As a small business owner, managing your own payroll may not always seem like a priority. Let’s face it: between juggling submission dates and figuring out what paperwork you need to fill out, payroll can be a chore that falls to the wayside. And itâs easy to see why, when so many businesses manage their payroll without following any best practices.
Even if youâre doing your employeesâ payroll as a solo job, best practices will help you keep track of submission requirements and deadlines without affecting how much you get done. Read on to discover nine payroll best practices you can start working on today to make your payroll process a breeze.
The 9 Best Payroll Practices For Small Businesses
These nine best practices, if followed carefully and regularly, can make managing your payroll go from nightmarish to predictable.
1) Classify Employees Correctly
Your payroll process relies on you properly classifying your employees. If you only staff a few people whom you know and trust, the idea that you might be at risk of misclassifying your salaried employees may just seem silly — but it’s no laughing matter. Your company can quickly run into serious, tax-related issues with the IRS if you misclassify someone as a 1099 contractor, for example, when they’re really working for your company as a W2 employee.
In fact, based on state-level research, somewhere between ten and twenty percent of employers are guilty of misclassifying workers, recording an employee as a 1099 contractor, for example, instead of as a salaried W2 employee. Mistakes like that can ultimately impact your company’s revenue if you get hit with federal-level fines. Before you get your payroll process going, doublecheck that you have each and every one of your employees correctly classified, no matter how many of them you employ.
2) Spend The Proper Amount On Payroll
Small business owners often worry that their cash flow will affect their payroll deadlines, and for good reason. If you don’t know how much of your revenue to put toward your payroll, an unhealthy cashflow could be disastrous. Setting aside the proper amount for payroll ahead of time will keep your system chugging along just fine without any cash flow-related hiccups.
One of the most critical payroll best practices is to make sure your business has a positive cash flow before estimating the amount of your gross revenue to put toward payroll expenses. Once you’ve adopted a few strategies to increase your cash flow, it will make much more sense to then go ahead and carve out a rough (while youâre starting out) percentage of funds you should be spending on payroll.
It’s not the end-all, be-all number, but as a small business owner, you should be keeping your payroll below 30 percent of your total gross revenue funds. Staying at (or preferably below) this number will still make it realistic for your business to manufacture its products and provide its services without confronting negative cash flow numbers.
The great part about planning on a set amount of funds to put toward payroll is that you can always scale that amount up or down in the future. You and your HR and/or payroll manager can decide to move funds around if you notice that you’re spending too much or too little on payroll after a few months. Your business will enjoy increased profitability once you have methods to keep your cash flow positive and youâre certain how much to spend on payroll.
3) Keep Track Of Dates & Deadlines
Collecting and completing your employees’ payroll documentation won’t do much good if you miss deadlines for submission. The Department of Labor has strict requirements about when and how small businesses must submit payroll documents. You and your company are at risk of being dinged with brutal fines if you neglect to pay attention to these deadlines.
Keeping track of your submission dates and deadlines is a great way to help you plan out the rest of your payroll best practices. Many of the other important habits you develop will fall into place if you get your deadlines in order first. Some of the most important payroll tax dates and deadlines include:
Retirement Statements: Businesses are required to keep their employee’s statements of retirement, including enrollment, payment, and deduction forms, for at least six years.
Pay Stubs: As a business owner, you’re responsible for proving to the government that you pay your employees on-time, every quarter. To that end, you’ll need to hold onto pay stubs for four years, which includes any changes you’ve made to your wages along the way.
Additional Tax Info: Tax forms like employee W2s and W4s are required to be kept for at least four years.
On top of these federal deadlines, you need to make sure that you consistently set smaller deadlines for when your payroll must be processed monthly. Get all of these dates, whether theyâre on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis, onto your payroll calendar. You can choose to use a cloud-based calendar app, for example, if you want to move your payroll operations completely online.
4) Set Payroll Notifications and Reminders
Keeping track of important payroll dates and deadlines is all well and good, but youâll probably want to set up a system of notifications and reminders to make sure you donât miss them as well. Companies have traditionally relied on physical calendars to keep track of tax deadlines and dates, but more and more businesses are now switching to cloud-based payroll solutions that sync up with important government submission dates and send them reminders automatically.
If you aren’t yet using software to help with deadline notifications, there are also plenty of calendar apps you can use to manually track dates. These calendar apps can sometimes be more beneficial for extremely small companies that only staff a few employees. Coordinate with your other employees and departments to settle on a notification and reminder solution that makes the most sense for your employees and the size and scope of your business.
5) Use Direct Deposit
Direct deposit, thankfully, has found its way into the vast majority of businesses’ payroll systems. Small business owners who use direct deposit to help manage their payroll process eliminate tons of manual work that they’d otherwise need to slog through.
Electronic deposits also make your end-of-year payroll reporting much more painless, since you won’t have physical files to sort through that you then need to furnish for reporting purposes. This takes a huge burden off you or your HR/payroll manager and frees up their time to help you continue to build out your businessâs internal infrastructure.
6) Use Online Payroll Software
There’s no reason to fuss with traditional ways of organizing payroll when thereâs easy-to-use, online payroll software available at the tips of your fingers. Instead of searching through filing cabinets to furnish important employee data every time a deadline rolls around, you can use powerful payroll software to make it easy to search through all your employees’ historical data and organize it the way you want.
What’s even better about powerful payroll software, and something that traditional payroll organization systems can’t offer, is flexibility and customization. No two businesses are alike, so it doesn’t make sense to settle for anything less than a solution that’s tailored to your needs. From help with taxes to HR compliance assistance, there are multiple online payroll options to choose from.
7) Create An HR Handbook
HR handbooks are a company’s standards, values, and ethical guidelines, put into words. As you may have guessed, these handbooks can be great ways to define your payroll processing procedures as well. Creating an HR handbook is one of the most effective methods of solidifying your payroll best practices and making it easier to follow them.
Try and get together with your HR and/or payroll managers to help you create an HR handbook. Your employees in HR and payroll can give you valuable insight into payroll best practices they already use themselves and can help you define answers for questions they frequently get in their day to day interactions with employees. Remember that your HR/payroll handbook should do a good job of answering frequently asked questions as well as defining your payroll best practices.
8) Have Organized Payroll Records
Keeping tidy, organized payroll records is essential for your own business records and taxes. First, you’ll want to settle on a storage solution to keep your records organized and in one place. There are multiple electronic payroll storage solutions that are easy to use and can be tailored to your business needs.
You also need to keep in mind which records you need to keep, and for how long. The IRS lets businesses know that most payroll records need to be kept handy for at least three years. For other, more sensitive payroll documents, like your employees’ retirement records, wage records, and tax information, there are different requirements for how long you need to keep them.
Organize your payroll system based on how many employees you staff, as well as how many additional documents you keep for your personnel. Choosing a good storage system will also go a long way to keeping your records organized for the long-term.
9) Protect Your Online Data
Strong cloud accounting security measures are the pretty bow that ties up your carefully planned best practices into one package. These days, there’s no such thing as having too many security measures in place to protect your digital assets, especially for assets as sensitive as your employees’ payroll records. Cloud-based security solutions put your employees’ sensitive data first and decentralize how you store your data so that it’s much harder to compromise.
Software solutions that protect your employees’ data on the cloud eliminate nearly all manual work you’d otherwise have to do. For instance, with cloud-based storage solutions, you don’t need to worry that youâre running out-of-date software with bugs that compromise its security. Smart solutions on the cloud will run updates for you, automate your account security and remediation activities, and immediately alert you about fraudulent or suspicious activity that it detects.
What Other Payroll Problems Does Your Business Face?
Payroll processing software and electronic solutions make doing your own payroll easier than ever. But as any business owner knows, there’s always something new to learn about payroll, no matter how long you’ve been doing it either on your own or with the help of colleagues.
As a business owner, are there parts of payroll that you still struggle with? What steps have you taken to try and resolve them? Leave us a comment below about your greatest challenges processing your own payroll, and the solutions youâve come up with to tackle them.
The post The Best Payroll Practices Every Business Owner Needs To Know appeared first on Merchant Maverick.
Employers affected by the ongoing COVID-19 emergency have received a tax holiday that began on September 1. This tax holiday is only available for employees who have bi-weekly paychecks that are less than $4000 (or an equivalent of a salary of $104K a year).
And in the fast-changing news world of 2020, the Government Accountability Office indicated on September 16 that the tax holiday program has a chance of being overturned. Keep an eye on the news for updates about whether or not the program sticks around.
What Is The Payroll Tax Holiday?
Payroll taxes are responsible for funding social security, Medicare, and local taxes. Employees pay half and employers pay the other half of these taxes. This payroll tax holiday is a break/breather from the burden of paying payroll taxes for both the employee and the employer until January 1, 2021. This break can temporarily create more cashflow for businesses and employees, but at some point, the taxes will be paid back.
An employer has the power to choose whether or not to take advantage of the payroll tax holiday.
Companies that opt into the payroll tax holiday can withhold payroll taxes for employees and defer payments on those taxes until April 2021. And again: this is a tax deferral only. Money withheld from paychecks between September and December this year will have to be paid back.
The IRS memorandum stated:
âAn Affected Taxpayer must withhold and pay the total Applicable Taxes that the Affected Taxpayer deferred under this notice ratably from wages and compensation paid between January 1, 2021 and April 30, 2021 or interest, penalties, and additions to tax will begin to accrue on May 1, 2021, with respect to any unpaid Applicable Taxes.â
Given a general lack of guidance about best practices for how to assist employees to pay back the deferred taxes, many companies are choosing not to take advantage of the tax holiday at this time.
How Could The Tax Holiday Help?
The tax holiday helps create immediate cashflow from September-December. The boost to paychecks is temporary, so this assistance is essentially a temporary loan due in January.
Whether or not that loan could help is quite specific to the employer/employee; however, the US Chamber of Commerce and a coalition of thirty other organizations sent a letter to the government asking it to reconsider the tax holiday since it creates an undue hardship on the taxpayer in January.
In a signed letter to Congress, they stated:
“If this were a suspension of the payroll tax so that employees were not forced to pay it back later, implementation would be less challenging. But under a simple deferral, employees would be stuck with a large tax bill in 2021. Many of our members consider it unfair to employees to make a decision that would force a big tax bill on them next year. It would also be unworkable to implement a system where employees make this decision. Therefore, many of our members will likely decline to implement deferral, choosing instead to continue to withhold and remit to the government the payroll taxes required by law.”
If you decide to take advantage of the tax holiday, be sure to inform employees about your decision and explain why they may see a paycheck bump this last quarter. Also, explain your company’s plan for how employees will pay back their portion of the deferred taxes.
More Tax Tips
Navigating taxes and understanding various tax components and implications can be a headache for small business owners. If you need to brush up on some of the basics, be sure to read our Complete Guide to Small Business Taxes or our article on write-offs for small business owners.
If you’ve hired an accountant to manage your taxes, you can also check out Small Business Taxes: What Information Does My Accountant Need so you can show up prepared for all your appointments.
Do you have a story idea, tip, or press release for the Merchant Maverick news team? Shoot us an email: [email protected]
The post Your Business Can Now Stop Withholding Employee Payroll Taxes: Need To Know Facts About The Tax Holiday appeared first on Merchant Maverick.
This post originally appeared at How To Choose The Best Ecommerce Website Builder For Beginners via ShivarWeb
The Internet has changed dramatically in the past 10 years for anyone who wants to sell a product online. In many ways, it’s easier than ever for beginners to sell online. However, the sheer world of options makes choosing an ecommerce website builder difficult in different ways.
Even though selling online should be approachable, it can be daunting. Here’s how to choose the best ecommerce website builder for beginners so that you can get started for less money and fewer barriers, but also build with confidence.
Summary – Best Ecommerce Website Builder for Beginners
Based on my experience working with many website builders, there are a few that are a good fit for most beginners.
Simple Ecommerce
Value Pricing
Focus on Simplicity
Small Site Appeal
Weebly
View Plans
Built-in Features
Drag + Drop Design
Focus on Usability
Broad Appeal
Wix
View Plans
Affordable Option
Future-proofing
Focus on Versatility
Budget Appeal
NameCheap
View Plans
Focused on a long-term project?
Shopify is the most robust ecommerce platform on the Internet. It has a learning curve, but has the most comprehensive setup for a full-featured online store (see review). View plans.
Who Needs a Website Builder?
If you have the technical know-how, the website building process might not seem so daunting. For those of us who aren’t web developers, fortunately, there’s a workable solution: a website builder. With the right website building program, you don’t have to understand complex web development principles or know coding languages.
