Key takeaways:
- Ecommerce is growing fast (19% yearly order volume increase), making automation essential to avoid inefficiencies and bottlenecks.
- Automation tools streamline repetitive tasks like order tracking, inventory sync, returns, shipping updates, and marketing campaigns.
- Benefits include higher efficiency and accuracy, lower operational costs (up to 30% savings), scalable growth without adding headcount, and improved customer retention through personalization.
- Common tools: Jimdo Automations (simple workflows), Zapier (customizable integrations), Omnisend (personalized marketing and communication).
The ecommerce sector is growing rapidly, with recent statistics showing a sustained yearly order volume growth of 19%. As global ecommerce operations expand, businesses employ newer and better tools to support business scaling. However, handling all ecommerce processes manually can lead to inefficiencies and bottlenecks.
That’s where automation software comes in. Setting up automation processes can eliminate time-consuming tasks, like inventory management, overseeing orders, or launching new campaigns. In this article, we’ll cover everything there is to know about how automation works and benefits ecommerce businesses.
What is ecommerce automation?
Ecommerce automation tools focus on streamlining, simplifying, and optimizing essential business processes and repetitive manual tasks. Examples can include automatic abandoned cart emails, order tracking, inventory sync, shipping label generation, and more.
Some of the more sophisticated automation processes handle more complex tasks like sales tax calculation and filing, supplier integration, or automatic revenue reports.
Benefits of Ecommerce Automation
Ever since the Shopify App Store was launched in 2009, offering a comprehensive suite of automation tools for email marketing to fulfillment tools, new tools have started to emerge. While some targeted specific tasks, others offered entire SaaS solutions, bringing unique business benefits.
Increased Efficiency and Accuracy
Whether you’re operating a small or a big ecommerce business, human error, slow processing times, and delays are inevitable. Automation workflows can change that. Instead of your valuable employees overseeing tedious manual work, they can use automation tools to do the majority of their tasks, allowing them to focus on seeing the big picture.
One of the best examples is overselling during flash sales. If there’s a sudden surge of orders, a company selling physical products may encounter inventory issues that can have serious setbacks. But with the right automation tools, your team can monitor sales better and provide extra resources where they’re needed, like customer support.
Reduced Operational Costs
Another important aspect of task automation is reduced business running costs. Ecommerce stores that have successfully integrated automation tools reported a significant drop in operational costs of up to 30%.
Let’s take returns as an example. Most companies either employ an in-house team or outsource specialists to handle return requests. Automation can help reduce labor costs by processing the bulk of all refunds, resulting in better resource allocation.
Scalability Without Growing Headcount
While virtually anyone can start an ecommerce business, not everyone is capable of scaling it. With scale comes increased challenges and handling issues like customer care, marketing campaigns, and increased order volume. One of the most popular ways to scale sustainably without dedicating a chunk of your budget is to use trained chatbots to handle the majority of incoming customer requests that are often repetitive.
Improved Customer Experience and Retention
Personalization plays a huge part in modern marketing. In fact, one study found that over 59% of marketers reported increased ROI metrics after incorporating different personalization elements into their ecommerce stores.
The best part – there are numerous personalized elements and strategies you can look into to boost your shopper satisfaction metrics, especially with automation tools. Too often, companies don’t have the time or resources to conduct experience-related surveys, but an automated process could quickly identify unhappy customers before they churn.
Key Ecommerce Tasks You Can Automate
Running any business involves multiple aspects, particularly if that business deals with selling physical goods. Not to mention the need for specialized expertise, which usually takes time to acquire. Fortunately, a lot of these manual processes can easily be automated with the right tools.
- Automatically sync your inventory, products, and discounts: Shopify, Ecwid, WooCommerce + integrations with Facebook & Instagram, Jimdo Product Sync.
- Order processing and fulfillment: ShipStation, Oberlo, ShipBob, Shopify Flow.
- Inventory updates and stock alerts: TradeGecko (now QuickBooks Commerce), Zoho Inventory, DEAR Systems.
- Customer communication and abandoned cart emails: Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Omnisend, Shopify Email.
- Loyalty program and personalized offers: Smile.io, Yotpo Loyalty, LoyaltyLion.
- Shipping and delivery notifications: AfterShip, Route, Narvar, Sendcloud.
- Returns and refund workflows: Returnly, Loop Returns, Happy Returns.
- Marketing automation (email, SMS): Klaviyo, Omnisend, Drip, ActiveCampaign.
Best Ecommerce Automation Tools in 2025
Truthfully, there are many automation tools out there, and most of these focus on delivering for a very specific purpose. SaaS solutions are great as they come with solution packages, but this also means that you have less freedom to pick and choose which tools you like best.
If you’re just getting into automation tools for your business, it’s best to start small and go from there. To make it a little less daunting, we’re listing 3 tools you can look into today to improve your operational efficiency.
Jimdo Automations
Jimdo is a website builder designed with the end user in mind. The platform puts a heavy focus on making sure its services can be used easily by anyone to build a website in seconds. With that in mind, Jimdo is also adding new features like automations to allow users to create their very own automated workflows without much technical experience.
While these features are quite minimalistic, Jimdo provides a comprehensive website-building experience with important benefits aiding ecommerce businesses.
