When you’re running a growing e-commerce business, at some point, you have to realise when you’re no longer able to handle it all alone. Going from a DIY startup to a growing operation that’s dealing with a larger customer base means that you eventually have to know when to step back. In some cases, hiring some workers and delegating some of your responsibilities might help, but often, growing businesses find it more cost-effective and less stressful to let others take care of it for them. Here, we’re going to look at where you should consider outsourcing, saving yourself the time and mental energy you need to make choices that lead to even greater success.
Marketing
One of the most important things a growing business needs to get right is making sure that its brand is visible and making the right impact on the right people. To that point, working with the right marketing team isn’t just about finding the professionals who understand the best way to use online marketing platforms; it’s about the sheer time that running a marketing campaign can take. This is especially true if you’re running a paid ads campaign, which requires constant testing and optimisation to make sure that your budget is being spent as effectively as possible.
Content Creation
Although it’s part of your marketing strategy, content creation for your business is a whole other workload that the typical marketing team might not be equipped to fully handle. Many marketers focus more on strategy, ad campaign management, and creating marketing materials such as videos or visual ads. However, high-quality content is vital, especially given its ties to search engine optimisation. Fresh, valuable blog content helps your brand stay active, pulls potential customers further down the funnel towards conversion, and brings a certain degree of expertise to your brand image. Working with content writers allows you to ensure that you’re able to maintain a persistent presence across social media channels and gives your audience a new angle to come across your brand in search engines.
Customer Support
Often, the difference between a successful customer conversion and an abandoned shopping cart is whether or not they were able to get the help they needed when a problem arose. The more the business scales, the bigger and more complex your website, or the more frequent your orders, the more customer inquiries that you’re likely to deal with. You might be able to handle all of your emails, returns, and complaints yourself early on, but as time goes on, it becomes more than any one person can handle. Outsourcing your customer service to trained support teams can ensure that you’re always able to provide a professional and helpful response, even when you’re not immediately available. Many providers can handle 24/7 support, live chat, and ticketing systems to handle particularly high volumes of support queries.
Bookkeeping/Accounting
Money is the lifeblood of the business, and, as such, if you mismanage it or simply don’t keep track of it, then your business won’t be able to grow to its full potential. Managing your finances can be very time-consuming, however. Working with a bookkeeper can ensure that you’re organised, able to keep track of your cash flow, budget effectively, and get a better idea of your true profitability. However, real accountants can go even further than that, making sure that you’re ready for the tax season, staying compliant all year-round, and even offering tax advice to potentially save you some money down the line.
Order Logistics
Many e-commerce businesses start a wholly DIY operation, with the owners being in charge of not just facilitating orders, but packing them up and shipping them all on their own. Naturally, as the volume increases, this no longer remains feasible. Rather than having to deal with it daily, it can be a lot easier to simply leave it up to a third-party logistics provider. These providers can handle inventory storage, picking, packing, and delivery, often with faster shipping options due to distributed warehouse networks. Not only can you free up your own time, but you can reduce the involvement of human error by relying on more heavily automated and systems-supported teams, speed up deliveries for your customers, and even implement features like order tracking, which is provided by many fulfilment centres.
Website Development And Maintenance
Your website is one of the most important tools at your disposal as an e-commerce business. If you built it yourself, however, then you may very well find that an increase in demand can easily outpace your ability to keep up. E-commerce store templates might work well to begin with, but as you grow, and your product options and services become more complex, you might want to consider relying on a professional website developer. You can ensure that it’s still simple enough for you to access the back end to add new products and update descriptions and imagery. Still, a professionally designed website not only ensures that it fully matches your brand, but that it also works as efficiently as it needs to, to prevent you from losing customers along the way.
Virtual Assistance
Beyond the more specific but wide-reaching needs mentioned above, there is another need that many business owners have to reckon with: the need to protect their own time. Small tasks like data entry, order processing, email management, and outreach can quietly take up a lot of your day. While they might seem minor alone, they can end up using a lot of your valuable time and energy. By working with a virtual assistant, you can delegate a lot of those responsibilities, having your routine admin handled so that you’re better able to focus on the things that lead to real growth for your business. With clear instructions and systems in place, they can become an essential part of your team.
Outsourcing is one of the best tools at your disposal for working smarter, not harder. Know where and when to use, depending on the nature of your business’s growing needs.
Feature image by Pavel Danilyuk
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