Most e-commerce site builders are as simple as drag-and-drop. A good website builder should be easy to use, even for a complete newbie who only knows how to check email and post pictures on Facebook.
The very best site builders don’t require you to start from scratch. By providing you with a set of features and templates that you can customize to meet your needs, these website builders reduce the amount of work you have to do to get your website running.
These templates and features typically already incorporate best practices for web design, giving you a head start in building a professional-grade website for your e-commerce business.
The tradeoff you should be thinking of is whether using a website builder will be better than hiring a professional web designer or developer. For most small businesses and beginners, the decision is a no-brainer. A web developer will not do much that a site builder cannot do.
Sure, a pro developer will do the job, but you might end up spending a lot for a small return on investment. Meanwhile, a website builder gets the job done just as well for only a fraction of the price.
They are also not incompatible. Many developers have expertise to build on top of an existing platform. That’s one consideration to think about – whether you want to be able to grow your features as your revenue and experiences increases.
Getting started with many website builders is very fast and easy, and you can get your website up and running in almost no time.
Primary Considerations: How to Choose the Best E-Commerce Website Builder
You will need to ask yourself some questions to decide which website builder for beginners is best for your needs.
What’s Your Budget?
A budget should be the very first thing on your list of considerations. Knowing what you can afford helps you narrow down your list of options.
The trick is to think about all the costs that you’ll incur while building your website. There are things you need to think about outside of making the website itself, such as registering the site’s domain name and arranging for hosting. Most website builders bundle domain name, hosting & software into a single bundle. But it’s still useful to compare apples to oranges.
You’ll also need to invest money in content for your website, including images and sales copy. If you’re planning to do content marketing, you’ll have to invest in developing high-quality content. All of these costs add up, and you should consider them before you pick a website builder.
Most website builders have a free tier or at least a free trial. The paid levels typically range from $5 to about $50 a month for a plan that offers the most useful features for an e-commerce site.
If you have a tight budget, you can save a lot of money by looking for subscription plans that include most of the things you’ll need for your website, such as domain registration, business email address, hosting, and SEO tools. Again, most website builders bundle all these things. But not all do. It’s important to define what you need before exploring what they offer.
Do You Need Hosting As Part Of The Plan?
Speaking of hosting, it is yet another essential consideration you should make when picking a website builder. Some of these services include hosting as part of the package, while others only include a website builder and leave you to handle the hosting arrangement yourself.
Hosting is more vital than you might think, as the right host can make your business and the wrong one can break it.
Here are some reasons why choosing the right host is paramount:
Customers will leave your site if it is slow. Fortunately or unfortunately, our rapidly contracting attention spans and addiction to instant gratification means a significant percentage of your visitors will likely leave your website if it doesn’t load in a few seconds. It’s not just about your customers, though. Google also uses the loading speed of your site as a factor in ranking it, meaning your ranking on search results will be adversely affected. A good host takes care of this by having the capacity to handle traffic spikes that might affect performance.
Your site needs proper security. Security is essential for every business, but it is especially for e-commerce. With the prospect of making payments on your website and putting their data at risk, customers will want to know that your website is secure. Many browsers will identify your site as ‘not secure’ if it doesn’t have HTTPS encryption and an SSL certificate. A good web host will include security and encryption as part of its package. You will likely lose customers if you don’t have this level of protection.
A good host minimizes downtime for your site. You will lose sales if your site goes offline for even a few seconds. If your site has a reputation for frequently being down, you could lose both current and prospective customers. While scheduled maintenance is routine for every web host, the best hosts will minimize unplanned downtime, ensuring your site is up more than 99.99% of the time. Furthermore, the host will warn you about maintenance, so you can let your customers know beforehand.
In summary, make sure to find a host that keeps up with your expected traffic, ensures security for your site, complies with PCI (Payment Card Industry) standards, and can handle your files. They should also offer backups of your website, and do all this for a reasonable price.
Some hosting services also offer website builders, and some builders also provide hosting. You will need to decide if the convenience of an all-in-one package is worth any extra costs.
Secondary Considerations: What Are Your Priorities and Needs?
Before you pick a website builder, you should have a good idea of what you want your website to look like and what you need it to do. You will then have a more definite sense of your priorities, and your search for the best e-commerce website builder for beginners will be more straightforward.
Here are some significant considerations you should make when trying to figure out your needs and priorities:
Your level of experience when it comes to design. Most website builders have beginners in mind, and they don’t require you to have any experience with design or coding. However, some will be easier to work with than others, and some may require you to code if you want to customize your site’s look. If you’re starting from absolute scratch, look for a website builder with ready templates and drag-and-drop features.
The amount of flexibility you want. If you need to have options to customize your design, then you should pick a website builder with a large variety of templates. You will also want flexible editing features that allow you to customize the design according to your needs.
Will the website include a store? If your website will sell things directly online, which is highly likely if you’re building an e-commerce website, then the website builder should allow you to add checkout functionality and a shopping cart. The design should also encourage users to make purchases with features like browsing history, product recommendations, and SEO functions.
The type of media you will include. You need to ensure that your website builder can handle different media types, including videos, images, animations, and other elements such as maps.
Another thing that should factor into your choice is whether the website builder makes mobile-friendly websites. Websites without mobile-responsive templates should be a deal-breaker in today’s mobile-centric marketplace.
General Tips: Other Things to Consider When Finding the Best E-Commerce Site Builder for Beginners
Here are some other things to consider when choosing a site builder.
How Many Themes Are Offered By The Website Builder?
As you build your site with a website builder, you will most likely start with the website builder’s ready-made themes. You will select one of them and then customize it to get your site up quickly.
The last thing you want is a website builder that limits your customization options to a few themes and does not allow you to customize the look or add images or graphics.
To avoid this issue, you can go for a website builder that not only allows you to customize themes, but also offers a large number and variety of themes.
Is The Website Builder User Friendly?
Website builders will be much easier than building the site yourself from scratch.
However, some of them will be easier to use than others. Website builders that offer drag-and-drop options, for example, make the web building process much more accessible than those that require element placement by other means.
You also want an editing page with an intuitive and self-explanatory layout so that you’re not spending more time learning to use the builder than actually building a website.
Some builders offer free trials so that you can use them to see how intuitive they are. If there is no trial, you’ll just have to do your research about a website builder’s reputation for user-friendliness from online reviews.
However, this step is necessary because it will protect you from getting a builder with a steep learning curve that isn’t beginner-friendly.
Does The Website Builder Have Marketing & SEO Features?
Having a good-looking website doesn’t mean much unless people can find it online. For that, you need to implement some SEO (Search Engine Optimization) best practices.
These include giving your website a meta-description, including the right metadata for search engines to discover your site and index it. You’ll also need to adjust image sizes and include tags and optimize load times.
A good website builder should make the task of optimizing your e-commerce site as simple as possible.
The best website builders will give you an easy way to update your site’s metadata and provide search engines with a site map. There is a lot more to effective SEO than this, and a website builder cannot do everything for you. However, a good one will give you a massive head start by handling these basic SEO tasks automatically.
Does The Website Builder Provide Valuable Support To Users?
Even if you find a user-friendly website builder, you will still need to take some time to learn how to use it. The learning curve can be higher if you go for a website builder with lots of features.
Ensure that the company you choose has lots of educational resources to make the learning curve easier to negotiate. These features include a knowledge base, informative tutorials, and a large and supportive community of active users who can help when you’re feeling stuck.
Does The Website Builder Have Good Customer Service And A Good Reputation?
Responsive and helpful customer service reps can make using the website builder so much easier than if you’re just left to figure everything out on your own.
24/7 customer service will give you peace of mind from knowing that you can get instant help whenever you need it. This service is especially vital if you have a builder that also includes hosting services.
Again, there are no shortcuts here. The best way to discover the reputation of a website builder is from online reviews from other business owners. By seeing what others think of the service, you can get a sense of whether it’s the right choice.
Next Steps
If you are selling online, you will need an e-commerce website. The benefits of having a site instead of only selling on third-party sites far outweigh the costs.
Based on my experience working with many website builders, there are a few that are a good fit for most beginners.
Simple Ecommerce
Value Pricing
Focus on Simplicity
Small Site Appeal
Weebly
View Plans
Built-in Features
Drag + Drop Design
Focus on Usability
Broad Appeal
Wix
View Plans
Affordable Option
Future-proofing
Focus on Versatility
Budget Appeal
NameCheap
View Plans
Focused on a long-term project?
Shopify is the most robust ecommerce platform on the Internet. It has a learning curve, but has the most comprehensive setup for a full-featured online store (see review). View plans.
However, choosing the right website builder to build your site can make it much more straightforward and save you both time and money. By following the tips above, you should be able to figure out how to choose the best e-commerce website builder for beginners.
This post originally appeared at Best Website Builder For Selling Products via ShivarWeb
E-commerce is booming. And not just Amazon. With better fulfillment, COVID-19 changes, and more familiarity, buying online has become normal for everyone. As more people buy products online, the sites that businesses use to sell their items are becoming more critical for competition.
Website builders can help small businesses make attractive and functional sites to sell their products. They not only make building a website accessible & convenient, they also bundle technically complex functionality like shopping carts, payments, and order management into a single subscription.
However, it can be overwhelming to wade through all the options. The truth is, there isn’t an absolute best website builder for selling products.
All builders have tradeoffs, and you should pick the one with the right mix of features for your particular budget, resources, and expertise.
In this article, I’ll dive deep into what considerations you should be thinking about during your website builder search. The important thing is that you know how to choose the best option for your needs. Once you’ve got that down, knowing what to choose comes easily.
Summary – Best Website Builder for Selling Products
Based on my experience working with many website builders, there are a few that are a good fit for most people. They all have free plans available to try. They are each best if you want…
Simple Ecommerce
Square Payments
Focus on Simplicity
Small Site Appeal
Weebly
View Plans
Built-in Features
Drag + Drop Design
Focus on Usability
Broad Appeal
Wix
View Plans
Lots of Options
Future-proofing
Focus on Ecommerce
Online Store Appeal
Shopify
View Plans
Focused on content + products?
WordPress.com is a website builder focused on publishing & content that has also has capability to sell products. View Plans.
What Are The Benefits Of Selling Products on Your Own Site?
We will start by taking a look at the benefits of having an e-commerce site for your products.
More Money Gets Spent Online Every Year
In the first quarter of 2019 alone, consumers in the US spent over $99 billion on e-commerce. If you want your business to remain profitable as online shopping increases, having an online store is vital. More than that, you need an online store that can deliver a quality shopping experience.
A Website Costs Less Than An Actual Store
Suppose you decide to run a brick-and-mortar store. In that case, there are plenty of costs to consider, including rent, staff salaries, licenses and permits, utility bills, maintenance bills, supplies, and design.
Meanwhile, running a website provides savings on these costs. Sure, running an e-commerce website comes with its own set of fees, including hosting, marketing, plugins, and feature costs. However, in the long run, these expenses are lower than those of running a physical storefront. Lower costs, in turn, means that the return on investment could be much higher.
A Website Enables You To Provide Convenience To Your Customers
Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. When they’re feeling a little lazy, tired, or sick, they’ll appreciate the convenience of doing their shopping without having to walk or drive to a store.
By allowing people to find what they want faster and more easily online, you encourage them to spend more. The selling proposition is higher, and the friction is lower.
You Benefit From Online Search Traffic
Did you know that about 33 percent of people start the search for products they want on Google?
By having an e-commerce website, you put your products in front of all those eyeballs, making it easier for them to discover your merchandise.
Assuming you have some solid SEO, which is easy with the right website builder, all the products you list on your site get indexed by Google and other search engines. This indexing drastically increases your chances of making sales, simply because you have more reach.
Primary Considerations When Choosing Selling Your Products on a Website Builder
There is a broad spectrum of online e-commerce platforms out there, and you need to choose one that fits your particular needs. Choosing a website builder is a lot like buying a car. No matter which car you buy, they will all get you from one point to another.
However, you might want other features depending on your specific needs, such as your budget, the type of products you sell, how many shoppers you expect to have, the maintenance costs, and the number of changes you have to make during operations.
With an e-commerce website builder, you’re getting the same core functionality across the board. You get the ability to build a platform on which you can list your products, have a shopping cart that people can add products to, and a payment processor.
However, there may also be other considerations you might have that would ultimately influence your decision. Below are some of the most important of these:
How User-friendly Is The Website Builder?
Some website builders are more interested in offering as many features as possible, rather than making their platform user friendly for consumers.
A feature-packed builder isn’t necessarily wrong; it is just a trade-off that you should understand. You might not mind looking through the platform’s knowledge base or asking questions on how to solve particular problems in the forum.
