Exploring Automated Dropshipping: Our Handbook

In this article, we will plunge into the depths of exploring automated dropshipping, which has appeared to make your dropshipping business breathe easier.

Key Takeaways

• Automated dropshipping streamlines operations for time efficiency, reducing errors and workload allowing you to focus on growth strategies.
• You can create a dropshipping business with automated tasks like adding products, processing orders, managing inventory, tracking orders, handling customer reviews, and providing customer support.

What Is Automated Dropshipping?

Many dropshipping businesses are run by a single individual. What will happen if you work as an employee and do the work by yourself continuously for the entire day in a harsh working environment like a dropshipping business? Over time, this depletes your mental resources and diminishes your overall productivity.

The automated dropshipping model is created as a solution that can prevent the scenario where we become incapable of handling manual tasks. It leverages the development of technology to automate various dropshipping processes, ensuring a smooth workflow for merchants overall.

However, this work requires a third party to handle it, which means businesses have to face many challenges in terms of standards, authority, or compliance. Choosing credible contractors must be prioritized to ensure the highest quality possible, focusing time on other crucial parts of the business.

However, while you can automate dropshipping through outsourcing, it can be more expensive and complex. If you don’t hire skilled individuals, you may spend too much time overseeing them, taking time away from managing your business.

Why Should You Choose Automated Dropshipping?

Reduced Workload and Errors

Traditionally, the manual execution of dropshipping tasks demands significant effort. The accumulation of these tasks can swiftly lead to operational overload. Automated dropshipping remedies this by seamlessly integrating diverse technologies to handle these labor-intensive tasks. Swift order processing, continuous inventory tracking, and even automated customer responses alleviate the burden on merchants, enabling them to channel their energy into scaling their enterprise.

Every day, human involvement in manual processes drains you and stresses your mind and body, introducing the potential for making mistakes, from order mishandling to data entry faults. By embracing automation, businesses can establish high-accuracy, consistent, rule-based workflows relying on technology that maximally mitigates the risk of human-related errors.

Reduced Costs

Not only does minimizing risk and human errors result in high-quality processes and services, but it is also a solution to save significant inventory costs. There is no need for add-on fees or incurring expenses leading to financial losses when your dropshipping business can ensure a smooth and real-time inventory workflow and execute shipping logistics seamlessly by adopting automation.

Covering huge aspects of fulfillment processes with automatic systems can reduce considerable human resources, eliminating the cost of hiring an employee. Although you might pay a large upfront fee for investing in technologies, it ensures a certain result in the long term rather than hiring employees with the possibility of incurring the add-on fees mentioned above.

Time Efficiency

Time is vitally important for every drop shipper. The core allure of automated dropshipping lies in its remarkable capacity to enhance time efficiency by revolutionizing essential business processes. 

By seamlessly streamlining intricate operations such as order fulfillment, inventory management, and shipping, this approach liberates invaluable time resources that can be channeled toward catalytic business growth, customer-centric endeavors, and forward-thinking strategies. With the extra time, you can grow your business more quickly and spend quality time with loved ones.

How To Create An Automated Dropshipping Business?

Let’s come to the main part of the article. We will guide you step-by-step through creating an automated dropshipping model for your e-commerce business.

Step 1: Create A Dropship Website 

Creating a dedicated dropshipping website serves as the cornerstone of every online retail venture or brick-and-mortar store. This step offers numerous advantages that empower you to brand your business and engage customers more effectively.

Rather than selling on popular platforms like Amazon, owning a dedicated dropship website provides a platform to build a unique brand identity in your own space. You can gain greater control over the design, functionality, and user experience, enabling you to tailor the website to your specific niche and customer preferences.

Shopify emerges as a wise choice for setting up your dropship website due to its user-friendly interface, comprehensive features, and seamless integration with dropshipping plugins and apps. Its tiered pricing structure caters to businesses of all sizes, offering varying levels of customization and scalability.

Here is a breakdown of the quick steps to creating a website using Shopify as an example.

• Sign up for an account and subscribe to the suitable plan.
• Choose a template for your site and customize it as you wish
• Build out your pages and organize the navigation
• Add products and services
• Set up other business tools (third-party apps, payments, email marketing, etc.)
• Preview and publish your website

Step 2: Automate Adding Products

If you’re juggling a range of lucrative products, it’s high time to explore dropship automation tools for swift integration into your store. 

Opt for dropshipping automation software that allows you to automatically import products from your chosen suppliers directly into your store with a single click. These tools typically synchronize product details, images, prices, and availability, eliminating the need for manual entry. 

You can easily automate product imports using methods such as entering the product’s URL or ID, using bulk import for efficiency, or setting scheduled imports to avoid waiting.

