These days, businesses can sell just about everything. You have those selling online services such as writing, design work or local services like cafes and launderettes. They can sell digital products which can include anything from clip art to website templates to legal contracts. They can sell experiences, memberships and much more. However, selling items, physical products is always going to be a good business model. If your business will be buying (or making) products to sell, there are some added considerations of doing so that a lot of other businesses don’t need to think about. Here are just a few of them to bear in mind.
The Products You Will Sell: Manufacturing vs Outsourcing?
You might be selling anything from clothes and homewares to technology or something niche like parts for machinery. Whatever it is, your first consideration should be whether you will be making these things yourself and setting up a manufacturing plant, or outsourcing to a specialist third party company. Manufacturing is arguably one of the most difficult elements of any business, however when you design and create your own products can be incredibly satisfying and profitable. Plus it puts you in control of your business. But there’s a lot at stake, get this wrong and it could be the downfall of your entire business. Not only does your plant need to be safe for workers, but the product you make requires you to comply with all kinds of health and safety laws, and FDA approval in some cases. The equipment and know-how needed to make a product can be extensive, while it’s certainly not impossible for a smaller company to manufacture themselves- many will go the outsourcing route so they know they’re not getting it wrong. You’re able to import from China now and find great deals on all kinds of products and so if you want to get off the ground quickly and start selling and turning a profit right away then this could be for you. However it’s worth spending some time deciding whether manufacturing yourself or outsourcing is right for you.
Storing Your Stock
Regardless of whether you manufacture your products yourself, outsource or buy them from a wholesaler, you will always need a place to store your items. A large warehouse that’s accessible for delivering the finished items and also shipping them out is essential- it needs to be big enough so that you’re not constantly running out of stock since this can negatively affect your business reputation. It needs to be free of leaks or damage to avoid ruining your stock, and it also needs to be large enough so that everything you sell can be properly stored and organised ready for picking and packing. You should have a returns area in the warehouse too. That way, things that have been returned but are still sellable can be repackaged and resold. Warehousing costs are something to take into consideration, if you’re going to be manufacturing products then ideally you will want this premises to be a short distance away from your plant. That way you avoid unnecessary transportation costs.
Packaging and Fulfilment
Getting your items picked and packed is another important part of the chain from the factory to the customer’s house. Products need to be picked carefully ensuring size and colour selection is correct. They need to be wrapped and packed (especially important if items are fragile) and they need to have the address labels added to them. As with manufacturing, you could choose to outsource this, or you could keep it in-house and employ people yourself. You need workers that are used to being up on their feet for long hours and used to an active and demanding job. When you’re hiring, your best bet would be to look for people who have experience working in similar roles, since warehousing work can be tough for those that aren’t used to it.
Shipping and Going Global
The last link in the chain when you sell physical items is using an efficient way to deliver them to the customer’s home. Once everything has been made and packaged up, you need a way to get them to the door of the person who ordered. The method you choose will largely depend on what it is that you sell. For example, small items can be sent via the postal service as long as they don’t contain any prohibited items. You would need to check to make sure first, aerosols, nail polish and batteries are all some surprising examples. For a fee, businesses can have their items collected from their premises by the postal service, that way you don’t have to stand in a queue with hundreds of items! If your items are larger, more fragile or you want a more precise service then courier could be your best bet. These kinds of companies often offer different levels of service. For example, some will send the customer a text message before delivery with a link to be able to track them on the map. They also give the ability to rearrange or reschedule the delivery right up until the time that it’s delivered. This will cost more, but could be worth it for more expensive items as it will give the customer peace of mind. Even if you have a fantastic product, if the shipping is slow or unreliable then it will cause the customer to have a negative experience overall.
Every step of the process needs to be right. If your manufacturing plant fails or you don’t use reliable suppliers- you have nothing to sell. If your inventory isn’t stored and organised properly, items could be damaged or the wrong things could be sent out. If your delivery company messes up then it could mean long delivery times leaving your customer unhappy. Make sure each piece of the puzzle is right, and you increase your chances of making a profit with a business that sells products.
Do you sell products, or would you consider setting up a business that does?
Disastrous productivity level due to the wasting of time and resources is a major issue across all many business large or small. However, for the small operator or micro business, productivity really can be a big deal. After all, your margins are slim, and any unnecessary delays can put you in a place where achieving your targets for that period is impossible, a problem that will then have a negative knock-on effect on your profits. With that in mind, find out below how to eliminate poor productivity and ensure that your business is running as efficiently as possible.
Eliminate redundant tasks
First of all, one way in which you can boost productivity in your business is to identify and then eliminate tasks that are redundant. This task can sound pretty easy, but it can be tough because most people are resistant to change and like to keep thing the way they have always been.
