Since the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic, online retail has been busier than ever. Consumers that ordinarily shop in-store have turned to eCommerce for their shopping needs. Research shows that during the first six months of 2020, online retail sales in the US increased by 30.1% from the same period last year. This is a significant increase, and you have likely found that your eCommerce store has been busier than ever before.
To meet this increased demand, it is essential to ensure that your business is running as efficiently as possible. Otherwise, you may miss out on sales, and your profits may fall short of their full potential. To improve the efficiency of your business, it is vital to focus your attention on two areas of your ecommerce operation; time and costs. Saving time and money by cutting out unnecessary waste of both of these is vital for the long-term success of your company. Finding the best ways of doing things by boosting your productivity and making cost savings will help you to strengthen your business and make it far easier for you to manage. Here are some of the ways that you can improve the efficiency of your ecommerce store:
Make Cost Savings
Reducing the cost of running your business is an excellent way to realize healthier profit margins and prevent the money that enters your business from being wasted.
As an online retailer, one of your highest costs is likely to be the shipping of goods to your customers. An excellent solution to cut these shipping costs is to use LTL shipping. LTL shipping means ‘less than load’ and is ideal for businesses that don’t require a full truckload of space. Instead, you simply pay for the proportion of the trailer that your freight uses. Using cost-effective LTL Freight for any business will help you to drive down the cost of shipping significantly.
Renting business premises is also likely to be one of your largest expenditures. It is useful to consider whether you need a specific office or warehouse for your business. You may find it is cost-effective to use a co-working space for the admin side of your business and to hire a storage locker to keep your inventory safe and secure.
Improve Productivity
If you run your ecommerce business singlehandedly, you will know that sometimes the size of the task can be overwhelming. Finding the most efficient way of working is essential to help you keep on top of the tasks that you are faced with and to ensure that you don’t feel weighed down by the pressure.
You may find it beneficial to divide your day up so that you can focus on one aspect of the business at a time. Focusing on one task is a great way to improve productivity and will help you to feel more in control of your workflow. Spending the morning fulfilling orders and the afternoon on admin tasks could be the most productive use of your time.
Infographic Provided by Trucking Company GP Transco