In today’s era online portals are favorable and feasible option for both costumer as well as the business owners. It gets a lot easier for the company to handle business without the need of middlemen, and this elimination of middlemen in the form of stores, shops and outlets makes the operation even more convenient and economical. The direct process of buying and selling ensures credibility and immediate reliability for the customer to his seller and vice versa. Since we know online portals are way more in-expensive than any other method of business establishment, let’s have a look at some of the tips to manage these online stores with least cost.
1. E-COMMERCE PLATFORM
The very first thing to keep in mind while efficiently managing the online stores is to pick the right e-commerce platform. With over 2 billion internet users globally e-commerce management in a righteous way can help your business to cut cost rapidly. You might need some tools to organize your products, shopping cart and other process orders. Given are the tools that’ll help you to initiate the process.
- Initially try selling physical and digital appliances.
- Try to make a monthly budget of $30 or less in the beginning.
- Include shopping carts to help customer shortlist the products required.
- Make sure to use your own store branding.
- Do not forget to manage orders and see what need to be shipped.
These tips might help you for better e-commerce management at a very initial stage of the business. Do not forget that the domain you’re trying to begin your business in should be your area of expertise. This will enable you to build strategies to cut cost in the future.
2. MINIMIZE PRODUCT RETURN
The fundamental rule of e-commerce management efficiently is reducing product return. Minimizing product cost is a dependable way to cut cost. While engaging in the process of a product return you’re likely to increase cost more than usual. This may include bringing the item back and forth to the storage, checking the defaults in the products, seeing the possibility of selling it, etc. These steps may escalate the cost. Now to avoid this chaos try to be careful and follow the steps given below.
- Make sure the buyer is well aware of the product.
- Provide a detailed description of the given goods.
- Try to extend the time of return policy.
- Provide the customer more time to think and change their mind in case.
- Say no to high-risk clients.
Following these steps may ensure the reduction of a product return.
3. TRANSACT LESS VIA CREDIT CARDS
Initially, it is strongly recommended not to use the option of paying for goods via credit cards. This may be because of the charges handed down by Visa and MasterCard may not be negotiable. The fees in such a case may be nixed completely.
Other strategies you can adopt to minimize such problems is by enabling the use of other payment methods like Paytm, Google pay, Apple pay, Paypal, etc. Do the research extensively beforehand. For instance, Paypal’s refund policy’s are no favorable for sellers sometimes. Thus indulge in a thorough study before choosing the methods of payment for your online store.
4. PROMOTINAL CAMPAIGNS
Quoting a very well known business advice ‘A business need to lose money in order to make more.’ This implies that an online establishment may have to indulge in a promotional campaign for its products. To make the items more sellable introduce discounts offers like- free gift, two-for-two, etc.
Adopting such strategies will provide desirable purchase. Customers are always interested and attracted when they see discounted rates and offered price. Thus promotional campaign cut the cost and helps for a better e-commerce management.
5. PACKAGING
The packaging is one of the most overlooked aspects of cutting down the cost. By trimming down on packaging of the sold items an online store can actually enhance its e-commerce management. We often overlook these little hacks which can cut down the cost in general. Avoid using too heavy and big boxes for packaging.
Use light and small available packaging that will protect the product inside. You can be little creative and can introduce colorful packaging too, this may help your customer to focus more on the designs and patterns of the packaging rather than noticing the way it is packed. You may also consider re-cycling and reusing the package material. This will promote eco-friendly lifestyle without increasing the cost.
6. CONTENT MARKETING
Content marketing helps to get social traffic to your online store in an organic manner. Focus on rectifying this problem by establishing content as the foundation of your online site. The key is to do content marketing according to your customer instead of your product.
Build this strategy around the ideal customers, this will provide clarity to both of the parties, avoiding the unusual chaos of product return policy, monetary refund, etc. Cutting down the possibility of an increase in the operating capital.
7. CUSTOMER’S RETENITIVITY
Customer’s acquisition is one of the biggest goals of any business today, but now is the time for the online businesses to understand that it’s better to focus on customer retention rather than their acquisition. Making efforts toward customer retention may reap better financial rewards.
It cost 5 times more to acquire a new customer than to intrigue the existing one. So better concentrate on building brand loyalty with existential clients than to capture the market.
8. CUTTING DOWN IRRELEVANT EXPENSES
Perhaps the most important tip to keep in mind is cutting down the irrelevant business expenses to the extent you can. While some of these expenses are unavoidable, there are still some of them that can be ignored. Study the areas of total business expenses on a monthly basis and compare the cost and value they provide.
Try to bring out the best results and make a list of the miscellaneous cost that can be skipped. For example: use cheaper internet packages and cables. Try adopting the methods of using less electricity or energy-efficient light bulbs, you may also rent the retailed space if required. Such measure at an initial stage will provide better e-commerce management to your online business.
9. MANAGINE SHIPPING COST
Shipping cost is a necessary expense, especially for e-commerce focused retailers. Shipping cost can be defined as a cost to deliver the item to the buyer. There are plenty of methods by which retailers can improvise the dimensional weight of their shipments and cut down the cost.
- You may consider removing excessive material to fill the void inside the packages.
- Use one type of boxes that can be resized: This may help you to cut down on the usage different size of boxes
- Look for vendors that provide branded shipping bags of high quality: buying these packages in bulk may reduce the cost in total.
- Negotiate with FedEx SmartPost: they may not be as good as ground delivery, perhaps is a good option if speediness of delivery is not the determinant to customer experience.
CONCLUSION
Keeping these several steps in mind will help you to ensure better e-commerce management of your online business at a very initial stage. Cutting down unnecessary cost at the very beginning of your online startup will help you to save for the future expansion of your business. Be creative, reuse and recycle while keeping up the customer experience as the key determinant of your business.
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