Zapier Integrations
Whether you’re new to automations or have some experience with them, tool recommendations usually start with Zapier. It’s a mega powerhouse tool, sporting different automation capabilities for the different needs of business.
Whether you want to automate an update message on Slack to your teams or streamline content production and publishing with AI, Zapier makes it all possible.
The only thing to mention here is that since Zapier offers highly customized automations, experienced developers are essential when working with this tool.
Omnisend
Omnisend is another extremely popular tool built to maximize online store personalization and customer communication. Key features include email marketing, SMS campaigns, push notifications, and integration with other automation platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce.
In addition, Omnisend also helps customers with segmentation, A/B testing, and pre-built email templates to create highly targeted campaigns.
How to Implement Ecommerce Automation (Step-by-Step)
Now that you have a better understanding of ecommerce automation, how it works, and what benefits it can bring, let’s go over a simple walkthrough of how you could integrate automated tasks into your business processes.
- Identify a repetitive process: The first step is to map out your daily, weekly, and even monthly tasks. Calculate the amount of time it takes to accomplish them, and identify which specific actions follow the same predictable pattern, like order confirmations.
- Choose tools that integrate with your existing tools and software: Research available automation tools and make sure to read use cases to find the most suitable automation solutions that can connect with your CRMs, CMS, or payment systems easily.
- Test your new automation flows: Start with simple workflows and run tests to make sure they perform as intended. Monitor errors or any edge cases to implement timely changes based on real-world behavior.
- Review test results and adjust your automations: Use analytics to track time saved, error reduction, or conversion improvements. Regularly review performance and optimize your automations to stay aligned with business goals.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
The potential of automation is almost endless, but it’s crucial to evaluate that for any good automation to work, data is needed. When implementing marketing automation, some businesses can face certain issues that could result in damaged customer relationships or create long-term inefficiencies.
Over-Automating Without User Control
Automation is powerful, but overdoing it, especially without giving users clear choices and information, can lead to frustration. A well-known example is Microsoft’s implementation of the famous Clippy in the late 1990s. Clippy was designed to offer help automatically, but ended up being more of a hindrance than a helpful feature. Microsoft eventually retired the feature due to widespread criticism with it even becoming a cultural icon of annoyance over time.
Another example would be setting up too many promotional emails with generic or unhelpful information. This could not only reflect badly on a company’s reputation, but also result in customer churn.
Poor Data Hygiene Across Platforms
Dealing with data, particularly one that concerns customers, requires proper and ethical data handling processes. After all, automated systems are only as good as the data they rely on. This could include outdated customer contact info, duplicate entries, or mismatched customer records across CRMs and marketing tools.
One such case was the UK’s TSB Bank’s failed IT migration in 2018. The result? Massive outages, data leaks, customers being able to view others’ sensitive data, and overall data fragmentation. TSB Bank’s failed migration only goes to show how regular audits, standardized data input formats, and proper security blockers are essential.
Ignoring Personalization Opportunities
With increased competition, markets boom while customers have more options. But for businesses, this means investing in newer strategies and features just to stay relevant. One of the best ways to achieve this is through personalization.
One McKinsey report found that 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions, and 76% get frustrated when that doesn’t happen. The reality is simple – customers know they’re just another buyer, but they still want to be treated with care if they’re choosing to spend their earned money on a service or product.
The bottom line here is – spend the time to get to know your customers. Customer behavior analysis can be an incredible tool, but to really see tangible results, you should create ecommerce automation tasks that make good use of the data you collected.
Summing up
Automations have become a daily part of any online business, allowing ecommerce stores to grow their revenue and stand out from the competition. In 2024, already 40% of businesses globally have already integrated some form of automation tools, and this number is only expected to grow throughout 2025.
If data gathering was once a major concern, now the focus has shifted towards making use of data without spending massive resources in that pursuit. That’s why Ecommerce automation tools are such an integral part of Ecommerce businesses.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I start with ecommerce automation?
If you want to know how to get started with ecommerce automation workflows, you should first take a step back and evaluate all of your major tasks. Which ones are repetitive tasks, how often do they repeat, and what actions do you take to complete them?
When you have a list of tasks that can be optimized by automating them, research potential automation tools that fall into your budget range and tick all of your requirements. Once you’ve selected a tool, start with small automation tasks and test them to ensure 100% accuracy.
Can you fully automate an ecommerce store?
There are many possibilities for an ecommerce store to automate different tasks, ranging from fulfilling orders to providing customer support, and even inventory management.
However, it’s generally advised to pay extra attention to automating a small portion of your workflows for the best results. No matter how smart our tools and software are, customers prefer to buy from humans.
How to use marketing automation for ecommerce?
Marketing automation can change the game for emails, SMS, social media, and many other areas. It could literally be what cracks the code to successful marketing campaigns. You can use it to send personalized product recommendations, follow up on abandoned carts, reconnect with inactive customers, or launch seasonal promotions.
How to choose the right automation tool?
If you’re wondering how to choose the right automation tool for your business, the best thing to do is to ask a basic, but very important question: what processes can be improved and simplified with automation?
To get the best results, you could also talk with your teams and take the time to learn more about their operational challenges. Then, consider available tools, and more importantly, their integration options to ensure a smooth process from start to finish.