Who doesn't want to save money? In personal life or in Business. It's been a real challenge lately, really have be examining my own costs even more than usual, everything has gone up so much!. So, here are a few things you can try:
1. Re-use packaging - mostly things like packaging peanuts, boxes, things like that. That's pretty obvious one.
2. Flat Rate/Regional Shipping - Flat rate offered by USPS is the best thing since sliced bread! My favorite right now is the padded Flat rate envelope, I can ship 6 soaps in there for about $5 anywhere in the US. The other one is Regional shipping, you have to use their specified boxes. They come in two sizes and are a little flimsier, but get the job done. If you are able to use that rate, is even cheaper than Flat Rate alot of the time, the trick is figuring out when you can actually use the Regional Rate. It's really hard to find info on it at their site and even the folks at the Post Office have no idea! So in order to find out if you can use it you have to go through the page to figure out postage and put in the weight and zip code and it will let you know if it's an opion. Do check it out at www.usps.com
3. Buy with a friend - A lot of companies have great deal but high minimums. You can counter that by having a co-op with a few friends or just share an order with a friend. It works out great, you both get a deal and still meet the minimum.
4. Bulk - whenever you can! And again if it's more than you can use, see if a friend wants to share.
5. Join a Guild/Forum - Belonging to a Guild is nice because there are businesses that have supplies etc that cater to your particular type of business and you can sometimes get special deals or percentages off. A Guild is very beneficial to you to begin with simply because they support folks in your particular business and can be a great resource. Bringing me to my own favorite resource: Forums, also known as Discussion Groups. There you will be able to find tips/techniques and many suppliers will also post sales etc there. My favorite soap forum is http://www.thedishforum.com/forum/, we simply call it the "Dish" and it's been a great resource over the years. The cool thing is that you can check the older archived posts too, going back a few years so you're able to glean alot of experience that way. You may even find more money saving tips!
I'm sure there are lots of other ways to save money, those were off the top of my head! Feel free to leave YOUR favorite money saving tips!
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