Automation in eCommerce: A Case Study of TinySuperheroes and Speak English with Vanessa

TinySuperheroes is an eCommerce business that provides capes to children dealing with sickness and disabilities. The business was founded by Robyn Rosenberger in 2012, who was inspired by the story of a young girl born with a rare and severe skin condition. Speak English with Vanessa is an online language teaching platform founded by Vanessa Prothe. Vanessa, who had spent several years teaching English in South Korea, wanted to reach as many people as possible with her language teaching, which led her to start an online business. She offers free and paid courses and has a private Facebook group for her clients to interact and learn from each other.

The case study focuses on two businesses, TinySuperheroes and Speak English with Vanessa, both founded by women entrepreneurs. TinySuperheroes, founded by Robyn Rosenberger, provides capes to children dealing with sickness and disabilities. The challenge for Robyn was the time-consuming process of order fulfillment and management. She had to manually create orders for every cape shipped, which was slowing down the business. Speak English with Vanessa, founded by Vanessa Prothe, is an online language teaching platform. Vanessa faced the challenge of managing her courses, payments, and emails manually. This was a significant roadblock for her, especially as she was not tech-savvy and her expertise lay in teaching English, not in coding or managing complex software systems.

Both entrepreneurs turned to automation to solve their challenges. Robyn used Zapier, an app automator, to automate the process of order creation for TinySuperheroes. She created a 'Zap', an automated process in Zapier, which connected four different applications: Typeform, Google Sheets, ActiveCampaign, and ShipStation. This Zap automated the process from the moment someone nominated a child for a cape on the TinySuperheroes site, to the creation of an order in ShipStation for the cape to be mailed out. Vanessa also used Zapier to automate the back end of her business. She created Zaps that automatically managed her courses, payments, and emails. When a student registered for a course or made a payment, Zapier automatically created or updated the contact in ActiveCampaign, saving Vanessa several hours of manual work each week.

• The use of automation significantly improved the operational efficiency of both businesses. For TinySuperheroes, automation not only saved time but also ensured that the capes reached the children faster. It allowed Robyn to focus on the core mission of her business - getting capes to kids. For Speak English with Vanessa, automation enabled Vanessa to manage her courses, payments, and emails without having to learn to code or manage complex software systems. It allowed her to remain a one-woman show, focusing on her students and course content. Both entrepreneurs recommend investing time in setting up automation correctly, as the time saved in the long run is significant.

• Automation saved Robyn hours of manual work each day, allowing her to increase the number of capes she could ship.

• Automation sped up the time between ordering a cape and a child receiving one.

• For Vanessa, automation saved several hours of manual work each week.