How Does Outsourcing Work For A Retail Company?
Retail business owners can be somewhat beasts. Mostly because they do just about everything that needs to be done to run the business.
But for a smoother and faster business process, delegating some of those tasks might be ideal. It’s a lot better than outright hiring employees and spending a lot of money on their salary, benefits, uniform, etc.
This is where Outsourcing comes in.
But what is Outsourcing?
In layman’s terms, it’s when you get a third-party company to handle some specific tasks you yourself can’t do because you lack the profession or the time.
Relatively speaking, it’s a less costly way of getting manpower. You will only pay the set rate that follows the contract you have with them and nothing else.
So what are your options here? What can you delegate to an outsourcing company as a retail business owner?
1. Content Marketing and eCommerce
Every business in the last decade has an online face.
That means they have a website that tells everyone what they sell. They also have social media accounts, since that’s where they get customers the most.
When you run a retail business, you need people to know you exist.
As much as possible, you need as many people to be aware that you’re selling items. Else, how will you get profit? No matter how good the product is, it won’t matter if you can’t market it properly.
This is why you need experts that know their way around the internet.
People that know the ins and outs of social media. This is something you can outsource easily, as there are plenty of companies that offer Content Marketing as one of their services.
For example, Contact Center Solution PH is an outsourcing company that offers almost every known back-office outsourcing service under the sun.
It is based in the Philippines, the number one BPO capital in Asia, where the rates are cheap while the service is top-tier quality.
Aside from that, there are also several others located in India, another country known to be a BPO capital that offer the same services.
One such service is eCommerce.
An eCommerce specialist or an IT specialist is someone that can build and maintain your online store. They will view the analytics and fix bugs if there are any.
As much as you want to look after your own online store, you won’t be able to fix every bug and problem while also managing your physical one.
You technically can, but you won’t have all the time in the world to do so.
2. Warehousing
Are you willing to do all the handling, packing and shipping by yourself?
Let’s say that you don’t mind doing it. Let’s say you even like the labor. Will you be able to keep doing it when your business grows bigger? When you have more orders than you can handle?
You can get some friends or family members to help, but aren’t expert hands better?
If you outsource warehousing and fulfillment, you’ll have more hands that do the heavy-lifting. You only need to take orders before you hand the rest off to more capable hands.
No more spending time on printing labels, on sales, on inventory or on packing materials. You can focus on what you ought to focus on.
Outsourcing warehousing and fulfillment isn’t just about someone taking work off of your hands. It’s an investment that allows for faster growth.
After all, if you have more time to market, you’ll have more sales.
3. Back-Office Admin
Here are aspects about business that will inevitably take a lot of your time:
- Payroll
- HR
- Light marketing work
The truth is, you have better things to do than the tasks above.
And while you can simply hire someone in-house to do them, it will cost you. You are, after all, paying for their salary monthly. You’ll also be giving benefits that an employee has every right to.
And while you can simply hire someone in-house to do them, it will cost you. You are, after all, paying for their salary monthly. You’ll also be giving benefits that an employee has every right to.
BUT LET’S TALK BENEFITS
We talk shop about outsourcing and why you need it, but we haven’t really gone into full detail about what you will get.
Here are the benefits of outsourcing:
Benefits of Outsourcing
1. Lower costs – as repeatedly stated above, outsourcing is cheaper. It allows you to save so much money compared to hiring an employee because you are no longer paying for:
- Employee’s salary
- Their benefits
- Their equipment and materials
- Their office space
When you outsource to a different country, the rate is cheaper because of the foreign country’s economic difference.
There is a vast difference between the US’s wage patterns with developing countries. The kind of work that is usually at a high price in the west is the same in quality within other countries. And yet the price is almost 50% cheaper.
2. Saves time – the effectiveness outsourcing brings forth is unparalleled. See if your time is mostly spent on the following:
- Accounting
- Marketing
- Cleaning and maintenance
- Website maintenance
- Customer support
Good news. You can outsource ALL of those tasks.
You will be left to have time on doing things you actually need to do. No more time wasted on back-office. You can finally focus more on growing your business.
You get more efficient when you outsource. You won’t have to bend over backwards to look at and fix mistakes because you now have people to do that for you.
3. Talent pool – aside from saving costs, getting access to some top talent is one of the best advantages in outsourcing.
Here’s the thing about hiring. When you hire a team member, you will most likely have to train and orient.
It hinders the workflow, especially when you are in need of an employee to do tasks right away.
You will indeed have someone you can quickly work with, since they’ll be within your office of operations, but you are also raising a risk.
What are the chances that this employee won’t leave after you train them? If they do, you’ll have to endure another recruitment phase that wastes both time and money.
When you outsource, there is none of that.
Outsourcing means you will work with someone who knows what to do right away.
There is no training phase, nor is there a huge risk of losing an investment if things don’t work out.
If you don’t like how they work, you can easily terminate the contract and that is that.
You’ll be able to find a different outsourcing team right away and start over with minimal risks.
This is the beauty of outsourcing. There are more pros than there are cons. Any business, retail or otherwise, can easily take advantage of the many benefits outsourcing has to offer.
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