Outsourcing is a major contributor to the continued growth of retail. eCommerce outsourcing, in particular, has helped hundreds of retail companies make a smooth jump from selling through a brick-and-mortar store to selling online and transacting with customers through digital means. But, before you make the decision to outsource some of the work from your ecommerce business, take a moment to think about the following points of consideration.

#1 You may need help in doing back-end and front-end work for your ecommerce website.

Many businesses have benefited from outsourcing some of the website administration tasks, such as organizing and updating product information in a database and writing short product descriptions that capture the imagination of buyers.

Some small business owners prefer to hire home-based remote workers. Other companies prefer a more systematic and secure approach to work. Outsourcing the work to a reputable outsourcing company guarantees that well-trained support staff is always available either to take a customer’s call or to finish an urgent task.

Your choice of whether to hire freelance workers or sign a contract with an outsourcing company depends on two things. One is the scope of work. Another is your need to provide reliable and secure services to your customers.

What kind of outsourcing staff will you need to hire for your ecommerce website? You can hire data entry workers, writers to create or update product descriptions, site admins for database and server management, developers to take care of the coding and design work, and SEO specialists for optimizing your website.

#2 You may need to hire more people to help you promote your merchandise online.

Retail companies — whether they’re operating as fully virtual businesses or hybrids with brick-and-mortar shops that carry inventory — are relying more and more on social media websites to effectively promote their merchandise to their target market.

It’s because of this that ecommerce companies have begun launching their own social media marketing campaigns. If you’re thinking of outsourcing some of the work to a remote staff in the Philippines, consider hiring a social media savvy team to help you with your online promotions.

Of course, you’ll need an experienced project manager for your social media marketing team. You’ll also need a creative writer to produce quality social media content and a video editor or animator who can produce and edit videos and GIFs for you. Your team will schedule updates, interact with your customers, and announce seasonal events and promos you may have.

#3 You’ll be providing customer support via chat, email, and phone. This may be a 24/7 job that you’re not equipped or ready to fulfill.

eCommerce websites are always open for business even when you and your staff are out of the office. Customers are always searching for items to buy, and they’re constantly looking for answers from support staff. Businesses like yours will need help in handling inquiries and complaints. You’ll need an on-site manager to handle escalations. A tech support team should be available 24/7 to fix whatever problem customers may have with your website or products.

The problem is… this kind of work can’t be done by just a handful of people on your payroll. Hiring more staff may help. But the exorbitant costs of adding employees to your company can make you think twice about recruiting more people.

The best option for you now is to outsource. If you can automate the work, then do so. Use software for the more routine and repetitive tasks. You can feed the answers to a database. An AI or chat bot can use them to respond to basic questions from customers with none the wiser.

Meanwhile, your human staff can wrap up the conversation with your customers. An ecommerce support team will leave your customers feeling assured and important to the company.