“Automation” gets thrown around like a dirty word when used in relation to your business:

• “I don’t want to automate customer service, I hate not talking to a real person.”
• “I don’t want to automate emails, they’ll lose their personal feel.”
• “I won’t automate these fulfillment workflows, I want to be sure they’re accurate.”

Too often, we equate automation with call menus — “press 4 if you want me to repeat these options…” — which can be frustrating to work with as a customer. But automation doesn’t have to be synonymous with poor quality and impersonality. It is an investment: automating parts of your business is a way for you to purchase attention, so you can focus on other parts of your company.

As a business owner, maximizing your time spent on innovation or high-impact tasks helps you dedicate time to improvement and growth. Most merchants need to focus on a niche or USP to compete in eCommerce, and hone in on building a brand around what makes them unique. Automating lower priority tasks means you and the people who work for you can spend your time focusing on the things that will really help you compete.

As a shop admin (or a developer helping shop admins!) there are several opportunities for automation to consider, and some strategies to uncover those opportunities.

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Running a subscriptions-based business, or simply adding subscriptions to your existing online store, can result in some amazing things — higher revenue, happier customers, and a unique value proposition that helps you stand out in your industry.

Less amazing than the results, though? All the time you’ll need to spend making those things happen. Curating products for subscriptions can be time-consuming enough, not to mention the time it takes to engage with new and existing subscribers, manage renewals, print shipping labels, send orders out, improve your plans to gain more subscribers…

Phew. It’s tiring just reading that.

Before you convince yourself it’s too much work to run a subscriptions site or expand your existing subscriptions business, you should know that there’s a simple way to dramatically cut back on the amount of time you have to invest in it: automation.

Thanks to a few handy integrations and extensions that work with WooCommerce, plus Zapier’s added support for WooCommerce Subscriptions, it’s easier than ever to automate communication, order processing, and subscription management for your site. By setting up just one or two automations, you can save yourself hours of time, not to mention countless headaches and (perhaps most importantly) money.

Let’s take a look at a few ways you can automate a site with WooCommerce Subscriptions to make your life a whole lot easier.

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Getting started with email marketing can be challenging, but experienced store owners agree: email is one of the best opportunities you have for connecting with your customers long-term.

To avoid spending too much time on email right out of the gate, it’s wise to look into automation. Post-purchase email automation allows you to write, schedule, and automatically send relevant messages to your customers. Write your emails once, and they’ll do the work for you forever.

Let’s explore how you can get started with automated post-purchase emails that will turn your first-time customers into devoted superfans. Ready to learn? Read on for all the details.

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As an eCommerce store owner, you’re busy. And not “I have a lot on my plate” busy, it’s usually more like “my day is stuffed to the brim and if I get one more task I’m pretty sure I’m going to scream” busy.

So anything that promises to save you time is a lifesaver for you. Name it and you’ll try it at least once. But some of these promised timesavers just end up adding more time, since there’s a learning curve, so you might be a tad skeptical.

Well, you’re in luck. Automation is a way that you can save time while improving the flow of data to and from your store, and it has a minimal learning curve. With automation, you can do everything from export data to email lists to notify customers in specific situations… and you’ll only ever have to set the processes up once.

Sound interesting? Want to know more? Read on to get the details on ten automations that are worth a shot for your WooCommerce-powered store.

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