Ecommerce Automation

[2022] How To Use Ecommerce Website Automation To Improve UX

by Robin Tran

A lesson learned is a lesson shared. When searching for website automation applications for eCommerce, especially user experience, all I see on the SERP is articles about testing tools. And it’s frustrating.

Hence, I wrote this article as a recap for all of my research across the web on turning automation into a golden user experience – even on a budget. 

>>>WATCH OUT MAGENTO USERS! Run through this best extension for user experience list.

eCommerce automation is not easy, but there is no rocket science here! Once you know the principle, they are fast and doable and are outrunning the expected growth an ecommerce business can have.

Let’s dive head-first into it!

What Is Website Automation? What Is Ecommerce Automation?

Website automation is the idea of replacing human interventions with software robots for actions, tasks, and processes on web browsers or web applications. 

eCommerce automation is an extension built to automate tasks, processes, or campaigns within your business upon triggers and conditions intelligently and accurately. The following 3-steps process is how you do eCommerce automation.

trigger-condition-action

BUT Why do We need to automate eCommerce? Especially for User Experience

Because business and technology scale up significantly faster than humans ever will. The volume of orders coming in and out, the complexity of requests, and the repetition of processes weigh your business down as it’s growing.

So what will be the solution here? Hiring more personnel? Yes, people are the most powerful resource – but they cost more, they need more effort to maintain, and most importantly, they physically can’t keep up with the increasing workload.

Hence, finding and applying workarounds is the best way for businesses to save costs and prioritize what matters most.

And why user experience? Research shows that investing in UX can get you a turnover at a 9900% rate, which means for each dollar you put into a better user interface, you get $100 in return.

This number should tell you how necessary and profitable user experience is to online business success. Moreover, on the net where 90% of customers will bounce out when a page costs them more than 5s to load, it’s crucial to fasten up with smooth interchanges between pages. 

bounce-rate-loading-time

And how can you achieve that? Installing and promoting automation on your site, lighten it up, smooth it out, and grab all the benefits.

What can Website Automation contribute to eCommerce Success? 

Let’s list down three main ways in which automation leverages your business.

1. Efficiency

Selling online is convenient in many aspects, but it also produces a handful of tasks. Some tasks can be too integral to your business but just aren’t practical to perform manually. 

For example, sending email upon purchase. This simple job yet essential job requires constant monitoring and collecting information, looking for the order value to determine which coupon is appropriate, and then sending it out. Now multiply that by 100, a day, you can see how human-unfriendly it is to do by hand.

That’s why every single one of eCommerce platforms chooses to automate this process and similar tasks within the default. Automation is clearly superior in the efficiency board.

2. Accuracy & Consistency

Let’s list down a single order’s information:

  • Customer information
  • Order details
  • Order status
  • Shipping information
  • Payment method

And there are multiple entries – the volume of information that an eCommerce business generates is huge. And since there are various points to keep track of, it leaves much room for humans’ mistakes. 

“To err is human.”

Moreover, when information gets passed through a middle man, it also adds up to the error liability. 

Hence, using automation to connect the two ends and transfer information directly will eliminate the fear of human error. Plus, automation bots need no break to recharge, a.k.a no intermission within the information transference. 

3. Productivity

We’ve talked about how eCommerce automation applications lift up the workloads and do them much better in terms of quality. Now, let’s talk about quantity.

Not only website automation can handle a significant amount of data but it also produces circumstances for your human resource to shine. On the time that is saved from these repetitive jobs, you and your team now redirect efforts to better the products in quality as well as presentation. 

How about focusing on building customer relationships, fostering a user-friendly interface and journey? All power to you.

Bonus! Let’s talk numbers

So far, I gave you descriptions of what and how eCommerce automation leverages your business. Now, let’s back it up with real numbers.

ecommerce-revenue-generated

And it doesn’t stop there. The potential growth of eCommerce automation is far optimistic. Researchers expect a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 9.6% from 2019 and ultimately reaches $23.58 billion by 2026 in B2C market value only. 

In terms of users, there are over 24 million eCommerce websites in 2020, with 80% of them using website automation in one form or another. At this point, either you catch up, or you’ll get left behind.

