30 Tasks You Should Outsource to a Shopify Virtual Assistant

Posted March 27, 2020

Shopify is one of the world’s largest eCommerce platforms today powering over 800,000 businesses across 175 countries. While this is great news for consumers, it also equates to tough competition for business owners. As an entrepreneur, you need to keep up with the trends and challenges surrounding Shopify. As with any other master plan, you need to find someone who can bolster your strengths, cover your vulnerabilities, and offer input that you would have otherwise missed. This is the kind of leg up you get when working with a Shopify Virtual Assistant.

When to Hire a Shopify Virtual Assistant

Shopify is home to both startup and established brands. While the platform is available to every entrepreneur, newer or smaller companies may be on the fence about hiring a virtual assistant for Shopify when they’re working around a budget. How do you determine if it’s really practical to hire a virtual assistant? The following scenarios should help you make a proper assessment:

Your executive responsibilities are pushed to the back burner. Administrative tasks fuel the day-to-day operations of a business, but they can be time-consuming. If you’re not careful, menial chores can take a huge chunk of your day. Don’t lose sight of your responsibilities as a business owner because you’re swamped with tasks that you can otherwise delegate. Executive responsibilities like strategy, market research, product development, and investor meetups are key to sustain and scale up your company. It’s only fitting to focus on these chief responsibilities.
You are generating more sales than usual. Generating more sales than you can handle is a good problem to have, but it’s an issue nonetheless. As the demand for your products increase, your manpower should grow accordingly. Mounting sales can be seasonal or it can be a sign that your business is poised for expansion. Either way, you need a Shopify virtual assistant to help you meet the demands of customers.
A job requires a specific talent or field of expertise. If a certain task requires input that goes beyond your knowledge or training, it’s better to hire someone who has the proper skills and background to complete it. Design, accounting, marketing — these are just some business aspects that require talent or expertise. Although Shopify has its own set of tools to help you cover the basics of selling and marketing, you need to go above and beyond to beat the competition.
Your overheads are getting out of hand. With inflation, consumer demands, employee compensation, and market changes are taken into account, overheads tend to balloon over time. That is why the longer you stay in business, the more you need to be financially savvy. Learn the different ways you can manage business costs, not the least of which is hiring a virtual assistant. Virtual assistance is an ideal solution for staffing needs. It is affordable and flexible enough that even startups can afford it, but effective enough to sustain and grow a brand.
You are burning yourself out. Business troubles are spilling into your personal life. You find yourself spending more time at work and sacrificing rest and sleep. If your excitement for business is turning into anxiety and stress, it’s time to reach out and find eCommerce support. Working with a qualified Shopify specialist will ease the load off your shoulder. More importantly, they can deliver quality work output and eventually help you grow your brand.

If you are familiar with these scenarios, it’s time to get an extra pair of hands in managing your business in Shopify.

Hiring Virtual Assistant: Shopify Tasks To Outsource

Hire a virtual assistant for Shopify to help you launch, run, market, and eventually grow your brand online. Here are 30 tasks you should outsource to a Shopify virtual assistant:

Account Setup

If you haven’t yet set up your Shopify account, you can delegate this to your virtual assistant. The process includes setting up your login details, filling in the Contact Us and About Us sections, and setting default store info such as the store weight unit and currency.

Account setup also includes adding products, uploading photos, filling out descriptions, and listing everything in relevant categories. It requires organizational skills to ensure that customers will find your products and company information quickly and easily.

Product Sourcing

Sticking to a niche is key in making it as an online business. Still, your shop won’t generate enough sales if you only offer one product. What you want is to leverage the products that define your brand, while adding variety at the same time.

To do this, you need a product sourcing specialist. Work with your Shopify virtual assistant to identify your ideal buyer as well as their shopping patterns. That way, your virtual assistant can put together a list of products to add to your repertoire. An ideal VA can also help you strike a good deal with suppliers and manufacturers.

