Starting a candy wrappers business is great for someone who wants to start a low-cost home-based business venture that is fun. A candy wrappers business is also ideal for someone who has a creative side or an eye for detail. But while it helps to be artistic, you don't have to be a magnificent artist to create fantastic and professional looking candy wrappers because there are plenty of options for obtaining graphics to use in your candy wrapper creations.

Who Will Want to Buy Your Candy Wrappers?

There's a never-ending array of customers who will buy your candy wrappers! And any holiday or festivity is an appropriate occasion for offering your wrappers. Here are some examples of occasions for which you can offer your candy wrappers:

- Babies - shower invitations, adoption announcements, baptism, first communion

- Weddings - shower favors and invitations

- Holidays - Christmas, Easter, Hanukkah, Halloween, Mother's Day, Father's Day

- Parties - invitations and mementos for anniversary parties, family reunions, and birthday parties

- Corporations may also use candy wrappers for trade shows, seminars, and as gifts for customers

- Put on your thinking cap, and you'll come up with more!

Types of Candy to Wrap

Chocolate candy bars are not the only option, as you can also create personalized candy wrappers for rolls of hard candy such as Life Savers or Mentos. You may also want to consider including gourmet chocolate candy bars on your product list. But the candies that make an ideal candy wrapper canvas are:

- Cadbury

- KitKat

- Nestle's Crunch

- Hershey's chocolate bars and Hershey's chocolate miniatures

Designing Your Candy Wrappers

As mentioned previously, you don't have to be an artist to create good-looking candy wrappers. You can purchase candy wrapper graphic software online, and there are also plenty of membership sites that offer clip art for commercial use. This makes adding cute and eye-catching designs to your wrappers easy! Some places that offer candy wrapper software are candykit.com, quiglow.com, and BillyBear4Kids.com.

Starting an Online Candy Wrappers Business

The beauty of this home-based business is that you can sell your candy wrappers over the Internet. Some people may think selling over the Internet is a daunting and risky venture to pursue, but just imagine finding 50 customers online in your first week. If you can get enough Web traffic and entice customers to buy once they land on your site, your income can grow exponentially. Then as your business grows, you can hire employees or outsource tasks so that you're not doing everything by yourself. First register a domain name and hire someone to design your candy wrapper business website. You'll also want to do some research on the type of shopping cart that will best suit a candy wrappers business. You will need a shopping cart that allows customers to add text or upload pictures for inclusion in their orders. Also, before your online business can take orders, you'll need to do some research on payment processors.

Restaurants and other food service businesses generate literally tons of cooking oil, grease and food wastes every day. If this waste is not managed properly, it can cause major environmental problems. Much of the waste is in solid form and can be safely put in packages and placed in the trash. Liquid waste containing oil and grease dumped directly into the sewer, however, can block the system and cause wastewater to flow back-up .To avoid this you have to install and properly maintain a grease trap.

Grease traps capture the oil and grease from the flow of wastewater by slowing down the flow of hot greasy water through the grease trap (actually a tank) and allowing it to cool. As it cools, the grease and oil separate out of the water and float to the top of the trap. The cooler water continues to flow down the drain pipe to the sewer while baffles prevent the accumulated grease and oil from flowing out of the grease trap. The size of the grease trap depends largely on how much waste your business produces and how often you perform trap maintenance. Grease traps may be located inside or outside of the building. Traps that are located inside the building tend to be smaller and require more frequent maintenance. Traps that are located outside the building tend to be larger and may be less disruptive to maintain. Outside grease traps will operate differently in winter versus summer and are more prone to clogging during cold weather. As a business owner/manager, you should know where the grease trap, drain lines, and clean-outs are located at your restaurant.

Proper cleaning and maintenance of the grease trap and drain line reduces the amount of solids and grease going into the public sewer system and minimizes the likelihood of back-ups or blockages. Some sanitation districts and/or municipalities require grease traps and periodic maintenance and inspections for specified businesses. This is because untrapped oil and grease in the wastewater decreases pipe capacity over time and eventually will cause the pipe to clog. Piping systems without grease traps need to be cleaned more often and some piping may have to be replaced sooner than otherwise expected. Excessive grease sent to the wastewater treatment plant can also overload their system and cause the facility to exceed its allowable discharge limits. Running extremely hot water down the drain only moves the problem down stream, and may only make it worse. Fixing a sewer line blockage can be expensive, both in terms of potentially lost customers and repair cost. If the pipe clog is within your building sewer line, you will be responsible for fixing the problem and paying all costs. If the clog is in the public sewer line, but can be traced to your restaurant, you will be liable for paying all or a portion of the repair costs. Accumulating the oil and grease close to the source in a properly maintained grease trap is the most cost-effective way.

