The manufacturing sector has a rich history of innovating to overcome persistent challenges. But the twin disruptions of the net-zero transition and the Covid-19 pandemic have made the sector's green efforts paramount to business prosperity. Accounting for more than 60% of direct industrial emissions in the UK, manufacturing is an energy-intensive industry that has been striving for decades to improve energy productivity while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. From 1990 to 2018, emissions from manufacturing decreased by 56.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, and the next decade was shaping up to be a critical period of transformation that would put the sector on the path to net-zero emissions by 2050. The coronavirus pandemic has proved an untimely and disastrous occurrence. In a period of time where manufacturers were ready to embrace innovation that could radically cut, store and even reuse carbon, short-term attention and financial plans have rightly turned to the tumultuous impact of the pandemic. Report forecasts suggest that UK manufacturers won’t reach their predicted levels of growth pre-pandemic until 2022. A predicted loss of Gross Value Added (GVA) – which represents the monetary value of UK manufactured products – also looks set to drop by more than £35bn.

Here is a guide on how to use Google Search Console for Search Engine Optimisation

A business’ brand is what hits potential customers first. It’s not just your logo, it’s the entire theme and texture of your business - embedded in the language you use, the look of your website, and the story that your business tries to tell about itself.

Many businesses have found an increase in demand for sustainably made products especially in the sector of fashion/accessories. Small businesses such as yours may have the answers to this growing issue. To be able to grow and evolve, a business will need viable options of where to source and produce. A country that has prospered in the last few years has been Portugal. The economy of the country has grown in terms of tourism but also because of the high standard its factories hold when it comes to manufacturing luxury standard products for a third of the price with short shipping times around Europe and the abundance of fabrics available to source from. With consumers on both sides of the English Channel refusing purchases because of unexpected VAT and tariff charges, these small changes will allow your small business to deliver your products promptly while remaining cost-efficient. If your priority is finding viable and confident manufactures as well as a team so you are able to grow your business read on! Throughout this blog, we will look at the top 5 reasons many brands and companies are making the switch to the widely used ‘Made in Portugal’ tag!

Top reasons why you should open an online business

Finding a niche can be difficult when creating a business with handmade products. Too broad of an outreach can lead to the product being lost among a sea of similar products with no easy way of standing out. While too specific of a market can prove to be not only too small of an audience, but also not scalable. However, with some research into the individual artists creating the designs, there are factors that can assist in cornering a specific market, allowing for an audience to be built around it and the business to be grown.