Outsourcing: Four Ways to Choose the Best Service Providers

Ben Chavetz, vice president of marketing for printer supplies merchant 4Inkjets.com, agreed. “Often I’ll just cold call the marketing directors at other successful merchants and ask which vendors they use,” he said.

* Identify your needs and expectations. Before you settle on services from a particular vendor, establish what you actually need. Hartman offered an example that saved Shoemall.com a lot of money. “A vendor offered us what seemed like a really great deal – a bundle of services for $10,000 per month,” she recalled. “But when we broke down what we actually needed rather than what was offered, we were able to contract for those services for just $1,700 per month.”