Shopify is capable of handling it with an extensive third-party app available on the Shopify App Store, ensuring high-quality products in this business line from trusted sources are recommended to merchants. 

For this purpose, SaleHoo Dropship is a solid recommendation, enabling quick imports of top AliExpress products to your Shopify store.

Other notable tools include:

• Dropified: This tool allows you to source high-margin products from a vast number of suppliers.
• Spocket: With Spocket, you can find products with fast shipping options from global dropshipping suppliers.

Integrating it into your Shopify store requires just a few simple steps:

• Access the Shopify App Store from your Shopify admin dashboard.
• Find the app you want and install it
• Configure the app by following the setup instructions
• Import reliable products 
• Sync and manage it.

Step 3: Automate Order Processing

In the beginning, you will get your first order, and then, maybe with dozens of orders per day, you can still control it manually. However, when customers appreciate your products and recognize your brand’s reputation, how can you handle hundreds or thousands of orders daily?

Doing tasks manually can greatly hinder your business speed and negatively impact your mental well-being. After all, repetitive tasks can be draining and tedious.

There are solutions that can totally assist you in taking care of huge order processing effectively through effortless one-click ordering, eliminating the effort of switching suppliers’ pages and your products’ pages to review and match each order.

All you need is to set up trusted and highly rated software for the store and manage it through devices.

Some of the good options for you to consider

• Convictional Dropship Platform: Comprising innovative technology to manage order processing in real-time and responsively
• Inventory Source: A comprehensive tool that offers automatic product uploading, inventory syncing, and order management across various suppliers and platforms.

Step 4: Automate Reviews

Customer reviews are valuable social proof, which directly enhances the credibility of your store. Those reviews turn out to be a powerful way to attract potential customers in fierce competition because they are the most reliable sources.

The crucial thing is how you build up a good strategy for all the reviews that have been left to show off what you have done for customers and improve what you have not. Installing an app can solve this automatically for you.

Automated review systems prompt customers to leave feedback after their purchase, simplifying the process and encouraging more reviews. These tools can automatically send review requests via email or other communication channels, saving you the effort of reaching out individually. 

Positive reviews will appear as the “first face” of the website and help build trust among potential customers, while negative reviews provide insights for improvement.

We’ve put together some of the best and top-ranked Shopify review apps for your dropshipping business.

• Ali Reviews: It facilitates seamless bulk review imports from AliExpress suppliers to your site and enables automated email requests for customer reviews.
• Judge.me: This app automates review requests and offers features like photo reviews and Q&A to engage customers and improve conversion rates.
• Loox: Loox focuses on photo reviews and automates review requests, making it easier for customers to share their experiences with images.

Step 5: Automate Inventory Management

What if your best-seller item is no longer available in stock or the retail price suddenly changes while you cannot control all the processes immediately? Sales and profits may vary significantly based on each scenario, which we cannot predict. If you don’t keep an eye on your supplier’s stock, you risk disappointing customers and missing out on revenue opportunities.

Thus, automated inventory management involves integrating tools that monitor and update stock levels in real time. When a product is purchased, the system automatically deducts the quantity from your inventory across all sales channels. This prevents the hassle of manual updates and reduces the likelihood of selling products that are out of stock.

Additionally, these tools often provide alerts when stock levels reach a certain threshold, allowing you to restock in a timely manner or when there’s a modification in availability or pricing, ensuring you’re well-informed and prepared to take action promptly.

For those seeking efficient ways to automate inventory management, consider exploring our recommended apps here:

• Duoplane: Utilizing Duoplane’s vendor inventory feeds enables you to maintain precise control over stock levels from each supplier.
• Stocky: Stocky integrates with Shopify and offers features like demand forecasting, supplier management, and automatic purchase orders.
• Quickbook Commerce: It seamlessly integrates with Amazon’s Fulfillment service and other prominent third-party logistics providers.

Step 6: Automate Tracking Details

Enhancing customer satisfaction and transparency within your dropshipping business is completely critical. This process does not require advanced technology or skill; it just gives customers a schedule to see the status and know when they can receive their package.

Automated tracking systems retrieve shipping information from your suppliers and communicate it directly to your customers. This process eliminates the need for manual tracking updates and ensures customers are informed about their order’s progress.

The system establishes a customized tracking details landing page where customers can independently track their shipments. Automated tracking not only saves you time but also enhances the overall customer experience by providing real-time insights into delivery status.   

For streamlining order tracking and elevating customer satisfaction, consider utilizing apps like: 

• Dsers: AliExpress dropshipping solution that sends clear and detailed order tracking updates that you can share with your customers.
• AfterShip: AfterShip automatically tracks shipments and sends real-time updates to customers via email or SMS, keeping them informed about their order’s journey.
• ParcelPanel: This app streamlines the tracking process, offering customers a centralized platform to monitor their orders and receive automated notifications.

