While retailers may approach business and sales differently, they all have the same goals in mind: earn the greatest profits, while spending the least in overhead. With e-commerce, a relatively low cost of entry and maintenance can help you deliver more for less – but how can you reduce e-commerce operation costs even further, especially when seeking to ship your products to international customers?

Here are 7 ways you can save money on your e-commerce operations:

1. Optimize Packaging

Less is more. This is true when attempting to hook potential new customers on your offering, as well as when attempting to fit all completed purchases in a shipping container for international delivery. While Ladingo has mastered the art of container sharing, it is still exponentially easier to play the beloved game of container tetris when the items to be shipped vary less in size and shape. Optimizing packaging to the minimum necessary will save you money when it comes to ocean freight. Tip: pack well for a long ocean trip.

2. Make smart initial marketing investments

While it may seem wiser to look for cheap services and solutions to get your e-commerce site up, running and converting, a little initial investment can go a long way in the long run. Do your due diligence and scout out trusted, experienced marketing gurus to craft campaigns and other content that will drive e-commerce success. The money you invest at the start will be returned in spades once you launch.

3. Streamline your system

The secret to successful e-commerce delivery solutions lies in your technological prowess. Rather than constantly upgrading your software, engage in some “spring cleaning” of your existing system – determine which features you use, which you don’t and which you need but don’t already have. Once you’ve assessed your needs, you may find that switching over to an all-in-one delivery solution like Ladingo is more economical. Ladingo streamlines and automates the entire e-commerce shipping solution, including documentation and cost assessment, ahead of time. With Ladingo, you’ll save time and money, guaranteed.

4. Offer the most popular payment options

While you may want to offer as many payment options as possible, to increase your attractiveness to shoppers and shippers alike, you’re better off identifying and offering only the most popular ones. This will help you avoid paying more processing fees than you’d like, while still ensuring that the customer experience is sublime. Another tip: partner with online money transfer companies to allow your business to scale internationally.

5. Make smart use of coupons

Shoppers have come to love and expect coupons, When offered wisely, they are great upsell and cross-sell tools. But beware of offering too many or too often. To make smart use of coupons, you will first need to define what the goal of their offering is. Next, decide which products the coupons can be applied to and how big of a discount each coupon will give. And consider creating a time-limited or limited-quantity clause, so you don’t wind up losing money if the coupons become more popular than expected.

6. Enter and foster business relationships

In the e-commerce world, a little loyalty goes a long way. Consider entering into long-term partners with key vendors, suppliers, shippers, etc. to motivate them to cut you a deal. Lower pricing may be on the table, or you might be offered more economical, or faster shipping. Extend a trusting hand and you will likely be greeted with one in return.

7. Work with a global shipping specialist, like Ladingo

E-commerce shipping best practices stipulate that you find services that get you the most, for the least, in the least amount of time. To enjoy the best possible e-commerce shipping and e-commerce drop shipping solutions, turn to a global shipping specialist, like Ladingo, for a complete international e-commerce shipping solution.

Ladingo is the first technological solution that enables the simple, straightforward and automated purchase of large items to be shipped internationally. Ladingo is the cheapest way to ship large packages. Ladingo guarantees shipping costs, up-front, for any size product, overseeing the entire shipment process, from the local warehouse, through the ocean forwarders and until the item is delivered to the customer’s front door. Ladingo automates the sharing of shipping containers, making cost-effective delivery of large and heavy products such as furniture or fitness equipment possible.

With Ladingo, each party optimizes its own position, so that every customer completes his or her purchase regardless of his or her location across the globe, or the size of the product acquired.

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