Picking a Product
(First check Why an online business?)
At some point, probably early on, you will need to decide what product(s) you are going to sell online. This may be your own product or someone else’s.
For example, if you have your own product, then you will need to have a website to sell it on, and if several products then you might need to consider shopping basket type processing. If you have no product then you don’t necessarily have to have a web site, but can just direct traffic to someone else’s sales page, for an affiliate commission. Having physical products will naturally involve getting and possibly storing your stock, packing, shipping and paper records. This might be avoided if you can drop ship - i.e. you get the orders and process the payment, then pass the order to the original manufacturer or stockist, getting them to deliver to the real customer, and preferably deal with any complaints etc. too! This is similar to affiliate selling, but with physical stock involved.
The beauty of electronic information products is that there is no stock keeping, apart from some space on a hosting hard disk, and no packing, postage etc.
If you don’t already have a product or service (I’ll refer to this generally as a ‘product’ from now on) – then this is the first step, decide on and find your product:
- What do you know and/or like a lot?
- What would you like to have/know more about? You’ll need to know enough to offer honest advice at least, before you go further.
- What is there a demand for (if there’s not currently much demand, you should wait until you’re more experienced before trying to create demand! To work out what there’s a demand for see below)
- Do you have a keyword list? (you need to know there’s demand for your product, online – and keyword research will give you a good indication – hence… you need to do this now)
- What is the profit margin? (obviously the higher the better)
- What capital investment is needed, if any? Including product development (if your own product), what are the payment terms (i.e. if you’re buying wholesale, then selling for a profit)
- Have you used/tried the product yourself? Do you trust the source? It’s hard to sell it scrupulously unless you believe in it yourself, have tried it and believe it is good value.
Finding a product which you can market as your own, that is you sell it and take all the profits, could be physical or electronic, e.g. eBooks. eBooks can easily be written yourself, you don’t have to be a previously published author, and a friendly conversational style is acceptable and popular. If you have some skill or knowledge you can write about, then this is an excellent approach.
If you don’t have your own eBook, you can source existing ones from various sites: you will be looking for:
- ‘Reseller Rights’ (you can sell to eBook, just for people to read) - this is the absolute minimum you need!
- ‘Master Resale Rights’ (You can sell to book to others, and they can in turn sell it on)
- ‘Rebranding Rights’ (you can change some content, probably just some of the embedded links, to have your own affiliate links etc. - so you get those added benefits; may also include Master Resale Rights)
Examples of sources for eBooks include:
Planet SMS - you should also check his newsletter site: Planet SMS Newsletter which has *Free* eBooks in many of his postings
eBay (or uk eBay) - search for eBooks, or how-to-guides, or in books, pick your category and look for eBooks etc.
You can also get ideas for products, physical or electronic including eBooks, by either searching using Google etc. and finding something you like in the results, then contacting them to see if you can sell it - probably as an affiliate, or other reseller. Alternatively you can use online tools such as Clickbank’s marketplace, promote products tool - you have to set up a Clickbank account to gain access to this, but you’ll need one anyway - and there are lots of good information, how-to etc. articles there too. Check other payment processors for their tools, but Clickbank is probably the best.