What is Amazon automation? Benefits & why it’s helpful for businesses

The daily reality for Amazon sellers looks like an endless game of whack-a-mole. Between updating prices, managing inventory, processing orders, and handling customer service, running an Amazon business can feel like juggling flaming torches while riding a unicycle.

Enter Amazon automation—a way to handle repetitive tasks while you focus on strategy and growth. 

But what exactly can you automate? And how does it work? Let’s dive into the nuts and bolts of Amazon automation and separate fact from fiction.

What is Amazon automation?

Amazon automation refers to using automation tools to boost your operational efficiency without having to take on additional employees to grow your Amazon business. For instance, you can use automation tools or software programs to automate processes like inventory management, order processing, and competition tracking. 

Amazon automation can also refer to a service offered by third-party companies to automate certain Amazon-related tasks. You’ll provide them with the initial capital while they take care of automating processes like customer service, product service, order fulfillment, and more. 

What can you automate in your Amazon business?

Several aspects of your Amazon business can benefit from automation. Here are some examples:

Product research

Automated research tools like ScoutX are capable of collecting data while helping you save time and focus on meeting customer needs. For online arbitrage, specifically, Tactical Arbitrage scans through millions of products across multiple online retailers and compares them to Amazon listings, instantly identifying profitable reselling opportunities that would take days to find manually.

Listing monitoring and optimization

Depending on the automation software you use, some solutions can optimize product listings. By optimizing your product listings through automation, you can make your products more visible and drive sales. In addition to this benefit, automation can help you with keyword research to improve your product’s ranking on search results. 

Review automation

Reviews are a great way to help potential buyers learn more about the products that you’re selling. However, managing customer feedback and product reviews can get overwhelming, especially if you’re dealing with a large volume of reviews. Through review automation tools like FeedbackWhiz Emails, you can streamline your Amazon feedback and review requests. 

Fraud prevention

Amazon Transparency protects both your brand and your customers. With this feature, you can ensure that you’re only shipping authentic products to customers, improve customer engagement, and gain insights to optimize your supply chain. 

Transparency works by allowing Amazon sellers to track products using unique automated codes to verify their authenticity. In addition to Transparency, you can use product and seller monitoring tools, such as FeedbackWhiz Alerts, to prevent fraudulent activities like hijacking and protect your business’s reputation.

Inventory management

Automation solutions can also help Amazon sellers automate inventory management. InventoryLab, for instance, can provide timely updates on your inventory or stocks. This helps buyers access accurate product availability information and prevents sellers from overselling or not having enough stock. 

Sales and order tracking 

Through automation, you can optimize how you monitor sales and orders. For instance, using automation tools lets you quickly identify which products are selling, identify growth opportunities based on your product’s past performance, and get a clearer picture of product-level sales. 

For tracking orders, automation helps simplify how you estimate shipment or transit times. Amazon’s Shipping Settings Automation (SSA) feature can provide you with accurate delivery estimates based on factors like customer location and warehouse location. Simply enter an ASIN into the SSA’s shipping template to get accurate delivery time estimates. 

Pricing automation

Manually tracking prices to make your prices competitive is time-consuming. So, Amazon offers an Automate Pricing tool that is capable of automatically adjusting prices based on the competition’s prices. With it, you can quickly and easily adjust prices and help your products break through Amazon’s Featured Offer category, thus increasing your products’ visibility. 

Then, there are advanced AI-powered repricers like SmartRepricer that can be customized to your business needs and goals. You can either set it and forget it, or set it in a way that it’ll automatically align with the conditions you set, such as your competitor lowering prices, you getting the Buy Box, or anything else.

Customer service

Tools for customer service automation include chatbots and automated responses. These can help sellers save time on handling and responding to customer queries and allow them to respond to customers more promptly and effectively. Aside from streamlining customer communications, sellers can also automate messages pertaining to orders and shipping to keep their buyers updated. 

The benefits of automating your Amazon business

Automating your ecommerce business improves it in several ways. For instance, automation can help you:

• Uncover key business insights: Quickly and easily access data to gain valuable insights instead of spending so much time scanning documents like reports. 
• Provide better customer experiences: Offer better experiences to customers by providing them with accurate and real-time information, such as inventory levels and discounts, to help nurture their loyalty. 
• Create a more consistent brand presence: Create more consistent branding and messaging across multiple channels and avoid giving repetitive or outdated information, which can come from manually issuing updates. 

Other potential benefits of Amazon automation include:

Improving process efficiency

Automation lets you automate repetitive tasks, such as pricing or listing updates and customer service. This helps you focus on more complex matters. It’s an ideal option for small businesses with limited resources. 

Aside from improving your operational efficiency, automation also reduces human error and minimizes the need for manual labor. By reducing your mistakes, you can improve accuracy and prevent issues such as mispricing. Improved accuracy also paves the way for better customer experiences. 

Supporting growth and scalability 

Automation helps you scale your operations and equip your business for growth. Through automation tools or systems, you can grow your reach, accommodate more orders, and take measures to effectively engage customers, all without putting added pressure on you or your workers. 

Gaining a competitive edge

Leveraging Amazon automation lets you stay competitive by helping you attract new customers, increase the number of transactions, drive sales, and gain crucial business insights that allow you to optimize your business processes. If you’re using automation tools, systems, or services that are compliant with Amazon’s requirements, you help ensure that your automation efforts are in keeping with Amazon’s guidelines. 

Implementing Amazon Automation

Ready to give Amazon automation a try? Before diving headfirst into Amazon automation, you have to know which processes need to be prioritized for automation and what the best practices are when making this shift. Follow these tips to help you successfully automate your business:

• Determine your automation needs to create an informed automation strategy.
• Implement automation in stages. Start small and prioritize processes that will benefit the most from automation.
• Before partnering with companies that offer Amazon automation services, try to look at the automation solutions that Amazon is currently offering to sellers. 
• Once you’ve implemented your automation solution, monitor its performance and identify areas for improvement or bottlenecks. 
• Don’t forget to follow Amazon’s policies. Regularly review the platform’s guidelines to ensure that you’re following them and that you’re updated with any changes in its policies. 

Leveraging Amazon automation for business growth

Amazon automation isn’t magic. It’s a strategic approach to working smarter, not harder. The right automation tools transform tedious manual tasks into streamlined processes, giving you back hours in your day and improving accuracy across your operation.

Success with automation comes down to choosing the right tools for your specific needs. Start small, focus on processes that drain the most time, and gradually expand your automation strategy as you see results.

Ready to see what automation can do for your Amazon business? All of the third-party apps we recommended above are part of Seller 365, an all-in-one software bundle for sellers. With these tools, you can automate everything from sourcing and inventory management to pricing strategy and profit management. And most importantly, you’ll eliminate the hassle of juggling multiple logins and overlapping costs.

Experience the difference automation makes. Try Seller 365 free for up to 14 days and discover how much more your business can achieve when you’re not bogged down in manual tasks.