Hiring A Shopify Virtual Assistant

How Do You Hire a Shopify Virtual Assistant or a Shopify VA?

ByJonathan

Running an online business on Shopify is quite rewarding but also poses certain problems. As your store keeps growing, so do tasks with handling stock, processing orders, answering customer queries, marketing campaigns, and many more daunting matters. And if you’re finding it tough to juggle, hiring a Shopify Virtual Assistant (VA) might be the best way to ease the workload and focus on scaling your business.

Below is the ultimate guide to hiring Shopify virtual assistants, what they do and why you need them, and tips for finding and getting the most out of your collaboration.

Who is a Shopify Virtual Assistant?

A Shopify Virtual Assistant is a remote worker specializing in the management and provision of diverse support functions for a Shopify-based eCommerce store. Such VAs offer an extensive list of services that are custom-tailored to Shopify, helping store owners perform tasks that facilitate efficient function and growth of the online business. They are experienced with utilizing the Shopify platform, apps, and integrations. Such professionals will be a brilliant addition to the resource pool of any entrepreneur looking to optimize and automate their eCommerce businesses.

Why Do You Need a Shopify Virtual Assistant?

Why Do You Need A Shopify VA

1. Time Management

A store’s online management ranges from adding products to answering questions concerning the products themselves. There are several activities, though they’re time-consuming, that you can outsource to your Shopify VA for you to create more strategic thinking, like developing new products, partnerships, and growth plans.

2. Shopify Expertise

Shopify VA is professional technical support in terms of the Shopify platform. He or she knows everything about it: all its tools, apps, and features. That’s why they can optimize the performance of a store. They’re experts in Shopify, so errors and solutions to technical problems will be met sooner than with other people, which means your store will run smoothly.

3. Cost-Effective

Even hiring a Shopify VA is always less expensive compared to hiring a full-time employee. Virtual assistants are mostly hired on an as-needed basis and are paid either on an hourly rate or per project, which means you only pay for the work they do. The overhead costs such as offices, equipment, and even full-time salaries will then greatly be reduced.

4. Customer Service Enhancements

Customer service is the most important success factor in your Shopify store. It might be a painstakingly time-consuming process and strip away much of your energy and productivity at work. A virtual assistant can help you respond to customer emails, returns, live chat, and social media inquiries among other things that are always sent straight to your inbox.

5. Increased Marketing Campaigns

Many Shopify VAs come with experience in digital marketing, running campaigns through social media, designing email newsletters, and even optimizing product listings for SEO. If you’re struggling with marketing, that really helps you broaden your reach and engagement quite a bit.

Tasks a Shopify VA Can Perform

Tasks A Shopify VA Can Perform

You can make a Shopify VA perform a vast list of tasks, and you can tailor their role to meet your specific needs for your store. Some of the main areas where they can immediately impact are the following:

1. Product Management

  • Product listing creation and editing
  • Developing product descriptions and optimizing these from an SEO point of view
  • Categories management of products
  • Update of prices, SKUs, and inventory
  • Acquiring images and uploading them to product pages

2. Order and Inventory Management

  • Tracking and orders completed
  • Stock updates
  • Return and exchange
  • Supplier follow-up
  • Controlling stock and reordering products

3. Customer Service

  • email support chats
  • Manage order tracking &response to customers
  • Customer complaints &problem
  • Refund &returns

4. Shopify Store Theme

  • Shopify app installation &setup
  • Customize the theme and design of the store
  • Discount and promo code
  • Payment options, shipping

5. Marketing &Social Media

  • Managing social media accounts
  • Creating Facebook or Google ads
  • Email marketing campaign setup and management
  • Write blog posts or other content for your store
  • Influencer outreach campaign management

6. Data Entry and Reporting

  • Entering sales data and analyzing the trend
  • Preparing reports on the performance of your store
  • Monitoring KPIs such as conversion rate, traffic and sales

Steps to Hire a Shopify Virtual Assistant

Steps To Hire A Shopify Virtual Assistant

Hiring a Shopify virtual assistant is not just easy in the sense that one should put up an ad on the internet. One has to know what to look for, where to find them, and most importantly how to screen them. Here is a step-by-step process of getting the right fit to help your business run efficiently.

1. Identify Your Needs

First of all, start making a list of what you want your Shopify VA to handle. Does it require that person to focus on customer service, inventory management, or maybe some part of marketing? And when you consider that, finding the right one won’t be a problem at all-they always have a suitable set of skills with the perfect amount of experience in store for you.

You can break up the tasks into day-to-day, weekly, and even month-to-month tasks. That also helps them understand the scope of work completely.

2. Determine Your Budget

The cost of hiring a Shopify VA is really a function of his or her experience, location, and the kind of complexity you need help with. You must define how much you can spend.