Step 7: Automate Customer Support

A report by HubSpot highlighted that 93% of customers are likely to make repeat purchases with companies that offer excellent customer service. Thus, you must be aware of the importance of this service to your business.

Automating customer support is a strategic move that enhances efficiency and provides timely assistance to your dropshipping customers. There are two effective methods for achieving this: leveraging FAQs and implementing a chatbot system.

Creating a comprehensive FAQ section on your website can proactively address common customer queries. Addressing common concerns through a well-organized FAQ page empowers customers to find answers to their questions without requiring direct assistance. This not only reduces the volume of customer support inquiries but also accelerates issue resolution.

Moreover, integrating a chatbot system on your website offers real-time customer support, even when you’re not available. Chatbots can respond to basic inquiries, guide customers through the buying process, and provide instant assistance. They offer a personalized touch and immediate responses, enhancing customer satisfaction and engagement.

To ensure the effectiveness of automated customer support methods, you should carefully consider our suggestions below:

• Comprehensive FAQs: Create an extensive FAQ section that covers a wide range of potential customer inquiries. Regularly update it based on customer feedback and evolving trends.
• Chatbot intelligence: Develop your chatbot with AI capabilities to provide accurate and relevant responses. Train the chatbot to understand customer intent and offer helpful solutions.
• Personalization: Customize chatbot interactions to align with your brand’s tone and voice. Inject a touch of personalization to make customers feel valued.
• Easy accessibility: Ensure the FAQ section and chatbot are easily accessible from your website’s main navigation or customer support page.

Some of our recommendations on favorite customer service tools:

• Zendesk: an automation tool that solves customer service tickets faster with access to relevant customer data, facilitating direct interaction with genuine customer service agents.
• Tidio: Solve up to 70% of your customers’ questions automatically with our Lyro AI bot. Agents can focus on building customer relationships and resolving inquiries faster.

How To Start Automating Promotion

Besides automatic merchandising tools, an effective marketing strategy also needs to intertwine the digital landscape. By harnessing the power of automation, businesses can streamline their promotional efforts and maximize their outreach.

Send automated emails

Automated email campaigns offer a personalized and efficient way to engage with your audience. By leveraging customer data and behavior, you can tailor emails that resonate with individual preferences and actions to welcome them to the store. The aim is to make the potential customers become actual buyers. 

Moreover, automated emails can encompass other range of interactions, from confirming orders to nurturing leads and recovering abandoned carts. These campaigns are triggered by specific events or actions, ensuring that your messaging is relevant and timely.

Shopify will let you automate your email campaigns without using any third-party apps, and its built-in marketing automation tool allows users to send over 10,000 monthly emails.

Install Facebook Pixel

Promoting your brand on social media, particularly on the leading platform, is imperative, and Facebook has developed an excellent dropshipping automation tool to streamline retargeting with utmost convenience.

Integrating the Facebook Pixel into your website greatly enhances your advertising efforts. By gaining insights into user behavior, you can optimize your ad campaigns, retarget website visitors, and create highly targeted audiences. Moreover, it recognizes the pages your customers engage with to curate relevant product displays.

This data-driven approach leads to improved ad performance, better ad targeting, and ultimately, a higher return on investment for your advertising spend.

Integrating it into your site just takes several simple steps. Begin by installing the Facebook Pixel on your website, then retrieve your pixel ID from Facebook and proceed to integrate it into your Shopify account. Establish vital details, make ad payments, and presto, you’re ready to launch automated retargeting ads.

Schedule social media posts

If you lack the time to craft, edit, and publish daily posts, it’s beneficial to perform this task in bulk during your free moments. A plethora of free social media scheduling tools is available, including Facebook. With such a tool, you can allocate your free weekend to plan and schedule all the upcoming week’s posts in advance.

Scheduling social media posts in advance ensures a steady flow of content without constant manual efforts. Automated scheduling tools allow you to plan and queue posts for optimal times, reaching your audience when they are most active. This approach not only saves time but also maintains a consistent online presence, preventing being flopped.

Additionally, some tools offer the ability to analyze performance metrics, allowing you to refine your content strategy based on audience interaction.

Final Thoughts

In essence, automated dropshipping isn’t merely about leveraging technology; it’s about redefining the way businesses operate in an increasingly digital world.

Keep in mind that time also holds monetary value. To profit from dropshipping, mastering efficient time management is crucial.

By embracing this evolution, dropshipping businesses can position themselves for sustainable growth, elevated customer experiences, and a competitive edge that propels them into the future of e-commerce.