Fully Automated Shopify Dropshipping Store – How to Achieve?
What exactly does it mean when something is “automated” in terms of dropshipping?
The practise of dropshipping, which refers to the modern eCommerce method of allowing sellers to launch stores without having to manufacture products, handle shipments, or maintain inventory, has gained widespread popularity across the globe. The way in which people sell their products online is being completely transformed by dropshipping.
People are able to set up stores and engage in dropshipping sales of a variety of products in a little under an hour thanks to Shopify, which is the most effective eCommerce platform available and has more than a million users. As a user who is interested in automating more aspects of their business, you are currently in this position.
In the context of running a dropshipping company, “automating dropshipping” refers to the process of using technology to handle tasks that traditionally would have been performed by hand by humans. This procedure aims to get rid of time-consuming tasks so that the store owner can concentrate on expanding the company through marketing and providing better service to customers.
Beyond just technological means, you can also automate aspects of your business by utilising various human resources. There are now a lot of independent contractors that you can find online who can help you run your company the way you want to. An experienced freelancer can lessen the need for direct supervision, despite the fact that you will still be required to keep an eye on your company occasionally.
The management of your company can be made easier with the assistance of technology and outside contractors, saving you the time-consuming task of reading through every blog and doing your best to figure out the answers. The solution to all of your issues lies in automated processes.
Shopify dropshipping automation: Why is it important
Shopify is a fantastic e-commerce platform that makes it simple to conduct business online. With the assistance of Shopify’s in-house experts and third-party apps, dropshipping can be fully automated.
There are many advantages to using Shopify to automate your dropshipping business, including the following:
Optimization
The purpose of dropshipping is to increase sales as much as possible. You may be able to generate more revenue with dropshipping, despite the fact that your profit margins on individual sales are low. You will be amazed at how many more sales you can make in the same amount of time if you automate and optimise the sales process for your dropshipping business.
For instance, are you able to manage 500 sales orders on a daily basis? Can you quickly rewrite 110 product descriptions? All of these issues can make it more challenging to expand your business.
You are able to respond to customer demand as quickly as a large store and work as efficiently as a group of twelve people when you automate processes using either technology or outside contractors. Automation is the only way for dropshipping stores to effectively manage their businesses and generate substantial profits.
It is cost-effective
Time is the most important and valuable resource. If you let yourself get bogged down in the monotonous tasks involved in running a store, you will never have enough. You are able to pursue your passion of running a Shopify store thanks to automation, which frees you from the obligation of having to do all of the work.
You could keep yourself occupied by opening your own shop or beginning a side business. When you automate your dropshipping business, you will have more time to focus on the activities and responsibilities that are truly important to you.
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You will have more time to focus on other aspects of your life, such as the people you love, the activities you enjoy doing with your family, and the interests you have pursued in the past.
It is cost-effective
There are times when all you need to make something happen is yourself and some money. The most successful e-commerce businesses have armies of employees who are able to assist in their expansion. Do you have the financial means to hire a group of experts who can handle everything for you and charge you for their services?
It is highly probable that the response will be “no.” Automating dropshipping eliminates the need to recruit new staff members. Technology can help you do this. It’s possible for a freelancer to offer lower rates than a full-time employee. This is how much cash you will be able to set aside.
The money that you save can be put toward the rapid expansion of your company or the reinvested profits that will help increase your chances of being successful. When your company has become too large for you to handle on your own and you have to hire your first employee, you will be able to look back on the assistance you received from outside sources with pride.
This article will show you how to automate your dropshipping business so that you can focus on growing your business. You can also set it up as an autopilot so that you can focus on other activities that are equally important.
How to automate dropshipping in Shopify
This section will go over everything there is to know about dropshipping and show you how to automate each step of the process. This section will provide some recommendations for how you can do it yourself, as well as some helpful hints, best practises, and other information. Let’s get started!
Read also: Aliexpress Dropshipping Russia: Where to Find the Best Suppliers
Sale process
There are many different things that can be done in order to improve the efficiency of your sales process. Your dropshipping business can benefit from the use of one of the many apps that are available to automate this process. These are the tasks that can now be automated, saving you time and effort in the process.