On the other hand, you might instead prefer something easy to use that lacks advanced features. It depends on how much time you want to spend building and managing your website.
This consideration is also important for selling products. Are you looking to build a full ecommerce operation with hundreds of SKUs or are you looking to selling a dozen pieces of merchandise?
For example, Shopify is far and away the most versatile ecommerce website builder. But it has a lot of ecommerce features that some website owners don’t need (like inventory management) in addition to missing some website publishing features that some website owners might need (like blog comments).
Other website builders like Wix might provide a super-simple setup with easy product integration while limiting growth into a large ecommerce operation with strong organic traffic.
How Is The Customer Service?
A related issue is customer support. In case you’re stuck, it’s a great convenience to ask someone for help. Whether you have the technical knowledge, you should see what customer service options the website builder offers.
Having the opportunity to ask for help via phone, email, or chat application can be valuable during the website design process, and if you have any questions during regular business operations.
Additionally, think about how you prefer to solve issues. Some platforms like Shopify and WordPress have huge numbers of freelancers available to help with any task in addition to internal support.
What Is Your Budget?
Just like your budget helps you narrow down your list of options at a car dealership, so does it thin down your choices for website builders.
The more money you spend, the more feature-rich your platform. Fortunately, however, most of the essential features for a simple e-commerce website are quite affordable for most business owners.
You want to get the most that you can for your budget without wasting money on extras features that you will never use.
Does The Platform Allow For Custom Designs?
A significant consideration you will need to make when choosing an e-commerce website building platform is whether it allows custom design.
Wix Designs
Most platforms have a range of “themes” from which you can choose. However, some of them make it especially hard to build a custom design or change existing themes.
A simple drag-and-drop interface with lots of themes is easy to use, but you run the risk of having an e-commerce website that looks like other e-commerce websites (or struggling to make it *just right*). This is the track that Wix & Weebly take.
On the other hand, a platform that allows for custom designs might be a little harder to use, but it gives you endless options for how your website will look. This is the track that Shopify takes. They have a drag & drop builder, but really push you to buy or build your own custom design.
A compromise could be a builder that allows you to alter existing themes to make them look different from competitors.
Secondary Considerations: What Else Do You Need to Think About When Choosing a Website Builder
When choosing the best website builder for selling items online, you need to consider more than the basics. Here is what else you should be thinking.
Can You Add Extensions or Apps?
If you want to add plugins and extensions to your website, you should probably go for a platform that allows you to make such additions.
Note, however, that the more leeway a platform gives you to customize your site with plugins and extensions, the more complicated things will be.
It may also mean spending extra as many third-party extensions are for sale.
Will You Be Doing Content Marketing?
Is an online store all you want, or would you like to incorporate a blog or social media feed for some content marketing? Some website builders only offer pure e-commerce stores, while others provide lots of features to build marketing strategies right into your store.
Such content marketing tools can save time in the future because they make marketing more straightforward and cheaper.
Does The Platform Allow For Offline Sales?
Standard e-commerce platforms allow you to manage your inventory and orders. However, some are better at managing your offline sales than others. Depending on how heavy your offline sales traffic is, you might want a platform that syncs well with this aspect of your operation.
SEO & Marketing Tools
SEO is an integral part of making your website and products easily discoverable online. Look for an e-commerce platform that employs SEO best practices and gives you as much control as you need over your website’s SEO features.
Hosting
Some e-commerce platforms will include hosting in some form while others only provide you with a website builder, leaving you to arrange the hosting. An all-in-one e-commerce platform will make your life easier, as the hosting will be taken care of as part of the package.
However, this option might be more expensive than shopping for your host on your own, and you might have less control over things like domain ownership and SEO. Some platforms like WordPress.com allow you to move to a self-hosted website easily since it runs with the same WooCommerce plugin that powers a self-hosted ecommerce store.
It is crucial to pick a platform that meets your needs in this area.
General Tips on Choosing Specific Site Builders
What kind of options are available? There are plenty of website builders on the market, but some stand out.
While there are plenty of options on the market, there are some examples of what you can expect from different ranges of website builders.
Getting A Highly Customizable Builder
Some website builders offer innumerable options and plugins.
The challenge with customizable builders is that you might face a steep learning curve. Especially for beginners, navigating a website builder/content management system can be challenging. You’ll also need to explore (and possibly pay for) third-party plugins for your store.
Powerful site builders with endless options can enable you to create the ideal storefront, however. The catch could be that you have to hire someone to handle the store setup if you don’t have the time or the tech skills to do it yourself.
Getting A Site Builder And Hosting In One Package
There are plenty of site builder plus hosting options to choose from when it comes to e-commerce.
Building a website via drag-and-drop design is simple. You get high uptime, unlimited bandwidth on many tiers, a fast content delivery network, and the ability to buy and own your domain name.
The flip side of bigger site builder plus hosting packages is that they are not free. There are paid plans that you need to invest in, which means you should budget to spend some money on the platform every month. You need to understand that package options are not a one-time expense and plan accordingly.
Should You Choose A Recognizable Name?
There are many recognizable names in the e-commerce industry, like BigCommerce, Shopify, GoDaddy, Squarespace, and more.
With many big-name site builders, you can expect everything to be handled for you, including shopping carts, email forwarding, and even a free domain, depending on the platform.
The great thing about bigger platforms is that they save you from the headache of trying to figure things like security and hosting all by yourself.
The flip side is that many of these site builders will cost you a monthly subscription that varies according to the features you choose to include in your store. This investment may be too significant if you are only selling a few products or focusing on marketing instead of sales.
One other thing to note about more recognizable site builders is that it is very easy to research their services because so many people use them. Ease of research is one of the reasons to go with a recognizable name.
Next Steps
As you can see, there are plenty of options when it comes to e-commerce website builders. You have lots of choices, but that also makes it easy to get overwhelmed.
Based on my experience working with many website builders, there are a few that are a good fit for most people. They all have free plans available to try. They are each best if you want…
Simple Ecommerce
Simple Payments
Focus on Simplicity
Small Site Appeal
Weebly
View Plans
Built-in Features
Drag + Drop Design
Focus on Usability
Broad Appeal
Wix
View Plans
Lots of Options
Future-proofing
Focus on Ecommerce
Online Store Appeal
Shopify
View Plans
Focused on content + products?
WordPress.com is a website builder focused on publishing & content that has also has capability to sell products. View Plans.
By taking stock of your specific needs and comparing them to what is available in the market, you can pick an e-commerce website builder that fits your needs.
The good news is that the platforms listed above will meet the needs of most online store owners, so choosing from among them makes the work easier. Whichever option you go for, the important thing to remember is that having an online store is better than not having a store at all.
When you think about small business lending, what comes to mind? If you’re like most people, you probably think of the typical — banks, credit unions, online lenders. Unfortunately though, many business owners are unable to obtain the funding they need through these traditional lending institutions. Banks and credit unions, for example, may require high credit scores, a lengthy time in business, or other criteria that a borrower just does not meet. The same can be said of online lenders — those with competitive rates may have strict borrowing requirements, leaving business owners with options that are short term, expensive, and could lead to escalating debt — and eventual closure of the business.
Unfortunately, businesses in underserved communities probably know this all too well. Not only does a lack of funding opportunities impact businesses, but it also has a negative effect on the community as a whole: A lack of jobs, less access to products and services, and fewer opportunities for entrepreneurship.
There is good news, though. There are lenders and institutions that offer funding opportunities to businesses and entrepreneurs that don’t have other options. One option many are unfamiliar with is minority depository institutions, or MDIs. These institutions provide funding opportunities to many business owners who don’t have access to affordable funding elsewhere.
Sound like something that might be a good fit for your business?
Keep reading to learn more about MDIs, how they help businesses like yours, and how to determine which one is the right fit for your business.
What Are Minority Depository Institutions?
A minority depository institution (MDI) is defined in one of two ways:
At least 51% of voting stock is owned by minorities OR
A majority of the board members are minorities AND the institution primarily serves communities whose populations are predominantly minority based.
Under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989, a minority is defined as “Black American, Asian American, Hispanic American, or Native American.”
MDIs are similar to other banks, credit unions, and financial institutions by offering consumer and business services such as checking and savings accounts, business and personal credit cards, mortgages, and small business loans and lines of credit.
What Is The Minority Depository Institution Program?
The Minority Depository Institution Program is a program launched under the Federal Deposit Insurance Company (FDIC). Goals of this program include preserving, promoting, and building capacity of MDIs for the benefit of low- and moderate-income communities.
The FDIC also oversees the Minority Depository Institutions (MDI) Subcommittee of FDIC’s Advisory Committee on Community Banking (CBAC) as a way of preserving and promoting the importance of MDIs in communities around the nation. This subcommittee serves as a platform for MDIs to collaborate, form partnerships, and promote best practices.
In order to become classified as an MDI, an institution must take steps by applying for deposit insurance and also meet the criteria discussed earlier in this post. The FDIC provides a number of resources outlining the application process, rules, regulations, and other critical information that financial institutions need to know about MDI designation.
How Minority Depository Institutions Help Small Businesses
There are a number of ways that minority deposit institutions help small businesses. One of the most important ways that these financial institutions help small businesses is by providing financial products that may otherwise be unavailable to low-income, moderate-income, and other underserved communities. By having access to funding opportunities, business owners are able to expand their businesses, receive funding to keep their business in operations, and start new businesses. This, in turn, leads to new job opportunities and access to products and services to everyone within that community.
Some of the ways that MDIs help business owners include:
Small Business Loans
Affordable loans with favorable terms are difficult for many businesses to score, but it can be nearly impossible for businesses in underserved communities. Fortunately, MDIs have financing opportunities for small businesses that find it difficult to get low-cost funding elsewhere.
Depending on the institution, there are a number of loan products available. This includes commercial real estate loans, equipment financing, or other loans that provide businesses with a lump sum of capital that’s repaid over time.
Many MDIs offer loans backed by the Small Business Administration. SBA loans are known for their high borrowing limits, long repayment terms, and competitive interest rates. Some MDIs may also offer financial products for startup businesses that don’t have the revenue or business credit score required for other loans.
Lines Of Credit
Businesses that want a more flexible financing option may qualify for a line of credit through an MDI. Instead of a lump sum, businesses are given a credit limit that can be used to pay employees, purchase supplies or inventory, or cover operational costs. As the line of credit is repaid, funds become available to use again, much like a credit card. A business line of credit is great to have to cover unexpected expenses or to manage cash flow issues.
Business Credit Cards
Many MDIs offer business credit cards to qualified borrowers. Like a line of credit, this is a flexible form of funding that can be used for anything from emergency expenses to recurring costs like utility bills or gas for a company vehicle.
Merchant Card Services
Businesses that want to accept credit cards, debit cards, and other forms of payment will need to find a merchant services provider. Some MDIs provide these services for their customers.
Payroll
Businesses with employees have to run payroll, and many business owners opt to leave this task to the professionals. Many MDIs — like traditional banks and credit unions — offer payroll services for its small business customers.
Checking & Savings Accounts
Business owners should understand the importance of separating business and personal expenses. The easiest way to do this is by keeping funds in separate accounts. An MDI provides personal and business bank accounts, so you can keep your money separate. Not only will you (or your accountant) be grateful for separate accounts come tax time, but many lenders require you to have a business bank account before disbursing loans or other funding.
Personal Banking Services
Looking for a new financial institution for your personal accounts? Consider working with an MDI. Not only can you take advantage of these consumer financial products, but so can others in your community. What does that mean for your business? It means that consumers have access to bank accounts, credit cards, and loans — in other words, all types of funding that they may spend in your business.
Popular Minority Depository Institutions
Now that you have a general idea of what MDIs offer, let’s take a closer look into what to expect when working with an MDI. These are just a handful of the 150+ MDIs throughout the nation, and they were chosen for this post because of their years of success, an array of financial products and services, and the work they have done within their respective communities.
First Independence Bank
First Independence Bank is a Black-owned MDI that provides financial products and services to individuals and businesses in the Detroit Metropolitan area. This institution was launched in 1970 and has helped businesses of all sizes meet their financial goals with products such as commercial real estate loans, term loans, SBA loans, and secured lines of credit.
First Independence Bank is also the majority owner of MAC Leasing, a certified minority-owned equipment leasing company. In addition to its MDI status, First Independence Bank also meets the requirements for classification as a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI). It is also a certified Minority Business Enterprise (MBE). First Independence Bank has won numerous Bank Enterprise Awards throughout the years for its role in providing financial products and services to distressed communities.
