Running an e-commerce business is quite challenging, even for small and midsize companies. Adding products, adjusting prices, communicating with investors, customers, and partners, and a dozen other tasks can take up a large portion of your day. Fortunately, you can take the burden off your shoulders by hiring an e-commerce virtual assistant.

Here, we’ll explain everything you need to know about e-commerce virtual assistants and why you should hire one.

What Is an E-Commerce Virtual Assistant?

An e-commerce virtual assistant is an individual that helps you with online business-related operations. This professional works remotely and fulfills different tasks according to your instructions. It’s important to clarify not all e-commerce virtual assistants offer the same services. What services you’ll get depends on the individual’s skill set, and they may include anything from creating reports to copywriting and social media management.

What Are the Duties of an E-Commerce Virtual Assistant?

As mentioned, the job of an e-commerce virtual assistant can be flexible regarding what they bring to the table. Here are some of the most common services e-commerce virtual assistants offer:

Managing Your Online Store

Making minor adjustments to the same products frequently can be time-consuming and tiresome. Upgrading your inventory and changing prices for a few products may be easy, but it gets harder as you grow your business. Over time, you’ll notice managing your online store takes a lot of time and prevents you from working on other aspects of your business.

One of the primary duties of an e-commerce virtual assistant is store management. An assistant can categorize and organize your products, update inventory, announce discounts and special offers, etc.

Processing Orders

An e-commerce virtual assistant can collect information from every order and enter it into the system. This also means confirming the order to the customer and discussing potential special requests. Letting your virtual assistant take care of processing orders means you can focus on other business-related tasks.

Tracking and Managing the Order Status

A virtual assistant’s job isn’t done until the customer has received their order. Unfortunately, many things can go wrong from the moment the product leaves the warehouse until it gets delivered. A professional e-commerce virtual assistant keeps track of every order and informs customers of potential delays or problems. Moreover, assistants can be in charge of updating every order’s status on the platform, calling the logistics provider when needed or attending to status-related inquiries.

Content Creation

If you want to sell your products, you need to provide accurate and relevant information about them. Fortunately, you don’t have to stress if you’re not the creative type because your e-commerce virtual assistant can create exciting and refreshing content for your store.

High-quality content attracts potential customers and can persuade them to purchase a product from your store.

Social Media Management

A strong online presence is a must if you want to run a successful e-commerce store. Being a part of different online communities allows you to engage with customers and promote your business. Many think they don’t need to pay someone to run their social media. But, keep in mind that social media management is much more than creating and publishing interesting posts.

If you want to grow your store’s online presence, you’ll need to learn about the best digital marketing trends, explore different tools, manage a content calendar, etc. Plus, you’ll need to find time to reply to your customer’s messages and resolve potential issues.

An e-commerce virtual assistant who specializes in social media management can handle everything related to your store’s online presence. They can identify high-converting posts, plan different campaigns, and determine what social network works best for your business.

Customer Service

Caring for your customers is essential for growing your business. If your customers aren’t happy, they’ll leave negative reviews, spread the word around, and you’ll lose revenue in the long run. One of the major aspects of top-notch customer service is being available. You should be ready to reply to the customers’ questions and ensure their satisfaction.

While this may sound doable if you just started your e-commerce store, it will become too time-consuming at some point. An e-commerce virtual assistant communicates with your customers and ensures they are happy with the support.

Preparing Marketing Materials

E-commerce virtual assistants can research keywords, prepare content based on them, and spread it across different channels. All you need to do is give them the necessary information and tools, and they’ll handle the rest.

Monitoring Competition

Researching your competitors and how they manage their business can help you copy the good aspects and avoid the bad ones. Ultimately, your competition can help you reach out to potential customers and win them over.

While monitoring competition is essential, it’s also very time-consuming. However, you can hire an e-commerce virtual assistant who will research your competitors and create detailed reports to help you develop your business. The assistant can analyze the competitor’s products, marketing strategies, SEO performance scores, etc.

Market Research

The market is constantly evolving, and staying on top of the changes is vital if you want to progress. An e-commerce virtual assistant can explore viable market segments for your e-commerce business. They can establish whether the company can enter a new geographic region or target a new demographic.

Web Design

Many e-commerce virtual assistants specialize in web design. Since an organized and visually appealing website can attract more customers, hiring a virtual assistant who can improve your website can be an excellent decision. They can develop innovative ideas and visual aids to improve the website without slowing it down.

Communication With Suppliers and Distributors

An e-commerce virtual assistant can be the main point of contact for distributors and suppliers. That way, you can take a break from hundreds of emails and phone calls and let a professional handle it. The assistant will ensure all your purchases and deliveries are completed successfully.

Product Research

Do you want to add a new product to your inventory but aren’t sure your customers will like it? Instead of risking it, you can let a virtual assistant explore the product, check the competition, and make a report on whether that’s the right decision.

Who Needs an E-Commerce Virtual Assistant?

Every e-commerce business owner can benefit from hiring a virtual assistant. As you’ve seen, a virtual assistant can handle a wide range of tasks, depending on their skill set. You can take advantage of this and use a virtual assistant for tasks you don’t have the time or skills to attend.

For example, a virtual assistant can handle content creation, social media management, and customer service while you handle the rest. Or, the assistant can be in charge of market research and monitoring competition to help you grow your business.

With e-commerce virtual assistants, the options are endless. They can make running a successful business less overwhelming and more enjoyable.

The Benefits of Hiring an E-Commerce Virtual Assistant

As mentioned, e-commerce virtual assistants can handle numerous tasks related to running and growing your business. If you’re still not sure whether hiring an e-commerce virtual assistant is the best choice for your company, check out some of the benefits you could enjoy:

Save Time

This is one of the most obvious benefits of hiring an e-commerce virtual assistant. Assigning routine or specialized tasks to the assistant will get them off your plate, leaving more time to focus on other business-related tasks where your presence is more needed. Of course, you don’t have to bury yourself in work. Many e-commerce business owners hire a virtual assistant when they want to take a step back, spend more time with family, travel, etc.

High-Quality Work

E-commerce virtual assistants are highly-trained professionals who know the industry’s ins and outs. If you hire an experienced assistant, you can be 100% sure you’ll get exceptional work that conforms to the highest standards.

Virtual assistants are also up to date with the latest trends in the e-commerce world and know the best strategies to promote and grow your business. They will make use of their vast knowledge to deliver the desired results.

Save Money

Many opt out of hiring an e-commerce virtual assistant because they think it’s a waste of money. So, it may be surprising to learn that an e-commerce virtual assistant can actually save you money.

When you hire a virtual assistant, you don’t have to pay them full-time or provide bonuses or insurance benefits. Instead, you can pay the assistant for every task you assign to them. Depending on your agreement, you can hire an assistant as needed, giving you flexibility and saving money.

Of course, investing in an e-commerce virtual assistant pays off in the long run. Over time, you’ll notice the increased sales and customers.

Allows You to Focus

One secondary task per day doesn’t take much of your time. But, dozens of them will prevent you from focusing on the main aspects of your e-commerce business. Instead of spending hours replying to the customers’ messages and creating social media content, you can let an e-commerce virtual assistant handle it.

Hand all the secondary tasks to the assistant and shift your focus toward the big picture.

The Possibilities Are Endless

Letting another person handle something you’ve worked on from scratch can be difficult. But, if you choose the right e-commerce virtual assistant, you’ll notice the countless benefits. An experienced professional assistant will make running an e-commerce business much more enjoyable and stress-free. Delegating tasks to a skilled professional can help you develop your business even further.