Automated product research
Keep in mind that in order to find a product that will make you money on AliExpress, you will need to browse through all of the categories. The next step is to locate the images on your computer, download them, and then upload them to your website. You are no longer required to carry out that action.
You can quickly add products to your online dropshipping store by using an application such as Salehoo’s Dropship tool. This allows you to do so with just one click. This is even possible while you are perusing different pages on AliExpress. You won’t have to conduct as much research because Oberlo will advise you on the products that are most likely to generate a profit and that are currently in demand.
This can be accomplished at a very reasonable cost with the help of a Chrome extension. Relax, look around, and when you’re ready, just click, and the rest of the laborious tasks will be handled for you. More information about Oberlo will be provided in the following paragraphs.
There are other apps besides Oberlo that can be of assistance to you. There are a variety of other helpful tools that can assist you in selecting the best products to dropship from websites such as Taobao and Chinabrands. They are also able to connect you with suppliers so that you can get the best possible price from them.
In addition to these tools:
Sell The Trend allows users to easily navigate an enormous database of products that are currently being sold on High Traffic Drop Shipping stores today.
BigSpy is an excellent tool that enables you to auto hunt all Facebook Ads people tracking within a single minute’s time. Every day, the system will choose the advertisements that are the most successful based on popularity.
Jungle Scout is the most effective tool for researching products sold on Amazon currently available. This service provides a service that is available to new sellers as well as a service that is available to existing sellers. Additionally, this service provides a service that is available to either brands or agencies.
Check Out This Article to Learn More: Is Dropshipping a Profitable and Money Making Business in India?
Automate product listing
It’s important that you know about the wonderful app called Oberlo. You are able to add any product you like directly to your Oberlo account if you use the Oberlo platform.
You can quickly and easily upload all of the images, descriptions, prices, and other information from the AliExpress original page to your online shop with just a few clicks of the mouse. If you do this process automatically rather than manually, you will save a significant amount of time. You are able to make adjustments to these aspects using Oberlo as well.
Investing in an application that will assist you in importing products from numerous websites would be a wise decision. Despite the fact that I wouldn’t advise you to overwork yourself by consuming an excessive number of cakes, it is preferable to concentrate on the success of a single website.
Automate orders processing
The fact that sellers don’t have to worry about shipping and packaging has contributed to dropshipping’s rising popularity. Your suppliers are the ones who will handle the orders and are the ones who will handle dropshipping for you.
When you have hundreds of orders coming in every day, doing everything manually can make for a very chaotic environment. The order processing can be completely automated with the use of dropshipping automation software.
Creating templates for the export of sales orders is one way to accomplish this goal. In the event that you don’t limit your sales to Shopify alone, these templates will, upon the receipt of an order from one of your other online marketplaces or shopping carts, immediately be populated with the customer’s information and sent on to the relevant supplier.
Also Read: How Does Dropshipping’s Cash on Delivery (COD) System Work?
It is simple to carry out. You can send it by email with a CSV attachment, or you can send it by SFTP or FTP. You have the option of inquiring with the provider for further information regarding the format in which you would like to be provided. After your order has been processed and shipped, you will receive an email with your order’s tracking information. After that, you can move on to providing service to your customers.
It should not come as a surprise that Oberlo is also capable of doing this! You will only need to click one button in order to send the order to Oberlo along with all of the customer’s details. Because the dropshipping functionality is automated, it is very simple to do away with all of the repetitive tasks. Scaling is a simple process that requires little of your time and effort.
Automate tracking details
Details of tracking should be automated.
As the seller, it is your duty to address any concerns raised by the buyer once the order has been processed. The question “When will my product come?” is the one that will be asked of you the most frequently. The provider offered up this information to the purchaser. On the other hand, if you need to manually check each order to determine when it is expected to arrive, this can be a time-consuming process.
