Automated Dropshipping: How Can BrandsGateway Help you Achieve it?
In today’s ever-running world, one of the most precious assets that every dropshipper wants to have more of, regardless of what business segment they’re operating in, is free time. Thankfully, the dropshipping business model already allows dropshippers to hand over some duties to their suppliers, so they can concentrate on promoting their businesses and providing outstanding customer service.
However, the newcomers to the dropshipping business world might feel that all the weight is on their shoulders to make their businesses work, and they have to work around the clock to make it successful. But not anymore. There’s one aspect that’s becoming crucially important that can make dropshippers’ lives easier and allow them to run a dropshipping side-business next to their 9 to 5 job. It’s called automated dropshipping. In this article, we’ll take a look at what automated dropshipping means, what are the benefits, and how it can be achieved.
What is automated dropshipping?
Dropshipping automation means being able to focus on growing your business even further by automating certain processes in your dropshipping business. It basically means allowing a technology-powered machine to take over some core operational processes that previously took up much of your manual work time. These operational processes are usually the ones that consist of numerous repetitive steps that can easily be completed automatically.
When it comes to automated dropshipping, there’re diverse tools that can be used such as software, apps, and plug-ins that are usually provided by your supplier as a complimentary benefit when you start working with them.
What are the benefits of dropshipping automation?
If you’re already dropshipping with a supplier that doesn’t offer a plugin for automation, you surely are doing a lot of manual work that undoubtedly is time-consuming. Some of these manual and repetitive tasks might include:
- Constantly search for and source new products to provide newness to your customers;
- Collect all the product information and imagery to create the listing in your store;
- Check all the shipping, tax, and duty information to include them in your listings;
- Keep double-checking with the supplier on a regular basis that all the information is correct and up to date.
All of the above-mentioned tasks might take much of your valuable time if aren’t automated. And these are just some examples to make you aware of the power that automation can have over your day-to-day business operations. To understand better the actual benefits of dropshipping automation, continue to read further.
You can save time on repetitive tasks
Thanks to the modern technology that we have access to today, we can safely say that tools and software are able to complete repetitive tasks much faster than humans. For this reason, it’s safe to say that dropshipping automation can save you a great deal of time if it takes those processes off of your hands. This way you can devote more time to other areas of your business such as dropshipping on Instagram or TikTok.
You can save money and allocate your budget better
Before having the opportunity to automate your dropshipping business, if you wanted to grow and scale your business, you’d need some extra helping hands. Today, instead of you having to hire additional staff to help you complete the manual tasks arising during the day-to-day business operations, you can invest in an automation plugin or tool to take over them. In fact, although dropshipping automation services are usually paid, they still cost a fraction of the money you would be paying for extra staff on a monthly basis. Therefore, don’t shy away from dropshipping suppliers that provide dropshipping packages with an automation plugin, and, before you start working with them, explore the benefits they’re offering.
Your store’s information will be as accurate as possible
In order to make sure that your customers are happy with their purchase, you’ll need to be as accurate on all the details on your store’s page as possible. While humans tend to make mistakes, automation plugins are less likely to. To put it differently, when you’re completing a repetitive task manually, you can get caught up in the process lose your focus relatively easily and make mistakes. But in the case of a plugin, if all the settings are put in place correctly and reviewed regularly, all information will be synced properly.
You can get yourself some rest
Statistics show that there’s an unusually high percentage (89%) of the workforce that’s been experiencing the feeling of burnout during 2021. All this comes from the difficulties that were brought upon us by the pandemic in the past year and a half. When you’re determined to do everything by yourself, your efforts can easily result in burnout, so it’s important to learn how to delegate, especially when your business sees a surge in orders. The technology that’s the foundation of automated dropshipping can allow you to delegate repetitive tasks to plug-ins and software. This is an easy way to keep your health intact but still run your business successfully.
What can BrandsGateway’s dropshipping automation plugin help your business with?
Now that you’re familiar with the benefits of using a dropshipping automation plug-in, it’s time to go into details on the tasks you can use it for. In general, automation can be utilized through every step of the inventory management, fulfillment, and shipping processes of your business. In this section, you can learn how BrandsGateway’s dropshipping plugin and Shopify App and Shift4Shop App assist you with dropshipping automation in the case your store is based on Shopify, Shift4Shop, Wix, or WooCommerce.