American First National Bank
American First National Bank is an Asian American-owned MDI that serves businesses and consumers throughout communities in Texas, Nevada, and California. Launched in 1998, this financial institution has grown to have total assets of nearly $2 billion.
In addition to being Asian American-owned, most employees within American First National Bank are also Asian American. Many employees speak multiple languages, giving them the ability to serve a variety of different customers in their native languages. American First National Bank has numerous financial products geared toward small businesses, including working capital loans, startup loans, and equipment loans.
This MDI is also very active within its communities, even offering speakers to speak about the bank and its services at schools, local businesses, and civic organizations.
Golden Bank, National Association
Golden Bank was established in 1985 and was the first minority-owned bank in the Greater Houston area. Today, the bank has expanded to serve customers in cities in Texas and California. This Asian-owned financial institution offers a number of business services, including business loans, deposits, cash management, and trade finance. Golden Bank even offers payment processing with no startup fees and a free terminal.
Golden Bank in recent years has been named a Five-Star Bank by Bauer Financial. This is the highest ranking in banking industries.
How To Find The Right Minority Depository Institution For Your Small Business
Is your business located in an underserved community? Do you need help with funds for starting your business, or perhaps you’re already in business and need capital for expansion? If your business is located in an underserved, distressed, low-income, or moderate-income community, you may benefit from the products and services offered by an MDI. Or maybe you just want to bypass the big-name banks and get a more personalized experience with a smaller, local institution — in which case, an MDI fits the bill.
Now, the next step is to find the right MDI for your business. Your business is unique and so are its financial needs. What works for one business may be a total mismatch for yours. To determine what MDI is the right fit for you, consider the following:
Location: Unlike major financial institutions that have hundreds (or thousands!) of branches nationwide, MDIs have far fewer branches and serve a more targeted area. Make sure that the MDI you select has branches and surcharge-free ATMs that are convenient to your business.
Eligibility: Some MDIs are credit unions that have membership requirements. This could be anything from a small monetary donation to living, working, or attending school in a specific area. Make sure that you meet all requirements before signing up.
Products & Services: Do you need industry-specific financial products? Is there a specific type of loan or borrowing limit that you need for your business? If so, make sure that the MDI you select offers the products you need, plus other products and services your business may require in the future.
Up-to-Date Technology: Most business owners don’t have hours to step into a branch or sit in a drive-through line for every single transaction. Look for MDIs that offer online banking services like access to your accounts, mobile services, bill pay, and online loan applications.
Also, FDIC-insured MDIs offer you protection you need in the event that the institution fails. You’ll have up to $250,000 insured, so you won’t have to worry about losing your hard-earned money.
Unsure of where to start your search? Check out the FDIC website, or review the list of MDIs supervised by the Office of the Comptroller of Currency (OCC) to get started.
Learn About Other Financing Resources For Businesses
Smaller financial institutions like MDIs aren’t for everyone, and it’s important to always explore your options first before diving headfirst into small business financing. While MDIs may be on your list, make sure to compare and weigh your other options. This includes working with a traditional bank or credit union, comparing rates with online lenders, or working with an SBA-approved lender to get a low-cost SBA loan. You can even use your personal credit profile and income to qualify for a personal loan for business. Regardless of which choice you make, take your time, do your research, and make the choice that’s best for your business. Good luck!
The post How A Minority Depository Institution Could Help Your Small Business Get Loans, Financing, & Other Services appeared first on Merchant Maverick.
To say that WordPress looms large over the modern-day internet would be an understatement.
Statistics compiled by w3techs.com show that 37.7% of all websites are powered by WordPress. If this includes you and your business — or if you’re looking to build a small business website using WordPress — there are a number of shopping cart integration choices. However, one choice stands out as the most popular and, arguably, the best: WooCommerce.
WooCommerce’s open-source shopping cart has been downloaded over 84 million times since its initial release in 2011.
Let’s explore how this free eCommerce plugin works and examine just what makes it such a popular service among online merchants.
What Is WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is a free, open-source eCommerce plugin that works exclusively with WordPress sites. However, while the software is free to download, running a WooCommerce-powered online store is not free — you will still have to pay for hosting and for the add-ons and extensions needed to make your store functional.
After you download WooCommerce, you can connect it to your WordPress site like you would with any other WordPress plugin. Just click “Add New” on the plugins page, search for WooCommerce, then click “Install” and “Activate.”
With WooCommerce, you are given a set of basic tools for free. You can later add extensions to fill in any feature gaps. That’s what makes WooCommerce such a scalable platform — if you invest in plugins to get the more advanced features, you can go from selling a few products to selling thousands of products without having to switch eCommerce platforms in the process.
What Is WooCommerce Shipping?
WooCommere Shipping is a shipping tool that you can download for free from WooCommerce’s website. Once installed, it integrates directly into your WooCommerce dashboard. The shipping tool allows you to set up and print shipping labels, manage packages, review your label reports, and more.
With WooCommerce Shipping, you can display live shipping rates from FedEx, UPS, USPS, and other carriers in your store.
What Can You Sell On WooCommerce?
What can you sell with a WooCommerce online store? Just about everything! Let’s go through the types of products WooCommerce allows you to sell:
Physical Products: Sell clothing, trinkets, artwork, gadgets — whatever you like. You can sell physical products in multiple variants. For example, a shirt can be sold in multiple colors and sizes, and you can set different weights and prices for each product variant.
Digital Products: WooCommerce lets you sell digital downloads of all kinds. From MP3s to event tickets, if the product is digital, you can sell it through WooCommerce.
Subscriptions: With the WooCommerce Subscriptions add-on, you can accept recurring payments for subscription products, whether they be digital or physical. You can charge renewal payments on a weekly, monthly, or annual basis.
Of course, just as with any other eCommerce platform, there are restrictions on what you can sell with WooCommerce. WooCommerce’s terms and conditions forbid you from using the service “in furtherance of illegal activities” such as copyright infringement. Likewise, WooCommerce Payments has a list of services and product types you cannot sell, such as drug paraphernalia, firearms, and adult content. While you can always use a payment gateway other than WooCommerce Payments, other gateways are likely to have similar policies.
How Does WooCommerce Work?
We’ve established that WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin. This means that in order to install WooCommerce, you’ll need to buy WordPress hosting and install WordPress first. Once you’ve done this, you can install the free WooCommerce plugin. Once you’ve done this, you’ll have the tools necessary to build a basic eCommerce site — all for free.
The following is a partial list of what you’ll get for free:
Mobile-Friendly Design: Because WooCommerce-powered online stores are designed to work well on mobile devices — on your end and on the customer’s end — your customers can shop on the go, just as you can manage their orders on the go.
Geo-Location Support:Â Geo-location detects your customersâ addresses to streamline shipping and tax calculations.
Organize Your Products: WooCommerce lets you group your products by category, add variations to each product, and sell affiliate products.
Inventory Management: WooCommerce’s free package includes built-in inventory management. Track your stock level, hold the stock when an order gets canceled, and hide out-of-stock items from your storefront.
Shipping Options: You can offer a shipping calculator on the shopping cart page, insuring there are no surprises at checkout. Let customers choose between pickup, local delivery, and shipping.
Search Engine Optimization:Â Benefit from WordPressâs built-in SEO best practices.
Checkout Options:Â Allow your customers to create an account on your site or check out as guests. It’s always a good idea to give your customers both options.
However, to get the functionality you’ll need to run a profitable online store, you’ll likely need to explore the many feature extensions available for WooCommerce. Many of these require a paid subscription, though you can find some decent free ones as well. You may also want to explore the many custom themes available, both free and paid.
The Benefits Of WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a supremely adaptable and scalable eCommerce platform. This is the core of WooCommerce’s appeal and goes a long way to explain the platform’s widespread popularity. You can start out with a basic free online store, and once your store finds its sea legs and/or you need a wider range of features to expand your business, the WooCommerce extension ecosystem stands ready to take your store to the next level.
Another point in WooCommerce’s favor is the fact that it is open-source. If you and/or your team has web development experience, you can edit the code to customize your store with a great degree of precision.
Finally, WooCommerce’s popularity is, in itself, an asset, as it means the WooCommerce community stands ready to help you with solutions to technical issues. Likewise, the community is continuously developing new features and add-ons to extend the functionality reach of the product.
Pros
Free to download and use
Lots of extensions and themes available, both in-house and third-party
Software is open-source, making it endlessly customizable
Scalable to accommodate your online store’s growth
Huge WooCommerce community stands ready to help you
The Drawbacks Of WooCommerce
While WooCommerce is designed to be usable even if you’re not a tech whiz, it’s not as easy to use as some competitors and can be challenging to learn. Expect to face some degree of difficulty as you tackle the learning curve. Thankfully, WordPress has a collection of tutorial videos available to walk you through setting up your store.
Another thing to keep in mind is that WooCommerce’s active customer support is quite limited. You can submit a web ticket to WooCommerce, though it may take a full day to get an answer, and you may need to disable your third-party extensions before the company can help you. Thankfully, you can always turn to the extensive WooCommerce community for assistance.
Lastly, though the core product is free, you may end up spending more than you anticipated on feature extensions, particularly if you purchase many of them as monthly subscriptions (some are priced as one-time purchases).
Cons
Steep learning curve
Limited customer support
Paid add-ons are often necessary
Who Should Use WooCommerce?
With WooCommerce being as scalable as it is, the product can easily meet the eCommerce needs of startups and mature businesses alike. Just make sure that you use a web host that can keep up with your bandwidth usage as you grow.
As for the type of business most suited for WooCommerce, the wide variety of extensions, themes, and payment processors available mean that just about any type of merchant can build a great WooCommerce-powered online store. Of course, being a WordPress add-on, it helps if you and/or your team has experience with WordPress. You’ll also be able to more easily extend your store’s functionality if your team has some web development expertise.
If you find WordPress intimidating, or if you just want a simpler eCommerce solution with an easier learning curve, an all-in-one eCommerce solution like Shopify may be more to your tastes. Shopify’s powerful SaaS platform does most of the heavy lifting for you, so those looking for a more straightforward selling platform may prefer it to WooCommerce. Of course, the flip side is WooCommerce’s open-source software gives you more flexibility and control than you’ll ever have with Shopify. So, which platform is best for your business? It all depends on your business priorities and needs.
Check out our WooCommerce VS Shopify article for a deeper look at this comparison.
How To Get Started With WooCommerce
By now, you know that you’ll need WordPress in order to use WooCommerce. WordPress comes in both a self-hosted version available from WordPress.org and a hosted freemium version available from WordPress.com (our WordPress review examines the latter version).
If you’re going to use the self-hosted version of WordPress, keep in mind that when choosing a web host for your online store, you’ll want to choose a host that specializes in WordPress hosting. This way, you’ll have hosting that is optimized for the needs of WordPress along with better technical support. Once you have a WordPress-friendly web host and you’ve bought a domain name, download and install WordPress (it’s free!).
If you’re going to use the hosted WordPress.com service, you won’t need to find a separate host, as hosting is included. You can then buy a domain from WordPress.com or connect any existing domain you already have.
Once you have WordPress, get yourself a WooCommerce-optimized WordPress theme (both free and premium themes are available) and activate WooCommerce. See WooCommerce’s installation guide for detailed instructions as to how to do this.
Once you have WooCommerce activated, you’ll have the option of adding functionality beyond what comes with the free WooCommerce package. From payment gateways to shipping to subscriptions to booking to marketing, you’ll have a seemingly endless array of options to make your online store exactly what you want it to be. Just keep in mind that while some of these feature extensions are free, many require a paid subscription, while some third-party add-ons are available for a one-time payment. Check out our article on the top WooCommerce add-ons to see some of the best extension options available.
The Bottom Line
If you want an online store that is truly yours — one that is entirely under your control and which you can customize to the nth degree — a WooCommerce-powered website is hard to beat. If your business is prepared to take on the challenge, WooCommerce’s offerings will empower you to create the eCommerce empire of your dreams.
To learn more about WooCommerce, head on over to our complete WooCommerce review. If, on the other hand, you don’t see WooCommerce working out for you, have a look at the leading alternatives to WooCommerce.
The post What Is WooCommerce & How Does It Work? appeared first on Merchant Maverick.
For some people, knowledge of Human Resources begins and ends with Michael Scott’s relentless feud with HR-manager Toby during several cringe-worthy (and amusing) episodes of The Office. HR can seem like the prerogative of a bigger company, but not necessarily something a smaller business could benefit from. However, in reality, the role of HR is vast (and commonly misunderstood) and can operate as a bridge between your employees, you, and the practical side of having and managing people.
