I’ve used virtual assistants (VAs) in my business for a while and I can honestly say they’ve been a godsend. There’s an awful lot of administrative tasks and routine operations that come with running an e-commerce business and you can quickly find yourself with no time to do anything else. That’s where VAs can help.
Virtual assistants are individuals who work remotely and generally provide businesses with administrative, technical or customer support services. In this article I cover Amazon VA hiring and the 5 most time consuming tasks which you can outsource to a virtual assistant.
Why you should hire a virtual assistant for your Amazon or Etsy business
When I speak to new Amazon or Etsy sellers and tell them that I have virtual assistants who help me in my business, they often say things like “isn’t that really expensive?” or “that sounds really stressful managing a group of people virtually”.
Having employed people in a previous business, I can say from experience that employees certainly can be expensive and a massive headache but working with VAs is different. A good VA can provide all the benefits you get with an employee but with less cost and less headaches.
One of the reasons virtual assistants work out cheaper than employees is because you can hire someone anywhere in the world. There are lots of highly skilled workers with great English in countries such as India and the Philippines who charge far less than their UK or US peers as their cost of living is far lower.
You can expect to pay from about $5 an hour for a fairly new virtual assistant, with the hourly rate increasing in line with experience.
Virtual assistants are also often open to working flexibly. For example you could arrange for a virtual assistant to work for you for a couple of hours a day when your business is relatively new and then increase their working hours as your business grows.
Getting someone in on a part time basis to run aspects of your business will enable you to start working on your business and not in your business all the time.
Where can you hire a virtual assistant for your Amazon or Etsy business?
Upwork and Fiverr are both great places to find all kinds of freelancers, including virtual assistants. Simply post a job advert and you’ll receive a lot of applications from virtual assistants all over the world. Onlinejobs.ph is another great site you can use to find virtual assistants based in the Philippines.
The top 5 tasks to outsource to a virtual assistant
Here are the five areas of your Amazon or Etsy business that I think a virtual assistant can be most helpful, starting with the easiest and most time consuming – admin!
1. Outsource administration to your virtual assistant
Admin is the bane of my life. I have a never ending list of admin tasks which just seems to get longer and longer. Before I had VAs, I would often feel overwhelmed and unable to focus on important decisions that would move my business forward (like choosing new products) because I was wading through admin all the time. Now I know that admin is being taken care of, I can prioritize my work better.
Admin tasks will vary from business to business, but the kind of things I’ve outsourced include:
- Managing my inbox and calendars (e.g. responding to suppliers, shipping companies, and freelancers. We have stock responses to a lot of common emails and then anything more complicated my VA can flag for me to look at.)
- Raising cases and following up with Amazon (e.g. raising cases for missing stock, getting products re-measured etc.)
- Uploading new product listings to Amazon and Etsy
- Updating storefronts on Amazon and Etsy with new products and imagery
- Adding information about new products to Helium10 (e.g. updating the keyword tracker, adding costs of goods (COGs)
- Carrying out keyword research using Helium10
These are just a few things my VA helps with but there are plenty of other tasks you can outsource. Any repetitive task which always follows a similar process can be given to a virtual assistant.
When I hire a new VA, I like to start with more straightforward admin tasks and then introduce them to more complex tasks as they become more familiar with my business and the tools we use.
2. Outsource customer service and refunds to virtual assistants
A lot of Amazon and Etsy sellers also get VAs to help with customer service. If you’re like me and sell on Amazon FBA, you probably won’t get that many customer queries because Amazon is handling all your deliveries and returns.
It depends on what products you’re selling too. If you’re selling products that are quite technical, like something electronic, then you could receive a lot of questions from customers. A lot of these questions will need the same response so you could create an SOP (standard operating procedure) which has a list of frequently asked questions and answers which a VA could use to respond to customers.
I also like to get my Virtual Assistants to help with refunds. With Amazon FBA, Amazon refunds customers as soon as they request a refund and then the customer is supposed to send back the product within a certain amount of time.
If the customer doesn’t return the product then Amazon is meant to reverse the refund and give you the money back. Now, Amazon being Amazon, they don’t always check whether returns have indeed been sent back. So it’s worth getting a VA to double check that returns have indeed been sent back by the customer and if not request the money back from Amazon.
