What are Webhooks and How Can They Automate Your Ecommerce Business?
Webhooks are real-time notifications about new events sent from Spree to any other system. They help you automate certain tasks and avoid manual work. For example, when a customer places an order on your website, you could use a webhook to automatically send out an email notification to the fulfillment center or a dropship partner shipping the goods. Using webhooks allows you to build automated workflows by yourself without any developers involved – it’s a no-code solution.
Spree 4.4 introduces built-in webhooks, so there is no need for coding to start using them.
Benefits of using webhooks for an eCommerce business
Configure no-code integrations with popular applications or systems
Webhooks allow you to integrate your eCommerce platform with any other system without involving developers, engineers, QAs – you may set up workflows triggered by a webhook using no-code platforms such as Zapier, Celigo, Automate.io, and others.
These no-code integration platforms will let you create workflows using thousands of popular applications in categories such as:
- Business Intelligence ie. Google Analytics, Hotjar, SEMrush
- Commerce ie. Stripe, QuickBooks, PayPal
- Communication ie. Gmail, Slack, Discord
- Content & Files ie. Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive
- Human Resources ie. Workable, Recruitee, BambooHR
- Internet of Things ie. Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant
- IT Operations ie. GitHub, Airtable, Teachable
- Lifestyle & Entertainment ie. Strava, Runkeeper, MapMyFitness
- Marketing ie. Mailchimp, Hubspot, Twitter
- Productivity ie. Trello, Asana, ClickUp
- Sales & CRM ie. Salesforce, Typeform, Calendly
- Customer Support ie. Zendesk, LiveChat, Tidio
- Website & App Building ie. Webflow, Netlify, WordPress
Get actionable notifications about your eCommerce business
For example, you can quickly notify your fulfillment partner by using a webhook to send an email notification when a new order is placed. Other examples include the following webhooks:
- Add new orders to Google Sheet rows
- Add new products in Google Sheet rows
- Update products from new orders in Google Sheet rows
- Share new orders to Slack
- Get a scheduled summary of new orders in a Slack channel
- Add new customers to Hubspot or Salesforce as contacts
- Create Trello cards from new orders
- Generate tickets in Zendesk from newly-paid orders
- Create orders from new Typeform entries
- Create Todoist tasks from new orders
- Get SMS alerts with new orders
Automate your marketing activities
With webhooks, you can automate many of your marketing tasks. Here are some examples:
- Add new customers to your mailing list (Mailchimp, Klaviyo, SendGrid, MailerLite, ActiveCampaign, SendinBlue, EmailOctopus, and many more)
- Send emails to abandoned cart users
- Add new Facebook Lead Ads leads as customers
- Share new products on Twitter
- Pin new products to boards on Pinterest
- Add offline conversion events to Facebook with new orders
- Log new abandoned carts as contact events on Drift
Improve your eCommerce customer service
Webhooks can automate tasks such as order notifications, shipping updates, etc., keeping customers in the loop. But they can also do so much more to improve customer service. Here are some examples:
- Welcome new customers with personalized emails from Gmail
- Follow-up on newly paid orders with Mailchimp Transactional templates
- Mail handwritten cards to new customers (Thankster, Handwrytten)
- Generate invoices (QuickBooks, Xero, ZohoBooks, FreshBooks, QuickFile)
- Send a survey when an order occurs (Promoter.io, SurveyMethods, etc)
- Create TrustPilot invitations from new orders
- Add customers for new subscriptions on ChargeBee
Quickly detect and respond to business issues
- Automatically receive updates when something changes on your website or in your inventory
- Easily connect with other applications and devices to automate tasks
- Quickly gather data about your business operations
Ensure your eCommerce scalability
Webhooks can be used to manage large amounts of data or events without any platform slowdown. Since webhooks are sent in real-time as events unfold, there are no big files to process all at once and no need for infrastructure supporting such processing. Another aspect is that new integrations are no-code, so there is no backlog of tasks for the engineering team as the marketing, customer, or sales teams can set up as many integrations as they need – no need to hire retain any engineers just for integration maintenance.
Get more visibility into your eCommerce business
Since webhook notifications can be sent to multiple recipients simultaneously, everyone who needs to be aware of a change or event will be notified quickly and easily. Additionally, webhook notifications can also be sent to other applications and devices so that they can take action based on the event.
Webhooks with Spree Commerce
As of Spree 4.4 version, webhooks come out of the box, and you may use them to connect your eCommerce with 3rd party solutions without doing any development work whatsoever. For example, Zapier allows you to create automated workflows by connecting over 3000 applications without any coding involved.
If you’re looking for a way to automate specific tasks in your eCommerce business, webhooks may be the solution for you. Contact us today to learn more about webhooks and how they could benefit your business. We would be happy to help!