There are several ways to maintain a grease trap and dispose of the wastes. Your decision will likely be based on cost, availability of services, and disposal/ recycling opportunities in your area. Most restaurants hire a professional pumping service to remove the waste from the grease trap and dispose of it properly. Some areas have service companies that specialize in grease trap wastes, while other areas may have pumping contractors that service grease traps, sand traps, and septic tanks. Pumping service contractors can usually be found in the yellow pages of the telephone book under the listings for “Grease Traps and Service”, “Septic Tanks”.

When dealing with decisions using Cost Benefit techniques it is very important to follow the proven principles. The health of your company and your reputation depend on it. If these rules are not followed then your decisions could be flawed.

Let's start, shall we?

Question #1. Is this technique suitable for the small business owner?

Yes. The theory works equally as well for small business as it does for big business and government.

Cost Benefit Analysis is a decision-making technique that assesses the positive outcomes (benefits) as well as the negative outcomes (costs) of different decision alternatives. The trick is to make its implementation easy for the small businessperson.

Once you have basic knowledge of the theory and can enter data into a spreadsheet then the rest is not too difficult.

Question #2. Is this all I need to make better decisions?

No. Cost Benefit Analysis is a tool to assist in making better financial decisions. It is not an end in itself. However, part of the Cost Benefit process requires that you think widely on all options before making a final decision. This is often where most people fail in their decision-making attempts.

Cost Benefit Analysis is also very skilful at providing a single viability output for each competing option, making comparisons objective and easy.

Question #3. What do I include as the Costs and the Benefits?

Costs. All costs attributable to the project are to be included. Some of these are listed below:

- Asset Costs (both Capital and ongoing)

- Supply costs for purchased items

- Extra administrative effort required to manage project

- Delivery costs if to your account

- Replacement of assets in future years

- Tender preparation costs

- Any specialised tooling associated with the project

Revenue. Revenue can only be attributed to a project if it were not received were the project not to go ahead.

Asset Disposal and Residual Values. Some assets may be retired prior to the end of their useful lives or may be salvaged at the end of the project. This value is to be included in the cash flows (less the costs associated with their sale or disposal).

Cost Savings. All cost savings attributable to the project are to be included. Wage and salary cost savings must include their overheads and on-costs.

Question #4. How do I treat non-financial costs and benefits?

Since only cash transactions (both costs and benefits) are included in Cost Benefit models, non-financial costs and benefits are usually described by way of notes.

If the Benefit Cost Ratio is = to 1 or > 1 then the use of non-financial costs and benefits would not be required since the project is already VIABLE. Normally these non-financial costs and benefits would be included when comparing competing options whose Benefit Cost Ratio is close to each other.

Question #5. How can I test my assumptions?

You are best placed to make assumptions based on your own experience and judgement. However, you can use a technique to show others how robust your assumptions really are. This technique is called Sensitivity Analysis.

This technique is important to understand because you have made many assumptions in your analysis. These could have been, for instance, the level of new income generated, the savings generated or the residual value of the asset at the end of the project life. These assumptions are at the heart of your analysis and have contributed to your final Benefit Cost Ratio outcome.

Since the future cannot be accurately predicted there is a high probability that some of your assumptions may prove incorrect.

Using this technique will add conviction and weight to your proposal by showing how changes to costs and benefits affect the Benefit Cost Ratio. Do small changes move the project from VIABLE to UNVIABLE?

Question #6. How can I be sure that the project is VIABLE?

You have made your assumptions based on your project knowledge and experience. You have constructed the model that shows the project to be VIABLE. If you have followed the proven principles it should work out OK. Once the project has been authorised it is important to ensure that the assumptions are correct and in fact are deliverable.

To ensure this happens follow up on these items:

- Any labour savings must be delivered - re-assign affected resources

- Cost savings due to process changes must be acted upon swiftly

- Increased revenue from price rises must be implemented urgently

A Post Completion Review undertaken a year from the project's implementation will show you if all or some of your assumptions proved correct. It will also teach lessons on how this could done more successfully next time rather than making the same mistakes again.

Question #7. How can I implement this technique in my company?

There are a number of ways as follows:

- Use Cost Benefit Analysis yourself in a pilot project

- Convince the CEO of its benefits to the company and use that authority

- Use Cost Benefit Analysis in a specific business unit

All of these ways require a thorough understanding of the theory, the reasons for its implementation and the expected payoffs.

