When selling products online, you don’t need to—and sometimes shouldn’t—do everything yourself. This might be obvious for people who rely on a third party for at least some of their production process. But for those selling handmade products, outsourcing services can free up time and energy. If you’re thinking of hiring a professional to lighten your workload, consider one of the services below to outsource.

Fulfillment and delivery

Unless you only sell to local customers, it’s unlikely you want to handle delivering your products yourself. Even if you do only sell locally, driving around to each customer’s address eats up a lot of your time. Outsourcing services to a courier or carrier company is the solution. Not only does it save you from driving everywhere, but it also broadens your range of customers.

But which carrier is right for your business? You’ll have to research your options to find what makes sense for you. You can stay loyal to a single courier service, or you pick and choose different ones for different jobs. Using international shipping ecommerce software, the latter has become a more popular option. Of course, if you’re selling through a platform like Amazon, it may make sense to choose Amazon’s fulfillment and delivery service. Additional services can be outsourced for services like packaging and warehousing. 

Payment processing

Using a third-party payment processor is generally required if you want to accept card payments or international payments. There are many payment processing services to consider including Shopify Payments, PayPal, Worldpay, Stripe, Checkout.com, and Verifone. It’s worth comparing the fees and available payment methods of each. Some payment processors will even allow you to process cryptocurrencies, which could help you attract unique customers.

Product photography

While you can take your own product photos, it’s not always the best idea. Ask yourself if your photography skills are good enough to showcase your product in the best way. High-quality photos help give your products a level of professional polish that builds customer trust and interest. After all, wouldn’t you hesitate to buy a product if you couldn’t get a clear idea of its quality based on the photos? Some photographers may be able to take more specialised photos including 360 photos or macro photography.

SEO

Many small business owners handle all their own marketing efforts. This might look like designing your website yourself or managing all your social media marketing campaigns. But developing and implementing an effective SEO strategy for your website is a daunting task. There’s a reason many entrepreneurs just starting out have SEO at the top of their list for outsourcing services. Not everyone has the time, patience, or desire to learn how search engines and their algorithms work, do keyword research correctly, and plan and create content to support their strategy. The right professional to help with this task is invaluable. They will ensure your product listing pages rank highly on search engines. 

Customer support

It’s useful to have a 24/7 point of contact that customers can reach. Thankfully, there are many options to outsource some of your customer service needs. Some businesses use AI chatbots to help answer common basic questions from prospective customers. Using a chatbot lets your customer get their answer quickly and saves you from having to answer the same questions over and over (even if you’ve already addressed them on an FAQ page). For others, you might consider hiring a virtual assistant to respond to emails that don’t necessarily need your personal attention.