During this dreary time of economic recession, many of us are left scratching our heads at what exactly is left for us to do without blowing our budgets. “Fancy meal at a nice restaurant?” Well, one meal is one too many. “Expensive trips abroad?” Not even an option. Singaporeans are relatively notorious for their love of being out and about on the town, whether it’s shopping, fine dining or just being out of the house for a while. However, as the after-effects of the recession loom out at us from the pages of magazines and newspapers alike, it seems that the list of activities Singaporeans are advised to partake in is growing smaller and smaller by the day. Not all hope is lost for the active Singaporean, though! – Here are a few tips for the consumers as well as producers of our nation to keep afloat in such times of bleak worldwide economic recession.
The definition of a “consumer” is basically one that consumes, especially one that acquires goods or services for direct use or ownership. We are all consumers to a certain extent, and we could all use a few tips and tricks to continue living life to the fullest while, at the same time, tightening our belts for the future. One such fool-proof tip to keep your finances under check is to analyse your expenses. Often we find ourselves at a crossroads when it comes to trying to cut out what we deem to be “unnecessary items” from our lifestyle. Do we really need cinnamon-scented soap when the floral version is $2.99 cheaper? Or, is buying the free range chicken really necessary when it is double the price? Sometimes we cannot bring ourselves to cut every single luxury item from our lifestyle, and if you get into the habit of analyzing your expenses, you won’t have to! For example, as a consumer, you can aim to reduce a specific item of expense while keeping the dollar amount of another area of expense the same. By keeping an adequate recordkeeping system, such as jotting down your purchases and expenses in a notebook, the information can be easily referred to whenever necessary and will provide clear figures regarding exactly what you are spending your money on how much you are spending. To further elaborate this concept, many of us consumers are guilty of blowing large sums of money in one place, such as a clothing store, but not cutting back in other areas of our lives. It is a simple pull and push method – Spend more in this place, but as a result you spend less somewhere else. This means that during this period of recession, consumers do not need to drastically change their lifestyles in order to get by. This is a simple way that each and everyone of us can continue to live the way we are accustomed to without compromising too much on any front.
Now, producers, by definition, are basically people who create economic value or produce goods and service. Like consumers, there are various methods which a producer can follow in order to reduce cost in their businesses. Increasing profits through cost reduction is not simply a producer or consumers attempt to slash any and all expenses wherever possible. One must firstly understand the nature of their expenses and how their expenses are inter-related with their sales, inventories, cost of goods sold, gross and net profits.
An effective way to reduce costs in business is to rely less on using large numbers of employees when such advanced technology in this day and age can do the same jobs for much, much cheaper. Research company Gartner Inc. estimates that product returns will cost web merchants $3.2 billion this year alone. "Returns are expensive,” Geri Spieler, research director for Gartner said. “They tax resources and lower profit margins. " However, retailers could drastically reduce these return costs by simply turning to automated web sites to process product returns, Gartner analysts said at the Gartner Spring Symposium/ITxpo 2001 in Denver. "An online order, self-service product inquiry and, if required, automated return data and RMA can reduce the number of returns and the cost of returns up to 73%," said Spieler. "Merchants can reduce the cost of expensive call center calls, order look-ups, data entry, return authorization and second- and third-stage shipping." This basically means that instead of hiring a huge amount of people to work day and night at websites where people can order items from, such websites could experience huge cuts in their costs by switching their systems over to the automatic response concepts, where a machine will be programmed to send out automatic emails whenever the company receives an enquiry from a customer. The company will not only be able to save an astonishing amount of money, thus effectively cutting costs, but the business would run much more efficiently and smoothly. Electronic front-end customer service, which is basically an automatic response system, can also help cut costs by integrating frequently asked questions into specific reason codes which would immediately be sent back to the customer, all done without the need for extra staff devoted to solving such queries . This allows customers to resolve questions and problems in a much shorter period of time, thereby reducing the number of returns.
The definition of a “consumer” is basically one that consumes, especially one that acquires goods or services for direct use or ownership. We are all consumers to a certain extent, and we could all use a few tips and tricks to continue living life to the fullest while, at the same time, tightening our belts for the future. One such fool-proof tip to keep your finances under check is to analyse your expenses. Often we find ourselves at a crossroads when it comes to trying to cut out what we deem to be “unnecessary items” from our lifestyle. Do we really need cinnamon-scented soap when the floral version is $2.99 cheaper? Or, is buying the free range chicken really necessary when it is double the price? Sometimes we cannot bring ourselves to cut every single luxury item from our lifestyle, and if you get into the habit of analyzing your expenses, you won’t have to! For example, as a consumer, you can aim to reduce a specific item of expense while keeping the dollar amount of another area of expense the same. By keeping an adequate recordkeeping system, such as jotting down your purchases and expenses in a notebook, the information can be easily referred to whenever necessary and will provide clear figures regarding exactly what you are spending your money on how much you are spending. To further elaborate this concept, many of us consumers are guilty of blowing large sums of money in one place, such as a clothing store, but not cutting back in other areas of our lives. It is a simple pull and push method – Spend more in this place, but as a result you spend less somewhere else. This means that during this period of recession, consumers do not need to drastically change their lifestyles in order to get by. This is a simple way that each and everyone of us can continue to live the way we are accustomed to without compromising too much on any front.
Now, producers, by definition, are basically people who create economic value or produce goods and service. Like consumers, there are various methods which a producer can follow in order to reduce cost in their businesses. Increasing profits through cost reduction is not simply a producer or consumers attempt to slash any and all expenses wherever possible. One must firstly understand the nature of their expenses and how their expenses are inter-related with their sales, inventories, cost of goods sold, gross and net profits.
An effective way to reduce costs in business is to rely less on using large numbers of employees when such advanced technology in this day and age can do the same jobs for much, much cheaper. Research company Gartner Inc. estimates that product returns will cost web merchants $3.2 billion this year alone. "Returns are expensive,” Geri Spieler, research director for Gartner said. “They tax resources and lower profit margins. " However, retailers could drastically reduce these return costs by simply turning to automated web sites to process product returns, Gartner analysts said at the Gartner Spring Symposium/ITxpo 2001 in Denver. "An online order, self-service product inquiry and, if required, automated return data and RMA can reduce the number of returns and the cost of returns up to 73%," said Spieler. "Merchants can reduce the cost of expensive call center calls, order look-ups, data entry, return authorization and second- and third-stage shipping." This basically means that instead of hiring a huge amount of people to work day and night at websites where people can order items from, such websites could experience huge cuts in their costs by switching their systems over to the automatic response concepts, where a machine will be programmed to send out automatic emails whenever the company receives an enquiry from a customer. The company will not only be able to save an astonishing amount of money, thus effectively cutting costs, but the business would run much more efficiently and smoothly. Electronic front-end customer service, which is basically an automatic response system, can also help cut costs by integrating frequently asked questions into specific reason codes which would immediately be sent back to the customer, all done without the need for extra staff devoted to solving such queries . This allows customers to resolve questions and problems in a much shorter period of time, thereby reducing the number of returns.
SOURCES
I read a book before about the use of automated returns for customer purchasing. I suppose at times small business owners have too much on their hands to be able to learn a new system, so they continue with the "older" methods of employing labour. However, as a customer, you need "personal touch", sometimes it is very reassuring that there is someone to answer you when you send an email, rather than getting an automated message.
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