A training program would need to be undertaken so that all those involved understood the technique.

Question #8. Why does it have to include NPV to account for the time value of money?

Typically the life of the assets, or the decision being made, will have a financial impact over more than 1 year. This is usually 3 - 5 years (computers, software, factory machinery), 20 years for some large electrical equipment and even up to 100 years for underground pipes as used in water and sewer reticulation.

Inflation, year by year, reduces the buying power of the dollar causing us to spend more each year in dollar terms to purchase the same item. So it is with projects whose life span is more than one year.

Costs and benefits that occur in year 3 or 4 of the project would not have the same impact as if they occurred in year one.

The Benefit Cost Ratio and the final decision regarding VIABILITY could be completely wrong if NPV is not used in the model.

Question #9. Are there any limits to its applicability?

Not really, as long as you are dealing with financial costs and benefits. It has application to large and small decisions, complex and simple, long lived and short lived assets, also profit based and government and charities.

There are some general limitations:

Subjectivity - It is quite unlikely that two analysts working separately will estimate exactly the same Cost Benefit Ratio number. There are many variables that can be treated slightly differently, some of which are listed below:

- Estimation of physical and/or economic life of the asset/project

- Estimates of costs/benefits of environmental protection

- The choice of discount rates (the rates illustrated above are indicative of a range which could be applicable)

- The value of benefits can be different for different groups in society (i.e. the value of a $ to the poor section of the community is different to that of the affluent class)

Political Decision Making - The necessity of making political judgements on the viability of the project (timing of elections, regional loyalties) can sway an outcome. Also decision-makers are not consistent over space and time.

First Round Effects - We would normally only include the effects that are directly attributable to the project going ahead. We would not, for instance, include the increased community agricultural output generally due to a project going ahead. This would only be justified if the sector was originally under-employed.

Question #10. How can this technique actually help me?

There are many ways - some are listed below:

- Increases your confidence knowing you have used a proven reliable method.

- Having thought of all the options for solving the problem you can present your proposal knowing you have the answers.

- Using this technique will ensure you gain recognition and more opportunities for advancement

- Once the company sees the benefits of this technique it may wish you to be the trainer of other staff or the implementation champion - more opportunities for you.

- This technique will you save time in project assessment and ranking of competing proposals.

Warehouses today are depending more and more on using 3rd party contractors for support to utilize their warehouse operations. Many distribution centers must choose to use lumper services for on site support or use temporary agencies. There are many benefits to using 3rd parties to optimize operations. Most warehouses these days are using lumper’s service as they see the repetition of having the same employees in the workplace pays off with increased productivity and also with increased through puts.  Having 3rd party agencies or lumper services also cuts down on overtime hours for the warehouse as they can cover their regular staff when they are starting to reach overtime on the clock.

Many large fortune 500 companies are using contractors to handle all warehouse operations or portions of warehouse operations. Benefits have gotten so expensive in this volatile economy that the benefits outweigh the cons.  Also to increase productivity most of the lumper services pay by case, pallet, or load so this almost guarantees that the freight handlers will be productive.   Labor is one of the biggest costs of warehouse and distribution services expenses  and anything that can cut that down is a win-win situation for the warehouse or distribution service. As we move towards the future almost many different types of business will go performance based and by having your contractors on performance based you will surely reap the rewards.

Problems can arise with temp agencies as you have to manage their hours. Sometimes the hours can be extensive and when new temps arrived they are very non-productive. Generally you have to train them to get them up to par with you on going operations. They have to be site certified on all equipment to meet OSHA regulations. So regardless if they are certified on fork lifts and pallet jacks they have to be recertified. To ensure that you are protected in case of lawsuit always sign hold harmless agreements with all 3rd party agencies. Most of them don’t provide on staff management so be prepared to manage them. Temps in my experience have been good for simple labor but for ongoing labor utilization lumper services always provide better services.

Lumper services provide great on site management and by having the same lumpers on the dock for long term the productivity is always higher than temp agencies. The lumpers also get paid by productivity so their training cost you so much less than using a temp agency. Their management trains their employees on site for usage of equipment and large contracts generally mean that the lumper service will give you good rebates. Logistics are able to get an exact cost per case so you can keep control of your freight moving costs as the warehouse logistics department is billed by case, load, or pallet.

3rd party contractors can be a great partnership to increase productivity and lower cost in your warehouse.