Time is extremely valuable for Shopify store owners, especially ones that are product-making businesses and sell directly to consumers.
It’s exciting when a sale comes in. But, when they start flooding in, it can quickly become overwhelming as you try to fulfill your orders on-time.
If you haven’t prepared your business to handle a surge or, and even better, constant growth in sales, you’re going to struggle to meet the demand and leave customers dissatisfied.
This is why we’ve put together this list of hacks to help any busy Shopify store owner or someone just trying to find more time to be productive.
Let’s begin.
Hack #1 – Finding Time
Maybe you’re a busy Shopify store owner, but Shopify isn’t your primary source of income.
If you’re someone who’s working part/full-time whilst organizing your store, firstly, congrats. Secondly, you’re going to need to find time to run your store.
This is when planning is going to become your best friend.
When you have a moment, be that during breaks or after you finish other paid obligations, you can begin making plans in these three areas and tackle them when you’re available:
- Make a list of what needs to be done in priority;
- Plan your marketing funnels; and
- Find software that can take over when you’re unavailable.
For example, chatbots can be a huge lifesaver. It can save customer details so you can get back in touch with anyone who visits your website or social media pages when it’s more convenient to do so.
Hack #2 – Social Media Management
So, you’ve got your all-important branded content ready, but getting it distributed to the wider world is a challenge in and of its own.
By concentrating on your social media management, you can organize how you release content across the web.
And the great thing is, there are tools out there which can help you do so.
Buffer is such a tool that allows you to manage all your social media accounts in one place and take advantage of its analytics to optimize your future posts.
The best thing about Buffer is that you can schedule your posts in advance so if, as studies suggest, the best time to post on social media is Wednesday at 1pm, but you’re unable to get online at that time, you can create a post to go live via Buffer.
This means if you have limited resources or don’t want to be pulled away from your projects to be on the computer, this can help you free up a substantial amount of time in the long run.
TIP: Did you know you can sell products on certain social media platforms? Taking this multichannel approach can be a tactic for leveraging your brands online content and increasing your sales.
Hack #3 – Inventory Management
We’ll give you one tip on an inventory management technique you can employ with your Shopify store. However, this is a huge area you should take more time to investigate as it can make a big difference in how you run your business and use your resources.
But regardless, a good technique that makers selling on Shopify can adopt is ABC inventory, also referred to as the 80/20 rule.
Basically, you organize your inventory into three categories to help full-fill orders and reduce the amount of time you spend searching your inventory:
- Item A – Top 15% representing 70% of sales, this should be nearest the workshop;
- Item B – Middle 20% representing 20% of sales, should be placed behind Item A; and
- Item C – Bottom 65% representing 10% of sales, should be placed furthest away.
Hack #4 – Workshop Layout
It could be that you save a lot more time if you took a moment to reconfigure your workshops set-up.
Known as routing manufacturing or production routings, this is where you design your workshop in mind of the production processes you take your raw material through until you arrive at its final stage (the final product).
Sound confusing? It’s better to think of this as a road map, but you get to place the stops in the most convenient places, so a product can smoothly transition from point A to point B and Point C.
The idea behind setting up your routing manufacturing is to avoid bottle-necks and achieve the most optimal workflow possible.
Hack #5 – Don’t Hate, Automate!
The biggest hack we can suggest to any maker who’s working in a busy workshop is to incorporate inventory management software into their business.
But, before you rush off into the marketplace, be sure to find software which has inventory integration for Shopify which will allow you to:
- Manage Inventory
Get updates on inventory levels in real-time - Get More Control Over Floor-Level Management
Have an overview of production status’ and tasks left to complete
- Synchronize Shopify Stock Levels
Shopify integration means any changes to stock levels on Shopify or the management software reflects on both accounts. - Receive and Fulfil Orders
Receive your Shopify orders in the same place and take the relevant action as soon as possible.
Having all this allows you to centralize your entire business onto an easy to use, visual dashboard.
Conclusion
So, there we have it, five quick and easy hacks any small manufacturer can implement to optimize their business.
It’s great that you’re busy, but if your resources are stretched thin, one mistake is going to derail your entire operation.
And if you’re managing your business in Excel spreadsheets, you will inevitably encounter a production stopping issue as spreadsheets are extremely prone to human error.
The idea behind following these above steps is going to help you free up some extra-time (in the long run) so you can continue the manufacturing side of your business.
But regardless of if you follow all these steps or none, it’s always worthwhile to look into your business to figure out which is the longest process and if there is a way for you to shorten these times.