In fact, employees can often get twitchy when you are attempting to streamline task as they feel they might be out of a job soon. However, if you explain to them what is happening and include them in the process, you are likely to get a much better result and find that thing get more productive faster.
In particular, consider tasks that are by many individuals in a day that only really need to be done once. Things like writing letters and documents, where most use a standard text, and just a few individual details are added.
You could save a great deal of time by introducing a document management system that allows everyone to work from the same updated templates rather than come up with their own every time. You could even increase continuity and standards across different departments and employees as well. These all being things that will have a positive effect on your business.
Cut the cord to your email
Next, let’s look at emails. Even bosses of companies have a problem here, as there seems to be an innate belief that it is vital to read every message the moment that it comes in.
Guess what? There isn’t! In fact, doing so is distracting you and breaking your focus for the task that you are working on. Something that makes everything take longer, and you feel more stressed. So get everyone to turn off their email notifications, and schedule two short action times in the day where they can deal with them to improve productivity.
Bye bye smartphones
Smartphones in the workplace can be a good thing, especially if they are in use for company business. However, there are so many distractions including apps, and news, and messengers on them that they can easily suck attention away from work tasks.
Banning smartphones may be controversial but just think how focused people will be.
That is why if you want to improve productivity in a major way you could take the controversial decision to ban smartphones in the workplace. Although, you do need to remember that this will apply to yourself as well as your employees! Who knows though, maybe it will help you to get more done too?
More and more businesses are taking to the realm of online commerce. There’s a good reason for this. Online retail has massively increased in popularity over the past decade or so. Just take a look at the success of online retail giants such as Amazon! While in the past, the majority of people would head straight to a brick and mortar store on the high street when looking for goods and products, nowadays they have the option to purchase their wares online from the comfort of their own home. Increased demand for convenience means that customers can often receive exactly what they want by the next working day or even the same day as they place their order! While convenience may well be one of the main benefits for users of online commerce, the practice actually offers various other benefits. Reduced operation costs (as online businesses don’t have the expense of brick and mortar property rent, a lack of overheads such as gas, electricity, or water bills) mean that goods can be offered at a lower price too! It’s not all too surprising that you might be considering taking your small business online or setting up online if you haven’t yet commenced trade. However, if you do take to the virtual realm, there are a few business practices that you will need to familiarize yourself with. Top of the list? SEO. Here’s everything you need to know about the practice and how to make the most of its benefits.
What Actually Is SEO?
To keep things simple, let’s first state that “SEO” stands for “search engine optimization”. It is a business practice which revolves around getting as many search engine users to visit your webpage as possible. Of course, every small business operating online needs as much traffic as possible in order to secure sales and boost brand exposure. But where do search engines come into this? Well, just think about it. When consumers want a certain item or are trying to find your brand, they make use of search engines and generally limit their search to results that appear on the first page. When’s the last time you ever went beyond a search engine’s first or second page when looking for anything? Very rarely. You really do need your website to feature as highly as possible to guarantee hits. Now, each and every search engine will be different, and each uses its own means of ordering their results. So, which search engine should you focus your efforts on? While there are various search engines out there, generally speaking, Google tends to be the most effective and is consequently the option that will bring you the best results, so should be the search engine that you focus your main efforts on. This is because it is the most popular search engine. 1.7 billion people make use of it, so you want to appear as high in the Google search results as possible in order to get the greatest exposure, make the most sales and generate the most profit. However, if you prefer other search engines such as Bing or Yahoo, don’t worry, you can focus on them too.
So, as you can see, there’s plenty that you can gain from SEO. So, it’s time to start focussing on putting an SEO campaign together.
Blogging
The first thing on the checklist of your SEO campaign is to get engaged with blogging. Google loves legitimate posts. If you clearly pay for posts elsewhere, they’re likely to miss you out of their optimisation. Instead, you need casual, natural looking links to posts on blogs that frequently put out posts without advertising purpose. For a complete piece on this, take a look at Blogger Outreach Best Practices – How To Write A Guest Blog Post For SEO.
Optimizing Keywords
A key part of SEO is keyword optimisation. This is the act of researching, analyzing, and selecting the best keywords to incorporate into your webpage in order to drive traffic to your page effectively. While most search engines will not release the details of exact search terms that users submit when searching for goods, most of the time, general common sense will work. Consider what you would put in when searching for the goods that you provide. Also, browse lists of others’ commonly searched words and incorporate as many as possible into every aspect of your site.
