20 Tasks an eCommerce Virtual Assistant Can Do for Your Business
Many business owners are already aware of the benefits of hiring a virtual assistant (VA) especially when it comes to driving new business development. The perks of having a VA can range from something as simple as being able to delegate the tasks you hate to having someone with specialized knowledge of a specific task assist you in developing innovative processes and strategies to drive business growth.
The advancements in technology and the sheer number of professionals turning to remote work and home-based opportunities have made it easier to hire a VA now more than ever, so make sure that you don’t miss out.
If you own an eCommerce business, you might have already heard about the rewards of hiring a VA to help you manage your online store. But did you know that a VA can do more than just manage your orders and track inventory? Read on to find out just how many tasks you can delegate to an eCommerce VA.
20 Tasks an eCommerce Virtual Assistant Can Do for Your Business
You can hire an eCommerce VA to do one or more of the following tasks. However, you need to make sure that you limit your VA’s tasks to ensure that they can keep their focus. No matter how skilled your eCommerce VA is, they shouldn’t have to do everything on this list!
1. Online Store/Inventory Management
It’s not enough that you have the right products in your store, you should have the right amount of each product too. An online store management VA can keep track of your inventory for you and make sure that you’re stocking up on the right products. This will not only help you avoid running out of your most in-demand items, especially when they’re in season, it will also help you avoid overstocking items and wasting money on products that are not so popular.
2. Product Sourcing
Diversifying your product lineup is a great move especially if you’re just starting out. Even though you might have your in-house products, you want to be able to offer your customers other relevant products as well. A VA can help you find the right products that will fit your store and make sure that your products are on-brand, high quality, and most importantly, great value.
3. Feedback Management
Reviews and customer feedback are incredibly important for any business, but even more so for smaller stores and startups. Every single positive review can help draw in more potential buyers, while each negative feedback can make you lose a customer or two. A feedback management specialist can help you monitor customer reviews and possibly diminish negative comments by resolving issues before they escalate.
4. Customer Service
Customer service can make or break a sale, and it’s a vital cog in providing an exceptional experience for your customers. Nextiva notes that “when asking consumers what impacts their level of trust with a company, offering excellent customer service ranked number one.” In the same article, they also mentioned that “89% of consumers have switched to doing business with a competitor following a poor customer experience.”
These statistics show how important customer service is. This means that hiring a customer service VA or two is a must for every eCommerce business.
5. Promotions Management
Sales, discounts, and promotions are time-tested ways of boosting sales, but it can be difficult to track the success of each promotion on your own. An experienced eCommerce VA can help you monitor the performance of past and current promotions to aid you with planning future promotions.
6. Online Store Development
No matter how amazing your products are, if your online store isn’t up to par, your sales will suffer. An eCommerce VA with web development and design experience can help you develop an online store that looks great and delivers a smooth user experience from browsing to checkout.
7. Graphic Design
Pictures are worth a thousand words. If you want your products to stand out, you will need help from an excellent graphic designer VA to edit your photos and create branded images that will really resonate to your target customer.
8. Product Description Writing
Since online shopping doesn’t allow customers to get a look and feel of your product, your product descriptions matter a lot. A content writer VA can help you craft informative and enticing product descriptions that can urge your customers toward a purchase decision.
9. Content Writing and Management
Aside from product descriptions, you will also need several other types of content on your online store and even outside it (think social media and ads) so it’s important to have a dedicated content writing and management specialist to create and keep track of all your content.
10. Keyword Research
Inserting keywords in your product descriptions and meta tags allow your products to be discoverable, so having an eCommerce VA do keyword research for you is vital.
11. Listing Optimization (SEO)
Once you have your keywords, it’s time to enrich your listings with them. Your content or product description writer can also do listing optimization for you if it’s just a matter of inserting keywords in your content. However, if you want your product photos optimized as well, you might need to hire a more specialized VA.
12. Market Research
Keeping up with market trends is important if you want your company to stay competitive. A dedicated VA for market research will help you ensure that you’re not missing out on important industry news and updates.
13. Email Autoresponder Setup
These days, customers expect instant responses from the businesses they’re transacting with. Having autoresponders that are customized whenever a customer submits a form on your website or completes the checkout process is essential for good customer experience.
14. Returns and Refunds Tracking
When you’re running a store, returns and refunds are inevitable. To make sure that your returns and refunds are processed properly and on time, you need someone to oversee the entire thing. Hire an eCommerce VA to track all returns and refunds not just to ensure reliable customer service but to map out and avoid these scenarios in the future.
15. Order Fulfillment
Fast order fulfillment is another essential part of running a successful online store. To ensure that there’s no backlog of unfulfilled orders, have a VA ready to take care of order fulfillment. This involves making sure that your customers get the correct product, that their orders are securely packed, and that they receive their orders in a timely manner.
16. Product Videography
Product videos are getting their fair share of the limelight now too. For some products, a still image isn’t enough to showcase their full potential. Having an enticing product video to go along with your products can encourage your customers to make the purchase. A VA who specializes in video production and editing can help you out with this task.
17. Ad Campaign Management
Putting out ads is vital to expanding your reach. However, you can’t just run ads without monitoring their effectivity. After all, ads, both online and offline, are pretty expensive. A VA who specializes in ad campaigns and pay-per-click (PPC) management can really help you make sure that the money you spend on ads is worth it.
18. Social Media Management
Any eCommerce store who wants to succeed should have social media accounts in place. Social media allows you to gather the pulse of your customers, address common issues, and establish trust in your brand. However, managing your social media pages can be very time-consuming. It’s highly advisable to outsource this task to a social media VA.
19. Influencer Outreach
Influencer marketing is growing more and more popular, not to mention effective, these days. Partnering up with relevant influencers can be beneficial for your business, but you have to find and reach out to the right influencers first. A VA can help you find out the most relevant influencers who can make the most impact on your products and craft a proposal that works best for both of you.
20. Conversions Tracking
There are so many things to keep track of when running a business, but among the most important are conversions. To make sure that your marketing, sales, and product development ideas and strategies are working out well, you need a dedicated VA to track the conversion rate of each of your strategies.
These are just some of the ways a virtual assistant can help your business. As you scale your business, you will undoubtedly find more and more tasks that you can outsource to a VA. This is a great sign that your investment with virtual staffing is paying off!
Where to Hire an eCommerce VA
There are several ways to avail of virtual assistant services, and whichever option you choose will depend on your needs and personal preferences. To get you started, here are some of the most popular options to hire a virtual assistant.
- Find a VA on job boards, social media pages, and forums
- Hire a freelancer from a specialized freelance/VA website yourself
- Get in touch with a trusted virtual staffing company who can simplify the VA hiring process for you
Again, where you hire your VA depends on how much time and effort you need to invest and how much of the entire process you want to control. Doing everything yourself is the riskiest and time consuming, but it gives you the most freedom to do whatever you want.
If you want to focus more on your business and leave the VA recruitment and training to the pros, however, it’s best to get your VA from a reliable virtual staffing company.