Wondering whether a Human Resources Manager, a full Human Resources Department, or an outsourced service is the best fit for your business?
Keep on reading to find out what HR is and whether or not your small business could benefit from adding human resources.
What Is HR?
HR, as a department within your business, is the branch of operations that is responsible for managing a company’s human resources (or human capital; or employees). The Human Resources (HR) department streamlines many important facets of your business and becomes an important link between the leadership of a company and its employees. The umbrella term HR covers the various ways employees are led and developed within a business. For that reason, there are numerous avenues of expertise within HR itself or different ways an HR department can function within a small business.
In general, the tasks delegated to HR can include onboarding, hiring/firing, running payroll, managing employment laws and compliance, addressing employee complaints, running employee training programs, and analyzing job duties and descriptions. HR specialists can bring their own pet passions to a company, but in general, the tasks orbit around employee management and growth.
HR VS. HRM
Human Resources (HR) is the department set apart to manage employees and employment; Human Resource Management (HRM) is the approach to how a company manages its employees. Some of those management approaches are related to recruitment, hiring and firing, employee education and training, employment compliance, and maintaining company culture. An HR Management team will work with a company’s human resources (employees and leadership) to implement processes and set goals.
Sometimes the terms are used interchangeably.
What Duties Does HR Fulfill?
From talent acquisition to letting people go, the HR department follows the life-cycle of an employee and works with you as the small business owner to effectively manage your team. An HR professional needs to be knowledgeable about the law but also informed about the specific niche-needs required for your particular business. A person working in HR wears many hats and often becomes a de facto counselor while also juggling compliance, training, and navigating employee relationships. With that in mind, your HR department is the face of your company to a new employee and they should set the tone and display the culture you desire.
Specifically, in the HR job description, your HR department will take the lead on payroll, hiring and firing, employee benefits, employee documentation, compliance, continued training, and helping maintain company culture. The role is a fine balance between paperwork and people–business objectives that don’t often go together.
Payroll
The facilitation of payroll is something a small business owner might be happy to hand over to someone else. Payroll can be a long and convoluted process, especially if you’re currently running payroll without assistance. Opportunities to outsource payroll are expanding as more businesses make their systems available for small businesses at competitive prices, and many of those leaders in payroll are expanding their platforms to include HR and benefits management online.
Online payroll systems like Gusto, SurePayroll, Paycom or Intuit offer cloud-based payroll platforms that streamline the payroll process and can assist with onboarding and maintaining employee records. Companies like Namely, however, not only offer payroll services but delve into a broader spectrum of HR services, too, and work best for small businesses with over 50 employees to manage.
Hiring (& Firing)
The HR department (either a team or a single person) will greet a new hire with a request for quite a bit of paperwork, and it is the department’s responsibility to maintain those documents related to hiring, compliance, and job performance. (Paperwork, however, is slightly anachronistic as most of HR’s tasks have been relegated to the digital world.) The entire life-cycle of an employee belongs to HR: It is HR’s job to help the company with best practices related to recruitment through termination.
In that capacity, an HR department can relieve some of the burden from a small business owner by shouldering the minutiae of managing employees. HR works with company leadership to outline an ideal job candidate, write job descriptions, conduct interviews, follow-up with reference checks, outline performance reviews, and monitor/manage all employee records.
HR can also take on the task of having difficult conversations with employees who are under-performing. In the event that an employee is terminated, HR will set up an exit-strategy for your employees and develop a system: HR can conduct an exit interview, remove the former employee’s access to company communication, and run a final payroll.
Positively, HR manages employee growth and education within a company, including announcing pay increases and bonuses. Companies thrive when there is a clear growth model, and HR can take on the task of creating a uniform growth model and communicating performance requirements to employees.
Employee Benefits
According to the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, a 2018 survey of full-time employees reported that 94% of workers said health insurance was “very important” to them when looking at an employer. Up until recently, some small businesses were shut-out from opportunities to offer affordable health care or retirement.
Setting up benefits, communicating those benefits to employees, answering questions about benefits, and monitoring open-enrollment periods are all functions of HR. Also, HR professionals also have the resources and knowledge to negotiate lower rates to help control benefit costs.
Documentation
Paperwork: Infinitely tedious but monumentally important to your business. Ensuring proper documentation is a crucial component of mitigating risk and protecting both your business and your employees. An HR department will manage and facilitate documentation on the following issues:
Employee training/certifications
Paperwork required for hiring
Job performance reviews that lead to a promotion/demotion
All discipline related to an employee
Harassment and discrimination complaints
Failure to document might leave your business in a fragile position, and one of HR’s purposes is to guide a business when situations with employees become tenuous. HR can also be a neutral place for employees to feel safe voicing concerns and can advocate for employees who need a go-between them and management.
Compliance
During my tenure as a public school teacher, I routinely spent warm August nights renewing my first aid and CPR certifications. It is a legal requirement that schools must maintain a certain ratio of adults with certifications to students in the building, and it is HR’s responsibility to have those numbers and photocopies of first aid cards in case they are needed. Every few years, I’d get nudged to renew my qualifications.
When it comes to HR and compliance, an HR manager’s job is to guard your company against employment/compliance lawsuits. Risk management is a huge part of the HR job description, so hiring someone with specific knowledge of your industry is important.
Company Culture
In recent years, company culture has become an important part of managing employees.
Company culture conveys not only your company’s personality, but also its fundamental value-system. More than ever, prospective employees are interested in a company’s values as a prerequisite before applying. People want to work where they will feel valued, supported, and understood, and it is your cultural environment that sets the foundation for your employees to feel that value, support, and understanding.
HR may be the first face of your company to new recruits and interviewees, and so it’s vitally important for HR to have a strong sense of the company culture you wish to convey. What does that look like? As a small business owner, you choose the culture of your company. So, hire someone who is well-equipped to assess your employee’s skills and know the needs within the company. HR needs to understand the small nuances within your business and must employee messaging that consistently conveys company culture.
Does Your Small Business Need HR?
All small businesses could benefit from some type of HR platform or person to help assist with the more tedious aspects of employment (payroll, documentation, compliance). Do you need an in-house HR manager? Maybe not yet. But the good news is that we are entering a golden age for cloud-based/remote assistance for small businesses in areas that were traditionally closed to smaller companies.
As companies grow, it’s important to know when it might be time to devote more attention/resources to HR. Think of the amount of time you spend on clerical documentation of employees or payroll; think about how confident you are in your knowledge of employment law; contemplate the systems in place for employee complaints– are you leaving areas of your business open to employment liabilities? Does new-hire paperwork take up a significant portion of your time?
HR professionals are equipped to navigate these facets of employment, but whether or not you need to hire in-house or outsource is up to you. If you still aren’t certain if you need HR at all, reflect upon some of the key functions of this department and see if they fit with your needs:
Streamlines the hiring process and takes over new-hire documentation
Runs payroll and manages benefits
Assists with employee retention and satisfaction
Manages employment law compliance
Writes and updates the employee handbook
Organizes training
Resolves employee conflicts and can mediate human resource difficultiesÂ
How To Choose The Right HR Option For Your Small Business
How much HR will your business really use? With one or two employees, simple payroll needs, and low turnover, you may find you’re not ready to invest in outsourcing or hiring when you can DIY. But companies that can afford to outsource the administrative tasks of HR should consider looking at the options available. In recent years, some old names in HR have developed new online platforms to assist businesses with every aspect of HR. Some of the bigger names like Namely are only available for companies with 50 or more employees; however, many other options, like Trinet, serve small businesses of all sizes.
Three HR options available for small businesses are:
1. The Startup Mindset: Handle HR Yourself
It may be a cliche that small business owners have an excess amount of drive and energy, but the evidence seems to support the image. When a business is starting, every saved penny is necessary to put back into the company, and those early months need all the stretching they can get. Simply put: If you can do it yourself, then you just do it yourself. With tight margins and an unclear path for the future, some business owners need a lot of convincing to pay someone to do tasks that they are capable of doing themselves. And it can be done.
Free accounting programs can assist with payroll and you can make yourself available to talk with employees. You can download or pay once for the creation of an employee handbook, and with time and creativity you could provide employee training. If you feel comfortable with employment law and know that you have the time and emotional resources to be a neutral advocate for your employees, then by all means, handle HR yourself.
2. Hire An In-House HR Manager
There are some businesses that are well-suited to have an in-house HR manager vs. heading the digital outsourcing route. Does working with employees require a significant amount of face-time? Do you hire/fire several times throughout the year? If you said yes to either of those questions, you might need to hire an in-house HR manager. People who work in HR are trained in a variety of different methods regarding the best practices for employee retention and keeping morale high, so you will want to find a good match. (Two different views about how to manage people or what to value in an employee could get complicated. Explore what types of HR methodologies match your business style before you set out to hire someone.)
Also, there is the possibility of hiring an in-house HR manager and then equipping that person with the ability to outsource some of their duties to a Professional Employer Organized (PEO) or Human Resources Management (HRM) company.
3. Outsource Your HR
There are also options to fully outsource your entire HR department to a PEO or an HRM. Employees and business owners alike might find that it’s easiest to streamline aspects of the employee life-cycle using online software. This automated system usually comes with a fee per employee, and offers in-software functions that cover many HR requirements. The best software includes easy employee log-in and navigation, mobile access, payroll, time and attendance platforms, expense tracking, benefits administration assistance, access to training modules, and a customer rep to call directly in the event of a question or concern.
Most of the savvy HRM platforms are designed to look like social media platforms and operate as a place to connect socially as well as send out important employee announcements. As the need increases, integrations grow and the software pivots to respond to client demand; and in that regard, outsourcing is a sure-fire way to stay on top of HR trends.
Final Thoughts On Human Resources
Maybe in the next reboot of The Office everyone works remotely and HR is a robot. That might have seemed like a left-field prediction a few months ago, but now, who knows? If you are spending an exorbitant amount of time on HR administrative tasks, it is highly likely that an HR professional (either in-person or via the cloud) is an important step to grow your business and give your brain a rest. While outsourcing costs can vary between platforms, the mid-line options are less expensive than hiring a full-time HR manager.
Above all, whether you hire in-house or outsource, the HR platform you implement should reflect your business values and make your day-to-day management of employees easier and more streamlined. For growing businesses with a handful of new hires a year, the benefits (and protection) outweigh the costs.
The post Small Business HR: What Is HR & How To Manage Your Business’s Human Resources appeared first on Merchant Maverick.
There are many ways to build a successful business. Some business models involve selling lots of items each marked at a lower price, while others work by selling fewer things at a higher cost. With either path, the financial resources of your customers will come into play. You might soon realize that not everyone can afford the more expensive things you sell; similarly, not everyone has the resources or desire to buy a lot of small items in one purchase. Is there a way to solve this problem and increase your sales without cutting your prices?
Of course there is. In fact, there are many ways. One way is to advertise, so that a larger number of potential customers are brought to your door. Statistically, you should make more sales. Another way is to offer financing to your customers. Financing allows those who are wavering on a purchase because of the price to buy from you right away and then pay for the goods/services in installments in the future. This way, you don’t lose a sale to sticker shock. This is called customer financing or, sometimes, consumer financing.
Broadly speaking, you can provide customer financing yourself, or you can use a third-party financing specialist. As to how to do either, along with their pluses and minuses, read on to find out.
How Does Customer Financing Programs Work?
By customer financing, we mean any sort of buy-now-pay-later arrangement. Typically, the customer will have to pay a portion of the total cost before the goods/services are released. This sort of financing is usually a business-to-customer (B2C) arrangement instead of a business-to-business (B2B) arrangement.
If you want to offer customer financing, you can either provide that service in-house or you can work with a third party. We’ll discuss each option in more detail below.
In-House Customer Financing
By in-house financing, we mean that you, the merchant, take all the financial risk — and possibly reap all the financial rewards — when letting a customer walk away with your merchandise (or receive the benefit of your services) before you’ve collected in full. If you wish to consider this avenue, there are some items you might want to think through first.
Cash Flow
If you wish to tackle in-house customer financing, you’ll need to consider your business’s finances first. Understand your cash flow and maybe do some financial projections.
Know that when you actually start to finance your customer’s purchases, you’ll have a period of reduced income because you’re not receiving the full payment for the goods or services you sell. At the same time, your customers might be making a greater number of purchases, so you would need to pay out to replenish your inventory. You’ll need to make sure that you have enough money to run the day-to-day operations of your business while you wait for the installment payments to come in and become a regular part of your cash flow.
If you are right and your customers start to buy more than before because they can now finance their purchases, then your cash flow should eventually increase after an initial dip.
