We're in the technology sector, and that is often about automating processes. Automating processes often involves reducing computer clicks.

Clicks = Delays and Labor Costs

The Wall St. Journal recently covered six decades of technological innovation, which extolled how technology would save users time and effort via various innovations, including the telephone, fax machine, and copying machine (my dad worked at Xerox!). While we don't make fax machines or copiers per se (sorry, Dad!), like these machines, we do automate processes and help our clients reduce labor. At a very basic level, we measure labor in 'clicks.' Computer clicks equal thinking, labor, and expense.

Sandwiches Are Now Software

It's just not tech companies in the 'tech space' these days. Most businesses are rising (or falling) on their ability to automate. Even fast food restaurants are seeking to cash in on this, as the software-forward strategies of burger and fried chicken chains demonstrate. We're an automation nation. While we historically thought of this as being the domain of IBM, Xerox, and Apple, it's now the interest of IHOP, Zaxby's, and Applebee's.

AI Kills Clicks

AI is the newest 'gadget' that will reduce labor and speed up development.   

A key attribute of AI is its ability to save clicks. Can one find an answer in Google today without AI? Sure, but it simply takes more clicks to more web pages. The investor euphoria and consumer enthusiasm for AI is really about saving clicks. What people are often after with AI is not AI itself, but the savings of keyboard strokes. AI saves us so many clicks, it seems like magic.

While we don't have Sam Altman's resources (or boardroom headaches), we do have his purpose: make doing things easier. Reduce clicks. Reduce keyboard keystrokes. Each keystroke is a cost and an opportunity to 'fat finger' it and make a mistake. (A manual computer entry mistake almost cost a bank $81b; read the story: https://bridge.myshoplocal.com/news.cfm/25023/81-trillion-mistake-caused-by-human-error.)

We've also seen how increased clicks hurt shoppers. On our sales site, we tout how our software reduces the required clicks to checkout and therefore boosts our merchants' sales.  Whether one is a shopper or an online store administrator, clicks kill.

Practical Applications

I recently lamented how a client made a mistake, and fixing it would take lots of clicks. Without going into too much detail, the brand added the pattern name to the product name field for all items in the pattern. The current solution to fixing this entails manually removing the pattern name from the product name field for all 11 products. That's about 22+ clicks. I thought, "What if there was one button (click) that did this work for the user?" The good news: We're going to make this 'one click' solution, and it will be ready for the client to use next week. Waiter, cancel those clicks. 

'Click Reports'

Each week, my team submits a progress report. Another way to view these reports is 'Click Reports.' They are summaries of how we're saving our members clicks. We save them clicks by speeding up processes, avoiding errors, and quickly obtaining new clients and orders. 

Our key services that save members clicks:

1. Online Store and Registry. The client doesn’t have to pay a programmer to build these--which would require millions of clicks.
2. Product Syncing. A client can avoid adding up to 72,000 products from 111 of our partner brands. This often saves a retailer $36k on this labor (aka clicks).
3. Brand Directory.  A client avoids manually entering their, say, 150 brands to their website. Our system with one click and gives them the brand name, logo, and brand bio.  
4. Shopify Integration.  A client can sync products between Shopify and Shop Local, which saves them from manually copying this data.
5. Marketing Materials.  A client using our service avoids having to make in-store registry flyers and review flyers.  Our flyers can be generated with one click.  Each flyer saves 100s of clicks and hours of labor.
6. Auto-shared News. A client using Shop Local gets a brand's news automatically added to their online store—saving them 10+ clicks per auto-shared news post.
7. Automated Emails and SMS.  A client normally has to write and send emails and SMS texts to clients confirming orders, registry details, etc   Our software automatically does this.  (Since no one reads emails, SMS is very important. GR doesn’t communicate via SMS as far as I know. Maybe MYR does because it’s consumer-facing.)   

A special thanks to our team for saving our clients so many clicks! 😊

Pay Just 250 Clicks Per Order -- Instead of 2,500 Clicks

A novel way to view a website platform’s success is orders received per admin click (by the store manager). I suggest a merchant accept this ratio as a gold standard benchmark. To improve their score, they need to either increase orders and/or reduce clicks. Best case: accomplish both. 

Per order received, I believe we bring our clients the most orders compared to other e-commerce software. For example, a merchant that doesn't use our software may spend 5 hours at a computer for each order received (which may translate to 2,500 computer clicks), while our client spends just 30 minutes at a computer per order, which translates to just 250 clicks--a 10x click savings. 

Homework: 

• Find a way a way to save your co-workers or clients clicks. The more clicks you save, the better. The more important the topic, the better.  
• As an appetizer, take a process and simply count the clicks needed to perform it. Then imagine you have to cut 30% of the clicks. How would you do that?
• One way to approach this may be to start with a process or checklist you or a client follow. Then seek to automate steps along it.

P.S. ~ You're invited to read the Tableware Today article about the importance of automation here: https://www.shoplocal.org/news.cfm/24947/Tableware-Today-April-May-2025-Issue-Build-Your-Robot--and-February-2025-Leaderboard