There are also lots of tools out there which can make this process easier and identify if Amazon owes you money (I personally use GETIDA). So my VA logs into GETIDA and then provides the necessary information in order to request money back from Amazon.
3. Outsource research to a virtual assistant
The third thing that I think a virtual assistant can really help you with is research. Now, this could be researching new product ideas or competitors, or even new marketing opportunities.
For example, my VA recently put together a document with information about all the competitors selling a new type of product I’m thinking about launching. My VA also recently put together lists of potential influencers to contact about partnerships. This can really help to free up your time so you can focus on strategic decisions like deciding whether to try that new marketing technique or launch that new product.
Another thing you can get them to do, which is going to save you loads of time, is researching and speaking to potential suppliers. You just need to give your VA really clear guidelines about what you’re looking for and then you can leave them to contact suppliers and manage all the back and forth questions.
4. Outsource routine operational tasks to a virtual assistant
The fourth thing that I like to get my Virtual Assistant to help me with is operations. Now this is actually the first area of my business that I hired a VA for because I find a lot of operational tasks pretty boring and I’m not terribly organised!
There’s quite a lot of cross over between admin and operations but I tend to think of operations as the fundamental processes that have to get done for my business to function, so in an Amazon FBA business this would be manufacturing and shipping.
I have a lot of shipments going into Amazon and a third party warehouse (3PL) and I have to keep on top of them otherwise stock can get lost. I have created a spreadsheet which my VA uses to track all our shipments, with information such as product amount, destination, cost etc.
My VA then updates this spreadsheet on a regular basis so we know exactly where all the stock is. They also arrange shipments into the 3PL and Amazon and follow up with the relevant party if there is a delay or any other issues.
If you’re selling fulfilled by merchant (FBM) on Amazon or you’re selling on Etsy then you’ll also need to manage all the deliveries to customers. This is a massive job which a VA can help you to stay on top of, particularly if you find a VA who is really organised and process driven.
5. Outsource routine marketing jobs to a virtual assistant
Marketing generally requires a more experienced virtual assistant but it can still be a real time saver for you. I would recommend finding a VA with specific marketing experience because it’s easier working with an assistant who already understands marketing principles and marketing tools.
For example if you’re looking for help with advertising e.g. Google advertising, Facebook advertising or Amazon PPC, it’s worth hiring a VA who has experience in these platforms. They may be more expensive but it will save you time and money in the long run.
I’ve used VAs in the past to help manage my social media accounts. I hate social media and I’m really bad at creating posts so I’ve hired VAs with experience in social media management to create and schedule posts for me.
I’ve even sent a VA on a Pinterest course to learn how Pinterest ads work and create a process for how we can use it to promote our products.
You could also consider getting a VA to write product listings for you. For this kind of task it’s important to find someone with really strong English who really understands your brand. I’d recommend giving them a test before hiring them to check you’re a good fit and ask to see past examples of their work. Again, VAs with writing or marketing experience might be more expensive but it could save you a lot of time.
It’s also worth remembering that there are plenty of VAs in the UK and US who are native speakers who can help with this for a slightly higher fee.
Onlinejobs.ph is a great place to find virtual assistants based in the Philippines
How to train a virtual assistant in your Amazon or Etsy business
The trick is to make sure you have clear and easy to follow processes and instructions in place when you hire your VA so that they can quickly get up to speed. If you come up with any new jobs or ways of doing things, make sure you ask your VA to document the process so you easily train up future VAs if necessary.
Good communication is key to a successful VA relationship. I use the project management tool Asana with my VAs. This makes sure everyone is clear on what tasks need to be completed and how they are progressing. We also use Slack to quickly answer any questions as they arise and we also have regular video calls.
Takeaway
Before hiring a VA, it’s worth working out where the pain points are in your business. Think about a typical week, what are you spending most of your time on? Could that time be better spent on something else?
Once you’ve identified what you need help with, work out what kind of skills you ideally want your VA to have. I wouldn’t recommend trying to get one VA to cover operations, marketing, administration and customer service – they’re all very different jobs that require different skills.
If you need marketing support you’re better off finding a VA with marketing experience. Similarly if you need help with operations or admin, you’re better off looking for someone who is very organised and analytical who enjoys creating and following processes.
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