Online store owner does everything himself: how to get out of operations

How an online store owner can get out of daily manual work

A store sells through a website, Prom.ua and Rozetka, sends parcels by Nova Poshta and Ukrposhta, and accepts payments in several ways. As a result, many questions converge on the owner every day: he personally deals with waybills, prices, order statuses and writes to the support of each service. This article is about how to transfer this work to the team using simple rules so that the owner is less involved in daily operational issues.

This article complements the guide to technical accounting setup for an online store. That guide covers the server, database and synchronizations. This one covers how to organize people’s work.

Familiar situations

Check how many items from this list describe your store.

• the owner personally writes to the support of marketplaces, carriers, the bank and the program for every issue;
• problems are discovered on orders from real customers because no one checks the process in advance;
• a failure in one sales channel affects the processing of all orders;
• managers wait for the owner’s decision even in simple situations;
• the same mistakes repeat because no one writes down a new rule after each case;
• support requests are written without data: without an order number, time and description of what exactly went wrong.

Each item separately looks like a small thing. Together they mean one thing: all non-standard store issues pass through one person. This takes a lot of the owner’s time every day. And the more orders there are, the more time is required.

Why this happens

When a store has one sales channel, it often seems that separate rules are not needed: the owner sees every order and keeps the process in his head. And this really works.

Then a website, Prom, Rozetka, a second delivery service, installment payments are added. Each service has its own statuses, its own payment rules, its own requirements for recipient data. A typical Ukrainian online store deals every day with five to seven external services: marketplaces, carriers, bank, payment services, website hosting, accounting software.

The store has grown, but the habit of “keeping everything in one’s head” remains. There are no written rules, so every non-standard issue goes to the owner. And the owner goes with each issue to the support of the next service. The service’s support can help within its own area: the marketplace with the account, the carrier with delivery, the program developer with settings, diagnostics and consultations within the terms of technical support. But internal store decisions — whom to appoint responsible, at what price to ship, when to stop an order — can be made only by the business itself.

Step one: appoint a person responsible for online sales

You need one person responsible for the daily work of all sales channels. This does not necessarily have to be a new position. In a small store, this work is taken on by a senior manager or administrator. The main thing is to write down exactly what this person is responsible for:

• setting up exchange with the website and marketplaces;
• daily review of the synchronization log and problematic orders;
• checking prices and markups in channels;
• rules for creating waybills and reconciling shipments;
• reconciling payments and analyzing unclear payments;
• rules for managers’ work and training newcomers;
• checking operation after program updates and changes on marketplaces;
• correspondence with service support: briefly, with facts.

After that, the owner receives short summaries from the responsible person. The owner goes into details only when the issue is truly significant. More on this below.

Who does what: a simple table

So that the responsible person does not become another person who carries everything alone, distribute the main actions among people. Example:

The principle is simple: every action has a performer and someone who checks it. The owner appears in the table only where there is a summary or a high risk. Create your own version for your team and keep it on one page.

How an order is processed: write down the main steps

Next, describe the path of a regular order on one page. This is the main working document for managers.

1. The order has been loaded into the program. The manager sees it in the list of new orders.
2. The manager calls the customer within the defined time. Confirms the products, delivery and payment.
3. An invoice is created for the confirmed order according to the established rule.
4. If payment is in advance, the manager waits for the money to arrive. If it is cash on delivery, the manager prepares the shipment.
5. A waybill is created from the order data. The manager checks the recipient, branch and payment control.
6. After shipment, the waybill number is transferred to the sales channel, and the order status is updated.
7. The payment is reconciled with the invoice. Unclear payments go to the financier.

Next to each step, add three things: who does it, within what time, and what to do if the step fails. The third part is the most important — it removes questions from the owner.

Non-standard situations: short rules

Money and time are most often lost not on ordinary orders, but on non-standard situations. Write a short rule for each typical situation.

The rules are intentionally short. The goal is simple: in an unusual situation, the manager knows what to do and does not pull the owner in.

Product catalog: agree on order

Many failures begin with the catalog. Different names for the same product, missing photos, unfilled characteristics, duplicates. Each small thing repeats on the website, on Prom and on Rozetka, and then comes back as export errors and customer questions. Agree on a few simple things:

• the product is created and edited only in the accounting program; direct edits on the website or marketplace are prohibited;
• there is a specific person who fills in names, photos, descriptions and characteristics of new products;
• naming rules are written down: word order, manufacturer, article number, size;
• after product types change, someone checks whether marketplace categories have shifted;
• export errors are reviewed regularly, according to a defined schedule;
• there is a written rule for duplicates and “out of stock” products.

Stock and reserve: so you do not sell what is not available

One online order and one in-store customer may claim the last unit of a product. Without rules, this ends in selling an unavailable item and a cancellation that damages the marketplace rating. Write down answers to several questions:

• when the product is reserved: when the order is loaded or when the invoice is created;
• who checks that the product is really available if the stock balance is minimal;
• what to do when the product is listed in the program but is not on the shelf: temporarily remove it from sale, recount this item, record the case in the log;
• who corrects assortment mix-ups;
• how quickly after an in-store sale stock balances are updated on the website and marketplaces, and who monitors this;
• who offers the customer a replacement, and who decides to cancel the order.