Other virtual assistants from different parts of the world have other expectations depending on the cost. For example, VAs originating from the United States of America or Europe whose costs are high compared to those in Southeast Asia or Eastern Europe, can be of the same quality, as well.

3. Choose Your Hiring Platforms

Shopify VAs can be sourced mainly through numerous freelance and virtual assistant job websites. Here are some of the popular places to start:

  • Upwork: it is considered one of the largest freelancing platforms with a lot of experienced Shopify VAs for either long-term or short-term contracts.
  • Fiverr: that’s going to be perfect if you need a certain task-based skill for your Shopify business, such as uploading products or theme customization, at a more affordable price.
  • OnlineJobs.ph: Although this seems a little niche since it caters to Filipino workers, this platform is also amazing as regards quality work for competitive prices.
  • FreeUp: Since they so closely vet freelancers, this makes the platform relatively easy to find excellent quality Shopify VAs.
  • PeoplePerHour: Another freelancing site on which you will be able to find qualified professionals who specialize in Shopify and eCommerce.

4. Create a Clear Job Description

Brief Description of the Job:

What you expect from your Shopify VA should be clearly stated in the Shopify VA job description. All tasks, required and desirable skills and qualifications with the required level of experience should be listed.

Here’s an example of what your job description may look like

Job Title: Shopify Virtual Assistant

Job Overview:

Shopify Virtual Assistant is what I need to handle the most basic running of our online shop day-to-day things. The work would be about listing products, inventory management, customer support, and optimization of the Shopify store.

Tasks include

  • Adding/Updating products on Shopify
  • Replying to customers’ emails through Live Chats
  • Tracking inventory and coordinating orders with suppliers
  • Optimization of product descriptions for a better SEO
  • Running Paid Ads, Maintain Social Media Accounts

Requirements

  • Shopify experience
  • Communication, excellent communication
  • Knowledge of SEO and digital marketing
  • Independent Ability to Work and Time Management

5. Vet Candidates

Now that you started receiving applications, you have to vet candidates properly. Here is how you can ensure that you are hiring the right person:

Assess Their Portfolio: Is he or she working already for some Shopify stores and has already done similar tasks as what you need?

  • Check Their Competence: Obtain a candidate to deliver a small output, such as posting a product or writing a sample description of a product, so that you may check their competencies.
  • Virtual Interview: Virtual interviews will present an opportunity to ask the candidate questions in greater detail about experience, diligence, and willingness to work. In addition, verify whether they possess good communication skills and knowledge about your business needs.
  • Check References: As much as possible, get client references or read reviews from previous employers on freelance platforms.

6. Test Their Skills

Give a trial project paid for before any long-term deal with a shortlisted candidate. It could be anything as simple as updating a few product listings or managing customer emails for a week. It will help judge the skill levels and also whether you could rely on them for an extended time or not.

7. Set Expectations

Once you have hired your Shopify VA, you’ll want to put in place what your expectations are. Create an onboarding process that comes with extensive training materials and regular communication so that the workflow produces a smooth process. It would be even better actually to set up regularly scheduled check-ins, mainly when getting started, to help you understand the ins and outs of your operation well.

Tips for Working Successfully with a Shopify VA

Tips For Working Successfully with a Shopify VA

1. Communicate

You need to communicate with your VA to understand things better. Without proper communication, you both will lack the end goal. Organize tasks using different online software like Slack to ensure seamless communication.

2. Deadlines

Probably the most common headache with VAs is having them meet deadlines. Set expectations for how long to expect for every single task and regularly follow up for them to stay on track.

3. Constructive Feedback

It is important to give feedback to your VA if you want the quality of work to improve over time. Let them know where they are getting it right and where they need to improve. This will help in building an excellent working relationship and making sure the tasks are completed according to your standards.

4. Technology to Simplify Your Workflow

So many tools can be availed to make collaboration with your Shopify VA easy, including:

  • Google Drive: Use for sharing documents and spreadsheets
  • Trello/Asana: Managing projects and tracking tasks
  • Slack: To communicate in real-time with others
  • Loom: Recording tutorials or explaining something through video
  • Shopify Internal Tools: Shopify’s internal tools that handle inventory, reporting, and customer service can be used by your VA to be more efficient.

Conclusion

Making the Right Choice in Hiring a Shopify Virtual Assistant Sometimes a Shopify virtual assistant is a game-changer for an online store. They could help you manage a myriad of day-to-day jobs related to running a Shopify store, and this would allow you to uplift customer service while pushing marketing to new heights. Thus, you can focus more on growing your business while understanding the needs and wants, choosing the right platform, and doing the proper vetting of candidates that will get you a Shopify virtual assistant who will become a valuable addition to your team. When you have the right person like a Shopify VA alongside you, then you can reach sky-high marks and free up your time to focus on the more research-oriented innovative and growing activity.

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