Cost Cutting Without Compromising Quality

It's no secret that it's a tough time for a lot of people, with the economy being as it is, amongst other things such as social app algorithms. I've had my lowest months for sales the past couple of months, since 2020. Over the past year or so, I've been having a re-think about certain parts of the business, focusing on where I can cut costs, but mostly importantly, not compromising on quality or my brand/business as a whole.

I'm not talking massive savings necessarily, it costs to run a business there's no getting away from that, it's more about the little things, that all add up, and where to make some savings there.

Printing products & branding myself

Since I started back in 2019, I've always printed my own prints, that's never changed. I've also always printed my own cards, but in 2023, I did trial getting them printed by a printers. Whilst I loved the cards themselves, and was happy with the quality (it's hard to impress me!), the problem with getting products printed externally, is you usually have to buy more to get them at a better price, making the product more affordable for your customer. Which is great if you have the consistent sales to be able to spend the money upfront for products, but when it's slow, spending out £100's on stock that is going to sit around is not practical. So I went back to printing cards myself.

Being able to print as much as I can myself means I can offer lots more designs and variations without having to shell out lots of money getting them all printed, not knowing what might sell and what won't. Printing to order also is great for reducing waste too. I know I've definitely bought products in bulk and then have struggled to shift them, even when reduced.

I've also started printed branding myself. Not all of it, things like business cards and thank you slips, I'll always get printed externally, as I can't print on both sides easily, but other items such as belly bands, I've always printed myself, and recently started printing my stickers myself. I used to buy them in bulk from places like printed.com - the round 37mm sized ones - but I was finding that I wasn't always happy with the quality, plus if I wanted to change colours or have a different logo/wording on it, I'd end up with lots of stickers potentially wasted, as I tended to buy them at least 1000 at a time, to get a better price for them. So instead, I've been buying blank pre cut sticker sheets, where I can then print whatever I like on them. If I decide I want some pink stickers, then I can print pink! It's also come in really handy for things like markets, where I want some little stickers, but only need a handful, and so seems both wasteful in material and money to buy 100s of something that I only need, say, five of.

Focusing on the products that sell

I've had lots of products types in the shop over the years, and it's always worth changing it up to see what works. Unfortunately a lot of items just haven't been great sellers. So I decided to really pare back the product types I offer in my shop. I still have 100's of products in the shop, but by doing most of them print to order - I print to order prints, cards, coasters and totes - it means I don't have to shell out lots of money on other product types. I've spent far too much on notebooks in the past!

Focusing on the products and designs that do sell, and that I don't need to spend lots on (initially at least) means saving on buying the stock that's just going to sit and gather metaphorical dust in the cupboard.

Yearly Subscriptions

It depends on what you can afford at the time, but if you can afford to pay for a years subscription to your website, creative suite etc. then it's a good way to save some money, as typically you tend to pay the equivalent of 10 months instead of 12.

I pay for Shopify for the year as I know I will be using it for the whole year, alongside things like Dropbox. However is money is tight at the time of renewal, paying monthly obviously makes more sense.v

Simple Postal Packaging

I've never actually had branded packaging (tissue paper, tape etc.), but I've definitely looked into it (it's expensive), as well as other options such as coloured boxes and envelopes. I've always used brown envelopes and boxes, as they are the cheapest option out there. At the end of the day, those boxes are going to end up in the recycling, so why pay double the price? Add a couple of branded stickers or stamp onto the box to add some branding, but otherwise, it's not needed and will save you money. Make sure your products are branded and sent nicely, but safely.

Do accounts yourself

We had an accountant that I was paying £140 a month for. Now, it was useful for when we moved house and in the past when it was Paul predominately earning money through the business (HJDS is a trading name of the company he created), but for the most part, we decided to part ways and will do all the accounting ourselves saving some much needed money. Everything is done in Freeagent, which we've used for years, and is fairly easy to use.

We will probably end up getting an accountant again in the future if we come to move house again, or something else significant, but for now, it's a significant saving when times are hard.

Don't have paid ads

Unless you know 100% (or near enough) that you will make sales from paid ads, I would advise not doing them whilst money is tight. Ads have never been that successful for me. I recently had a Google ad on for a few weeks. I spent £70 and had no return, so I turned them off. £70 is a lot right now, so it's frustrating to lose the money with nothing in return, I now know that's not the right things to do right now.