Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Selling Online: Consider This before You Decide What to Sell

By Alice Seba

More and more business opportunities exist today online than ever before. It has got to point where it is questionable if anything can not be sold online! But, if you're interested in making money online, you should know that some things sell a lot better than others. Here we will discuss some of the more popular and profitable techniques to develop your own online income source.

Develop Your Own Product, or Buy Wholesale?

If you already manufacture your own goods, these can be sold very well online. Or, if you're not interested in building your own product, avoid this hassle by buying ready-made goods. Remember to take storage costs and space into consideration before launching your own product line. And, if neither of these ideas appeal to you - another idea is to use a drop shipper. Drop-shipping sounds ideal, but has little margin for any profits.

The other suggestions in this article do not require carrying an inventory or the workload.

Operating Your Own Direct Sales Business

Direct sales companies offer great support and a proven product in many cases which makes starting your business with them a nice idea. That being said, remember to check with any company you are considering joining with to be sure they allow sales online. If so, set up your own website and start selling. You must be willing to promote your website in order for the online side of sales to work, however so learning the ins and outs of marketing online, just as with any other type of business, is important.

Info Products and e-books

Also known as info products, these include ebooks, audio or video recordings, guides, reports, etc. that teach someone how to do something or explain something in detail. Most times, info products are sold in a form that allows the buyer to immediately receive their purchase by means of downloading them from your website. You can also sell info products in the form of physical products such as CDs, hard cover books, manuals, etc. that can be shipped to the buyer. It's easy to make an info product business 100 percent online by offering everything in a downloadable format.

Affiliate Sales

Have you previously created an information blog or website? If this is the case, then it is more than possible to make a few bucks by recommending other popular products. There are many thousands of affiliates programs available, with well-known brands and many products to choose from. Selling items in this manner entitles you to a percentage of the sale of every referred customer. This is very popular, because you do not need to fulfill the order, or come into contact with the customer. You simply need to put your efforts into promotion.

The best method of finding these type of affiliate programs is to type your chosen subject into the search engine along with the phrase "affiliate program".

Services

It may be copywriting, accountancy, web development or many other ideas that can be sold as a service -- these can make money by prmoting online. Simply create a professional web presence that explains exactly what you are about and what you have to offer. Surprisingly not many others do this, meaning you'll be one step ahead of the competition.

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