4 Ways to Boost Productivity and Avoid Mayhem During the Holiday Season

This post was contributed by Carlin Sack, partner marketing manager at Zapier. 

It’s no secret that the holidays are the busiest time of year for your eCommerce business. With orders flooding in from around the world, sales skyrocketing and site traffic spiking, the season often accounts for nearly 25% of annual eCommerce revenue.

However, this seasonal surge can also put your business in a tight spot to deliver products on time. Often, the stress of the season can lead to long hours and late nights communicating with team members, organizing and filling orders, welcoming new customers and balancing the books.

Fortunately, there are ways to save valuable time during the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, without hiring an extra employee or paying a premium for tech integrations. One of the easiest ways is to start automating your tasks with Zapier, a workflow automation tool that connects ShipStation to more than 750 of the business tools you use every day.

With Zapier automations, also known as “Zaps,” you can boost your productivity by:

Automating routine tasks, which gives you more time to organize and ship your holiday orders
Consolidating your data, which makes it easier to find essential info and keep your business running smoothly during the holidays
Harmonizing apps. These easy-to-build integrations don’t require writing a line of code or hiring a developer

Here are 4 ways you can incorporate Zapier into your workflows today to gear up for the holiday mayhem.

Automate Your Bookkeeping

This time of year, watching revenue roll in is incredibly satisfying. But processing invoices one by one and manually transferring new client data can quickly suck the joy out of the experience.

One way to counteract this is to automate your bookkeeping workflows with ShipStation and Zapier. Set up Zaps that automatically create invoices based on new ShipStation orders. You won’t have to bother with copying and pasting order information between tools, and you can spend the time you saved with friends and family (which is what this season is really all about).

Organize Your Orders

Receiving new orders is like getting a virtual high-five from your customers. But keeping track of hundreds of orders during the holiday season can turn even the merriest business owner into a Grinch.

Use Zaps to connect your ShipStation account to a spreadsheet tool, such as Google Sheets, to help avoid confusion. Your new orders will be logged exactly the way you want in a spreadsheet, and you don’t have to export and import order lists anymore. Take the opportunity to catch a breath and focus on big-picture business items, like taking care of your customers and employees.

If you prefer to create your orders in Google Sheets first, before moving them to ShipStation, there’s a Zap for that, too. This Zap will keep your orders moving effortlessly down the pipeline, eliminating manual data entry and avoidable human errors. Say goodbye to missing orders and late shipments.

Communicate with Your Team

Team chat apps help you get quick answers to questions, communicate about your workload and ultimately help your eCommerce team ship orders faster. However, keeping your team up-to-date constantly can sometimes mean more work for you. And during the holiday season, that’s time you just can’t afford.

With this Zapier integration, your team will receive a Slack message every time a new order is placed in ShipStation, making it easy for teammates to stay in-the-know and follow up with customers directly. You’ll avoid gaps in team communication and improve customer satisfaction.

Onboard New Customers

Creating customized email campaigns can help your customers stay engaged before and after they place orders during the holiday season. Boost the power of your email list by connecting ShipStation to MailChimp. Watch as your customer engagement increases and customers return to place orders again and again.

With this integration, each new customer you gain will automatically translate into another email subscriber. No more transferring customer details manually, no extra work, and no human error.

More Zaps to Boost Your Productivity

During the holidays, finding the time to accomplish all of the tasks that keep your business running can be overwhelming. And with high consumer expectations, the most wonderful time of the year can often become the most stressful.

These automation tips will hopefully help take the edge off, by assigning your routine tasks to run automatically in the background. You’ll be free to manage the important projects that matter to you and your customers, and you can take comfort knowing that ShipStation and Zapier will take care of your small-but-necessary tasks. Come December, you’ll be glad you did.