Web Design

Web design plays a major role in online platforms — and Shopify is no different. It helps you build and stick to your brand identity. It attracts prospects and adds to the overall appeal of your brand.

Work with a web designer to create appealing graphics for your Shopify website. From picking out colours to typography to working on alignment and navigation, your VA will ensure every element of your Shopify store is taken care of.

Web Development and Maintenance

Web designers take care of how a website looks, whereas web developers see to it that it works. It’s not enough to have a good looking Shopify store; it must also be functional and secure.

Find a VA with proper training on web development and maintenance. They can keep your data secure from cybercriminals and ensure your website runs smoothly all the time.

UI and UX Customization

Shopify comes with default templates to help entrepreneurs build their websites. However, you want to go beyond the basics and add unique brand elements to your account to attract more customers and have an advantage over similar brands.

To help you do this, find a VA who has knowledge and skills on user interface and user experience. UI and UX specialists would also know how to migrate features and elements from other e-commerce platforms onto Shopify.

Product Listing

Online shoppers tend to run out of time or patience. They could be looking at your store during their work break or browsing through your products in between errands. That’s why it’s important to present your products and other essential store features strategically.

This is where your VA can help. A product listing expert VA can list products into specific categories or collections. They can present store elements in a way that expedites the shopping process.

Inventory Management

Are you finding it hard to keep track of your inventory? While this is a sign that your business is doing great, keeping track of inventory can be tedious and confusing if you add it to the list of your responsibilities.

It’s best to delegate inventory management to a virtual assistant. Your VA will make sure that you don’t have too much or too little of any product. They can also advise you on which products generate the most sales for strategy and development.

Order Process and Management

People shop online because it’s convenient. That’s why you need to make sure that orders are processed promptly and correct items are sent out to customers.

Hire a Shopify virtual assistant to take care of the order process and management. An on-time and systematic order fulfilment is a sure way to keep customers happy and maintain credibility.

Shipment

No matter how careful or meticulous you are, handling and shipping mishaps can still happen. You need a virtual assistant to track shipping to keep delays, loss, and other shipping hiccups to a bare minimum.

Logo Design

Shopify is home to thousands of brands. Having a logo is a foolproof way to distinguish yourself from other companies.

Apart from helping customers identify and remember your brand, logos also convey trust and credibility. A logo designer can put together a brand symbol that embodies what you stand for as a company while capturing customer attention at the same time.

Graphic Design

Infographics and website images grab attention and speak about a brand or product in a powerful way. Work with a graphic designer who can convey messages and present your products aesthetically and strategically.

Content Management

Content managers are creative, analytical leaders who can help you strengthen your online presence. You need to hire one for your Shopify website. Their tasks can include creating a content calendar, making sure posts are published on time, and overseeing website content.

Keyword Research

Finding a profitable niche, ranking one’s products and website, driving organic traffic — proper keyword research can do all these and more.

Work with a VA who knows how to source keywords and use research tools such as Google Keyword Planner, Word Tracker, and KWFinder. Your VA can put together a keyword list that your content writer can optimize.

Content Writing

Content writers are key players in any online business, and Shopify is no exception. They can fill out the different sections of your Shopify website from the landing page, down to the About Us page. They should also write product descriptions to help customers understand and appreciate your products.

For their skill to write keyword-rich and engaging copy, content writers are indispensable in running a Shopify business.

Proofreading and Editing

The longer your product list becomes, the more you need to produce copy to describe and market your products. It’s a must to keep the quality of your content consistent.

While most content writers proofread and edit their work, it still pays to have someone review the content of your website. Editors can improve sentence structures and spot errors that writers would have otherwise overlooked.

Photography

Product photos play an important part in purchase decisions. Entice customers and help them make a quicker buying decision by uploading clear and aesthetic photos of your products.

Remember that Shopify also has image specifications like other online platforms. Photographers take these into account so that images will load completely and smoothly in any device.

