Although it is desirable to cut the costs of your online business, such reductions need to be performed carefully. Some companies are so intent on cutting their overall online costs that they completely lose sight of their business. If you are excessive when making cuts, it could be detrimental to your company as making profit is difficult without any customers! However, there are a few easy ways to make enormous savings on your online business without materially affecting its products or services. Below we will outline some of these cash saving tips.
Start Cloudsourcing
If your small business is expanding or else a current employee leaves, you have to begin the long and laborious search for new talent. It has been suggested that you could pay as much as $4,000 searching for a new employee. Then you have the small matter of training, insurance, holiday pay and other expenses associated with workers. A viable alternative is cloudsourcing which is the practice of hiring freelance employees. Many of the world’s top writers, marketers and designers work freelance. You can find outstanding talent on sites such as Odesk and Elance. Freelance employees do not require insurance, payment for sick days and so on which makes cloudsourcing an immediate cost cutter. In return, you have access to potentially hundreds of professionals so your online business will never lack employees.
Reduce Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
PPC is feted as one of the best forms of advertising on the market but it can be very expensive. Although it is indeed an excellent method of attracting customers, why should you pay for every click when it doesn’t guarantee a sale? It’s much cheaper to ensure that your website is optimized for keywords relevant to your industry. SEO is known to have one of the best returns on investment in the online marketplace. Get your website to the top of the search engines and receive thousands of clicks for free.
Eliminate Unnecessary Partners
This mainly refers to the practice of selling on sites like eBay. You end up paying up certain partners up to 12% of your sales in fees. One of the main goals of any online business should be to set up its own website and sell directly from it. You receive 100% of any sale thus saving potentially thousands of dollars over the course of a year.
Finance Charges
This tip applies to online and offline businesses and involves financial responsibility. It’s not unusual for a small business to pay hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars a year on late payments, credit card processing fees and even membership fees on business credit cards. The simple task of keeping up to date with existing bills actually reduces your overall cost of operation! Now that you’re online, use the internet to schedule payments which ensures you’re never forced to pay a late fee again! Look at the fees you incur by using credit; are they necessary or is it possible to get a better rate elsewhere?
These are simple tips that can increase the bottom line of any online business while reducing costs. For small businesses in particular, such costs add up to significant savings over the course of a year.