Profit control: which orders to stop before shipment

The most expensive mistakes are related to prices. Different markups may apply on the website and marketplaces. When a manager manually changes the order contents, the price may become lower than planned. The protection is simple — a few stopping rules:

• orders where the manager changed the contents manually receive a separate status and are not shipped without checking;
• before shipment, the marketplace price and the invoice price are compared;
• an order with a price discrepancy waits until it is clarified;
• if money has already been lost, the amount is recorded in the failure log;
• once a week, the responsible person reviews orders where the profit turned out suspiciously low.

When these checks are built into regular work, they take minutes. Without them, lost money is discovered too late, when nothing can be done.

Money: six numbers the owner sees every day

Payments come in different ways and at different times: prepayments, credits from marketplaces, carrier registers for cash-on-delivery payments, returns. The owner does not need to analyze every payment. A short daily summary of six numbers is enough:

• amount of unpaid invoices;
• amount of cash-on-delivery payments in transit;
• amount of unclear payments waiting for analysis;
• returns for the period;
• number of orders stopped due to a price discrepancy;
• number of orders with a risk of losing profit.

These numbers are prepared by the financier or the responsible person. As long as they are within the usual range, the owner does not go into details. A number deviates — this is a signal to look deeper.

Failure log: record what broke

When a failure is described as “something does not work,” it is difficult to check. Specific data is needed for checking: where it happened, with which order, at what time, what was expected and what actually happened. A failure log is a simple table where the responsible person records each case.

The log gives three things. Managers know where to report a failure, and work does not stop. The service support — marketplace, carrier or program — receives a request with facts and can check it quickly. The owner sees the real picture: how many failures, how much money is at risk, what repeats.

One request form for all services

A request prepared from the log is written quickly. And support of any service — marketplace, carrier or program — finds it easier to work with: they do not have to ask for details ten times. What to specify:

The last point is the most useful. When the request says exactly what you expect, it is easier for support to route it to the right specialist.

When an issue is passed to the owner

So that the owner does not return to every small thing, agree in writing in which cases the responsible person goes to him. Examples:

• the failure repeated three or more times in one day;
• a sales channel does not accept orders for more than an hour;
• waybills are not created or not transferred on a mass scale;
• the discrepancy between payments and accounting is greater than the agreed amount;
• the problem affects more than ten percent of daily orders;
• possible loss of money is greater than the agreed amount.

Each store sets specific amounts according to its own volume. The main thing is that they are written down. Then everything below the threshold is resolved without the owner.

Checking after updates and changes: do not test on customers

The program is updated, marketplaces and carriers change rules. If no one checks anything after changes, the first tester becomes a customer with their order. It is simpler to keep a short checklist that the responsible person goes through after a program update or a noticeable marketplace change:

1. marketplace order with the channel markup;
2. marketplace order without payment;
3. order with payment through the marketplace service;
4. order to which a product was added after the call;
5. order where the customer and recipient are different;
6. waybill with cash on delivery and payment control;
7. waybill of the second carrier;
8. partial invoice payment;
9. order cancellation with status transfer;
10. order status change on the marketplace;
11. repeat exchange after an error;
12. stock balance update in all channels after sale.

In a small team, such a walkthrough can take about an hour if test products and access rights are prepared in advance. This hour is cheaper than analyzing problems on real orders.

The service changed the rules: two paths

Marketplaces, carriers and banks change rules when they need to. The store cannot influence this. But the store fully controls how it reacts to it.

The difference is in two steps. First, check on a test order what exactly has changed. Then give managers a temporary solution so that shipments do not stop. And only after that write a request to the service — already with facts. This way, the store does not depend on the speed of someone else’s response.

What to review daily, weekly and monthly

Rules work when they have a schedule. Without a schedule, checks happen only after complaints. With a schedule, the responsible person knows what and when to review, and the owner knows when he receives a summary.

In a well-organized process, the daily review can take up to half an hour if the responsible people and the review order are already defined. Weekly and monthly reviews are a short conversation or summary, after which rules are updated.

Program support: a planned expense, like communications or banking

For a store with one sales channel, accounting software may not need external help for years. A store with a website, two marketplaces, two carriers and a bank is more complex: exchanges, updates and changes in external services occasionally require specialist involvement.

Therefore, program support for such a store should reasonably be included in the budget as a regular expense — just like communications or banking services. When support is in the budget, every technical issue becomes a planned task with an executor. When it is not in the budget, every issue starts with agreeing who pays, and this is exactly where time is lost that could have been spent on checking or configuration.

Who is responsible for what among external services

Each service has its own area. When the team understands this, the request immediately goes to the correct address, and no one expects one service to solve issues that depend on another.

For accounting software, the request procedure — what is a service, what is a check, what is an error, and what is a request — is described in detail in the technical setup guide. Marketplaces and carriers have similar support rules. A request with facts goes through faster everywhere.

Check yourself: short list

Frequently asked questions

Conclusion

An online store with several sales channels consists of two parts. The technical part — server, database, settings, exchanges — is described in a separate guide. The second part is people and rules: a responsible person, recorded order path, rules for non-standard situations, failure log, checks after changes and clear service responsibility areas. When both parts are present, automation gives the full result.

It is easy to check yourself. If the owner personally analyzes most issues related to waybills, prices and statuses, it is worth starting with rules and a responsible person. This gradually reduces the number of manual reviews and frees the owner’s time for store development.