The clever, fraud-free way to automate your Amazon FBA business
Ever since e-commerce started to become a popular source of income, sellers have searched for ways to automate their business. Optimizing your steps in the online sales world brings you revenue and flexibility at the same time without investing too much labor. However, where there’s an expert there’s also a fraud. That’s why in this article, you’ll read how to avoid scammers and false automation.
Why you want and need automation for optimization and staying competitive
Humans are, generally speaking, lazy and clever. This led many people to turn their backs on working for an employer and instead to venture out. While it can be all fun and games to work for yourself, you might want to use the “clever” part to make sure your “lazy” part doesn’t trade in the 9-to-5 for a when-I-open-my-eyes-to-when-I-close-them. This is where automation comes into play.
With rising numbers of people selling goods online, the competition is also increasing. This leads to more aggressive marketing and rival strategies. It also becomes increasingly harder to stay competitive, outdo your rivals and maximize your profit margins. At some point, it is simply not possible for a single human or even a team of people to further optimize business processes. Another reason for automation!
Automation reduces time and effort for running an e-commerce business
Operating online sales can be an especially stressful pursuit because the field includes such a wide-spread task and product chain.
If you sell as a part of a platform like Amazon, you have to take care of sourcing and purchasing products. You then have to fill your warehouse space at Amazon and make sure your customers can buy and receive your products. Thus, product pages and compliance regulations are another ongoing task. All the while, you still have to constantly watch and analyze your competition and their moves on the market.
If you’re in the e-commerce world on your own, you probably have to deal with even more tasks. Shipping orders, taking care of returns, managing customer reviews, organizing reshipping and more. Running your own shopping site also requires administrative tasks from tech maintenance to legal compliance.
Since many online sellers are starting their business as a side hustle or running their full-time company completely on their own, automation becomes a necessity. Some might even go into e-commerce with the illusion of creating a passive income stream from the start.
While, if you’re doing it the right and profitable way, your e-commerce business will probably never fully run on its own, automation allows you to significantly reduce your workload. That way, you can get as close as possible to that passive stream of income.
Financial investments and automation
We’ve talked a lot about time investments this far – but what about cold, hard cash?
Despite the difficulty to measure exactly how much money you waste with the hours you spend on your e-commerce business, there are areas you can calculate precisely.
When you’re running an online sales business, you need to pay for warehouses and an office to work in. You also need to pay a salary for people since you most likely won’t be able to do everything on your own from a certain point. Picking and packing orders, shipping and customer service are just as important as behind-the-scenes tasks such as accounting and compliance.
Automation won’t magically take those costs away. Instead, it will allow you to spend your money more wisely in more efficient ways. A smarter budget will allow you to reinvest money into other areas. Marketing will in return allow you to grow and scale your business.
How automation can benefit you on a professional and personal level
Operating a business always comes with challenges. That’s why different ways of automation can help you take care of these challenges and tasks in the best way possible. You are essentially outsourcing and automating problems to tools or people who know this exact niche task best.
This way, you can for example increase your product and quality with automated sourcing and analyses. Order processing and inventory management can be optimized and errors avoided with automation. You can improve customer satisfaction with better service and consequently bring more buyers back to your store. Finally, automation can improve your overall efficiency and gather better data about your customers as well as your business in general.
All of these entrepreneurial improvements will then have an impact on your personal life. Automation frees up a lot of your valuable time. It can also eliminate mundane, repetitive and dull tasks so you can use your sharp and clever mind for what’s important.
What is automation and how does it work for Amazon sellers?
So we’ve established that automation is definitely the way to go, right? However, automation can be one of those buzzwords that can sound a bit vague. Time to break out the textbook for some definitions.
It is a term that describes the autonomous operation of tasks or machines. That means, tasks and processes are done independently of human control or communication. Or, to put it plainly: You don’t need to do repetitive and time-consuming tasks yourself anymore.
Usually it can be broken down into two main paths: Letting a computer do the work or hiring another human for their expertise.
Many mundane tasks or repetitive work can be done by artificial intelligence or tools these days. You can read more about using software and tools for automation with sourcing and product development, an automated fulfillment process or automation for growing your business.
On the other hand, especially as a self-made entrepreneur, automation by hiring experts is usually more efficient and financially clever than trying to hack it yourself. Freelance specialists, expert agencies or other service providers can help you invest money wisely to get the most out of every single area of your business.
Beware of scammers and avoid false and fraudulent automation
Especially in the Amazon business, the term automation is often used by con men and scammers. These self-proclaimed messiahs of e-commerce allege that they can build you a fully functional and highly profitable Amazon store from the ground up without you having to do anything. Except pay immensely large sums of money, of course.
Sadly, these fraudulent automation claims have wrongly associated the automation process with scams. However, automation can actually be a very powerful, very legit and very legal and reliable way to optimize your e-commerce business.
Detecting false automation services can actually be quite easy. It is simply not possible to give one single person or a single nebulous company a lot of money and get a fully automated Amazon business back.
You still need to be in control of your company and you also still have to invest a little time and effort into your ventures.
How you can actually benefit from automation
If you use automation the right way, it can immenselyscale up your company.
You can achieve this level of automation by looking for the right partners, services and tools. Outsource specific areas to people who specialize in this task. You can also use a tool that was build for this exact purpose. This way, you’ll be building a team of expert agencies and specialized freelancers that can help you in different areas of your business.
Are you looking for a place to find reliable partners for various areas? Then you should definitely check out our SPACEMARKET. This marketplace offers all services relevant to online sellers with a discount. It is however accessible only for SPACEGOATS sellers. From product photography to PPC and financing options or translations, our selected partners can offer you exclusive price advantages. If you’re ready to take the next step towards automatisation, contact us here to get access to the SPACEMARKET.
Automation strategies for Amazon sellers
Generally, there are two options for business automation for sellers who use Amazon. One of these is also a strategy suitable for e-commerce sellers with their own channels.
You can either use Amazon’s own automation offers for areas such as fulfillment (FBA) or build a network of independent partners or specialists.
Especially when it comes to fulfillment, Amazon offers great in-house automation options for sellers. Read more about automating shipping and storage in our article on automation for fulfillment processes.
Conclusion for clever and beneficial e-commerce automation
By using a little brainpower and avoiding smooth-talking fraudulent “agencies”, you can use automation properly.
Don’t trust a single person to deliver you a done-and-dusted successful business in exchange for unreasonable amounts of money. Stay in control of the core of your business and use your resources and investments wisely. By building a strong network of reliable and trustworthy partners and combining that with the right tools and services, you are sure to build a profitable Amazon FBA business with automation that is actually beneficial.