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Do you have half-completed plans to open an online-shop this year?

Even if you have never considered internet trading, could this be an option for 2022?

Business owners

If you are selling goods, creating a web-based sales platform will vastly expand your reach to willing buyers.

Combined with effective social media and other marketing activity this may be an effective hedge against future dips in the wider economy.

If you supply services, perhaps you could create online resources to be purchased and downloaded from your website.

Non-business individuals

Do you have a hobby that you could expand into a part-time business selling goods online?

It isn’t necessary to build your own website to do this. There are a number of ready-made sales platforms like Etsy.com.

You should be able to trial this, and see if the idea has legs, without giving up your day job.

We can help

Please call if you would like to brainstorm this option for your business or to develop additional income streams.

We have listed below a number of ideas that might ease your progress through any continuing COVID-19 related disruption during 2022.

The following comments are not advice. Every business is different so please call if you have concerns due to a reduction in trade this year.

• Mothball investment plans. Could you defer decisions on buying that new car or other equipment for your business. In a year’s time the economy may have had a chance for a more sustainable recovery that would make more productive use of your acquisition.
• Discuss a hiatus in pensions investments with your pension’s advisor.
• Agree an instalment plan with HMRC to clear any current or future Income Tax or Corporation Tax liabilities.
• Reduce stocks of goods. If turnover falls due to future lockdown activity, reducing stocks will ease pressure on cash-flow and release storage space.
• Negotiate a reduction in hours with your staff rather than laying people off. This may be a solution to keeping teams together.
• Consider your staff as a service option if they become under-employed by reduced activity. i.e., sell their time to firms who need periodic, additional support but don’t want to commit to taking on a full-time worker.
• Clear out under-utilised office or production space and offer to sub-let on short-term lease arrangements.
• Hire out under-utilised plant.
• Defer any expenditure that can be safely delayed for a year without unduly affecting your ability to trade.

Planning is key

As soon as you become aware of threats to your future trading, take time out to formally plan a survival process.

We can help. Don’t wait until cash resources are exhausted. Contact us as soon as you feel your hard-earned business is under threat.

We are now two years into the COVID-19 pandemic and the virus is showing a remarkable ability to adapt. In its latest form, the Omicron variant, it is proving to be more transmissible and successful at seeking out new hosts.

If we have learnt anything from the experience of the past two years of anxiety and disruption it’s that adaptability is a key response. Included in this newsletter are tips to stay ahead of these challenges from a business perspective.

Unfortunately, the need to safeguard the NHS means that our entertainment and hospitality trades will again be asked to bear the brunt of COVID-19 related disruption strategies.

It will be interesting to see, if in the coming year, government is again drawn into providing furlough or similar grants to sustain affected small business employers and the self-employed.

With inflation rising, currently 5.1%, Rishi Sunak will be scratching his head as printing money to fund further support is directly opposite to his Autumn Budget claims that he is now focussed on repaying government debt, and this largesse could fuel further inflationary pressures.

Resilience needs to be a worthwhile goal for 2022 but tempered with realism; we may be sometime away from relegating COVID-19 to the same nuisance value as the flu.