What are the biggest issues for business owners who want to scale their eCommerce?
It’s usually tied to money or human resources.
On the one hand, they need money to grow and scale.
On the other hand, they also need more people to make sure all processes are taken care of and that nothing is missing.
Having more people on board means, of course, more money too.
But what if it wasn’t exactly like that?
This blog post is to present you 3 automation tools for eCommerce that all business owners ought to know and implement in their businesses.
Now: you don’t need all 3 of them together. You should pick one and stick to that one.
Once you do that you will have a lot more automated tasks at a fraction of the cost.
What Are Automation Tools
What do you need to connect your computer to the internet?
You can use WiFi or cable, yes.
And you also need a router, which will connect you to the actual internet.
The router is what makes this all possible because you can’t connect any devices easily to the internet without a router.
The router itself then takes care of allowing you access and connecting you to the internet and to all of the things the internet has.
This was just a quick and easy example to get you thinking about how automated the internet currently is.
A long time ago people had to go to a lot of trouble to connect to the internet. But now we don’t.
It’s easier. Because there are some tools that make it so.
An automation tool will act as a sort of router.
It will connect different parts of your eCommerce to one another and make them communicate.
Here’s an example to help simplify it:
When someone places an order, an automation tool will connect your eCommerce to multiple other platforms:
- Your CRM: to create or update this customer’s info;
- Your SMS platform: to send an automated SMS with the payment details (and, later, the shipping details);
- Your email marketing platform: to send an automated thank you email and, later, set up a nurture or cross sell email automation.
This seemingly hard process, that could take up to 20 minutes, is now taken care of by a single automation tool that does it in seconds.
It’s great for you and it’s great for your customer.
Now, this was a fairly simple example process just to make sure we were on the same page in regards to automation tools for eCommerce.
It can go a lot further than that.
Let’s check the 3 automation tools now.
3 Automation Tools for eCommerce
Zapier
Zapier was launched in 2012 and is one of the most famous automation tools for eCommerce and other online businesses.
Its goal was to make business tasks easier for business owners so they’d have more time to focus on actually doing business (selling and making a profit) than wasting time on repetitive tasks.
Zapier works with over 4000 apps, from Gmail to Hubspot to Slack.
There’s a huge amount of apps that are pre-integrated into Zapier and you can also set up your own Webhooks to accomplish even more.
In terms of pricing, this is not the cheapest tool around.
Having huge recognition in the market already, Zapier has plans that can go as high as +599$ a month.
It does have a free plan as well which you can use to get to know the platform and decide if it’s a fit for you and your business.
Make (former Integromat)
Make is a new brand that took over Integromat, another automation tool.
We’d say this is the tool that developers would prefer as it deals a lot more with code than Zapier or the third app tool we’ll talk about later.
Nevertheless, this is definitely one to keep in mind when you’re considering automation tools for eCommerce.
Make has over 1000 pre-integrated apps and, of course, you can always use Webhooks to get more apps in the process.
We don’t know whether it’s related to this being a tool that needs a bit more programming knowledge or if it’s only to do with not being as well known, but Make is a lot cheaper than Zapier.
Pre-defined plans go as high as 29$ a month and there’s also a chance to talk to Make’s sales team to get you onboard with an Enterprise plan.
If you have a programmer – or someone who knows its way around a bit of coding – we’d strongly recommend Make over any of the other two platforms.
Pabbly Connect
Pabbly Connect is still the “newbie in town.”
It’s still not very famous which is fantastic for whoever wants to get a good tool for basically nothing.
Pabbly’s interface looks a lot like Zapier and we do think it’s a sort of low cost version of Zapier.
It has over 800 pre-integrated apps, which is less than Make and Zapier, but Pabbly connect does come with the best and most famous apps for eCommerce.
In terms of pricing, Pabbly Connect can go as high as 79$ a month – which is a lot less than Zapier given this is also a no-code automation tool.
Conclusion
Automation tools for eCommerce will save you tons of time and payroll money.
You will still need someone to be in charge of the automation tool and fixing problems if/when they happen but you will reduce your work and pay loads.
Out of the 3 automation tools we talked about here are our final thoughts.
If money is not an issue and you want the automation process to be simple to build, choose Zapier.
If you already have someone on your team who knows a bit of coding, we recommend Make. It’s cheaper and it makes perfect sense for your team.
If, on the other hand, you want simple enough processes, aren’t too keen on investing 3 digits a month to have things automated, but also don’t have a skilled person in your team, then choose Pabbly Connect.
Are you already using any of these or perhaps a different app? Tell us all about it so we can update this post in the future.
