Running an Amazon business is hard work. You need to manage many jobs simultaneously, such as inventory management, marketing, customer service, etc. This can be overwhelming and make it hard to grow your business.
Fortunately, automation can help to perform repetitive tasks for you. This saves you time and effort so you can focus on business growth.
In this blog, we’ll explain Amazon automation, how to use it, and the benefits it offers your business.
We’ll also tell you how, at Getida, we can help you automate FBA auditing and ensure the highest reimbursement to put back into your business.
Table of Contents
What is Amazon Automation?
Amazon automation of certain business processes frees up time and resources so you can look at new ways to grow your business, effectively compete with and differentiate yourself from the ever-increasing number of online sellers.
Potential benefits of Amazon automation include:
- More efficient inventory management and order processing
- Higher customer satisfaction
- Better data collection
- Enhanced scalability
Perhaps most important of all, Amazon automation frees up your time to devote to other aspects of your business and increase bottom-line performance. So instead of spending time managing and fulfilling orders, it gets done automatically; the time you save now goes into expanding your business into new product categories or developing market strategies to expand and grow your Amazon business. Or even feel more comfortable taking the weekend off and spending some time with your family and friends without worrying about how your business is doing.
So what business process can you automate? Let’s look at five key Amazon automation opportunities.
- Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)
- Inventory management
- Email marketing
- Price tracking and repricing
- Chatbot virtual assistant
How Does Amazon Automation Work?
Amazon automation works by setting up automatic triggers that start workflows.
For example, you could create a trigger that sends review requests three days after an order ships or a trigger that reprices items when a competitor changes their price automatically.
These triggers connect to other apps using Zapier or Make (formerly “Integromat”). When a trigger happens, data flows between your tools to complete actions without you needing to do anything.
There are three main forms of automation for selling on Amazon:
1. Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA)
FBA provides automated order fulfillment, with Amazon handling picking, packing, shipping, and customer service for your products stored in their fulfillment centers.
This solution handles the heavy lifting of logistics so you can concentrate on things like sourcing, marketing, branding, and product development.
FBA fees depend on factors like product size and monthly sales volume. Costs typically range from around 15% to 45% of the product sale price.
2. Third-Party Providers
Specialist companies offer automated services like pay-per-click advertising management, listing optimization, analytics, accounting, and more.
Prices vary depending on the solution and the level of service provided.
3. Software Tools
Software automates specific tasks like inventory alerts, email campaigns, profit calculations, and review requests. Popular tools include Zapier, ManyChat, Repricer, and Jungle Scout. Costs vary from free to paid monthly subscriptions.
Some companies offer a combination of automation technology and human expertise.
For example, at Getida, we offer a unique blend of software tools and human experts to handle FBA auditing and get you refunds. Our award-winning dashboard technology continuously checks your seller account for issues like unaccounted/damaged inventory or overcharged fees.
When it finds discrepancies, our team of ex-Amazonians manages the claims process to get you reimbursements from Amazon. On average, we get 63% of claims approved, which Amazon originally rejected. This means: more money back in your pocket!
Sign up with us today – we provide the first $400 in reimbursements at no cost! After that, our performance-based pricing means you only pay fees when we successfully secure additional refunds.
How to Start Amazon Automation
Here are the steps to start using automation for your Amazon business:
Step 1: Identify the repetitive and time-consuming tasks that provide limited strategic value. Things like order processing, customer service inquiries, bookkeeping, FBA auditing, and inventory stock monitoring.
Step 2: Research automation tools that can handle the tasks you want to automate. Check Amazon forums, blogs, and review sites, and ask other sellers for tips. There are thousands of possible automations.
Step 3: Compare features, capabilities, and pricing to pick solutions that fit your needs and budget. Try free trials before fully committing.
Step 4: Integrate your chosen automation solution(s) with workflows and systems, such as Amazon Seller Central, your website, accounting software, etc.
Step 5: Set up relevant tasks to be handled automatically based on triggers or schedules. You may need to configure them to ensure smooth operation. Most apps offer pre-built templates to simplify setup.
