Automation has always been the way of the future, so if you're already running successful dropshipping businesses left and right, why not double the sales by switching to an automated dropshipping model?
What is automated drop shipping, you ask? Well, automated drop shipping is a system designed to manage your dropshipping business easier, so you wouldn't have to do many of the tasks manually. The "automated" part varies between software and tasks you want to be done. So, check out also these proven dropshipping courses reviewes.
5 Reasons to Switch to Automated Drop Shipping
If you're a one-man team that manages everything about your dropshipping business down to the smallest of tasks, automated dropshipping was invented for you. With a dropship automation tool, you will be able to:
- Save Time: Running a business takes time, even if you are just operating from home. With automated drop shipping, you can do more tasks, improve work-life balance, and still be able to complete the daily to-do list for your business.
- Double Sales: If you can remove some tasks on your plate, you can take care of order fulfillment or customer service more quickly. This speed improvement could eventually make a positive impact on your drop shipping sales.
- Save Money: Bringing your dropshipping business into autopilot is a wise move because it could help you scale your drop shipping business effectively. And unlike before when you had to hire additional help whenever your dropshipping store gets too big to handle alone, you can let the drop shipping automation software do its job without extra costs.
- Improve Accuracy: There is very little chance of error when you set up your drop shipping business with automation tools. The manual tasks you did before, such as copy-pasting customer orders, can now be done automatically without the need for your involvement.
- Beat Competition: The competition amongst dropshipping businesses has always been high. If you've been having trouble competing with companies that have bigger budgets or more employees, automating some of your tasks could help bring back some competitiveness into your drop shipping business.
10 Ways to Automate Your Dropshipping Business
Automated drop shipping can be a game-changer for your e-commerce business. Make sure you take advantage of these tools and techniques. Give some time to set these up and you won't regret it. Also, if you still have doubts, our ''is dropshipping legal?'' review provides the answers.
1. Automatically Add Products
Adding products manually and their product information can eat up someone's time real quick. The cool thing about automating the drop shipping process is that many tools like Oberlo have made it extra-easy. You can even add products from AliExpress into your WooCommerce, Shopify, eBay, Amazon, or whatever eCommerce platform you’re using complete with its product data.
2. Automate Product Research
Another time-consuming task for drop shippers is product research, but as you already know, all e-commerce businesses rely on the right product to sell for the entire operation to work. A good example of this is SaleHoo Labs' market research engine, which helps you filter through thousands of products to find trending and relevant items to fit your niche.
3. Inventory Management
Even if your dropshipping business does not technically keep products in stock, you still have to be up-to-date with inventory levels. When you automate inventory management, you ensure that your suppliers have enough products to keep your customers happy. If your inventory suddenly drops and your product gets sold out, imagine how many missed sales your shop would have to deal with.
4. Track Order Shipping
By automating the tracking of shipment, you don't have to wait for customers to request an update about their orders. You have the option of sending an automated email to buyers every day with information about their order, instructions on how to track the shipment, and other useful tracking tasks.
5. One-click Order Processing
Order management doesn't have to be complicated. When in the past you used to check your customer orders regularly so you could forward the customer order to your supplier, automation of this process frees your time completely. Plus, you'd rest assured that all the customer orders are processed as timely as possible.
6. Automatically Search for Suppliers
Sometimes, your main supplier would run out of your product without warning. No one would want to be in this position, especially if you online have a couple of items listed on your online store. Fortunately, you can automatically search for a second, third, or fourth supplier and set it up so you won't be caught in this surprise ever again.
7. Update Pricing and Auto Currency Conversion
Some tools allow you to set-up global price rules, which help in pricing products automatically. Other software, browser extension, or apps provide additional value by making tools like currency converter super accessible and free.
Note that when it comes to currency, you do have to test out the price and computations until they become more accurate.
8. Promotions and Email Campaigns
As your business grows, juggling between taking care of existing customers with maintaining inventory and other store-related tasks can be quite overwhelming. When this happens, the store fails in one aspect, such as marketing.
If you're in this same situation, make sure to check out how to automate email campaigns and incorporate promotions. These efforts could help prevent carts from being abandoned or upsell additional products.
9. Automate Social Media Activities
If you haven't been able to manage the Facebook or Instagram accounts of your dropship business for a while now, here's the chance to revive it. You can set-up auto-response for your Facebook page, auto-direct customers to your online store, schedule social media posts, and so on.
10. Add Time-Saving Tasks
Many drop shipping automation software available in the market lets you save time by simplifying tasks, such as encouraging customers to leave a review with just one click or removing the background color of your product images for a uniform look.
Can You Automate Shopify?
Like in other eCommerce platforms, yes, you can automate Shopify using both in-house and third-party tools and programs. You can also automate Shopify by setting up multiple tasks one time.
Can I completely automate dropshipping?
The amount of automation you can set-up for your online business will totally depend on you. It is entirely possible to automate the entire drop shipping platform, but it would take you a long time to set everything all up.
Our advice is to plan what tasks you feel take the most time to do, then figure out what method of automation you want to use to solve this dilemma. Map out all the tasks first and match them with a particular tool.
Best Drop Shipping Software for Automation
If you're ready to start the automation process for your eCommerce shop, you don't need to find them too far. Here are some of the software we like and use:
- Oberlo - This software is a fan-favorite. It streamlines the product research process by letting users find products and add them directly to your Shopify store.
- AutoDS all-in-one dropshipping platform - This smart automated tool supports over 10 suppliers and more than one dropshipping store at a time. The tool can scan the market 24/7 and auto-adjust product stock or pricing. It can also perform order tracking, order fulfillment, and supplier search.
- Yakkyofy - This tool is completely free and so comprehensive that you can automate most of your operation's day-to-day tasks here. With this tool, you can automate uploading products with full product data integration, update inventory, send orders to suppliers, and receive tracking updates.
- Spocket - Uses machine learning to help online store owners vet suppliers and drop shippers.
- Duoplane - This drop shipping and operations automation software provides automated order routing, inventory syncing, management of orders, etc.
- DSM Tool - Dropshipping solution for managing active listings, monitoring stocks, order fulfillment, and more.
- Zendrop - This is an e-commerce marketplace that connects reliable suppliers with online merchants and dropshipping stores.
- MyyShop - One-stop dropshipping platform gives you an easy way to find products, add them to your website or Shopify store, and ship them directly to your customers.
- Dropified (formerly Shopified) - a Chrome plugin to automate your drop shipping business.
- AliDropship - Using WordPress as your online shop? This tool was designed exclusively as an all-in-one WordPress solution for AliExpress dropshipping business.
- Spark Shipping - Designed as an order fulfillment tool, Spark Shipping can streamline your drop shipping processes such as synching inventory, managing products, handling customer support, tracking orders, and adjusting prices based on market information.
- Ali2Woo – For those who are using the ever-so-powerful WooCommerce theme, this all-in-one tool could help you to find and add products to your WooCommerce store directly from AliExpress. Other features include shipping sync, pricing automation, import products, and more.
Why Dropshipping Business is the Best e-commerce Model Today
If you've always dreamt of having a retail business but you do not have money for warehousing, then dropshipping is the most appropriate business model for you. You can operate the entire business totally by yourself and with the help of these automation tools and techniques, you can now compete with bigger businesses without breaking the bank.