However, it’s not just about getting the first run; it’s also about surpassing and breaking through the existing folk. Not every business that automates its process gets the longest end of the stick. You have ⅓ of a chance to receive little to nothing with eCommerce automation in place.

That’s why knowing how to implement website automation and set it up to its full potential will be the next focus of this article.

But first.

Which Part Of ECommerce System Can Use Automation To Smooth Out Customer Experience?

Here are some of the areas that could use some web automation on your site:

  • Gate-welcome
  • Marketing
  • Purchase order approvals
  • Vendor and supplier onboarding
  • Order management
  • Inventory
  • Sales

Overall, you could simply categorize these bullet points into two distinct groups: marketing and management.

ECOMMERCE AUTOMATION HACKS #1: GIVE CUSTOMERS A ROYAL WELCOME

One of the main criticisms of eCommerce is the lack of human touch. And it’s true.

Trading online doesn’t and shouldn’t involve too many human interactions. But it also doesn’t mean you can be completely devoid of personal care. Hence, this hack is directly inspired by the brick-and-mortar store, greeting your customers right at your doorstep.

GEOIP for the win

First thing you should do when a visitor lands on your website is to provide them with your store’s closest interpretation. I’m talking about putting out an invitation to the most appropriate storeview. 

switch-store-germany

Remember, you’re operating online, and you’re selling globally (if you aren’t, you’re missing out, and we will go in-depth in another blog post.) Your customers come from different countries. Even though English is a universal language, it’s immensely better to direct them to the store view representing and accommodating their mother tongue.  

You can either show the popup and leave it up for the visitors or automatically redirect them without notification. 

Now, let’s learn how to do this:

ESTABLISH GEOIP FOR MAGENTO USERS:

There’s no default setting within Magento’s admin panel for GEOIP. Therefore, the best way to go around is to pick out a Magento GEOIP extension that is easy to set up and test run.

>>> GRAB THE BEST-VALUE Magento 2 GeoIP store switcher with UX optimization.

ESTABLISH GEOIP FOR SHOPIFY USERS:

The best and the worst thing about the Shopify app store is its number of applications. Of course, you have a broader range to choose your app from, but it’s time-intensive. 

Don’t worry; I’ll save you the hustle. Check this addon out: allow and block countries in seconds, automatic redirect customers, best prices, and best reviews.

ESTABLISH GEOIP FOR BIGCOMMERCE USERS:

It takes more effort to set up GeoIP for BigCommerce; in fact, it takes a whole article. Follow that guide step-by-step to install automatic redirect for your site.

DETECT GEOIP FOR WOOCOMMERCE USERS
ESTABLISH GEOIP WITH WIX USERS
SETUP GEOIP FOR SQUARESPACE USERS

Next step: welcome note

If you choose to show the pop-up in the previous step, it’s better to use web push notification here. It minimizes excessive popup, and research shows that web push notification doubles the time on page with a more prominent open rate than emails.

welcome-discount

Hence, you should learn from this blueprint and craft a welcome push notification that steals the show! At this stage, the expected outcome should be a sign-up from your customers. 

Round-kick: signup email

Once you get a visitor to sign up, it’s time for the greeting email for a long-lasting good impression. Automated welcome email open rates are 400% higher than on all other emails. 

thank-you-page

Hubspot published an absolute banger of a blog post on this matter with exceptional examples that help you create your automation email from scratch. Definitely check it out!

But it doesn’t stop here. With your customers’ emails, you can create a full-blown campaign in which you foster the customer relationship as well as open more gateways to convert. 

Let’s get it started.

Drip Campaign

The drip campaign is a marketing strategy that involves sending marketing material to your email leads over a long period. As for results, the drip campaign shows 80% more sales for ⅓ of the cost

Here is a 1-month schedule for a drip campaign; try it out with your current email list:

Supporting tools
  • Email service: Pick out the best from this email marketing list.
  • Mobile-specific: Learn how to automate SMS on Mobit with video.
  • Web push notification: Automate with iZooto.
  • Improve campaign mindset: Detail-oriented and result-focused with Hubspot.