Downloading applications from the Shopify App Store is another option for automating this process. These apps notify your customers that their orders have been fulfilled by sending an email to their email address. In addition to that, they will inform you of the amount of time it will take to receive the order.
This results in fewer messages from customers inquiring about the status of their orders. If your shipping company is able to show the location of the order on a global map, then your customers can also track their order on their own by using this feature. This not only saves you time but also enables you to concentrate on marketing and ensuring that your clients are satisfied.
You should also read about the four communities on the best dropshipping forums and the benefits they offer.
Marketing
The automation of marketing is a fantastic idea. Over the course of its history, marketing has developed to the point where it now enables business owners to conduct campaigns on a global scale without the need to employ additional staff. If you are interested in gaining that additional strength, continue reading.
Put in place the Facebook Pixel.
If you have your own website, installing a Facebook Pixel on your Shopify store is one of the most important steps that you can take. After obtaining your pixel ID from Facebook using your Facebook login information, add it to Shopify. This snippet of code has the potential to make your marketing efforts a lot more successful.
It is possible to retarget previous site visitors by using automated advertisements. Keep an eye on the web pages that your customers check out. It is possible to configure your advertisements so that they follow your customers around wherever they go on Facebook.
Although there is some preliminary work involved, the process is straightforward and takes less than a quarter of an hour. You should educate yourself on Facebook advertisements if you want to get the most out of using Facebook ads.
If you want to learn everything there is to know about Facebook ads for beginners, make sure to check out our extremely detailed guide.
There are many applications for the pixel.
For instance, you could inform Facebook about which visitor added which product to their shopping cart just before they abandoned it. After that, retargeting ads could be used in an effort to coax customers back into making the purchase of the cart.
Another illustration: the content of your blog could be used to target visitors to your site and display products or bestsellers that are relevant to their interests.
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Automate emails
It is common knowledge that email can be programmed to respond automatically. Despite this, many people continue to do it by hand. Shopify gives you the ability to make automated email drips without charging you extra for it. Your drop-shipping business will function more efficiently as a result of this.
You are able to generate automated emails in response to a wide variety of triggers, including order confirmation, abandoned checkout, refunded orders, cancelled orders, and more. These settings can be located in your Shopify store’s Settings menu under the Notifications submenu (as shown in the image above). There are 22 notification choices available, each corresponding to a unique type or opportunity.
You can configure your desktop to alert you whenever a sale is made by setting up the appropriate notifications. You will be informed of when sales are taking place as a result of this. You could also hire a freelancer to carry out this task for your business. Desktop notifications will be sent to them, ensuring that you are kept up to date at all times regarding each order.
Automate image enhancement
You’ll have the ability to import images directly from the product pages of your suppliers when you use Oberlo. You should strive to give all of your images the same aesthetic treatment so that your website has a unified feel. You can also perform a search in the opposite direction on your images.
Images taken from the websites of suppliers frequently depict models posing in front of brightly coloured backdrops or mockups of t-shirts with vivid colour schemes. Getting rid of the backgrounds and putting your products on a white screen is the quickest and easiest way to keep your images looking uniform. A product page is given an appearance that is tidier and more well-organized by the use of these pictures.
Check out this related article on the best eco-friendly dropshipping products and suppliers as well.
Many shops have designers on staff who are proficient in Photoshop to remove the background from photographs. One of the best places to look for them is on Upwork. Remove.bg is an option to consider if you are interested in lowering your financial outlays.
Simply upload your pictures, and the background will disappear in a matter of seconds. If you choose the free option, you will only be able to upload one image each month. If you subscribe, you will be able to remove backgrounds from photos more quickly and add more photos. In my opinion, the outcomes are adequate and can be implemented straight away on any website. Despite the fact that they might not be as polished as the work of a designer, they are still acceptable.
The best course of action would be to work with a free-lance designer to develop a uniform colour scheme that could be applied to all of your photographs. You will be provided with a Photoshop tutorial once the terms of the contract have been fulfilled so that you can carry out the work on your own.