Legal Risk
When it comes to lending money and charging interest, both state and federal usury and debt collection laws may apply. If you fail to follow them, you might have to pay fines or be subject to other penalties.
When you provide financing to your customers, you might want to charge interest on the loan. If that is the case, be sure to check your state’s usury laws that govern, among other things, the highest interest rate you can charge. To complicate matters, if you sell online and a customer is in another state, you might be subject to that other state’s usury laws as well.
If your customer defaults on a loan, you might wish to collect that debt. Unfortunately, what you can and cannot do are also governed by federal and state laws. The laws typically restrict you on the amount you can collect per type of asset and how you are allowed to collect it. Again, the laws differ by state, so this can get fairly complicated fairly quickly. (Here’s an article from the consumer’s standpoint.)
If you wish to start an in-house consumer financing operation, be sure to talk to a lawyer specializing in this area first. They can help you design a set of best practices that are best suited for your type of business — and that stay within legal limits.
Operational Considerations
If you decide to start your own financing department, you’d probably have to hire new people. For instance, for every application, you might want to pull a credit report before deciding whether or not to lend. There would be additional paperwork and internal records to keep as the customer pays off the debt. If the customer fails to pay the debt, you would have to have someone to work on the failure to pay in some way, even if it’s just sending the account to a debt collection company.
Additional internal processes will have to be set up to smoothly move a customer through each step, from application to approval to installment invoicing. All this requires additional employee hours. So, whether you hire one person or ten people to handle the financing, you would have to consider these operational changes and expenses before making a final decision.
Bad Debt
Lastly, not every customer will pay off their loan. We covered the legal aspects of debt collection above, but the more important aspect of bad debt is the financial impact on your business’s cash flow. Know how much bad debt your business can absorb without running into cash flow issues before you decide if you wish to move forward.
Third-Party Customer Financing
It’s always nice to be able to keep your hard-earned money, but now that we’ve gone through some of the major considerations for providing customer financing in-house, you might start to see the headaches that are involved as well.
Fortunately, there is an alternative. There are companies specifically set up to do customer financing or just debt collection (if you continue to wish to keep a portion of the work yourself). Some of these companies charge you nothing for sending a customer to them for financing, but others want a fee so that they charge you for sending a customer to them. They will also keep all the fees/interest the customer will pay to obtain financing. In return, they take care of all the legal and operational complications of customer financing for you.
If you continue to be interested in working with a third-party financing company, be sure to understand the details of how the financing company works before signing a contract. Understand your expected sales increase and your expected profit. If you sell low margin items, make sure that these financing charges do not exceed your profit margin. Otherwise, you would have gone through all this trouble for nothing.
Is Consumer Financing A Good Fit For Small Businesses?
Many large businesses provide consumer financing. For instance, you can finance a car purchase through any one of the major car manufacturers. Consumer financing is also available from some chain store home furniture sellers or large electronics stores. These are all large businesses that can afford a separate department–and sometimes even a separate corporate subsidiary–to take care of consumer financing.
But you’re a small business owner. Maybe you have only a handful of employees, and each of them is already busy taking care of other things. You already work twelve-hour days and things are still not done. How do you provide consumer financing when you’re already stretched so thin?
You might want to consider using third-party customer financing companies. This doesn’t preclude you from trying in-house financing in the future, if you pick one with a contract with no early termination penalties. It’s a quick way to get started, and it introduces you to an industry that you can become more familiar with, so you can make a more informed decision in the future.
Below are some pros and cons for your consideration.
Pros To Offering Third-Party Customer Financing
No Need To Increase Staff: The most obvious advantage is that you won’t need to hire more people to run the financing. As a small business owner, you know how difficult it is to find the right person–one who has the knowledge needed as well as the proper “fit” for your business. It might take several tries to ultimately find the right person, but with third-party financing, you won’t need to do that.
No Need To Worry About How The Details Work (e.g. credit checks): There are a lot of things you would have to set up from scratch to start an in-house customer financing operation. You’ll have to have the application forms, know where to run credit checks, figure out how much risk you can take, and give the customer the credit needed to make the purchase. With third-party financing, you won’t have to worry about any of this. You just send the customer to the financing company, and they take care of the rest with their existing workflow.
Legal Compliance:Â As already touched on above, when it comes to lending money, there are a lot of legal issues that could arise. If you’re in the US, then not only would you have to understand federal laws that could affect your operations, you’ll have to understand multiple state laws as well, if you operate an online store. These laws change from time to time, so you can’t set up a process and forget it. It would be easier to let a third-party financing company worry about following the laws. They might still (hopefully only accidentally) violate these laws, but at least if they do, they would be responsible for it. (Be sure the contract clearly states they’re responsible for any legal compliance issues.)
Less Need To Worry About Cash Flow:Â While you might still have to invest more money into your business to have enough inventory for increased sales, you are less likely to have to worry about a healthy cash flow by using a third-party financing company. A lot of these companies will fund you within two to three days of purchase, so you shouldn’t have to worry about cash flow at all.
Cons To Offering Third-Party Customer Financing
The Reputation Of The Financing Company Will Affect Your Own Reputation: A company’s reputation, especially where money is concerned, matters. When you recommend a financing company to your customer, like it or not, you’re guaranteeing that the company is reputable. If this turns out to be incorrect, then the bad reputation rubs off on you too. A business’s reputation is everything, and a bad one will run customers away from you.
Customers With Bad Experiences Might Not Come Back: Even if customers clearly understand that the financing company has nothing to do with your business, a bad experience with the financing company could still prevent them from coming back to you. Their shopping experience is ruined, and it’s highly likely they will subconsciously connect that bad experience with you. It’s not difficult to imagine that they might go elsewhere to shop in the future.
Customers With Bad Experiences Might Blame You: Related to the above, we know that people don’t always notice things that they should. This is why there will always be a portion of the customer base that thinks you and the third-party financing company are one and the same. If anything goes wrong, it’s very likely that they will blame you for the financing company’s mistakes. They might go online to complain, giving you a bad reputation that you don’t deserve.
You Must Share Revenue:Â Naturally, these third-party financing companies can’t provide their services for free. In fact, in addition to keeping the interest and fees paid by the consumer for the loan, many will want you to pay them for their services as well. Maybe your margins are high and you don’t mind, but if you do mind, then you’ll need to pick the financing company carefully.
Possible Long-Term Contract: Some third-party financing companies will require you to sign a long-term contract. As with all contracts, you’ll need to look at the possible penalties if you need to get out of the contract early. One contract we reviewed when researching for this article allows you to cancel but requires a 12-month notice period, which is basically the same as not being able to cancel at will. Make sure you’re not stuck with a company that you won’t want to work with for one reason or another (e.g. bad reputation) for longer than necessary.
How To Offer Financing To Customers: Options For Online & Brick-and-Mortar Businesses
If you have decided to offer financing to your customers, the way you tell your customers that financing is available and invite them to apply will depend on whether you operate a physical store or an online store — or both. It also depends on whether you’ve decided to do this in-house or through a third-party specialist.
If you’ve decided to offer financing in-house, then you can advertise any way you want to, as long as you have the application readily available for an interested customer to sign up. However, if you’ve decided to go with a third-party provider, then there are several ways to deliver information about the financing offer and payment options.
Online Customer Financing
For webstores, customer financing is often offered at checkout. The customer sees a financing button, along with other payment choices such as credit or debit cards. If the customer clicks the financing button, they must respond to a few questions. A “soft” credit check is performed. With some companies (e.g. Affirm, Afterpay), a decision to lend is made based on the soft check. With other companies (e.g. Square), a hard credit check is eventually required. (If you’re curious, this article explains the difference between soft and hard credit checks.)
After this, the customer is presented with a choice of how they want to finance the purchase–i.e. how many installments, how much per installment, and interest or other fees. Once the customer makes a pick, the online merchant is paid by the financing company, typically within a day or two after shipping.
As to the rest of online financing, a merchant is often supplied with banners and buttons that they can place on their website to announce that financing is available.
In-Store Customer Financing
If you run a physical store, then customer financing is done a little differently, though you’ll still need a connection to the internet just like online financing.
There are several ways a customer at a physical store can apply for financing. One financing company offers free-standing kiosks that customers can use to apply. Tablets can also be loaded with financing application software for the store clerk to hand to the customer. Yet others simply have the store clerk ask a few questions of the customer at checkout and enter that information online. Lastly, a customer can apply for some specific amount beforehand, the financing company can issue the customer a single-use virtual card, and the card number can be keyed in by the merchant just like any keyed-in credit card charge.
How Much Does It Cost To Offer Customer Financing?
The cost to offer customer financing runs the gamut, from free to something similar to the swipe of a credit card. It’s not always easy to find this cost on the provider’s website, however. (It’s much easier to find out how much the customer will be charged for taking the financing offer.) Very often, the company simply does not disclose the charges to the merchant but instead tries to sell their services as a way to increase sales. You can only find out the cost after you contact them.
Ten Customer Financing Programs For Small Businesses
For this article, we did a quick survey of the companies currently providing customer financing services for small to mid-sized businesses. We briefly discuss the companies we found below, but we haven’t reviewed most of them, so please be aware that we pass no definitive judgment about the quality of service each provides. We hope to have some reviews for you in the future.
In looking through these companies, we find that they can generally be categorized into three groups. The first group contains more traditional financing companies. Financing applications may take a day or two to process and be approved. A second group includes the so-called fintech companies–they have their origins in the tech startup world, and they’re here to “move fast and break things.” These companies tend to do a soft credit pull and then give you a loan within seconds. These loans tend to be of a smaller amount and they typically must be paid back within a year. Some of them are fee-based and do not charge interest. The third group seems to be a hybrid, featuring some characteristics of both the traditional and the fintech companies. They also do a soft credit pull and sometimes can offer you a loan for a very small amount very quickly. Typically, larger loans are also available with these companies.
Grouping the vendors we found below into the three categories above, we have:
With some of these companies, it was hard to find merchant-related information–i.e. sign up cost, processing fee, contract terms, etc. These companies tend to try to sell their services by touting how much more a merchant can sell if the customer had the ability to buy more. Signing up with them might mean that you never get to see any income from the financing side. Still, they seem to be worth investigating, so we encourage you to find a few that you might be interested in and contact them for details.
Lastly, if you look at the way these companies work–especially the fintech companies–you’ll see that there’s a strong potential that they might replace the entire merchant processing side of the credit card industry. If you look carefully about the nature of the credit approvals, loan amounts, and repayment terms, you’ll see that they work like charge cards, where each charge is judged separately based on the person’s current debt load and creditworthiness. It’s very similar to the American Express model. From a merchant’s standpoint, it might be a good idea to understand how these financing companies work, in case they do replace some credit card company functions in the future.
With the above in mind, here are some of the customer service companies we found that you might wish to look into further.
Flexxbuy
Flexxbuy seems to fall into the more traditional side of the consumer lending business. It has a relationship with over 20 lenders in its backend and can quickly set a customer up with the right lender, depending on the customer’s credit score.
With Flexxbuy, the customer can get a loan of up to $50,000. The website isn’t quite clear, but the wording in various places suggests that smaller loans might be approved instantly, but the larger ones can take up to 48 hours. There is a formal application to be submitted by the merchant. The customer doesn’t have to pay a penalty for pre-payment, and loan payback can be from 12 months to a few years.
Flexxbuy says the cost to the merchant is “customized,” and, since they work with several lenders, this probably just means that the cost varies depending on the lender. To sign up with Flexxbuy, there is an enrollment/setup fee for the merchant.
LendPro
LendPro, like Flexxbuy, seems to fall towards the traditional lender side of the industry. They claim that they have lending relationships with more than two dozen lenders on the backend to provide financing for a wide range of amounts and for all types of credit scores.
When a customer finances through LendPro, the lending relationship is directly between the customer and LendPro. LendPro can integrate their financing application software with your website, so customers can see their financing options at checkout and file an application if they are inclined. They also have physical kiosks for physical stores, where a customer can apply for credit in person. A merchant can also buy a tablet and install LendPro’s software on it and then hand the tablet to the customer to apply for financing.
There are no other disclosures about how a contract with LendPro would work or how much they would charge the merchant per transaction.
Snap Financing
Snap Financing calls itself a “lease to own” company. This means that, as a merchant, you might be sending your merchandise out to consumers, but you still own the item until the lease term is up. Then, the consumer can either buy the item outright or return it to you.
