3 simple tips on how to reduce costs in e-shop
10 years ago, there were relatively few e-shops in Slovakia that competed with each other. Simply put, for e-shop to be profitable, it was often enough to have an interesting product and a few hundred euros a month invested in AdWords and Facebook. Times have changed, however, the market is high competition, working with minimal margins and achieving an interesting profit is very demanding for everyone. How do e-shops keep their business profitable? Every day we communicate with a lot of e-shops. Let us argue that in most Slovak e-shops there is at least one process that is inefficient and would need to be rectified. In this blog, we'll provide you with 3 practical tips that can help you save on running costs and streamline processes.
Employees of the e-shop
In our opinion, it is the most important part and also an Achilles' heel of the e-shop. If you have a reliable and efficient team, congratulations. But what if you feel that your employees are working inefficiently? How do you know, and how do you fix it?
We certainly do not recommend standing behind the back of your employee and controlling his work performance. You lose your time and also you do not add to the comfort of your employee.
For example, try to introduce a so-called "Business pictures of the day".
Employees will record every single activity they perform on a business day. It looks like this:
12.45h-12.52h - write-off due to order number 123456
12.52h-12.57h - pre-ordering from the supplier
12.57h-13.01h - completion and packaging of the order # 123456
Ask your employees for the most comprehensive picture of the day. Completed activities will have much more noticeable value for you. Prepare yourself that employees will not like the work picture of the day, especially those who do not pay 100% of their work and are inefficient. On the basis of the information you get, you get a detailed overview of the individual activities and you will be able to implement the necessary measures to increase the efficiency of your work.
Who knows … You may find that you will be able to operate your e-shop with fewer employees.
Courier services
Are you a long-term client of the same courier company? Reset collaboration! :)
Take advantage of a very high competitive environment and create a quest for their services with multiple courier companies. There are many quality courier companies in Slovakia that offer a high level of service and fight hard for every single customer. The higher the volumes of sent packages you can generate per month, the stronger the bargaining position you have. Take advantage of it, couriers will be competing in offers!
For both novice and long-time entrepreneurs, we have one additional tip:
Squash your queries to courier companies in the mail at once so they see each other in the addressee header so they will notice that you are also addressing their competitors. You will be surprised how the courier will be competing :)
With this small and simple fint you can also make a 15% lower prices!
Outsourcing
Outsourcing in the Slovak and Czech e-shop environments begins to slowly report their word. Proof of this is, for example, growing interest in our Expandeco.com services. Compared to the same period last year, demand for our services grew by a few dozen percent.
E-shops are increasingly using outsourcing services. Outsourcing is based on the assumption that an external source (company) can perform better and cheaper certain activities (packing, customer service, logistics, etc.).
We are convinced that outsourcing will be one of the most effective tools for e-commerce. Just as it is in other sectors of the economy.
With outsourcing customer-line, warehouse, logistics and routine operations, e-shops can save up to 70% of costs. After all, we also created our Expandeco.com, which is the first company in Slovakia dedicated exclusively to providing comprehensive outsourcing services for e-shops.
We will write a separate blog in the future dedicated to the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing compared with classical employee.
And what about you, dear e-shoppers? Where do you see the space for improvement in e-shop processes?