Online Store Automations That Can Really Save Budgets

Dashboards – effective data management in e-commerce

Implementation of online store automation usually starts with organizing the data and creating the so-called single source of truth, that is, access to all data in one place. E-commerce dashboards allow our clients to collect information scattered across multiple systems and sales channels, and then present them in a readable form adapted to the real needs of the team. Thanks to such dedicated panels, the management of the online store is based on current data. Below you will find two areas where e-commerce dashboards have the greatest impact on the effectiveness of an online store.

Customer data management panels

In e-commerce, customer data is very often dispersed between different systems and marketplaces — for example, when an order is placed on eBay, customer information remains exclusively in this sales channel and does not go to the store's internal tools. As a result, when handling complaints or returns, it is necessary to manually copy data between systems, which unnecessarily increases the working time and increases the risk of errors. Although some tools offer ready-made integrations, they usually only cover selected marketplaces or systems. Dedicated integration of the online store, for which you pay once at the stage of implementation, allows you to connect virtually all used platforms into a cohesive ecosystem.

‍Why is it not always profitable to use ready-made tools?
When creating an offer for one of our clients in the e-commerce industry, it turned out that the annual subscription cost for the online store automation tool would be as much as PLN 72,000! Our implementation of integrations, which reproduce the functionalities needed by the client, from scratch, cost the company 28,000 PLN. This means that already in the first year of the automation operation, the e-commerce store saved 61% of the originally planned budget!‍

Dedicated automation of customer service processes allows you to implement your own dashboard to manage your e-commerce store, which will display data from various sources in real time. Such a dashboard can present exactly the information your team needs, as well as enable a variety of activities — for example, quick export of data on the reasons for returning orders from Q4. At Sagiton, we implement secure dashboards, combining online store automation with our cybersecurity expertise. In e-commerce, maintaining data processing rules in accordance with the GDPR is crucial, as store owners are responsible for all customer data that is collected and exported from the systems. Our customer service automations not only give you full control over your data, but also keep it properly secure. Contact us and find out how we can help you automate your online store: https://www.sagiton.pl/en/contact

Marketing and sales dashboards

If you sell across multiple sales channels or run multiple advertising campaigns at once, it's hard to evaluate which activities actually bring the best results. Automation of the online store and data flow is the basis for making the right business decisions. Full integration of the online store with all data sources allows analysis of campaign effectiveness in a single dashboard, without the need to manually combine reports from different systems. This allows you to compare the costs and results of marketing activities across channels on an ongoing basis. Automation also allows you to present data in real time so that the team can react immediately to sudden changes in budgets or sales results. Custom e-commerce dashboards can automatically send notifications about critical deviations, such as sudden increases in CPC for a selected keyword phrase. Such a solution improves the management of the online store and increases control over advertising expenses. Instead of acting intuitively, decisions are made based on precise, up-to-date data. As a result, the marketing budget is used much more efficiently and the profitability of the campaign is easier to measure and optimize.

Why does the implementation of business dashboards bring savings to online stores?

Thanks to sales automation and the implementation of dashboards, e-commerce stores reduce operating costs and make better use of both their team's time and marketing budgets. The automation of sales processes, which allows us to visualize the data properly, makes decisions faster, more accurate and based on current data, instead of manual analysis or intuition.

The most important benefits of implementing business dashboards in the online store:

1. Saving team time — employees don't waste hours flipping between tools, manually exporting, copy-pasting or preparing recurring reports; thanks to sales automation, all data is available in one place, and in practice it can recover up to 50% of the team's working time.
2. Quick response with alerts/notifications — properly implemented automation of the online store allows you to send notifications about critical situations, such as an limited advertising budget, lack of stocks with an active campaign or a sharp increase in costs – thanks to this, you react immediately and avoid blowing the budget.
3. Informed business decisions — dedicated dashboards allow you to make decisions based on real-time data: know when to stop advertising, increase investment in a specific sales channel or adjust stocking levels to actual demand — no more blind inventory management.

The dashboards mentioned by us are just examples of improvements that can be used by the owners of online stores — data visualization also allows you to manage product prices, manage multiple warehouses or loyalty programs. If you see that an area of your e-commerce needs to improve efficiency, contact us and get a free dashboard demo!

