Running an Amazon store need not be a drag. But it can quickly become one if you don’t have the necessary tools and resources to get your orders managed and fulfilled in a timely and cost effective manner. If you are an eCommerce owner, then chances are you have heard about Amazon restricted/gated categories. You can sell on there, but sometimes you need Amazon’s permission to do so for specific products. Visit ungatingamazon if you are looking for help with amazon and to find out its Gated List.

The truth is that the fulfillment process, and keeping customers updated, can leave many Amazon store operators dragging their feet. Find out what your customers really want and how you can appeal to their desires, so you retain a top store ranking and enjoy a steady stream of inbound sales.

Customers Want Instant Updates

When a customer places an order with your online store, they want instant updates. Now Amazon will send them updates, like that they placed and order. But you have to manually update them with the rest. This means you’ve got to make updates and comments any time something changes.

But the reality is that doing this can quickly become a full-time job for popular e-retailers. Instead, you should look into an Amazon order management system, which can handle the tedious updates for you and help you better process inventory from your system as your orders go out the door (read related article on Easing Your Online Operations with Amazon Order Management Software).

Fast, Cheap Shipping is a Universal Demand

According to numerous recent studies, the top stickler for customers placing an order – at any online store – is the cost of shipping. Shipping can be the deal-breaker for any customers. By and far, over 70% of customers stated that they want cheap or free shipping.

Certainly, offering free shipping is not on the books for most e-retailers. But you can offer discount shipping. The best way to do so is to look to discount digital postage providers. Or to consider using the lucrative commercial pricing on USPS Priority shipments.

When Did My Order Ship & When Will It Arrive?

These are two of the most common questions shoppers have about their Amazon orders. They want to know when it shipped and when it will arrive. If you are still manually copying and pasting shipping status updates and comments into these fields as you process orders, take heart in knowing there’s a far superior solution.

Look into Amazon shipping software that you can use to instantly update orders. Companies like TrueShip, which makes a very popular software solution for Amazon users (http://www.trueship.com/partners/amazon), can instantly import orders. Once you process them – which the multi-carrier software also handles – and fulfill them, you press just one button to update all your customers.

Indeed, software can derive a useful solution for many woes that beset Amazon shopkeepers. Most software we checked out starts at about $29 per month. Almost all providers offer a complementary trial period so you can try before you buy.