Lease-to-own arrangements are typically used for large furniture, appliances, electronics, and computers. If the goods are damaged during the lease, they still belong to you. (Presumably, you can deduct the damage from the price.) With Snap Financing, you’re working with a somewhat traditional business model. While it’s not clear on the website, it seems from the nature of the business model that the merchant still owns the sales contract. If the customer defaults on the (unsecured and high-interest) loan, then the matter is between Snap and the customer.
Snap funds your business within 2-3 days once the leased goods are delivered, so you are fully paid.
Affirm
Affirm falls squarely within the fintech label, and it has the pedigree to prove it. The company was founded by Max Levchin, who was one of the founders of PayPal. Even now, it’s still taking money from venture capital firms, with the latest round of funding raising $300 million USD.
Affirm’s website is geared more towards the consumer than the merchant, so there are not a lot of details on how (or if) they charge the merchant to process a customer’s loan. On its backend, Affirm’s loans are financed by two banks: Cross River Bank and Celtic Bank.
The Affirm financing application can be integrated into various eCommerce shopping platforms and be shown to a customer at checkout as a push-button option. When a consumer applies, Affirm performs only a soft credit pull and then makes a decision to lend based on that pull. There’s no stated loan limit. If the purchase is made from an online store, then the payment can be applied at checkout. If the payment is at a store that’s not affiliated with Affirm, then Affirm issues the customer a single-use virtual card that can be used like a credit card.
Afterpay
Afterpay is yet another fintech company. It has a business model that looks very similar to that of Affirm, and it is also funded by venture capital investors. While Affirm seems to focus on providing financing for goods and services that cost a bit more, Afterpay seems to be focused on things that cost a little less.
Afterpay discloses a little more on their website on how they work with merchants. When the merchant makes a sale, the purchase is made between the merchant and the buyer. But the merchant immediately assigns the purchase contract to Afterpay so that Afterpay has the right to recoup nonpayment. After that, the merchant is still responsible for taking care of complaints and returns, but any questions on payments belong to Afterpay.
Afterpay’s services integrate with many existing online shopping carts. Consumers are presented with Afterpay as a payment choice at checkout, and they can apply for credit that way.
Afterpay checks the consumer’s credit with a soft credit pull and, once approved, the consumer is presented with several installment payment options and can see fees and the payment amount for each. The consumer picks whichever option that appeals to them. They can be charged a late fee, but there’s no interest or service fee on the amount borrowed, and of course, the customer can prepay or fully pay before the payment is due.
To borrow from Afterpay, the consumer will have to have an Afterpay account. A credit or debit card must be linked to the account, so Afterpay can automatically withdraw the installment payment from the account. (Which begs the question: why not just use the credit card instead?)
ViaBill
ViaBill is a European fintech startup. Merchants in Denmark, Norway, and the US can sign up with ViaBill.
Like Affirm, ViaBill focuses on bigger ticket items. They offer easy integration with online shopping platforms, easy and fast approvals, and installment payments linked to the debit or credit card used to set up the consumer’s account. The payment is broken into four installments, with the first installment due immediately at checkout. Afterward, ViaBill assumes the risk of fraud and credit risk. If the customer fails to pay, they are charged a late fee (but no “penalty fee”), and ViaBill handles everything related to non-payment/collections.
For merchants, ViaBill charges 2.90% + $0.30 per transaction, which is comparable to some credit card processing charges. After the goods are shipped, the merchant assigns the right to receive payments to ViaBill, but ViaBill may assign the right back to the merchant to deal with chargebacks, disputes, item returns, and some other conditions.
When a merchant signs with ViaBill, the contract can be terminated by ViaBill at any time for any reason or no reason, while the merchant can only cancel for any reason or no reason in the first three months. Thereafter, the merchant must give ViaBill 12-months notice before the contract can be canceled.
There is a setup fee to connect up to ViaBill. They fund the purchase five days after shipping. Be aware that if you sign with ViaBill, they don’t want you to work with any other consumer financing provider unless you both agree in writing that you can.
Vyze
Vyze is a fintech startup that began in 2008. It was acquired by Mastercard in 2019, so if you sign up with them, you at least know that they are backed by a reputable business. Vyze doesn’t seem to be doing anything too different from the other fintech startups, however, so there might not be any other specific benefits to working with Vyze.
Like other fintech companies, it seems Vyze only does a soft credit pull; consumers can apply with just a few quick personal details. A customer can apply online, or if at the checkout of a physical store, apply from the store’s tablet loaded with Vyze’s app.
Once Vyze has the customer’s credit information, the software queries a first lender for approval. If the first lender rejects the application, then the software automatically pings a second lender in the queue, and then a third, and so on until one lender approves the financing.
Vyze’s website does not have much information for the merchant, so it’s difficult to tell if/how much they charge you for each customer you bring them, how they would handle returns or chargebacks, or any other details of a merchant’s contract with them.
VIP Financing Solutions
VIP Financing Solutions has an interesting business model. It seems to be a credit card processor that also does consumer financing (or vice versa). You can get Clover POS stations from them (it’s unclear if they sell or lease them, so be careful). They also have multiple lenders in the backend to support their financing activities.
No matter what you do with VIP, whether it’s credit card processing or customer financing, you’re charged the same rate: a 3.0% “Merchant Fee.” The website also claims that you’re not charged a credit card processing fee, but that 3% seems to cover more than enough of the usual fees associated with credit card processing. Once the charge is cleared, you are funded within 48 hours.
As to financing, VIP offers three types of financing:
A Store-Branded Credit Card:Â The shopper can be instantly approved and walk out with a card, which basically is a revolving line of credit specific to your business.
A No-Credit-Check Loan: The amount can be between $500-$35,000. The repayment is divided into four installments, to be paid within a short period of time.
A Traditional Personal Loan: Approval can take a few days, with repayment plans of up to 60 months.
We couldn’t find a merchant contract on VIP’s site, so we don’t know other details about how VIP works with its merchants.
PayPal Credit
If you are already a PayPal merchant, then you can offer consumer financing through PayPal Credit. Just activate the service as a form of permissible payment. Then you can advertise that the service is available by adding promotional banners already prepared by PayPal to your website.
When a customer uses PayPal Credit, the merchant is paid upfront (i.e. no need to wait for the customer to completely pay back the loan to PayPal). PayPal does not disclose how much it charges per transaction, but it also doesn’t say that the cost would be different from other PayPal transaction charges. So, each transaction likely costs the same as other PayPal payment transactions.
From the consumer’s standpoint, PayPal Credit is a loan between PayPal and the consumer. Once PayPal’s underwriter approves the loan, the consumer has to make minimum monthly payments. For purchases over $99, as long as the consumer pays the loan back within six months, there’s no interest on the loan. However, if the loan is not paid back completely within six months, interest is charged from the date of purchase.
PayPal will pull a soft credit check before approving a loan. The minimum starting credit is $250, and this might be increased from time to time. You can use the money in PayPal Credit to send to family and friends, just like sending cash. And, just like sending cash, you pay 2.9% + $0.30 per this person-to-person transaction.
The service is available to US consumers only.
Square Installments
As with PayPal Credit, if you’re already a Square merchant, you can use Square Installments. Square Installments can be used from the point-of-sale or from your virtual terminal, and they cost 3.5% per transaction. You can also integrate Square Installments into your electronic invoice, and that service costs 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.
For a merchant to sign up, navigate to your dashboard and look to see if you’re already approved for Installments (approval sometimes depends on industry or location, business type, and/or volume and price of goods sold). If you are, then you’ll have to watch a video and answer a few questions to make sure you understand the terms of service. That’s all you need to do. You can cancel the program at any time. There’s no added integration needed, and Square can provide all the buttons and banners you need to advertise online to your customers that the service is available.
For your customers to apply for financing, they follow a link customized for your business and then enter their information. They will quickly get an offer after a soft credit pull, and the offer will include various monthly plans and total fees. Square pulls a full credit check if the customer elects to go forward with financing. Square Installments are used for purchases of $150 and up and the repayment terms are for up to 12 months.
For physical stores, Square Installments can be used with a digital card, which can be keyed in like any other purchase. The merchant is paid right away, and if the customer misses a payment, it doesn’t affect the merchant.
Here’s a more detailed article about Square Installments, if you’re interested in learning more.
Should I Offer Third-Party Financing For My Customers?
There are a lot of data-based arguments out there that suggest that making financing available to your customers translates to more sales. As a small business owner, the easiest way to do this is to go through a third-party financing company so that you won’t have to deal with the paperwork, the possible cash flow issues, the legal aspects of lending, and the defaults when a customer refuses to pay.
Third-party lenders aren’t willing to do all this for free, of course. Some will charge you a fee, and it’s important to understand how this fee works. It’s also important to think through other issues, such as how chargebacks and returns will be handled. Of the companies we surveyed above, many do not disclose much about how they work with the merchant at all. If you decide that you’re interested in working with one of these companies and contact them, be sure to ask questions such as:
Do they charge you for sending a customer to apply for financing?
Do you get a finder’s fee for sending customers?
How do they deal with merchandise returns? Are you required to accept a return, or can you simply refuse? Do you have to return the money to the customer? Or is that handled between the financing company and the customer? And if so, will the merchant have to return the money to the financing company?
How do they deal with disputes/chargebacks? What about fraud, such as a customer claiming that you didn’t ship a product when you actually did?
How do they deal with defaults? Some companies assign defaults back to you and you’d have to deal with that, so that seems to create more headaches for you.
Who handles customer service? If this is divided between the merchant and the financing company, how do you share the responsibility?
How quickly are you funded, and at which point in the process does a sale count as a sale?
You might have more questions, so be sure to write them down before you contact a financing company. That way, you won’t accidentally leave out a question.
If you decide that providing customer financing is just not for you, but you still want to explore ideas on how to increase the cash you have at hand to grow your business, be sure to check out some of our lending articles. We have picks for the best small business loans, advice on how to get a line of credit, and even information on startup grants. You might also want to consider invoice factoring or invoice financing.
Lastly, if you have had any experience with any of the providers above or want us to do a detailed review of a specific provider, do let us know by leaving a note below.
The post The Complete Guide To Customer Financing For Small Businesses appeared first on Merchant Maverick.
Business owners looking for funding sources are likely to converge on two options: business credit cards and business loans/lines of credit. In this article, we’re going to be comparing these two common sources of business financing and letting you know the circumstances that call for utilizing them.
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If you’ve arrived at this post because your business has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve got resources on business lending for you. Check out our full Coronovirus hub for small businesses, but start by reading What SBA Disaster Loans Are & How To Qualify For One and Small Business Loan Resources & Guides for Businesses Affected By The Coronavirus.
Credit Cards VS Business Loans: A Quick Comparison
There are some fairly obvious differences between business credit cards and business loans (total funding amount, revolving line of credit vs. a one-time lump sum of cash, etc) as well as some less obvious ones. Let’s examine the situations that call for using a business credit card vs. applying for a business loan or line of credit.
When To Use A Business Card
Let’s list the circumstances that favor the use of a business credit card over a business loan.
1) You Need Financing For Common Ongoing Expenses
Given the fact that a) you can usually get funding more quickly with a business credit card and b) the funding you can access via a business credit card is significantly less than what you can access with a loan, a business credit card is a better way to get working capital for everyday business expenses.
Because a credit card provides you with a revolving line of credit, you won’t be borrowing more than you need — and you won’t be paying interest on money you don’t need.
2) You Want To Pay 0% Interest (for a while)
Many business credit card issuers offer an introductory 0% APR period with their credit cards. The 0% APR period typically lasts 9-12 months, but you can find offers that extend this period to 18-21 months in certain instances.
This is especially useful for business owners who intend to make some significant purchases in the short term. Credit cards offering a significant 0% APR period can end up saving you lots of money on interest payments.
3) You Want To Build Up Your Business Credit
One helpful feature of just about every business credit card is the fact that they report your card activity to the three major business credit bureaus (Dun & Bradstreet, Equifax Small Business, and Experian Business). If you make your payments in a timely manner and maintain best practices with your credit utilization ratio — that is, the amount of credit you’re currently using divided by the total amount of credit you have available — using a business credit card can help build up your business credit.
Of course, there’s a flip side to this. If you don’t make a payment as required — or if you utilize a greater proportion of your credit than the credit bureaus like (less than 30% is generally considered good) — use of a business credit card can actually hurt your business credit, so be careful and don’t spend more than you can afford to pay down.
4) You Want To Earn Rewards/Cash Back For Your Spending
Most business credit cards are designed to have you earn rewards or cash back when you use the card to make purchases. You may even be able to find a card that targets its highest reward-earning at the purchase categories your business uses most.
If you’ve decided to get a business credit card, pay particular attention to the rewards scheme offered by the card issuer. This way, you can get the card that gives you the most value back in the form of reward points or cash back.
