Running a dropshipping business involves a lot of hard work which frequently involves performing simple and repetitive tasks.

Constantly having to update product inventory, prices, and orders can become exhausting. This overflow of work can cause some new business owners to shutter their stores altogether.

The good news is, there are ways to automate many of these simple tasks so that you don’t have to worry about them. Regardless of your experience, automation tools help will make life easier while providing a positive shopping experience for your customers.

Perhaps one of the greatest tasks online retailers face is keeping an accurate inventory. Here are a few e-commerce inventory management tools that will make your life a lot easier.

Why Use E-commerce Inventory Management Tools?

While running an online store does require hard work, there are ways for you to maximize your productivity.

As a business owner, your time is very valuable. Your time should be spent performing tasks that ensure that your e-e-commerce store continues to grow.

Why spend your time on tasks that do not require much thought, but take up a lot of your time?

Processing hundreds of orders a day, managing inventory, and tracking shipping can become overwhelming.

Inventory Automation to Free Up Your Time

Think of automation tools as a personal assistant. Personal assistants help you accomplish smaller tasks so that you can focus on more important tasks. Your time is better spent working on expanding and enhancing business operations.

Choosing not to use automation tools leaves room for human errors as well. Having out of stock items being listed, out of date prices, and unprocessed orders is a sure way to not have repeat customers.

There are many reasons why using automation tools for your online store is a good idea.

Here are a few tools that you can use to automate aspects of your online store. Let’s take a look at a few automation services and discuss why they might be a good investment for your company.

Inventory Source

Perhaps one of the most useful apps for e-commerce automation is Inventory Source. This application allows users to synchronize inventory and orders across multiple suppliers, warehouses, and sales channels.

Inventory Source has partnered with over 150 companies including  us (greendropship.com) Moteng, D&H Distributing, and Fragrence Net.

This means that you are able to automatically stock their products in your own store. For most plans, you also have the ability to add your own suppliers, giving you a greater degree of flexibility.

An added bonus is that Incentory Source does not mark up their products. Instead, you pay a monthly fee for their services which makes it easy to budget for.

What’s even better is that you can synchronize product listing uploads, prices, inventory, and even shipment tracking.

Inventory Management Pricing

In regard to pricing, Inventory Source allows users to pick the automation plan that best suits their needs. This service offers three inventory automation plans and three full automation plans. These plans make it possible for online stores, regardless of their budget to automate processes.

Travis Mariea, Managing Director at Inventory Source described their service as,

“A directory of over 2 million products. Inventory Source makes it very easy to get started. Loading and syncing is something that if you don’t do correctly, can cause a lot of problems.”

Whether you are new to dropshipping or are looking to expand your existing online store, Inventory Source is a great tool to make your business more efficient.

Inventory Source Plan Categories

Inventory Source offers two categories of plans, Inventory Automation and Full Automation. Depending on what you are looking for, you will likely be able to find a plan that works best for you.

These six plans come with at different prices so you can find the right plan for your store.

Inventory Automation Plans

With their three inventory automation plans to choose from, Inventory Source will automatically upload products and synchronize supplier inventory with your store.

The inventory automation plans also come with Inventory Source’s pricing tool, product filter tool. and category mapping tool. These tools allow you to adjust your product prices in bulk, adjust which products are included or excluded from your store, and customize your product categories.

• Startup Plan

  • Costing only $50 per month, this plan is great for new entrepreneurs who are looking to expand their business. This plan allows you to connect to one sales channel or e-commerce platform (think Shopify, Amazon, etc).

• Professional Plan

  • Offering more features, the $150 Professional Plan is a great option for online business owners who have an existing customer base. With three integrations, you can sell your products on more sales channels and e-commerce platforms. This is a great mid-level automation service that can help you focus on growing your company.

• Enterprise Plan

  • For $300 per month, businesses can optimize their inventory automation with this plan. With six sales channel and e-commerce platform integrations, you can rest easy knowing that your inventory and prices accurate. In addition to having complete inventory automation, you also have a dedicated Account Manager. This Account Manager will work with you to understand the intricacies and unique aspects of your company so that they can provide advanced support. With this automation plan, you can take your online business even further.

When asked about inventory automation, Inventory Source Managing Director Travis Mariea said,

“Inventory Source allows users to connect with suppliers like GreenDropShip.com and synchronyze inventory which allows resellers to auto load to different platorms. This makes sure that items are always in stock.”