Automatic commercials
Facebook ads, despite their power and the amount of time they require to create, have the potential to be very effective. In order to achieve desirable outcomes, it is necessary to conduct regular testing and verification, as well as make appropriate adjustments to both your financial plan and your choice of locations. Facebook ads can be automatically created and run by an app that automates the process.
An effective app that makes use of machine learning can gain knowledge from advertisements and gradually improve its performance over time. Kit is capable of doing that, but we are going to take a closer look at the application at a later time. For the time being, there is no other way to frame the question. Kit is also designed for use with shops hosted on Shopify.
Also, take a look at US Dropshipping Suppliers of Gaming Keyboards on AliExpress.
Automate social media posts
Are you exhausted from posting updates to each of your social media accounts on a daily basis? The most challenging aspect of managing a social media account is maintaining a consistent posting schedule.
With the help of a social media management tool, you are able to schedule posts for each day of the week or at any time you choose. This ensures that you will never forget to share an image of a meme with your audience, which is sure to delight them. There is a free trial version of every social media scheduling tool available, allowing you to evaluate the product before making a purchase decision.
By taking advantage of this feature, you can upload up to a predetermined number of posts at a price that is affordable for you. The social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn are the ones to which these tools most frequently upload content. You can schedule posts for each channel by selecting a time frame in the corresponding drop-down menu.
You might find that you have some free time on Saturday mornings, so you make yourself a cup of tea and use Buffer to plan out your social media posts for the upcoming week on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Keeping to this routine will assist you in maintaining your resolve over the long term.
Automate Boost sales
Increasing sales is a necessary step in the process of increasing those sales. The five-star ratings and encouraging comments left by your customers can make a difference in the number of people who make a purchase. After you have made a few sales, you can begin to email customers and ask them to share their experiences and leave reviews.
In addition, the Shopify App Store provides Boost sales apps that will make it easier for you to manage the reviews that customers leave for your store. Customers who rate their experience with one to two stars will be contacted in order to enhance the quality of the customer service provided. Kind words will be added to the product page for customers who leave reviews with a rating of five or four stars.
Check out this other article on dropshipping marketing tools that your company needs.
It’s possible that you don’t yet have enough customer reviews to add them to your online store. Your online store will be able to incorporate feedback left by customers directly from the website of the supplier if you use Oberlo. The potential customers will then be able to see how popular the product is, and they will be able to verify this popularity by reading real customer reviews.
Managing inventory
Automating the management of your inventory can be a great way to save money and save time at the same time. When you dropship, you might end up with a large number of products and variants to manage. Adjusting all of them each time there is a change in colour or the price can be a very exhausting process. Find out how we can help make this less stressful for you, and we’ll get started right away.
Automate pricing
You can set up global pricing rules that will automatically adjust the price of the product rather than having to manually set the price for each individual product. On your website, consumers from a variety of countries are able to view the cost of your products expressed in their native currency.
Another aspect of the process that can be automated is the price multiplier. When you upload a product to your supplier, you will need to come up with a new price in order to ensure that you receive the highest possible margin. Your multiplier rules will determine whether or not the prices of your products are updated automatically.
Although doing so could save you time, it would also require you to carefully consider which products and price ranges ought to be factored into the multiplier. To ensure that the multiplier you use is correct, you should first determine the average price of the market and then add any markups.
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You could also utilise the pricing strategy that is detailed below:
Retail prices for products beginning at $0.01 up to $4.99 are equal to $19.99; retail prices for products beginning at $5.00 up to $9.99 are equal to $29.99 Retail Products with a Price Below $9.99 Have a Markup of 2.5 to 3 Times.
Automate product updates
It also takes a lot of time to keep your inventory up to date in a timely manner so that your customers are not frustrated when they make purchases. It is possible to set up rules for when inventory runs out, when changes take place in pricing or inventory, and when a variant is no longer available for purchase.
You could, for instance, set the rule to reduce the quantity of a product so that customers can see it on your website by selecting that option from the drop-down menu. You also have the option of removing items from your store’s inventory.
