a way to deal with inventory troubles.
This becomes an untenable problem when business grows. You want to save time on mundane tasks such as this but are clueless on how to proceed. When you’re manually updating things errors are bound to happen. With automated data transfer the entire inventory level is accounted for automatically without you having to lift a finger. This eliminates errors and boosts productivity. Purchase order module- a feature of Skubana allows you to make, cancel and track orders. There’s also the possibility of editing orders and the Vendor setup tool allows you to choose between vendors.
This becomes an untenable problem when business grows. You want to save time on mundane tasks such as this but are clueless on how to proceed. When you’re manually updating things errors are bound to happen. With automated data transfer the entire inventory level is accounted for automatically without you having to lift a finger. This eliminates errors and boosts productivity. Purchase order module- a feature of Skubana allows you to make, cancel and track orders. There’s also the possibility of editing orders and the Vendor setup tool allows you to choose between vendors.
It’s actually pretty simple. The number of sales, returns and new arrivals is all you need to keep track of inventory. Skubana automates the entire process for you. This can also help you scale your store from single store to multi-channel retail and sync everything. Skubana manages inventory listings and we have tied up with various warehouses and there’s no manual data entry work involved. Above that you also get to know which SKUs are generating profits and based on that which ones you need to sell is automatically uploaded and reports generated. So, in short you’ve a profit churning machine without any additional time spend.
Automate listings data based on inventory levels
Real-time updates are essential to minimize refunds and customer dissatisfaction. When you’ve run out of inventory for a particular product the product can be unpublished from the listings automatically. This ensures that an order isn’t placed by mistake. A higher selling product’s ranking can be upgraded based on sales volume. A product with higher reviews can be moved up automatically.
Automated traffic revenue and other reports
With Skubana analytics you can know every detail there’s to know about your store’s revenue. You can see gross margins, unit margins and get an idea of the profit. You can also delve down by SKU number and see which items are selling the most. With these reports it’s easy to throw out products that are eating into your profits.
That answers several questions for you like:
- The products you should sell.
- Number of units that you need to reorder.
- SKU driven profit margins and so on.
Prosper Show
Both SKUbana and VL OMNI will be present at Prosper Show for Amazon merchants and we will share great tips with you to get the most of out your stores.
Concluding Thoughts
Now you’ve the seen the benefits and features associated with automated data movement. You don’t have to manually do all the work with this. VL OMNI powers different integrations for your store making it easy to automate the flow of data. SKUbana helps with inventory management and product order and tracking. Together they are a one-stop destination to understand the pulse of your store helping identify the movers and shakers. The heavy lifting is taken care for by automated systems that make life easy.
This is a guest post written by Chad Rubin. Chad Rubin builds e-commerce businesses. Fresh out of college and Wall Street, he took his family vacuum business online and built his own direct to consumer e-commerce business called Crucial Vacuum. He grew it from 0 a $20 million dollar valuation in just 7 years. He happens to be a top 250 Amazon seller. He co-founded Skubana with DJ Kunovac and built one of e-commerce’s hottest operational software.