We’ve compiled a list of the best rewards credit cards for small businesses.
5) You Want Help Tracking Your Business Expenses
With most business credit cards, you’ll get a monthly billing statement that details your transactions for the month. Many of these cards also allow you to link to accounting software, giving you another way to track your business expenses in real-time.
When To Use A Small Business Loan
Now, let’s get into the circumstances that call for the use of a business loan or line of credit.
1) You Want To Finance A Large Expense (Up To $2 Million)
While credit cards are useful for financing smaller purchases, if you want to finance expenses worth up to $2 million (you can even get up to $5 million with an SBA loan, though those are difficult to qualify for), you’ll want to apply for a small business loan.
A loan will likely be needed if you’re looking to expand your business in a significant way.
2) You Want To Minimize Your Interest Payments On The Money You Borrow
When comparing business loans to business credit cards, it’s important to note that, all else being equal, you can get a lower interest rate with a loan or line of credit than you can with a business credit card.
With an online lender, a business with a good credit score and healthy business metrics can get a loan with an APR starting around 6% — or a line of credit with an APR around 8% — which is a significantly lower APR than what you’ll be offered with even the most basic business credit card.
3) You Want To Repay What You Borrow Over A Longer Stretch Of Time
Online lenders often offer loans with term lengths of up to 7 years. SBA loans can even carry term lengths of up to 25 years. Suffice to say, if you want to borrow a significant sum of money and you’re looking to spread out repayment over a significant length of time, a business loan is the way to go.
A Word Of Caution Regarding Business Loans
When comparing business loans with business credit cards, it’s important to note that requirements to qualify for a business loan are more stringent than the requirements to qualify for a business credit card. You’ll likely need to provide collateral, and for large loans, you might need to make a significant downpayment.
Another factor to consider: You can get funding more quickly with a business credit card than you can with a business loan/line of credit. You might be waiting a few weeks or longer for funding from a business lender. If you apply successfully for a business credit card, you should be able to get funded within a week.
That said, there are options for quick business loans if you apply online.
Which Is Right For Your Small Business?
In conclusion, when deciding between applying for a business credit card or a business loan to cover the cost of your business expenses, it’s important to consider your particular business situation and funding needs.
If you need more than $50K in funding and you have the ability to qualify for a loan — and are able to provide collateral and a downpayment — you should definitely start researching business lenders.
If you need less than $50K, you want to borrow money at 0% interest in the short term, or you want to earn rewards for your purchases on a continuous basis, you’ll want to apply for a business credit card. However, if you only need a small amount to keep you going and don’t want to mess with a credit card, there are options for $5,000 loans and $10,000 loans.
Next Steps
If A Credit Card Is The Right Choice For Your Business…
If you’ve decided to apply for a business credit card, here are some resources to help you in your search:
How To Get A Business Credit Card: The Step-By-Step Guide
The Best Business Credit Cards For 2020
Business Credit Cards For People With Bad Credit
If A Small Business Loan Is The Way To Go…
If a small business loan is what you need, check out the following links to help guide your search:
How To Get A Small Business Loan: The Step-By-Step Guide
Types Of Small Business Loans: 12 Types You Should Know
Best Small Business Loans For 2020: Our Top 10 Picks
Again, if you’ve arrived at this post because your business has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve got resources on business lending for you. Check out our full Coronovirus hub for small businesses, but start by reading What SBA Disaster Loans Are & How To Qualify For One.
The post Need Small Business Funding? When You Should Get A Business Credit Card VS A Small Business Loan appeared first on Merchant Maverick.
The world has turned upside down. (As a Broadway fan, I have the Hamilton version of that line running through my head on repeat these days.) Small businesses all over the nation find themselves in a rapidly changing climate and making decisions based on state requirements needed to combat the spread of the coronavirus. Small businesses in the time of COVID-19 are faced with brutal choices and will need to employ creative solutions as the pandemic changes the landscape of our lives.
If you have a service that meets the needs of your community during the pandemic, getting information out to potential customers is a necessity. People right now want to help small businesses thrive, and they are looking for ways to spend their money conscientiously. What are some ways to navigate the balance of marketing a product during difficult times?
Before we look at marketing, it’s important to look at your business: Right now, more than ever, it’s crucial to understand what is an essential business and what is not. I just watched in real-time the complete viral annihilation of an owner’s decision to keep her consignment mall open because she deemed her store and all the vendors paying rent in her store (and all their employees) as “essential business.” (She, herself, was self-isolating in a different state. And three hours after her initial post, she changed her mind.) People are dying — if anyone susses out that you are here for profit/being greedy/to exploit a tragedy — I guarantee the karma (Facebook’s comment section) is swift.
Merchant Maverick’s COVID-19 hub has many resources to weather the storm, but if in doubt — sit it out.
And if your business has a role here as we move forward, then keep on reading, and we’ll explore the best practices together.
The Best Marketing Channels For Small Businesses
Parts of the nation are on full shelter-in-place orders, and others may soon follow. That means that millions of workers and their children are home, in their family rooms, most definitely on their computers or phones, with near-constant access to the internet. We are lucky to live in a digital world that can adapt to the needs of consumers during this pandemic — and the digital world is where you are going to access your potential customers.
Email Lists
Building a newsletter is an essential part of doing business. Why? Because when you have access to someone’s email, you have direct access to that person. They may not open your newsletter, but when they check their email, they will see your name and your subject hook: It’s the best resource you have. Building a newsletter should be seen as an essential part of doing business.
Social Media
(How can you tell a writer has been a little too self-isolated? I just deleted an attempt to write this section to the tune of Over the Rainbow. I wish I were kidding.) Social media is where you will find your people. Maybe you already have a thriving community on your social media, or perhaps you are building one. Either way, it’s important to think of ways to use various platforms: Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat…maybe in that order, depending on your marketing audience.
Other Options
Direct communication is the best! If you have access to phone numbers, maybe send a quick text update. A skincare business in Portland I have been to once texted to let me know its physical store was closed but is still selling products and gift certificates online. If you have a website, consider blogging about your own experiences. Now is the time, more than ever, to tell your narrative and build a community around your business’s story. Who are you, and how is this pandemic affecting you and yours?
The Ground Rules For Online Marketing
The entire world is really hoping that we can all flatten the curve of this virus and return to normalcy. However, until then, every person and every business needs to make socially responsible choices. That means your business needs to comply with social distancing and follow your governor’s mandates. As with any marketing campaign, be sincere and run your words by many different sets of eyes to ensure your tone is professional and sensitive to the mood of the nation.
If you are asking people to opt-in to your newsletter for freebies/deals, make sure you follow local privacy laws. Also, a good tip is to require only two fields (say: name and email) — any more will cause hesitation, and you might lose the lead.
Build An Email List
One small business owner mentioned that he sent out a newsletter, not to pitch anything, but simply to ask his subscribers how they were doing: How are you? Are you okay? Do you need anything? Small businesses are the bedrock of the community, so first, reach out to your community and see how people are feeling. With self-isolation in full swing across the nation, many people need your words of comfort and offers of help.
You can also use this time to build your list by offering discounts or freebies to people who sign up for your newsletter. (For a gym or yoga studio: If they sign up for your newsletter, maybe they can receive free daily quarantine exercises?)
Create A Social Media Following
There are opportunities to pay for ad campaigns within social media platforms, but it’s important to use your platforms to communicate with your customers and community directly in addition to running ads. People want to help small businesses in their community, but they need to know who is open and how social distancing needs are being met. Use your social media channels to inform and engage.
Keep Your Customers Updated On Changes
I have a local store I love, and I went to all of its social media pages for a COVID-19 update and didn’t find anything. Tell your story and make it easy for people to support you and to know how — put that information far and wide.
If you can still provide curbside or delivery during the pandemic, your business has pivoted and adapted with the changes, or if you are changing your hours or working with a reduced staff, let people know. Use all necessary means to communicate with your customers and encourage people in your community to share your message far and wide.
Use Hashtags & Branding
A hashtag is a way to group your message in with broader messages to attract new followers. As you can imagine, right now, pandemic hashtags are trending along with #stayhome, #stayhomesavelives, and #socialdistancing. Creative hashtags such as #savesmallbusinesses can gain momentum across platforms and will help categorize your information. You can create a hashtag specifically for your business to boost name recognition and your business’s story. Our local used bookstore (and Portland icon), Powell’s, had to shut its doors and lay off the majority of its staff, prompting a #savepowells hashtag to surge and ignite a successful online buying campaign to help keep it afloat.
If you are using your social media consistently to communicate, think about your company’s branding — can someone look at a post and identify your company? What is the overall tone of your company’s message? Keep your social media messages consistent and on-brand. Branding also means you understand your audience and their needs: If you are in a community that is struggling and feeling scared right now, you might want to avoid a tone that feels trite or dismissive of the current news.
5 Marketing Tactics You Can Use To Keep In Touch, Inspire, Motivate & Otherwise Encourage Customers
We are not living in the same world that we were a few months ago. Consumers and attitudes have shifted, thriving businesses have shuttered for the time being, and people have major anxieties. They are scared about the virus, worried about the health of loved ones, scared about their jobs, scared about the overall health of our economy, maybe food insecure or feeling alone, and/or possibly balancing remote work/home school for the first time. Right. So when consumers are dealing with a national emergency, priorities shift. Consider that as you move forward with a marketing campaign.
Marketing is two-fold. Yes, you want to sell the product/service you can offer, but you also want to market your story/your company’s ethos. Here are some marketing tactics that might work well as you look forward.
Promote A Good Cause
Larger corporations have made donations of coffee and sandwiches to health workers, and many smaller businesses are reaching out with offers to donate a percentage of proceeds to nonprofits helping assist communities most impacted by COVID-19. Can you provide free food for kids or the elderly? People want to spend money and know it’s helping small businesses and the people impacted by this emergency: What does your community need, and how can you help?
Run A Contest Or Challenge
Can you drum up some business by offering a contest or challenge to your customers? A game store in Kansas is offering up a $50 gift card to the store to anyone who shows their “19 painted miniatures in 19 days challenge.” A bakery in a suburb of Portland is offering “frost your own cookie kits,” selling them curbside and then highlighting the beautiful cookie art with a hashtag; daily winners via votes get a gift certificate to the store. Take an opportunity to engage your community with an activity or challenge (Bake with Me challenge or Tap with Me challenge; a toy shop near us that sells Legos is running a 30-Day Build-It challenge). All of these things build brand awareness and provide your potential customers with something to engage with.
Use Promo Codes For Online Orders
Are you moving your business online? Or have you already been equipped for online ordering but need to get the word out? Provide a financial incentive to order from you! I ordered some books from a bookstore owner directly over the phone, and she shipped the books free (and they arrived the next day!), and online delivery services are running promotions for free delivery. Entice new customers with a first-time buyer code or offer deep discounts for large orders.
Sponsor A Giveaway
At this point, I’m sure you’ve seen it, too: the toilet paper giveaways. Order a pizza? Get some TP. Drive-thru to our coffee shop? TP while it lasts! If you don’t have 2020’s luxury item on hand to pass out with your product, that’s okay; there are many other things besides toilet paper you can give. This might be an opportunity to team up with a collaborator (another small business in your community) and give away gift certificates to a different business in the neighborhood. If you are a clothing boutique, can you have some fun with quarantine-outfits and sponsor a giveaway of clothes that are perfect to wear at home? This is about what you can offer and how you can help while building your brand and responding to the virus ethically.
Feature Your Customer/Community Stories
This is what speaks straight to my heart: stories. We are all a giant community of humans, and it is local families and local businesses that keep things afloat. Tell your own story but also reach out and see if you can feature other stories, too. Build a community from this isolation, and encourage people to reach out and connect with you and others. Also, feature people who may be asked to work as essential employees — put a name and story to the faces of the people in your business: Let the community know who they are supporting. They are not supporting a business; they are supporting the people behind the business.
The Bottom Line For Online Marketing During A Pandemic
How you face this pandemic can say a lot about your business and your brand. Don’t take the messages you send lightly, and run them through a filter of sensitivity and practicality. But if you have a service you can offer safely to others, yes, communicate that in any way you can to get the word out about how you can help people in your community. Email your list, send a newsletter or a text; be sure to communicate honestly and often, and let people know how they can help you. Have you seen any brilliant or cringe-worthy marketing campaigns related to the pandemic? Share with us in the comments! And stay safe out there.
The post 5 Clever Marketing Tactics For Small Businesses During The Coronavirus Pandemic appeared first on Merchant Maverick.
