6 Timesaving Automation Tools for Ecommerce Merchants

Lack of time is common among business owners. Between sales, advertising, customer support, accounting, and everything else, it is not surprising that many entrepreneurs feel overwhelmed.

The great news is there’s a way to lighten the load. By automating the routine and repetitive tasks in your organization, you’ll have the ability to concentrate less on mundane activities and devote more time to other essential tasks like building relationships with clients or finding ways to cultivate your company.

Utilize the six tools below to place certain tasks on autopilot so that you can free up more time in your hectic schedule.

IFTTT — Should This Afterward That

IFTTT lets you connect different web services and tools by way of”recipes” All recipes follow the format”if this then that” wherein”this” is a cause and”which” is an action. IFTTT recipes permit you to automate several tasks, like posting to Facebook or sending text messages by assigning channels to the trigger and action portions of the recipe.

Say you want to automatically upgrade your Twitter photo when you alter your Facebook profile image. All you will need to do is produce a recipe wherein a Facebook photo change is the cause (this) and upgrading your Twitter picture is the activity (that).

Or, say, you want to automatically get a text message each time a specific stock price rises above a predetermined level. For this job, it is possible to assign stocks as the cause and SMS as the action.

IFTTT currently supports 71 stations, such as Dropbox, Facebook, Instagram, SMS, and much more.

It can look somewhat confusing on paper, but the service makes it really simple for users to make recipes. Try it and begin automating the repetitive digital activities in your company.

Boomerang for Gmail

Boomerang is a Firefox and Chrome plugin that permits you to schedule mails in Gmail. Just type your message in Gmail, specify the date when you need to ship it, and you are ready to go. It lets you create reminders if you do not hear back from the receiver.

Boomerang is a handy tool that may be used to automatically schedule followup mails or reminders and make certain you won’t miss the opportunity to re-connect with your prospects or customers.

And if you would like a cleaner inbox but do not want to lose track of an important message, then you are able to”Boomerang” it by opening the message and specifying if you want to see it again. The plugin will then archive the message, and in the time that you selected, will put it back on your inbox and celebrity it, mark it as unread, or put it at the top of your message list.

Buffer

This clever tool lets you schedule social media posts during the day. No need to manually set times and dates; Buffer enables you to schedule your upgrades with fixed time slots, enabling you to line up your posts with just a couple clicks.

What’s particularly helpful about Buffer is it can be integrated with many other apps and extensions, so that you can add posts to your own account account from just about anywhere online. Want to share a post that you are currently reading? With the Buffer browser plugin, you can schedule it directly in the webpage itself.

You may even connect the tool to several RSS readers, such as Feedly, Pocket, and so you can share posts directly from your own reader.

TextExpander

This is a useful tool for Mac OS X which lets you assign keyboard shortcuts to your most often used phrases, sentences, and even paragraphs. If you find yourself typing the same things differently — dates, boilerplates, directions — then simply add them to your snippet set and assign keystrokes to them.

TextExpander will help you type faster, avoid your common typos, and also fill out forms more quickly.

Rapportive

While building meaningful relationships can’t and shouldn’t be automated, Rapportive does make it somewhat simpler. Another browser add-on for Gmail users, Rapportive shows public social networking information about your contacts within your account.

Ever wanted to personalize your emails much more? Rapportive shows your contact’s picture, place, current tweets, and social networking profiles as you type your message, letting you find articles, shared interests, and posts which you can reference to.

Shoeboxed

Are you drowning in receipts and other paper documents? Are you dreading having to sift through all them when tax season rolls along? Let Shoeboxed offer up some help. This service provides a simple way to digitize, categorize, and archive your receipts, business cards, and other files. It streamlines accounting and accounting tasks and helps users locate deductions, expenses, and other relevant details.

Submit your receipts and other docs into Shoeboxed and the service will extract considerable information — vendor, complete, date, payment type — in the files, confirm them with human eyes, and then arrange the information into your fully searchable account.