How to cut operational costs as a high street business

Running a high street business right now isn’t easy with soaring energy costs, lockdown debts to clear and other financial challenges to overcome. 

That’s why now’s the time to start really scrutinising your outgoings and looking for ways to eliminate overspend across the board.

You’d be amazed by how much money you could save by making just a few tweaks here and there to the everyday running of your business. 

Here’s our high street operations specialist, Paul Newell’s, take on how you can start to eliminate overspend in your business:

Paul’s also shared with us some extra top tips for cutting four kinds of specific operational costs you can address right now.

1. Optimise your payroll 

Effective staff scheduling is key to managing one of your largest outgoings and making your business as productive as it can be. 

Planning your staffing in advance each month, for example, is a great way to control costs through hourly/daily spend without impacting your sales.

2. Optimise your stock management

Buying and having the right stock at the right time increases sales and cashflow. But buying in your usual pattern within an ever-changing high street will lead to excess and unseasonal stock filling shelves and quickly devaluing, whilst limiting your ability to invest in new product. 

3. Optimise your pricing strategy 

You’ve got the right product but are you selling it at the right price? 

The biggest mistake retailers make this time of the year is to not reduce their prices for the first week of sales to take advantage of the increased footfall. Too often they put their deepest markdowns in the third week of January when no one is in the stores to buy it. Don’t make that mistake and your pricing strategy could make you thousands. 

4. Optimise your delivery costs 

With online sales dominating more than ever, when was the last time you reviewed your online delivery costs? Customers expect quick, cheap (or even free) deliveries and, to be in line with your competitors, you need to have the best terms you can get to pass that onto your customers and keep them shopping with you. 

We can help you optimise all of the above costs and more on our all-new high street business accelerator where you’ll get specialist help to cut costs and increase sales. 

Find out more about the accelerator here. 

SaveTheHighStreet.org is on your side

We know how difficult it is out there right now but we’re to help in any way we can. 

We can help you to directly cut costs by:

🔥 Securing you the best deal on your energy bills (click to get started)  

🏬 Re-negotiating your lease (click to get started)  

🚀 Working with you on our all-new accelerator (click to find out more)  

JO, our unique online assistant for high street businesses, can also help you to get things done in an affordable way that’ll help stretch and grow your money. 

Head over to JoinJO.com to find out more. 

Have any questions about how we can help you this year and beyond?

Get in touch with us on hello@savethehighstreet.org.