Video creation and editing

Videos are a great way to market a product or show customers how to use it. Produce high-definition videos to give your Shopify website a boost.

Your VA can also embed and publish your video content in Shopify. Video specialists know the technicalities of integrating a video in websites so that they run without hitches.

Social Media Management

Integrate Instagram, Facebook, and even WhatsApp to your Shopify account. With social media integration, you can expect inquiries, orders, and messages coming from these channels.

Let your Shopify VA manage all these for you. Your VA can help you leverage social media followers and turn them into shoppers.

Social Media Advertising

Social media ads are highly targeted. Still, it takes a specialist to create and manage social media ads and deliver them to your Shopify store. Outsource social media advertising to a VA to market your Shopify business in different channels.

SEO

Your content is written; the graphics are done. Now, it’s time to rank them high on Google.

Work with an SEO specialist so your Shopify website comes up first in search results. As search engine optimization specialists, they know the best practices that would rank your business name high on Google and other search engines.

Link Building

Link building goes hand in hand with SEO. As a highly technical branch of digital marketing, link building requires an expert. Find a VA who can take care of these tasks to drive more organic traffic to your Shopify site.

PPC

To promote your Shopify website, you need to balance organic marketing with paid ads such as PPC. Work with a VA who can expertly set up and track PPC campaigns for you. PPC is a proven digital marketing tool and it still works with Shopify.

Conversion Rate Optimization

CRO is a complex process but when done right, it can increase revenues and deliver quality Shopify traffic. This is a business aspect you can’t afford to compromise. Hire a CRO expert to turn visitors into customers and customers into brand advocates.

Email Marketing

Email marketing has been around a long time and remains a relevant tool for Shopify.

Create and manage an email list and send messages that go straight to subscribers’ Inbox through the expert help of a VA. Here are other ways you can use email to promote your brand.

Lead Generation

Buying patterns change over time. To understand how this process works, you need a lead generation specialist. These specialized VAs can interpret and analyze the behavior of your Shopify visitors and customers.

More importantly, they know how to capture these leads and convert them into sales.

Analytics and Strategy

Shopify comes with analytics tools. The challenge, however, is to analyze these tools and use them to your advantage.

This is where a VA comes into the picture. The best Shopify virtual assistants can read analytics reports and integrate collected data into your branding. They understand market trends and can use this knowledge to increase sales and attract more customers.

Customer Correspondence

The more digital properties you have, the more channels you need to monitor for customer inquiries, comments, and messages. Hire a Shopify virtual assistant to ensure all customer communications are read and taken care of in a timely and helpful manner.

Shopify has an integrated Live Chat tool and encourages business owners to use it.

Customer Retention

Small businesses can beat bigger competitors through solid customer retention plans. This is because long-time and existing customers are highly likely to buy more and promote your brand than new customers.

Work with a Shopify VA to come up with customer loyalty programs. Check out other ways your brand can beat bigger competitors.

Refund Management

Customers may request a refund for many reasons. Often, customers who do so are frustrated and unhappy. You need to have a systematic way of processing refunds to de-escalate such situations and maintain quality customer service.

Create the refund policies and processes for your website but delegate refund management to your VA. VAs should also ensure that customers understand the terms and turnaround time for refund requests.

General Admin Tasks

Maintaining a Shopify website consists of little yet significant admin tasks. This includes keying in the Alt text for product images, captioning photos, and data entry and tracking.

Don’t let these tasks take up your time. Hire a virtual assistant to take care of these administrative duties in Shopify.

Online selling and shopping are tremendously convenient. Yet, there is a lot going on behind the scenes. From little, daily tasks to big one-time projects, different types of operations go into making a Shopify business a well-oiled money-making machine.

It’s possible to run a lucrative business through Shopify and facilitate continuous growth when you outsource these 30 tasks to a Shopify virtual assistant.

Need help finding a reliable Shopify virtual assistant for your business? Click here to schedule a free, no-obligation consultation call with us today!