How to Avoid Ecommerce Burnout & Fall In Love With Your Store Again

If you love running your own ecommerce store but find yourself irritated, unfocused, & exhausted, you could be dealing with burnout. Everyone deals with ups & downs in their online business from time to time, but ignoring persistent symptoms for too long quickly leads to a lack of productivity & potential stress-related complications. The good news is there’s plenty you can do to ease your burnout & fall in love with your online store all over again.

Reduce Your Overhead Headaches

Too much overhead, orders to fulfill, & bills to pay quickly lead to overwhelm & burnout. Fortunately, there are enough resources & platforms on the market that could quickly slash your overhead so you can focus on building your business instead of busy work. For example, getting rid of your storage space in favor of Print-On-Demand (POD) is one place to start.

Instead of dealing with ordering inventory, sorting it, storing it, fulfilling orders, & shipping it, you can take it off your plate while still offering exemplary customer service. Upload your latest designs to CustomCat, apply them to the products you love, from tote bags to T-shirts, & let us do the rest. We provide easy integration options to your online store, so when someone buys a product, we get to work producing, fulfilling, & shipping it out on your behalf. With white-labeled products & shipping labels, we act as an extension of your business so you can focus on delighting your customers.

Learn more about how to get started with CustomCat here.

Focus on What You Love & Outsource the Rest

Just because you can do it all doesn’t mean you should. Instead of waiting for burnout to hit, start outsourcing tasks as soon as possible. Hiring a Virtual Assistant for just a few hours a week can alleviate time spent on social media posts, bookkeeping, or customer service. But instead of outsourcing easy tasks you don’t mind doing, get rid of those dreaded tasks first.

Get started by making a list of everything you’re neutral about or love doing in your business. In the next column, list everything that makes your stomach churn. Next, check sites like Upwork & Fiverr for freelancers who fit your budget while making it worth your while. You may decide scheduling out social media posts isn’t that big of a deal & tackle that work yourself while giving bookkeeping & admin tasks to someone else. 

It also doesn’t need to be an all or nothing approach. You can hire someone to do a batch of work to get you over the hump during a busy sales season. Or consider bartering with another entrepreneur. You can help them set up their Etsy store while they agree to create & schedule your Pinterest Pins.

Automate Your Processes

If you don’t have the profit in your online business to invest in outsourcing, you can also automate your processes to free up valuable time. There’s no need to repeat the same methods over & over when you can use tools, templates, & systems to take care of it for you, including:

• Scheduling social media posts & Pinterest pins in bulk once a month
• Using Zapier to create “zaps” to pass information between workflows, such as automatically copying attachments from emails & putting them into Dropbox
• Leveraging chatbots to automatically respond to FAQs about your business

Automating takes a little time to set up & get right, but once it’s flowing, you’re gaining hours back in your business. Get more ideas on what to automate with these time-saving ecommerce tools.

Schedule in Downtime

There’s something about having nothing to do that makes people go into panic mode. But instead of just enjoying it for what it is, we often find busy work & tedious tasks instead of scheduling in both productive time & downtime. The results? Our health & focus ultimately suffer, & we experience burnout.

Experts warn that too much hyper-focused productivity can lead to long-term stress & health issues, while intentional breaks are therapeutic. Downtime helps replenish our brains & perform restorative activities we need to allow us to function better. You may quickly find that a 30-minute break every two hours keeps you working faster than before.

If you’re having trouble scheduling breaks without guilt or anxiety, set a timer. Spend 30 minutes resting, listening to a podcast, walking outdoors, or doing anything you enjoy doing without guilt. When the timer goes off, you can get back to work in earnest & repeat the process. 

Write Out Your Why

Why did you launch an ecommerce store in the first place? It wasn’t to spend all hours of the day in a warehouse filling orders or troubleshooting your website. Chances are you had a creative vision, passion for entrepreneurship, & wanted more freedom to travel or spend time with family & friends. 

Keep your “Why” at the forefront of your mind by writing it out & making it visible while you work. Or turn it into a fun graphic & apply it to one of our canvases. With no minimum orders, you can use CustomCat to hang your inspiring message over your desk & keep you focused on the real reason you’re in business.

Set More Realistic Goals

Are you a go-getter & love to make things happen? Or maybe you have big dreams but struggle to focus on them? If you’re feeling burnout & pressure to perform, your goals probably aren’t realistic. Instead of focusing on making six figures this year, focus on your customer growth or increasing average order size. Once you identify a realistic goal, write out a plan for how you can make them happen:

• Promote a giveaway on social media
• Set a regular publishing schedule for your newsletter
• Start upselling & cross-selling your items
• Focus on rescuing your abandoned shopping carts

Goals are an incredible way to see success, but they should also be realistic & have an action plan to fuel their results.

Get Social Again

There’s more to burnout than being busy & focused on your ecommerce goals. Fatigue & burnout can be caused by socializing too much or not at all. Stop saying yes to everything & everyone, & prioritize yourself & your own downtime. Before you automatically agree to any social outing, sit with it for a few hours or overnight. What does your gut tell you? Explore whether or not it’s people you actually want to spend time with & how it will impact the rest of your week.

At the same time, social support is shown to help protect against burnout & improve stress. Working in an echo chamber in your business isn’t healthy when you have no one to support you. Whether you schedule a regular date with family & friends or join a group dedicated to helping each other in business, make sure you find the support you deserve.

How do you avoid ecommerce burnout & love your store again? Let us know by leaving a comment!