Automated Dropshipping: Everything You Need to Know

Running a dropshipping business can take a heavy toll on you. There is just so much to do in so little time. Product research, order fulfillment, return management, customer support – the list is endless. 

Trying to manage all these processes manually can make you break down. Instead, try leveraging automated dropshipping. 

As the name implies, automated dropshipping business is the practice of automating some parts – if not all – of your dropshipping business using a software solution. For example, you can use a software solution to find winning products even while you sleep. 

Automating your dropshipping business has several benefits. When you automate dropshipping tasks, it frees you time to focus on important aspects of your business, such as marketing and customer support. 

In this post, we will be diving deeper into the concept of running an automated dropshipping store to ensure you understand it properly. Let’s get started already!

What is Automated Dropshipping? 

If you have ever used chatGPT (or any other AI-assisted technology), it’s safe to say you’ve experienced automation before. 

Automated dropshipping involves instructing a piece of software on what to do – and it does it. But rather than using prompts, you use workflows to control the processes for your ecommerce business. 

For example, you can set up a workflow that can handle order fulfillment from start to finish – including shipping. Alternatively, you can design the workflow to only accept orders from customers while you take care of packing and shipping yourself. 

This means you can adopt a comprehensive or partial automation for your business. 

What Are the Benefits of Automated Dropshipping?

Automating your dropshipping business offers a lot of benefits. Let’s explore a handful of them:

1. Minimizes Errors and Improves Efficiency 

Manually sourcing products and fulfilling orders is the perfect recipe for disastrous errors. It’s just a matter of time before you ship the wrong product to the wrong customer on the other side of the globe. 

That’s certainly an error you will want to avoid by all means. And what better way to avoid such errors than by leveraging automation? 

2. Leads to More Sales and Profits

When you have mundane, time-consuming tasks handled by automated systems, you will have enough time to promote your products and acquire more customers. 

The result? More sales for your business – and more profits, of course. 

3. Improves Customer Satisfaction

Remember when we said automation can help minimize errors and improve efficiency? There’s an inherent benefit that comes with that which we didn’t mention. And it’s improved customer satisfaction. 

Shipping the correct products to your customers at the right time will lead to better satisfaction. And you know what better customer satisfaction means, right? More sales and deeper trust in your brand. 

Cons of Automated Dropshipping

Does automated dropshipping have its drawbacks? Yes, it does and we won’t even deny it. For starters, implementing automation on your dropshipping website will cost you money. Though we can’t peg an exact figure to it, expect to spend anywhere north of $30/month. 

Another not-too-great side of automation is that you might have to rework your workflow from the ground up when implementing automation. That will cost time and human resources. 

Nonetheless, these cons are nothing compared with the immense benefits automated dropshipping offers. 

How to Implement Automation on Your Dropshipping Website

Enough talk already – it’s time to get into action. Let’s explore some tried-and-true techniques for implementing automation correctly for maximum performance. 

Step 1: Put Your Store in Order

When attempting to automate core aspects of your dropshipping business, such as order fulfillment and shipping, it’s imperative to put your store in order first. By this, we mean you need to keep track of every item you sell. 

And since you don’t keep any item, you’d have to stay in sync with your supplier to keep a tab on their stock levels. 

As an added step, pick a supplier that supports automation, as this will make it possible to process orders you receive via your website automatically. 

Step 2: Pick the Right Dropshipping Automation App

The success of your automation efforts depends largely on your choice of automated dropshipping tools. If you run your store on Shopify or WooCommerce, you are in luck because there are a handful of apps on the Shopify app store that give good value for money. Here are the 3 we know of:

1. Sell The Trend 

Yes, Sell The Trend is a dropshipping automation software that works on both Shopify and WooCommerce! 

While listing our software first here might kinda look salesy, the truth is that Sell The Trend is packed with lots of features to make your life easy.

To begin with, it lets you automatically sync your inventory with your supplier’s with the click of a button. Besides that, it allows you to push products to your store and fulfill customers’ orders automatically. 

On top of that, Sell The Trend lets you build a dropshipping store in minutes, thanks to SHOPS, a built-in website drag-and-drop tool. It’s so easy to use that you can create a stunning web store with it even if you’ve never written a line of code before. 

Another cool feature you will like about Sell The Trend is that you can automatically create product descriptions with a click of the mouse, thanks to its AI brand builder tool. 

Best of all, Sell The Trend takes away the stress of manually searching for winning products, thanks to The Nexus, an AI-powered product research tool it comes with. 

2. Scaleorder – Auto Dropshipping

 

This app will come in useful if you process orders in bulk. The reason is that Scaleorder was uniquely designed to help dropshipping merchants like you on Shopify process a huge volume of orders automatically and efficiently. 

Interestingly, it takes things a bit further by automating shipping and order tracking and can ship orders to customers in another continent without you lifting a finger. What more can you ask for in an app? 

3. Duplane 

Duplane is another automated dropshipping app that has made a name for itself. You will find this app very useful if you source products from multiple suppliers and find keeping track of everything manually a nightmare. 

Using this app means you can conveniently fulfill orders from different suppliers at a time without even knowing how it’s done. 

Did we forget to mention that it can automatically handle accounting and payments, too? 

Alternative Automated Dropshipping Software

If you don’t run your store on Shopify, you might have to look elsewhere to find a 3rd party automated dropshipping solution. 

One good one we are sure that will give you good value for your money is  Inventory Source. With Inventory Source, you can automate product pricing, order tracking, inventory management, and many more. 

Step 3: Test to See if Everything Works Well

Now that you’ve set up an automated system on your website, the next logical thing to do is to test the system to be sure it’s working properly. 

One easy way to do this is to do a test order on your website. If everything goes smoothly, then congratulations because you’ve successfully set up an automation workflow on your website. Otherwise, do some troubleshooting to see where the issue is coming from. 

Conclusion  

Adopting automation can be a major game-changer for your dropshipping business. For one thing, it will free you time to focus on marketing and customer service while at the same time reducing inventory errors. 

By following the steps we’ve shared in this post, you can get up and running with automated dropshipping in no time. 

FAQs

Can I fully automate my dropshipping business? 

The long and short answer is a definitive yes! While you have the option of partially automating your dropshipping store, you can also run full-scale automation on it. You just have to find the right automation solution to use. 

Does Shopify support dropshipping automation? 

Automating your processes on Shopify is easy peasy lemon squeezy. 

The best part is that there are a handful of automation apps on Shopify that can get the job done nicely. We’ve reviewed some of them in this post already. 

Does WooCommerce also support dropshipping automation? 

If Shopify supports dropshipping automation, we see no reason why WooCommerce wouldn’t. By using the right solution, automating your entire business processes on WooCommerce would be a breeze. 

If you have a store on Shopify or WooCommerce, you can easily connect it to Sell The Trend with a few taps of the mouse.