ECOMMERCE AUTOMATION HACKS #2: HIGHLIGHT USER-GENERATED CONTENT

User-generated content (UGC) is an umbrella term for content/block/widget on your site that considers the previous and present users’ journeys to pull out the best-fitted content. The most prominent example is the “Customers who viewed this item also viewed” slideshow on Amazon.

customer-also-view-recommendation-magento-2-product-image-size

You can also see this content as testimonials, customer reviews.  

EXPLORE the importance of Magento 2 Social Proof to your online business >>

UGC supports legitimacy, seeds trust among different clients, and enhances social verification. The question here is how can you automate the process of producing this content.

Customers Also Bought/ Also Viewed

Here are some immediate solutions that cater to the specific e-commerce platform. These website automation applications take direct information from your website and render it to the front end – not merely listing down cross-sell tactics.

  • Magento Users.
  • Shopify Users
  • WooCommerce Users.

Encourage UGC

People hardly leave any review on the net. If they leave a review willingly, there are only two explanations:

  • Your product is excellent
  • Your product is terrible

Therefore, to have a fair amount of UGC in the review sectors, you should place a reward for it. And what if I tell you that you can automate this process as well?

>>> For Magento 2 admins CHECKOUT Review Reminder and Magento 2 product image extension for organic UGC.

And for other platforms:

ECOMMERCE AUTOMATION HACKS #3: MAKE USE OF POPUPS

While popup is widely perceived as an annoyance on a website, it still works. 

In fact, it has a similar conversion rate as the overall eCommerce, and the top 10 best performance popups generate triple that rate.

magento-2-product-image-size-chart

Let’s do some simple math: 

  • If you get 100 unique visits a day for the average popup, you’ll have 93 email leads in 1 month.
  • If you get 100 unique visits a day for the top-tier popup, you’ll have 279 signups in a month.

Here are some facts that help you skyrocket your popup to the top 10:

popup-observations

*ALERT* Grab the best eCommerce Popup ideas that your customers will love!

Automation popup tools

ECOMMERCE AUTOMATION HACKS #4: ENHANCE CUSTOMER COMMUNICATION WITH CHATBOTS

The live chat is the rising star in the customer support department. Its popularity has grown outside of the initial role – assisting customers post-purchase.

More and more eCommerce businesses are putting the widget to guide and encourage customers to do a particular action. The live chat helps guests to discover items, strategically pitch and upsell items, give item examinations, and even converse with various clients simultaneously.

But, we can’t have real people take care of it 24/7 when 46% of customers prefer live chat over any other digital contact method. 

Hence, chatbots are here to rescue! 

Chatbots are online every minute of every day conversing with clients, inciting them to change over and clear their questions. With computerized reasoning, they can even furnish store guests with a customized insight as they can recollect past discussions and show clients prescribed products as indicated by their last visit. 

New intervention in the field – AI – has revolutionized the whole process. Chatbot now not only shows the planted message no more. 

magento-2-product-image-size-user-intent-understanding

With computerized reasoning, they can even furnish store guests with customized insight via user intent. They can recollect past discussions and offer clients prescribed products as indicated by their last visit. 

Automation chat tools

  • LiveChat
  • Drift

ECOMMERCE AUTOMATION HACKS #5: CUTDOWN CHECKOUT TIME WITH AUTO-FILL

It takes 6 steps for a customer to buy something off your site.

typical-checkout-flow

Learn to SHORTEN THIS PROCESS with the best checkout tips and tricks.

Most eCommerce platforms do the final step automatically by putting the place order button as the trigger for sending the customer the confirmation email. What if I told you we can make this process even shorter, faster and user-friendlier?

Using auto-fill and suggesting technologies, you can make the most tedious and time-consuming part of the checkout – filling address and information more comfortable. 

shipping-address-method-magento-2

Each second added to the checkout process takes away 7% of your conversion ability. Hence, making it faster is better.

Conclusion

We hope you enjoyed this roundup of how to make use of website automation for eCommerce success.

BSS Commerce is one of the leading Multi-platform eCommerce solutions and web development services providers in the world. With experienced and certified developers, we commit to bringing high-quality products and services to optimize your business effectively. 

You have ideas; we have the solutions! Contact BSS TEAM to make your business more up-to-date, stable, and profitable.

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