How to Streamline Your Home Based Small Business

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone.
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When I first opened my handmade jewelry store, Bijoux Avenue, I wasn’t sure of what I needed to do to streamline my home business of a one woman show.  Many small business owners are a one woman show, like myself, and run their business from home. Working at home can be challenging, especially when you’re limited on space, time, privacy, and organization.  Over the years, I’ve learned how to make the most with what I have and I’ve finally found a way to streamline my home based small business.  Following these five tips have been a game changer for me, saving me lots of time and frustration, and I hope they can do the same for you.

Have a Designated Work Space
Having a designated work space will not only make your work feel more legit, it will save you time. When all your materials are in one place, you can pick through them much faster.  A designated work space also means you don’t have to waste important space throughout your home.  Working on the kitchen table is doable, but what happens when your project has to get put on hold?  Now there’s extra clutter where it shouldn’t be and you also don’t have a place to eat!
Utilize Social Media Tools
Small businesses rely on exposure and social media is a great tool to interact with customers, share, and promote products.  This can be time consuming when you’re a one woman show, but scheduling tools allow you to designate a specific time slot out of your day to schedule all your social media in advance.  One of my favorite tools is Hootsuite and it’s free.

Make the Most Out of Small Spaces
Maybe you’re working out of a one bedroom apartment and you’re limited on space.  You may not have an extra room for a designated office, but there are still ways to make this work!  You can easily section off a portion of your living room or bedroom for desk space.  As far as storage goes, utilize everything you have!  Dresser drawers, closets, and even under the bed are all great places you can organize and store supplies without interfering with the rest of your home.

Organize Your Inventory
One of the biggest mistakes you can make is not using an inventory tracking system.  Even the smallest of online shops can get tricky when it comes down to inventory.  As soon as you add a few variations of one product, such as  different colors and sizes it will be hard to keep track what’s in stock, especially during busy holiday seasons.  Many online marketplaces and e-commerce hosts have built in inventory systems.  I highly recommend you utilize the system rather than trying to handle it on your own.

Implement a Quick Shipping Routine
Fulfilling orders and prepping them for shipment can be more time consuming than making the actual product. The time spent filling orders will only increase during the busy holiday season.  To make things easier, consider using a fast shipping label printer, such as the DYMO LabelWriter® 450 or the DYMO LabelWriter® 4XL.  The benefit to using this type of printer for shipping labels is it does not use any ink!  It is thermal transferred, meaning you’ll save money by not buying ink in the long run.

Organize Your Supplies
This is especially crucial in the handmade business.  Handmade products typically require many different tools and supplies to create the end product and having them organized will allow you to get the job done much quicker without having to sort through a mass of scraps and pieces.  If you work with fabric or beads for example, a great start would be to organize by color, shape, and size.  If you sell many of the same products repeatedly, it may also be beneficial for you to keep all the supplies needed for that product together in one place.  Labeling supplies allows for easy identification and this can easily be done using the DYMO LabelWriter® 450 Value Bundle Pack.  The bundle is a great deal that comes with a variety of different labels (multi-purpose, appointment cards, shipping labels, and file folder labels) for everyday organization and business use.  It is available at Staples, primarily online, but can also be found in select stores so be sure to check the store locator for one near you! For even faster results, the DYMO LabelWriter® 450 Turbo is a good option to eliminate the hassle of sheet labels, customize labels from your computer, and print up to 71 labels per minute!

I used to spend so much time hand making my own labels to organize all my beads, but that turned out to be inefficient, especially when I had a pile of orders waiting for me.  Instead, I use the DYMO LabelWriter® 450 for all my label making needs and it’s a total game changer!

The DYMO LabelWriter® 450 is very easy to use.  Simply install the DYMO software, then plug the printer into your computer’s USB port.

Place the correct label roll into the printer to ensure you will be printing on the correct size label.

Within the program, select the type of label you want to create, then add your desired text for the label.   You can also save time by printing labels directly from text in Microsoft® Word, then print your label and start organizing.  It’s that easy!

Be sure to go check back every week for Staples Daily Deals for special deals on your favorite DYMO LabelWriter® products including DYMO LabelWriter® 450 Bundle, LabelWriter® 450 Turbo, and LabelWriter® 4XL Turbo.