Adding products to your dropshipping store
When you’re using a Shopify, Wix, Shift4Shop, or WooCommerce-based store, BrandsGateway’s dropshipping automation plug-ins and apps can help you to easily import products to your store in bulk, directly from the BrandsGateway catalog. Instead of manually copying all product details and adding the relevant pictures by yourself to each listing, you can easily automate this process with the apps and plug-ins. You just need to decide the categories of products that you’d like to sell, map these categories to match them with BrandsGateway’s categories and you can start the import. Once this is done, you can be sure that you only have the product categories that you want in your store and that they’ll automatically fall under your classification as product listings. Moreover, you don’t need to check each product one by one as you can be confident that all products supplied by BrandsGateway are 100% authentic and are carefully curated according to recent trends.
Setting the price of your products
With BrandsGateway’s automation plugin, you won’t need to enter the price of each product manually, as you’ll have the option to set a certain percentage as an umbrella markup for each category you imported. This will allow you to easily set and change your prices for a given category without having to go through each listing manually. Also, this approach will help you to better calculate and oversee the profit, which can come in handy when you’ll be planning the financial plan section of your dropshipping business plan. If you need a hand with deciding on the optimal markup that’ll yield you your desired profit, read our previous article on calculating a good profit margin for your business.
Keeping your store up to date
If you decide to team up with BrandsGateway, their plugin for automated dropshipping will help you to quickly synchronize all product details for any category you desire. This function will help you to keep all details in your store up to date. The plugin also has another benefit for managing your inventory in real-time. It can allow you to display only the available items in your store and remove all out-of-stock merchandise, so you can avoid selling something that’s no longer in stock.
Convert your currency automatically
From a consumer’s point of view, during the purchasing process, it can be very off-putting if the currency of the website isn’t matching the local currency you want to buy with. To avoid disappointment, BrandsGateway’s dropshipping plugin allows dropshippers to sell in any currency they prefer, depending on the country they are targeting. To put it simply, during the import of your products through BrandsGateway’s plugin, you can set the currency you want to sell in and all costs will automatically be converted into the chosen currency.
Setting a fixed shipping cost
BrandsGateway’s dropshipping automation plugin also allows setting a fixed shipping cost for each category or subcategory. This way, you can add a pre-set shipping fee to the final price of all products. This practice can be beneficial if you don’t want your customers to be aware of the shipping costs.
When dealing with price-sensitive customers, you can gain their trust and increase their willingness to purchase from you by announcing free shipping, even though the shipping cost is built into your pricing already. Statistics show that 66% percent of customers are expecting shipping to be free, and 80% are expecting free shipping above a certain amount. For this reason, setting a fixed shipping cost can help you to account for your expenses easier and to make a better impression on your audience.
Managing your customers’ orders
Probably one of the biggest advantages of having your dropshipping process automated, next to being able to import product listings in bulk, is that most parts of the customer order process can be automated as well.
The customer order process starts when your customers complete the check-out process and place an order in your store. If you team up with BrandsGateway, once this happens, the new order will not only pop up in your store but also in your BrandsGateway’s automation plugin system. This means that all your orders are automatically forwarded to BrandsGateway, so you won’t need to manage them manually, which is a huge help for any dropshipping business owner. You’ll also be able to be up to date with the status of your store’s orders and check if they’re completed or processing. The processing time can take up to 48 hours and once it’s shipped out to your final customer, you’ll get a tracking number inside your BrandsGateway account that you can share with them. This will allow your customer to track their orders at any point in the delivery process. Additionally, it’ll also help you assist your customers when they turn to your customer support with inquiries.
To sum up
As you can see from above, there’re many ways and benefits of putting your dropshipping business on autopilot. It’s important that you aren’t underestimating the power of automating repetitive processes in your dropshipping business because it can help you free up a considerable amount of time to focus on other things.
Having an automated dropshipping business will allow you to have time to work on your business and not get overwhelmed by day-to-day operations. This will likely lead to you being able to grow your business, understand your audience more, and keep an eye out for your competition.
About the Author
Lilla Stefanovszky
Fashion marketing professional turned digital marketer. My name is Lilla and I have been working in the fashion industry for 5 years. Currently working at BrandsGateway and helping with the development of the marketing strategy and on occasions writing articles for our audience. When away form the computer, I enjoy outdoors and running with my dogs.
