Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Shariq Toor, Content Strategist at TGO Consulting
It’s a great time to be an entrepreneur. Some of us will remember the days when anyone with an idea had to open a brick-and-mortar storefront, which has its own set of hassles, before it was possible to even sell to anyone besides a few friends and acquaintances. Today’s storefronts are often virtual – not only is it easier than ever to work from your home, but your market isn’t just the neighborhood anymore. Anyone from anywhere, all over the world, can buy your products.
On the face of it, having worldwide availability is a great thing, but in truth, it comes with its own set of hurdles. When people want something you’ve made, you’re going to need to have it available, and have the means to ship it out. They’ll need to have a means to pay you, and you’re going to have to be able to receive the payment and fulfill the order as quickly as possible. No one wants to have to wait for weeks for their new items. Once a business gets over a certain volume, it becomes very difficult to fulfill everything personally – which is why you should get someone or something to do it for you, namely an automated process.
An automated purchasing process could (and probably should) help you with these important factors of running a business:
- Accounting: All the information regarding how much you’ll be paid, how much goes into overhead, and shipping, and everything else, will be linked directly to your financial apps or accounting service.
- Customer relations: Any important customer data will be collected, so you have the means to contact them again, and learn exactly who your biggest patrons may be.
- Fulfillment: However you intend to fulfil the orders your customers make, an automated process should be able to link to it, so you can send out your product as soon as possible.
- Inventory: When an order is made, inventory will be automatically updated to account for the items in the process of being shipped.
- Shipping: Shipping labels will be created immediately, complete with a tracking number, so your customers know exactly when they will be receiving what they ordered.
Here are five other reasons to consider automation:
1. Save Money
This may be the most important thing, because relatively few number of online sellers have extra money to spend on inefficient processes. An automated process will do a lot of the work you’d need an extra human being to accomplish. It will rectify your accounting, check your inventory, and prepare shipping. Some will even collect data on the buyer, so you can create profiles of your customers and know who should receive the bulk of your marketing efforts.
2. Save Time
The instant payment is received, shipping labels are created and tracking numbers are created. Your inventory is immediately updated. All that’s left for you is to package it and leave it for your delivery service. An automated system will also pass the tracking number on to the customer so they know when their package is arriving.
3. Make More Money
Since the cost of business will be cheaper, you’ll naturally make more money on every purchase. You’ll have a better cash flow, because everything is processed instantly and automatically. There’s no need for you to be directly involved in every transaction, because the automated system will test and verify everything for you.
4. Open 24/7
Part of being available worldwide means making sales when it’s daylight in Europe or Asia, but night in North America. You might be asleep, but your automated purchasing software never has to take a break. When you wake up in the morning, or come home after attending to other details in your life, you’ll find all your orders listed, so you can package and label them, ready to go out to your customers.
5. Growth Opportunities
An automated process documents everything better than any human being ever could. Each customer has information, such as email, age, gender, and geographic location, all of which are things that may factor into deeper reasons for what makes your product appealing to others, and to whom it might appeal. By analyzing this data and using it in your marketing efforts, you can reach out to a larger customer base and get your current customer base to spread the word, making what you have to offer more popular than ever.
Shariq Toor is Content Strategist and currently writes on behalf of the business software experts at TGO Consulting. He loves discovering the latest trends in Technology, Social Media, and Health. In his off time, he practices landscape photography and keeps up with his favorite sports.