How to learn that you can earn more from a single e-mail message? – Business Process Automation in practice
- 27 October 2020
Recently, we wrote about the role of Business Process Automation in e-commerce. Now, we would like to show you how to use it in practice. Instead of hiring a person full-time to track all important changes on the market, you can get all such information in a single e-mail message that you can read during your coffee break.
How to save 40 hours per week?
Representatives of the e-commerce industry agree that price plays an important role in their case. More than 90% of people who shop online say that they compare prices of products on the Internet, and 80% of them believe that competitive prices are the most important factor when considering if a particular shop is attractive to customers. Already at the beginning of the 21st century, arguments were made that online prices should be as flexible and adapt as quickly as the prices on auctions and stock markets (e.g. Kannan, Kopalle, 2001).
However, some of the sellers still check the prices on the market manually. This is highly ineffective. A single e-shop that sells 1000 products on five different marketplaces would spend 49 hours per week checking the prices of their products (assuming that checking the price of a single product takes only 5 seconds and there are no breaks). This is equivalent to one full-time position. Thanks to Business Process Automation, you can complete the same task in just one minute per day by reading one e-mail message.
“I learned that I could make ‘easy gain’ from an e-mail”
What kind of information should you get in everyday e-mail messages that will be useful in the e-commerce industry? Below are some of our suggestions:
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Easy gain – this alert informs you that you can increase the price and still have the cheapest offer on the market.
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Clever move – all you need is a small price reduction to have the cheapest offer on the market, which may increase the number of customers and profit.
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Promotion – informs you about competitors’ special offers on products that you also sell.
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Price increases – thanks to this alert, you can quickly learn that your competitors have raised the prices of their products. It is useful to set the value of change in prices after which an e-mail message is sent (you do not necessarily need to be notified if the price changes by a penny).
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Price reductions – this alert is similar to the “Price increases” alert, it informs about a decrease in prices on the market.
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Positive trend – thanks to this alert, you will learn that your offer has become more competitive on the market (for example, it ranked higher in the Google Shopping ranking).
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Negative trend – the message is sent when your offer starts losing its attractiveness (for example, it ranked lower in the Ceneo ranking).
How fast can you respond to changes on the market?
It is one thing to have knowledge about the price changes and situation on the market, it is another to know how to respond. Thanks to the alerts, you can adjust the prices much faster, but you can also use the most efficient solution – price automation. If you are interested, read our article, which explains how automation works, learn how to test automation rules and contact us to find out if such solution will be right for you.