Ecommerce Automation’s Champion: Shopify Flow

Shopify Flow gives Shopify Plus merchants the power to do more with less. How? With the power of ecommerce automation.

Bill Gates emphasises the importance of automation in a business setting adequately,

“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.”

Many merchants struggle to find the balance between efficiency and operational costs. Particularly for start-ups, you can find yourself spending more time on urgent tasks rather than spending time on important tasks.

Put simply, there’s no time to calmly prioritise.

That’s why ecommerce automation software has become increasingly popular over the years. However, in the past we have seen this provided by third party systems, that whilst independently work extremely effectively, when integrated with non-native software they sometimes deem themselves too complex. And complexity results in more time.

Thankfully, Shopify Plus users can now integrate a native system known as, Shopify Flow.

It’s Shopify Plus’ own, embedded ecommerce automation platform that manages a series of processes, tools and technologies that gives merchants the ability to execute tasks with speed and agility, which is essential for business adaption and expansion.

Shopify Flow uses a 3-step visual workflow builder that automates tasks without the hassle of added coding or development. So, merchants no longer have to compete with time consuming and repetitive demands that end up becoming business growth roadblocks.

Shopify Flow In Practice

Now we’ve outlined the benefits, let’s do a quick breakdown of its core features.

What does Shopify Flow enable merchants to do?

The ecommerce automation software uses trigger-condition-action logic to automate processes. For starters, merchants can schedule sales i.e price changes and promotions with a predetermined time period.

Source: Shopify, ‘What Is Ecommerce Automation? The Future of Scaling Your Business Is About Freeing Your Time for What Matters Most’

Using Shopify Flow, they can also:

• Bulk load new products and publish them to all sales channels simultaneously.

• Tag high-value customers and notify customer service to send personalized messages.

• Identify, tag and segment customers who have purchased from specific sales channels e.g. Facebook, eBay, Pinterest & more.

• Release and remove entire site theme changes for seasonal promotions or product drops.

• Notify your customer service team when a high-value order is created (to send out a personal thank you gift).

• Track customers who have performed any unordinary or alarming behaviour.

Shopify Flow also allows users to automatically remove out-of-stock products from store view/sales channels. It can then send a Slack message or email to your marketing team so they know to pause any product-specific advertising. What’s more, it can also automatically initiate product reorders with vendors when inventory goes out of stock.

Dynamic Checkout Functionality

The ecommerce automation software gives merchants the ability to adjust prices at the checkout stage based on user’s product combinations as well as quantity or customer location and/or device.

This can also be achieved for loyalty members i.e. if you would like to apply a discount or specialised shipping rule to these identified customers.

Ecommerce Automation: The Key To Growth

The three main keys to growth are finding a way to save time and money, and most importantly, working out the key to selling more. However, if not executed correctly, selling more can be a business' fall from grace. Particularly if the merchant hasn’t scaled properly. Plus, hiring extra staff can be costly.

With the integration of Shopify Flow, merchants don’t have to offload tasks to new staff; you and your team still do the job yourselves, it will just take you one tenth of the time.

Source: Shopify, ‘What Is Ecommerce Automation? The Future of Scaling Your Business Is About Freeing Your Time for What Matters Most’

This ecommerce automation platform by Shopify is the first of its kind that reduces manual tasks to inevitably free your entire organisation so you/they can focus on what actually matters. It will simplify both front-end and back-end workflows as well as remove the disjointed patchwork of multiple, disconnected apps.

Shopify Flow can also be integrated with other automation tools such as, Launchpad (for scheduling, preloading and monitoring events) and Shopify Scripts (adds automatic discounts, relevant payment methods and custom shipping options).

Simplicity At Its Finest

Enabling Shopify Flow will mean standardising your visual merchandising.

What’s the best thing about Shopify Flow?

It’s all presented in a simple visual builder where you specify the triggers, conditions and actions which are then stored and executed - no additional coding necessary.

What does this mean?

This means you can streamline tracking and reporting, put a stop to any high-risk orders and most importantly (to marketers, anyway), segment customers by pre-created tags.

To sum it up neatly, its main aim is to offload the complexity and repetitive nature that high-volume ecommerce demands.

Who Benefits Most From Shopify Flow?

The fact is, there is no one type or size of organisation or business that will benefit most from Shopify Flow. Ecommerce automation welcomes diversity, no matter how big or established your online store is, we all have hundreds if not thousands of tasks that are seemingly minute and yet always take us at least five minutes of our time… every day.

Shopify Flow also sees its best results when it is integrated across interconnected roles and departments within an organisation. This includes:

• Operational managers

• Customer service

• Fraud prevention

• Marketing & advertising

• Web development & design

Enabling an ecommerce automation platform like Shopify Flow means you and your employers can invest time into what you’re/they’re good at i.e what they were actually hired for; experimentation, creative endeavours, product iteration, sales and marketing, as well as personal and business development.

For more information regarding Shopify Flow or Shopify Plus, contact acidgreen today. We're your trusted Shopify Plus Experts, with over 17 years of digital commerce experience; we help merchants achieve their KPIs as well as aid online business growth. We'll cater to your unique requirements and guide you in a direction that's right for your business.

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acidgreen is an award winning e-commerce agency  specialising in Magento, Shopify Plus and digital marketing with over 15 years of  industry experience. Our certified developers and digital marketers are highly qualified to create aesthetically pleasing Magento and Shopify Plus websites that generate the highest amount of conversions and provide the best ROI. Be sure to follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, or give us a call to learn more about our services.