Ecommerce Systems 101
In any ecommerce business, systems are critical to help you scale and grow your company effectively. Luckily, lots of components within an online retail business can be documented and turned into systems that you can outsource or train somebody in house to do, freeing up your time and allowing you to focus on bigger fish to fry.
The following are a few examples of systems you can implement to grow your business.
1. Fulfillment
This is a pretty straight forward documentation process. Receive order, package order, ship order. You’ll want someone trusty to do this on your behalf, and there are quality operations which you can outsource them to.
Making a fulfillment system that anyone can learn and do will free up tons of time for you to focus on getting new products, optimizing your site and looking for new sales channels.
2. Product Data Updating And Optimization
This one is pretty easy to outsource (www.odesk.com) or hire an intern ($10 / hour or less) to do. Whenever you get new product information, you can create a training manual on how to upload that product data into your webstore. You can even create an SEO training guide which compliments it, enabling you to scale while adding valuable keywords to your product pages that you may have not had time to do in the past.
3. Data Feeds
These are a pain in the butt and they’re easy to outsource. Some companies only let you outsource the data feed creation and sending part, so don’t be fooled if you’re looking for a full service solution which optimizes your bids and cuts products that are wasting you money on paid comparison shopping engines like Nextag, Pricegrabber and Shopping.com.
Optimizing bids and cutting products is the most time consuming but effective way to grow your sales on comparison shopping engines, and you can outsource it. If you’re interested in checking out how we can help, click here.
4. Web Analytics / SEO
This one’s a little tougher, but if you put someone in your company in front of the right SEO blogs (seomoz blog, distilled.net blog, searchenginewatch.com, searchengineland.com, seroundtable.com, reelseo.com (video marketing), etc) they can learn how to manage and optimize your SEO and manage your Google Analytics on your behalf, making sure that you are moving towards higher rankings in SERPs and increasing key performance metrics.
Though it’s a little tougher to do, the payoff can be huge. Having someone dedicated to these two areas of business can be the catalyst your business needs to grow.
5. Content Marketing
Don’t got time for a content marketing plan? Find someone who does. Writing interns from colleges around the area would love to learn about your business and write about it.
The ROI over time is great, and with Google’s ever-increasing focus on quality content, now, not later, is the time to start making product videos, buying guides, and even catalogs for your shoppers.
These are just 5 of literally hundreds of tasks you can document, create training materials for, and systemize, allowing you to take off a few hats and focus on the big fish to fry.
How have you systemized your business? Let us know in the comments.