He went on to say that wholesalers such as GreenDropShip.com are incorporated into the company’s inventory automation services. This means that you can seamlessly stock organic and natural products in your store without having to worry about refreshing your inventory.

Full Automation Plans 

With even more features, Inventory Source’s Full Automation plans help to automate even more of your e-commerce business.

By fully automating your dropshipping business, Inventory Source takes care of inventory synchronization, ordering, and shipment tracking. This allows you to provide a better shopping experience for your customers

There are three full automation plans that you can choose from, depending on how big your company is.

• Startup Plan
  • For only $175 per month, their Startup Plan will help you get your small online business running smoothly. This plan fully automates up to 500 dropship orders per month. This is plenty if you are looking to grow your company. 
• Professional Plan
  • For $275 per month, you are able to have full automation with up to three integrations. This is great if you want a larger presence on multiple sales channels or e-commerce platforms. This plan also fully automates up to 1,500 dropship orders per month. In addition, you get a dedicated Account Manager who works with your company to maximize efficiency.
• Enterprise Plan
  • For $400 per month, this plan is great for more experienced dropshippers. This includes up to 3,000 monthly dropship orders, 6 integrations, and a dedicated Account Manager. Along with lots of other great features, this plan will ensure that products are up to date.

Inventory Source works with sales channels and e-commerce platforms to seamlessly update your store inventory. Using custom file format integrations, this service doesn’t skip a beat when it comes to automation.

Simple Shop Automation by Hextom

If Inventory Source is not your cup of tea, Simple Shop Automation by Hextom is another excellent automation tool that you can add to your dropshipping store.

Simple Shop Automation allows users to automate order notifications, inventory management, and customer segmentation.

The Pros

This app makes it easy to hide out of stock products and publish products that have been recently restocked.

Another cool feature about this Shopify app is that it has built-in fraud protection that automatically flags fraudulent orders.

This ensures that you aren’t losing money due to fraudulent orders or angry customers.

The best part of this Shopify app is that its Free! You can maximize your workflow by automating simple tasks associated with your Shopify store.

The Cons

One downside to this application is that you will not have advanced technical support, as with Inventory Source. Depending on how comfortable you are with troubleshooting, this might be something to consider.

Another drawback to this application is that you are limited to using Shopify. Unlike Inventory Source, you cannot integrate with multiple sales channels or e-commerce platforms. For this app, its Shopify or bust.

Oberlo

Oberlo is another application for Shopify that helps to automate your business processes. This application automatically fulfills orders, updates product prices, and syncs inventory.

As an added bonus this app lets you track shipping so that you can always stay on top of your orders. Its seamless integration with Shopify makes this app a favorite for many.

This Shopify add-on is very user-friendly and is great for beginners and experienced resellers alike.

Oberlo offers three plans, depending on the needs of your online e-commerce store.

• Starter Plan

  • This free introductory plan is great for new dropshippers. It allows you to stock up to 500 products and process 50 orders per month. If you are new to online reselling, this plan is a great way to get started.

• Basic Plan

  • This mid-level plan costs $29.90 per month and helps automate your online business. You can stock up to 10,000 products and process 500 orders per month. This is plenty for a company that is still expanding.

• Pro Plan

  • Costing $79.90 per month, this is the Oberlo VIP package. This plan allows you to stock up to 30,000 products and process unlimited orders per month. The sky is the limit with this plan.

Like Simple Shop Automation by Hextom, the drawback to this application is that it is exclusively for Shopify. This limits how much you can automate if you have other e-commerce platforms or sales channels.

The nice part about this app is that if you are new to dropshipping and use Shopify, it’s free.

Conclusion

Automation tools are a great way to maximize your time as an online reseller. Think of these tools as a way to put aspects of your store on autopilot. Certain aspects of your online business are simple enough but yet, they require constant attention.

Whether you decide to use Inventory Source, Simple Shop Automation, Oberlo, or other dropshipping automation tools, they are well worth the investment.

Choosing not to automate these simple tasks can have negative consequences. Mixed up orders, late orders, or out of stock products can mean the end of your dropshipping business.

Make things easier for yourself while giving your customers a better shopping experience. Invest in automation tools so that you can continue improving your company.