Question
I and my partner run a small e-commerce business selling a healthy spiced latte mix. We are running short of cashflow though we are seeing traction in online sales.
If we take a loan for expansion, there are various things we can spend on - Digital Marketing (Which we are seeing decent results now), Offline Marketing (Bus Stop Ads/TV/Radio), Product Expansion (Which can increase our average order value, right now we only have 2 flavours), Distribution Channel Expansion (Currently we are already in 1 outlet in a major retail store in Singapore but not getting sales there). How should we allocate our funds if we were to take business loan?
Answer
I'd recommend testing the waters first - try to determine how your sales figures will change depending on capital allocation. E.g. you can do a on-the-street survey regarding new products. Much cheaper than launching a new product and finding out the hard way it doesn't generate sales. Depending on location specifics, physical marketing might be easier (and therefore cheaper) than fighting for visibility online. Think about client segmentation to establish which marketing strategy is optimal for your target groups.