You can also modify the settings to be notified when any of the aforementioned events occur, allowing you to respond immediately. Keeping a list of potential suppliers and manufacturers of variants is a smart idea, especially if your products are in high demand. If your products are in high demand, keep this list.
This is something that can be done with Oberlo. You will have access to all of the information that is provided by your suppliers in real time, and it will be delivered to your online storefront directly. You don’t need me to convince you that dropshipping is possible with the app because you already know it is.
You can automate dropshipping in this manner while still receiving orders. If you would rather not do any of the work yourself, you can outsource it to freelancers who will do it for you. Not everyone is a good candidate for dropshipping. You have an interest in starting your own business. Let’s continue, and I will demonstrate some fantastic applications that can automate your company’s processes.
Six of the best apps to automate dropshipping in Shopify
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Here are six of the most useful dropshipping automation apps for Shopify.
Although it is possible that this topic has been discussed previously, the primary focus of this section will be on the most desirable characteristics of these apps as well as the prices at which they can be obtained.
Spocket – Automate product listing
Using AliExpress and Spocket together with Shopify enables you to engage in dropshipping. Spocket eliminates the need for you to manually import products into your store by allowing you to do so quickly and easily directly from the page of the supplier.
As we’ve mentioned a number of times, the app is simply of insufficient quality to be disregarded. You won’t need anything more than the free plan to get by. This app will save you both time and money in the long run. In addition to that, it offers a plethora of useful features for dropshipping companies.
Principal attributes:
Automatically refresh the product inventory.
Setting auto price
You are free to switch product suppliers at any time.
Personalization of goods and services
Manage and automatically fill customer orders.
Multiple logins for a number of different users
Monitoring and reporting on sales
Aftership is an automated system for tracking and delivering packages.
The AfterShip app is the one to use if you want to keep track of your packages and get delivery updates. The application enables you to generate a bespoke tracking page for your customers to use in order to monitor the progress of their packages. You have the option to automatically send email and text message notifications to customers in order to inform them about their orders.
Because more than 30,000 Shopify customers have downloaded and installed this app, you can be confident that it has been a success. Having tracking automation such as this enables you to monitor the performance of your delivery and react appropriately whenever an issue arises.
Check out this related article on AliExpress: Dropshipping to Russia. Beginning with the Best Suppliers Principal characteristics:
Aftership – Automate tracking and delivery
Your entire shipping operation can be easily automated and managed from a single location.
Assistance with courier services worldwide
Your customers will be able to track their packages by using the page that you have customised for them.
Sending delivery notifications to customers is an effective way to engage them.
Plans for pricing:
Starter comes with free installation and allows for up to 100 shipments per month. There is a charge of $0.5 for each additional shipment.
Essential costs $9 per month and includes 100 shipments and notifications via email and text message. Additional shipments cost $0.08 each.
Growth: $29 per month for up to 500 shipments per month; $0.08 per additional shipment; all other features included in this price.
The Pro plan costs $99 per month and includes 2,000 shipments per month; additional shipments cost $0.08 each.
More information is provided in the image that is located above.
Re-targeting site visitors is easy with Watchlyst.
First-time customers don’t typically make a purchase when they come to a store. There’s a good chance that a lot of site visitors left because they wanted to do more investigation first or because the price was too high. Watchlyst allows first-time visitors to subscribe to their email list in order to be notified via email whenever the price of an item decreases.
Kit – Automate ads
Your retargeting campaigns will benefit greatly from the automation provided by this method. Customers are given the opportunity to reconsider their previous purchase decisions, effectively giving them a second chance. This app can also assist you in constructing an impressive email list for your business.
Principal attributes:
Notification of decreases in purchase price via automobile
To re-visit, capture emails
Automatically sending emails to customers is a great way to foster brand loyalty.
Lead magnet
Read also about the 7 Best Wholesale Wedding Jewelry Suppliers in this article Pricing plan:
Free trial for the first week, and then $5 per month for each feature after that.
Kit – Automate ads
Kit is a fantastic app that can make marketing your Shopify dropshipping store much simpler for you. It was just mentioned above. Because Shopify is the company that developed the app, you won’t have to worry about getting help with any customer service issues even though it can automate your advertising on both Instagram and Facebook.