Step 6: Check that everything is working right in the beginning. Keep reviewing key metrics to confirm the automation is reliable.
Step 7: As tasks run automatically, use your freed-up time on important big-picture tasks to grow your business faster.
How Much Does it Cost to Start an Automated Amazon Store?
Costs to automate an Amazon business vary significantly based on the solutions used and the extent of automation you’d like.
Some options to consider:
- Entry-Level: Utilizing FBA for fulfillment and free automation apps provides basic automation for minimal upfront investment. Monthly FBA fees and potential tool subscriptions apply.
- Mid-Range: Adding paid tools for needs like advertising, inventory alerts, and automated accounting may cost around $100 – $300 monthly. The cost is higher if it involves dedicated campaign management or virtual assistants.
- Full-Service Outsourcing: Hiring an end-to-end management agency can cost $2,500+ monthly but requires minimal seller effort to run the business.
- Performance-Based Fees: Performance-based fees may make more sense for some automations.
For example, at Getida, there are no monthly subscription fees. With our performance-based pricing, you pay only when we successfully recover FBA reimbursements on your behalf.
This option is more affordable for most Amazon sellers than hiring a VA or employee.
Pros and Cons of an Automated Amazon Store
Running an automated Amazon store has many upsides, but there are also some potential drawbacks to consider.
Let’s look at both:
The Pros
Here are the main pros:
- Frees up seller’s time from routine tasks
- Lower costs compared to hiring additional full-time staff
- Improves efficiency of repetitive processes
- Increases reliability through reduced human errors
- Provides data insights not possible manually
The Cons
Here are the downsides to consider:
- Time-intensive initial setup: researching options, making purchases, and integrating technologies
- Ongoing subscription fees can present long-term costs
- If automation fails, identifying causes could be challenging
- Overly automated customer service chatbots may degrade buyer experience and trust
- Limited flexibility compared to human judgment
That said, the time and cost savings justify using at least some level of automation. We recommend starting with a few foundational workflows rather than trying to automate every process.
Different Ways to Automate Your Amazon Business
Now, let’s look at the various ways you can automate your Amazon store:
Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)
Technically, FBA is outsourcing, but since there’s a certain amount of automation used to fulfill your orders, we consider it Amazon automation. FBA picks, packs, and ships your orders from Amazon-managed warehouses. In addition, FBA handles your returns and any customer questions related to order status. An added plus is that if there’s a problem with an order, it’s not your problem, it’s Amazon’s.
The cost? FBA sellers pay for warehouse storage space and each fulfilled order. Which more than pays for itself in the time you space by letting Amazon automation do the work for you.
Email Marketing
Email is both the bane and the boon of ecommerce business. It’s your direct link to your customers. It’s also one of the most effective marketing strategies, with the highest potential ROI.
But it’s also highly time-consuming. The time you spend responding to one set of customer inquiries is time you aren’t spending on a different set of customer inquiries. According to some estimates, failure to respond within five minutes to a customer inquiry significantly reduces your chances of converting that lead into a paying customer.
There are a number of third-party software providers that provide Amazon automation for email marketing. Besides saving you time and providing more immediate responses to customer inquiries, additional features include:
- Automated emails to correct issues in response to negative feedback reviews
- Data collection to measure email marketing campaign effectiveness
- Email templates to customize email responses and campaigns
- Automatic scheduling of emails with personalized messages
Price Tracking and Repricing
The price of your products depends on the margins you need to cover your expenses combined with anticipated order volume to achieve profitability. Equally important and perhaps most critical is the pricing of competitor products.
Sometimes a winning marketing strategy is to undercut your competition for certain products as loss leaders as a way to convert customers to more profitable products. In other cases, higher quality wins out over lower pricing; however, you do have to consider whether the quality is so much better than you can charge significantly more than your competition.
In any event, to make good decisions about pricing, you need to know what your competition is charging for the same or similar products. And not just what the competition charged a few days, or even five minutes ago, but just as soon as there is any change in competitive pricing.
