Running an e-commerce business is more challenging than you think, especially for small to midsize companies and solo entrepreneurs. As an e-commerce entrepreneur, you may find yourself juggling your time between running your business and managing your online store.
An online store will keep you busy with tasks, such as adding products, updating prices, tracking orders, checking inventory, and so much more. These routine activities can take up time that you can otherwise use on revenue-driving aspects of business management.
Besides revenue, you have to think of your corporate clients, individual customers, and partners in your business logistics chain. The last thing you want to see is your long-standing professional relationships with them go down the drain because you have been too busy wearing too many hats all at once.
Fortunately, you can avoid getting caught up in such an overwhelming scenario by working with an e-commerce assistant.
What can an e-commerce virtual assistant do for you?
An e-commerce assistant can be indispensable to your business. Highly educated and adequately trained, virtual assistants for busy entrepreneurs provide professional services for routine tasks and administrative duties that may be taking you away from the more strategic side of operating your business. Additionally, hiring a VA allows you to save on expenditures like training and salary costs.
Here are six tasks that you can outsource to a virtual assistant:
Online store management
With the ever-growing popularity of online shopping, you shouldn’t be surprised if your e-commerce store is constantly buzzing with activities. From orders pouring in during the hours to return or exchange requests from customers, it’s vital to have these processed or addressed promptly. A virtual assistant can accomplish these things for you as soon as possible.
Having a virtual assistant for your small business is an excellent way to enable consumers to shop online conveniently, so your e-commerce store can make a sale. There are even VAs who can help you run sales on your chosen e-commerce platform. You can enlist VAs trained or have experience with e-commerce platform services such as Shopify, BigCommerce, Wix, and the like.
Inventory tracking
While having the right product is a huge part of driving sales for your e-commerce business, ensuring that your products are in stock is equally vital. Your online store’s VA can serve as your inventory manager, taking charge of monitoring stock levels, updating your website on the availability of goods, and coordinating with suppliers when it’s time to replenish.
VAs’ inventory management skills can also come in handy in helping you avert losses or wastage by not overstocking products that aren’t selling, especially during lean seasons.
Website maintenance
Among the many e-commerce tips out there, the importance of building and maintaining an e-commerce website usually comes on top. Customers are likely to go to your company website if they want to know more information about your brand, and you can make a good impression by keeping it in tip-top shape.
A look at virtual assistants’ resumes will tell you why you’ll want to hire them to maintain your website. Many VAs are skilled in optimizing web pages.
They can provide value to your e-commerce store by giving buyers pleasant browsing and shopping experience. They can help you check if your product titles and descriptions are complete and well-written or if the links on your pages take customers to where they want to go.Â
Social media management
A strong brand presence on social media is a must for e-commerce businesses. It allows you to engage with your audience and promote your business in online communities.
You may be tempted to think of social media management as something you want to do on your own. Keep in mind, though, that apart from crafting witty captions or publishing posts, you’ll need to learn best practices, explore tools, manage a content calendar, and keep up to date with the trends—which sounds like (and is) a lot of work.
With everything else on your plate, you may be better off hiring a virtual assistant specializing in social media marketing. A VA-slash-social media manager can also bring more to the table by identifying high-converting posts and planning similar types of content or campaigns to grow your business further.
Your VA will also know which social media platform is the most relevant for your market and tell you where to find potential buyers or customers.
Customer service
One of the major benefits of hiring a VA is having a customer service specialist on your team. This person will ensure that your clients are happy with how your company provides support, from the initial contact point to closing a sale and even post-sales.Â
Imagine if a customer tries contacting you to report an issue with their recent purchase, but no one is there to attend to the concerns promptly because you have your hands full. The customer can chat with a bot, but that can only do so much. If their issue doesn’t get resolved on time, that can instantly turn out a negative review for your company or product.
Prepare marketing materials
Many e-commerce assistants are excellent marketers, too. They can do keyword research, produce quality content for those keywords, and promote the content across digital marketing channels. Just provide them the tools they need, product information, and its most salient features, and they’ll help you sell it online.
Valuable Virtual Assistants
With the many roles they play—store manager, inventory specialist, digital and social marketer, customer service agent, and so on—virtual assistants hold the key to effective delegation of tasks in your e-commerce venture. They take care of the business’s nitty-gritty, so you can have more time laying the foundation or accelerating growth for your business.