Kit acts as your personal assistant and is in charge of managing the retargeting on Facebook. You can also increase sales by functioning as a professional marketing department and running ads on Instagram. Additionally, the app is able to handle posting on social media platforms and email marketing, in addition to providing a wide variety of app recommendations that can help you improve your store.
To summarise, it is a marketing tool that is fully automated and can be used to promote your Shopify store. Additionally, it is compatible with additional Shopify apps, such as the Customer Reviews app by Yotpo and the SEO Manager app by Venntov.
Principal attributes:
Advertise your products on Facebook and Instagram to increase sales.
Develop audiences that are similar to yourself in order to get the most out of your advertisements.
Post updates on Facebook in order to increase the amount of customer engagement.
Create discount or promotion codes in order to entice a greater number of customers.
Customers are able to send individualised “Thank You” emails via email.
It is possible to generate quick reports in order to gain insight into the marketing and sales performance of your store.
Plans for pricing:
It doesn’t cost anything to use. Your earnings from advertising will be deposited straight into your Facebook account.
Check out this other article on dropshipping marketing tools that your company needs.
Buffer – Social media automation
A well-known social media management tool, Buffer has earned the confidence of more than 75,000 different brands and businesses. This service will assist you in improving your social media results and increasing engagement levels.
Its straightforwardness, user-friendliness, and clean, uncluttered design are its strongest selling points. In these modern times, when there are so many different platforms available, this tool is the ideal solution for automating your business so that you can keep your sanity.
Buffer – Social media automation
It’s wonderful because you can immediately see the URL of the post, and you can edit each one independently. Additionally, you can get reports on your social media posts by tracking and shortening the links you use.
The primary features include the ability to manage up to 25 social network accounts simultaneously and to pre-schedule up to 2000 posts.
Publishing that is done automatically on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
It is possible to manage multiple accounts if you use the services of freelance writers to produce content for you.
In-depth analysis of posts made on social media.
Plans for pricing:
The Pro plan costs $15 per month and includes 100 scheduled posts, a 7-day free trial, and 8 social media accounts. 1 user Premium – $65 per month – 8 social media accounts, 14-day free trial, 2,000 posts scheduled, 2 users Premium – $125 per month – 4 social media accounts, 2,000 posts scheduled
The Small Business plan costs $99 per month and includes 25 social media accounts, a 14-day free trial, 2,000 scheduled posts, and six users.
You also have the option to select Analyze and Reply, but the price for the basic plan is very reasonable.
Also Read: US Dropshipping Companies That Sell Gaming Keyboards Aliexpress
Upwork – Freelancers
You are able to find freelance workers to do your work through the website Upwork. According to the company’s website, Upwork has more than 12 million freelancers and more than 5 million customers. You are able to find the most qualified experts for any endeavour.
Web Dev Mobile Dev Design Writing Support for Administrators
Service to Customers, Marketing, and Accounting
As a freelancer who is hiring you, you will be subject to a fee of 2.75 percent for each payment transaction. This is in addition to the fee that was stipulated in the contract between you and the freelancer. In order to hire an employee who is reliable and skilled, you need to make an offer after considering the current price on the market.
You should still be wary of scams and only hire highly rated freelancers on Upwork to avoid getting scammed. However, hiring someone offers a number of benefits, including increased safety for the platform as well as a reduction in the amount of time spent on individual tasks.
Final word
Automation of your dropshipping process is an excellent way to economise time and free up mental bandwidth for focusing on marketing and customer service. Automating your dropshipping business will increase your chances of scaling it up and growing your profit, so you should focus on automating it rather than on performing mundane tasks. You can look at this situation as both a challenge and an opportunity that will ultimately lead to your success as an entrepreneur.
You should now have a better understanding of how to automate dropshipping in Shopify as a result of reading this article. You will soon be a leader if you put your efforts into automating the rest. If you have any questions, please leave comments and we wish you all the best on your eCommerce journey.