There are a number of free tools and browser extensions that allow you to automatically monitor product listings and pricing on both Amazon and other ecommerce marketplaces. There are also Amazon automation tools that automatically reprice your products up or down depending on your pre-set parameters.
Chatbot Virtual Assistants
Technically, a virtual assistant is not Amazon automation, at least not in the sense of software that performs a business process. But if you need to offload certain repetitive tasks, a virtual assistant is a kind of Amazon automation, even though you are outsourcing to a person or third-party service. You are, in a sense, automating a process with a virtual assistant to perform regular administrative tasks.
What is an actual Amazon automation is a chatbot. This is a software tool that mimics human interaction to respond to customer requests and provide support. There are a number of third-party chatbot providers with templates to build and launch chatbots you can use for Amazon automation, no coding skills are required.
Inventory Management
Amazon FBA sellers still need to manage their inventory. Besides knowing exactly what products are inventoried in what warehouses and setting inventory levels to trigger reorders, good inventory management helps forecast future sales strategy.
Another important consideration is that given the literally billions of transactions Amazon handles, errors sometimes occur. Errors for which you are owed reimbursement. And Amazon doesn’t always detect and report those reimbursable errors to you.
There are a host of inventory management solutions, but not all these solutions are an exact fit for Amazon automation. Investing in an inventory management solution that accurately reports large volumes of data in real-time with key performance indicators (KPIs), including FBA reimbursements, is a critical Amazon automation strategy that not only helps ensure profitability but enables you to create a sustainable and scalable online business.
Automate FBA Auditing with Getida
Managing FBA reimbursements and claims is tedious work. With Getida, auditing and reimbursement recovery are hands-free.
We use software automation to continuously audit your account for discrepancies and missed reimbursements. Our experts then seamlessly manage claims and secure refunds on your behalf.
Recover your full reimbursement potential with little manual work. Sign up for Getida to try us — your first $400 in reimbursements are free!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Here, we answer some additional questions you may have:
Is Amazon Automation Legit?
Though Amazon automation is controversial, it is absolutely legitimate and widely used among top sellers to improve the efficiency of an Amazon business.
However, you should do some due diligence when choosing third-party automation providers or outsourced Amazon solution agencies. Any legal automation that adheres to Amazon’s terms of service is allowed.
Can I Buy an Automated Amazon Store?
You can buy an Amazon store that is already automated by someone else. But it’s usually smarter to start your own store and use Amazon’s tools to automate it yourself. This way, you control your store identity and automation strategy instead of trusting someone else’s promises.
Some sellers offer automated “done-for-you” services to launch and run Amazon stores on your behalf. But be careful, as quality varies widely. Vet providers thoroughly and start with low-risk automation like FBA before outsourcing your entire business.
Instead, let us at Getida help you automate your FBA auditing and reimbursements. Our proprietary dashboard technology constantly audits for missed reimbursements, and our experts seamlessly manage claims to get your money back from Amazon.
On average, our customers see 166% more in Amazon FBA recovery than sellers who try to audit themselves! Better yet, it’s risk-free—your first $400 in reimbursements is on us before the performance-based pricing kicks in!
Partner with us now to efficiently get the FBA refunds you deserve!
Amazon Automation Summary
GETIDA provides a software service designed specifically to track Amazon FBA inventory and reimbursements. Our auditing software keeps track of your Amazon FBA inventory transactions, refunds, seller data analytics, and FBA reimbursements easily and clearly. An easy-to-read dashboard displays robust analytics to help you fully understand what we are doing on a daily basis.
Equally important, dedicated case managers with Amazon experience follow up on FBA reimbursement claims on your behalf. They help ensure you get back what you are owed.
GETIDA makes the process of claiming Amazon fee reimbursement easy. So easy it’s free to use. There is no commitment and no monthly fee. And there is free consulting on how best to improve your Amazon business. GETIDA charges only when a claim we file is successfully reimbursed.
It’s the Amazon automation tool that can make a real difference in your bottom line performance. Get $400 in Free Amazon Seller Refunds with GETIDA.
