No matter whether you’re a first time merchant who’s just starting an online store or a seasoned seller that’s currently running your own successful online business, saving money should be a priority.
Here are 5 ways to save money on your ecommerce business that every seller should consider :
Use FREE Email Accounts
While many email providers offer free email accounts for personal use, it’s better to use a proper business email account to portray a more professional image when communicating with customers.
Zohomail offers up to 25 FREE email accounts per domain which is plenty for your expanding ecommerce business. Here’s a look at their pricing :
Google Apps used to be free when it was first launched by Google but if you’re planning to use them, here’s a look at their pricing :
At $5 per user per month, you’re looking at paying $60 per year per user if you go on a monthly basis.
Now if you had 10 email accounts with Google Apps, that’s going to cost you $600 per year plus tax just for email accounts!
My advice? Go for Zohomail first and once you’ve fully utilized your email account usage, you can consider going for their paid package. They’re ad-free too.
Oh, when I say free email accounts, I meant those that are FREE without any other hidden conditions.
Not free for the first 3, 6 or 12 months and then you have to pay for the following year. Certainly not those that come with a tonne of distracting ads.
Create Your Own Logo And Customize Your Own Templates
Every dollar counts for startups. You don’t have to spend hundreds or thousands on a logo design or custom template when you’re just starting out on a limited budget.
Your site can still look good provided you have GOOD product images.
All you need is a white background, good lighting and an exceptional camera (most mobile phones have a good camera).
There are a few ways to create your own logo design :
– create your logo as a text logo by using a font of your choice
– sketch out your logo and use FREE image editing sites like Pixlr to create it
– utilize the style font that’s available on free templates by changing it to your brand name
If you don’t have the time, creativity, patience or sanity for any of this, you could get a professional logo design created for only $69.97 with unlimited revisions and a money back guarantee from our partners at Logo-Design-Studio.com
They’ll provide you with the digital files without any additional cost once your logo is confirmed and will even help you upload it to your site on InstanteStore if you need them to.
Our free templates are completely customizable so you can make some changes on the color and layout of your store on your own.
However, if you’re unsure on how to do it, you can describe what you need done and our friendly tech support team will be able to guide you on how to make the changes.
Before you contact tech support, please have a clear idea on what you want and list it down as accurately as possible to avoid a waste of time answering questions back and forth.
Our new InstanteStore App Support Ticket feature improves communication by allowing merchants to send our tech team images, video, voice recordings and text. Please make use of that.
Cut Down On Transaction Costs
Many payment gateways may charge setup fees on top of monthly fees and transaction fees for every order processed.
If you’re only targeting domestic customers, consider accepting online bank transfer, checks, cash or ATM deposit as offline payment methods.
If you’re just starting out, stick with the most popular payment gateways like PayPal as they’re internationally recognized and will only charge you when a transaction is received so you won’t be burdened by huge setup fees or monthly fees.
If you already have a running store with frequent orders, then you can compare and check with some of the payment gateways to see if they can give you a better offer or change package to one that will give you a better bang for your buck.
The idea is to minimize the amount of fees that you’ll have to pay.
Fine Tune Your Shipping
Customers don’t like to pay high shipping fees. Better still if they can get free shipping.
But on your end, one of the ways that you can help your customers save money is by lowering the shipping cost for them.
And you can do so by fine tuning your shipping calculations.
This will require some preparation on your end as you’ll need to measure your product weight, dimensions and packaging details to calculate the postage cost as accurately as possible if you’re setting manual shipping rates.
Our ecommerce solutions is integrated with USPS, UPS, Fedex and Australia Post, so you’ll also be able to offer real time carrier rates to your customers.
Think of the best way to save cost for them.
Being cost effective with your shipping will help you and your customers save money in the long run.
Be careful that you don’t end up with a loss on shipping charges.
Watch Out For Chargebacks
Chargeback are a real pain as sellers will have to pay a fine if the buyer wins.
It happens when a customer raises a dispute on a charge on their credit card.
While some chargebacks are legitimate, others could be a result of unscrupulous buyers wanting to take advantage of sellers.
The usual would claim that they did not receive the product or was mislead when they bought the product or service that was not as described on the site.
One of the ways to prevent chargebacks is to accurately describe your products with proper product images, description, pricing and information on your site.
You’ll also need to prove that you’ve sent out the products to your customers by using tracking and documenting everything from order confirmation to invoices to packing slips and delivery confirmation.
If you’re offering a service, you’ll need to show proof that you’ve provided the service after payment was made to counter the dispute.
In Short
While these are just some of the ways for a new online business to save money, it will at least help to stretch your budget a bit further.
And if you’re at a loss on how to get it done, you can always contact us as we want to help you save cost and grow your business.
While we can’t offer you the whole farm for free, we can provide you with advice and guidance to help you along the way.
Let us know if you have any questions, suggestions or feedback as we work on making our ecommerce software better to add value to your online business.
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