Dedicated automation of the order and return process

Automation of such operational processes is today a standard that has become accepted in large stores on a permanent basis. Meanwhile, smaller online stores often still handle orders and returns manually, increasing the risk of delays, errors and unnecessary labor costs. This is where the automation of the online store plays a key role, which is streamlining daily activities without the need to hire additional staff. Surely as the owner of an online store you will now think that a dedicated implementation is beyond your budget and you can only afford ready-made half-measures. However, the prices of e-commerce process automation services are starting from about 10 thousand PLN — and this is a one-time cost of implementation, unlike in the case of popular platforms, a subscription reaching several thousand zlotys per month. Dedicated solutions often, although of course not always, turn out to be much more profitable. Contact us and get a quote and ROI of your automation to find out what is profitable to implement in your online store!

Automated order management

If in your e-commerce the order management process still consists of manually pasting customer data or filling in excel this paragraph is for you! Properly created automation systems allow full handling of orders from the moment of purchase to delivery without manual data transfer between tools. Orders can be automatically sent to warehouse and accounting systems. It is also possible to implement integration with courier companies to instantly generate shipping labels and parcel numbers. Each change of order status — from “submitted”, through “in progress”, to “sent” — can be automatically updated and communicated to the customer. Thanks to this, the quality of customer service improves and the number of requests for the status of the package decreases. Automation also makes it possible to streamline the process of collecting feedback and ratings, for example by sending an email after a product has been delivered or offering a personalized discount in exchange for a review. Manual handling of orders in the online store is a thing of the past if you want to stay competitive in the market, most of the tasks should be done by automation systems for you.

Automatic handling of returns

Another problem of our clients, who did not automate the e-commerce store in time, is the manual handling of returns. Automation, meanwhile, allows handle the entire returns process without involving the team in repetitive activities. Why pay for something that can happen by itself? How it might look like: after submitting a refund, the customer receives automatic status confirmations and quick refunds thanks to integrations with payment gateways. System generates corrections of fiscal documents and sends them to the client and archives them in accounting. The acceptance of the goods updates the stock in real time, assigning the product for further sale, repair or disposal. Standardized return forms, along with automated communication, reduce the number of requests to the service desk, thereby improving the quality of customer service. If this sounds too trivial to you, because you already have all these improvements implemented, also think about using AI in your store. Artificial intelligence can generate reports on the reasons for returns and automatically analyze product problems or provide guidance on how to reduce their scale in the future.

Read more about the automation of returns and complaints in our article Automation of complaints, returns and servicing

Customer service automation for ticket prioritization

There are many ready-made tools on the market for handling requests and organizing work in e-commerce, and ticket systems have been the basis for efficient management of an online store for years. Thanks implementation of AI however, it becomes possible to significantly expand them — algorithms analyze the content of customer messages, recognize the level of emotion or urgency of the problem and based on this, they automatically prioritize matters in the service queue. These types of solutions perfectly complement various types of ticketing systems, speeding up the team's response and increasing the effectiveness of activities. Combined with the solutions offered by the automation of an online store, this allows you to better use the time of consultants and focus on the most demanding cases.

However, prioritization alone does not provide the greatest savings — it only reduces the decision-making time of employees, which does not necessarily have to be long. Real cost reduction is about reducing the number of applications that go to consultants. You can reduce the number of man-hours in this department with customer service automation based on modern self-service platforms and solutions such as virtual assistants. Properly prepared AI chatbots, which are connected to customer databases or product information, can independently answer most standard questions, guide customers through the purchase process or after-sales requests. Thus, automation provides not only faster and better customer service, but also savings of up to several thousands of zlotys per month in the case of large e-commerce stores.

What automations of online store management are the most profitable?

The automation of an online store can bring savings of the order of tens of thousands per month to the average e-commerce, but their amount depends on several factors. Primarily, it is important, what kind of automation will be implemented. In the article, we presented proven basics, that is, such processes that can be automated in almost any e-commerce. Therefore, if you do not know where to start automating the store, return to the previous paragraphs. However, if you have already improved the basics, it is worth remembering that each store operates in a different way and perhaps in yours there are more specific areas in which, unfortunately, a considerable budget is overspend. Such a problem can be, for example, the creation of a large number of arrangement photos of products. We also often encounter the problem of selling customizable products, where the customer service department has to help with the choice each time, so the team grows up to a dozen people. Automating those specific areas bring our clients the most savings. If you see that the costs of any process in your e-commerce have increased to unacceptable sizes, contact us – we will help you find a way to save your budget.