Outsourcing
If you’re not already familiar with the process of outsourcing, it’s time to start looking into it. We’re all well aware of how busy people setting up a small business or maintaining a small business can be. There’s so much to focus on. So many areas to constantly develop or nurture. So it’s not surprising that you may not have time to do absolutely everything yourself. Outsourcing is the business practice of sending your work out to third parties to deal with and complete. Now, there’s a good chance that you don’t really have the time in your schedule to spend researching SEO in-depth, but to make a success of your campaign, you really do need a good working knowledge of the area. Luckily, there are other individuals out there who have studied it extensively and can optimise your entire webpage quickly and simply without having to conduct extensive prior research (as they’ve already done it time and time again). Outsource this aspect of your work to them. They’re much more likely to make a success of your campaign first time around!
While you may never have heard of SEO before, hopefully now it’s firmly stuck in your mind as a business essential that can make or break your brand’s success. If you haven’t yet dabbled in SEO, it truly is time to start focusing on creating a high profile SEO campaign that will drive as much traffic to your commercial website as possible. This should serve to expose your brand and secure sales, allowing you to turn over the profit that you deserve!
The Cayman Islands have got to be heaven on earth with a thousand possible things you can do, the kinds of people you are bound to meet, and the wonderful adventures that await you. With its three major islands: the Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman—you will never run out of opportunities to explore the tropical nature of this majestic place and the awesome marine culture.
In line with that, The Cayman Islands boast some of the world’s best beaches and snorkeling adventures. So, we have rounded up and narrowed down the choices to four of the best beaches to relax at and participate in snorkeling adventures:
Get close with the starfishes at Starfish Point
With its shallow waters of up to 1.5 meters, Starfish Point at North Sound is a perfect haven for the starfishes. The best thing about it? The admission is FREE! The Starfish Point, as its name suggests, boasts wild starfishes which have the total freedom to live there as they please so the number of starfishes that you will see at your preferred schedule may vary. Here are some factors to take mental note of when you go there:
You may encounter some locals who will gladly take you on a tour to the Starfish Point via boat and this is preferred by most tourists as driving for an hour on an unfamiliar road can seem daunting to them. Whereas if you travel via boat, it’s faster, more efficient, and you can exchange stories with the locals.
You are not allowed to take the starfish out of the water and it is illegal as it puts them under immense stress. You would still be able to take beautiful photographs of them with credits to the crystal clear waters.
The place is in a remote location. Therefore, prepare to bring snacks, sunscreen, and water beforehand.
Swim with the stingrays at Stingray City
If you’ve never seen a stingray in person, then it would be best to see it in the Caribbean. The Stingray City Sandbar in Grand Cayman is a go-to place for all tourists looking for a simple adventure such as swimming with these wide-winged underwater creatures. Here’s what you need to know when you plan to go there:
It wasn’t their place of origin. Decades ago, these southern stingrays started flocking to the area when a fisherman would clean the guts of his fishes along the sandbar. Feasting on the opportunity, the stingrays found a new home where they can survive and be fed.
The stingrays are used to having humans around them. In fact, they associate the distant sound of a motorboat as a signal that food is coming.
Stingray City Sandbar is now their natural habitat. If you want a photo taken with dozens of stingrays around you, then you should visit this place!
Spend the day at the beach at bioluminescent bay
Enjoying the beach is a top to-do on anyone’s vacation list. How to transform a relaxing day at the beach into more of an adventure? Enjoy the beach at bioluminescent bay. Here’s what you need to know about this experience:
You can sign up for a fun eco-friendly tour and there will be guides who know where to find these “living lights.”
You can bring your whole family to this experience! Run your hands through the water and see the beautiful glow of these microorganisms.
No experience necessary for this activity, however, swimming is prohibited to preserve the creatures as chemicals on your skin and hair may not be damaging to you, but may be damaging to them. Also, there could be instances of jellyfish swimming around so instances of stinging may occur.
Go snorkeling at Buccaneer’s Beach
Right off Cayman Brac, you can go diving and snorkeling in the crystal clear water and see all the beautiful coral formations along with the flourishing school of fishes swimming around you. Here are some additional activities that you can do while you’re at it:
You can also try snorkeling on the north side of the island which is called Radar Reef. It is a tad bit rocky here so protection for your feet is needed.
Many tourists look forward to this activity whenever they’re in Cayman Brac
See, you’ll always find ways to keep yourself busy when you’re in the Cayman Islands on a caribbean lifestyle holiday. With its abundance of nature and natural resources and limitless opportunities for snorkeling adventures, you will always find yourself enjoying every second spent in this place.
George was born in the Cayman Islands, and has a passion for writing about the best things to do in the Cayman Islands and about a caribbean lifestyle. He travels a lot, and blogs to his audience about his journeys.
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