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Creatively Frugal Online Businesses
What strategies do you use to control all the various
expenses related to having an online business? Share your tips
for saving on webhosting, website design, email, credit card
processing services -- basically anything that a small business
would need to do business online.
"How to save money with my
online business. Hmmm.... there are so many ways to cut costs
I'm not even sure where to start!
I'll start with this: I love to
sell things on eBay as a side business, but using their own
provided services can sometimes get pretty pricey. So I
found there are many FREE auction hosting sites out there that offer
a multitude of free auction templates, free picture hosting,
and easy WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get)
description editors so no fancy html knowledge is really
required. Many people still don't realize they don't
HAVE to use the listing tools that are supplied by eBay in
order to post their auctions on eBay. The service I
personally have chosen is Auctiva but there are many out there
available. This has really cut down on the overall
cost to my eBay business.
If you sell on eBay
and have a Paypal account,
they have shipping services that are available to you that
also help you track your sales, payments, and shipment status. They
now offer a multiple package shipping tool that's very helpful
to those of us who ship many packages at once. This is a
huge time-saver!
In a previous article on ways to
save on mailing your packages, it was mentioned about the free
products offered by the USPS for Priority Mail and Flat Rate
Mail supplies. One thing that was not mentioned was that if
you have at least one Priority Mail package to mail out,
many towns now offer a pick up service. All you have to
do is go online to the USPS website, calculate, pay, and print
your postage and/or shipping label. Then you just need to
click the option to request a carrier pick up. It
will ask a series of questions including total number of
packages, weight, and where they will find the packages. However,
you must request this a day in advance, but it IS a FREE
service most towns now provide. This alone saves money
on gas to and from the post office, not to mention the time
wasted standing in line to pay exact shipping! It's
a service that's worth its weight in gold to me personally.
This brings up another money-saving
tip. When I first started selling items on eBay I invested in
a small and inexpensive digital postal scale. This is a huge
money- saver in the long run -- not just for eBay but for my
own personal packages and letters as well. Calculate how many
times you've put more stamps than needed on your envelope 'just
to make sure' you have enough postage on the envelope. Now
calculate how much time you've spent standing in line at the
post office with those small packages, not to mention the gas
to get there and back. Now, if you could plop your
envelope or small package on a postal scale and go to the USPS
website to calculate, pay, and print your own postage
shipping label, place the item in your own mailbox to be
picked up, or as stated, request a carrier pick up if
applicable. Then the cost of buying a small and
inexpensive postal scale for packages has more than paid
for itself in money saved on gas AND it was all done from the
comfort of your own home.
Another thing that's helpful is
a FREE WEBSITE from an online host. There are MANY
choices out there to sift thru and I've tried several.
The one I'm using now is called Freewebs. The websites
are free and although you do have to put up with an
advertisement banner at the top...it's still free and easy to
use. Again, they give you those easy-to-use editors that help
take a lot of the guess work out of creating a pleasing
website. If you want to upgrade to eliminate their ad banner the
cost is a minimal monthly fee. They also have shopping cart
features to add to your site if you are using it as
a store type website.
Rather than going to the expense
of opening my own online 'store' and having to spend hundreds
if not thousands of dollars to keep stock on hand, I opted to search
out several of the free direct online sales companies
that are out there. These companies generally are
free to very reasonable to sign up and most times provide a
free redirect website. This is an awesome way to earn
commissions for very little money if any spent on your part.
Most of these businesses that I've personally chosen to
represent do not require purchases or keeping stock
on hand, which is a huge plus when trying to keep your
costs down. That's not to say I don't have to work
hard at my businesses. I also may not make as high of a
profit margin as if I were selling my own items in my own
store, but I think the commissions earned are balanced
out by the fact that I also do NOT have the expenses that go
along with my own store. For me this means that I'm
keeping my expenses as low as possible.
~ Continued on the next column ~
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I know that there are also MANY free online advertising websites.
Some of these you can just sign up and advertise and others you can 'exchange'
advertising with them. There are also many different groups online
that are set up as advertising groups. For example,
Yahoo has MANY groups that are available to join for free that you can
also post your advertisements there for free. I do notice a big
difference in my visitor numbers when I take the time to advertise my
businesses on these sites vs. not advertising my businesses.
Now that you have ideas for businesses and
shipping, hat about ongoing expenses like business supplies? We've
already mentioned some of the free options for shipping supplies through
USPS. Another need might be stationary or office supplies
like post it notes , notepads, envelopes, rubber stamps, thank you
cards, brochures, business cards, etc. There are company's out
there that are always sending me free offers for just the cost of
shipping. One such company that I deal with personally is Vistaprint.com.
I've not had to pay full retail or even discount retail on any of these
items for a very long time. I get a free offer in my email box nearly
every other day! So when I have a need I don't run down to the local big
chain retailer. NO! I wait for my free offer to show up in my email
box and then order it! It comes to my doorstep and no gas or
fighting through crowds at the store was required!
This tip brings me to another! Ha!
There are companies out there that offer points just for visiting their
advertiser's sites. One such company I deal with is MyPoints.com.
They send me email advertisements and I just click on them to look
at the 'ad of the day' and I get points just for clicking. If I
choose to shop the linked site I get even more points! Now some of
these advertisers are companies I have no interest in and just delete
and move on. Others though are often companies that I typically
deal with anyway! If I do need supplies from a specialized place
and I know that I can't get them from for free or nearly that through
any of my freebie or discount options, then I make sure to go thru
MyPoints.com so that it adds to my point score. These points can
eventually total up to be used to get cash cards! AND...most times from
the very same places I just earned the points to shop online. This is
another way of saving money on my business supplies all for the cost of
a some "clicks" on websites. OH....and I've
mentioned Vistaprint.com right? Guess what? They are also
linked with MyPoints.com! So I wait for the email from MyPoints
with the advertisement from Vistaprint.com....and you guessed it...I get
points for ordering my FREE office products from a company I would have
shopped with anyway! (giggle) I LOVE that!!!!
There are literally thousands of ways to
save money with your online business. These are just some of the
ways that I use to keep my costs down online. I hope some of these
ideas at least encourage you to research the variety of options
that are out there in this place called the 'World Wide
Web."'
Keep on 'Counting the Cost' and seeking out
ways to be good steward's of the blessings God has provided to each us!"
~ Kimmy in Oregon <><
Editor's Note: Thanks to this reader for taking time to share
her ideas!
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