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6 Products to Start an Online Business

Drop Ship, Sell Online

So you have an interest in creating an online business but you don’t know where to start. For most entrepreneurs, the hardest part is coming up with a business product to sell. You have many ideas but not sure how to monetize them. This article will provide information on how to create new products for an online business.

  1. Sell other peoples products – This is a great way to start an online business when you don’t have a product. You can earn commissions when you direct a buyer to another company’s product. You can start selling affiliate products on day one. But it is more prudent to do some research on the various affiliate products to select a product that you want to sale. While looking at various products, think about what angle you will use to make sales. For example, go to Google and type in the product to see how many people are already selling that product. If there are a large number of advertisements, then it may be too competitive to make sales with this product. You will also want to determine where you will find buyers for your affiliate products. Will you need a website or will you sell using search marketing advertisements?
  2. Sell products with Resell Rights – This can be a little tricky as there are a number of losing opportunities on the internet. Do not fall for the resell this ebook or CD as this is as effective a product as a chain letter. The most effective way to do this is to identify existing products to create resell rights. You can conduct internet research using your selected topic to identify products that solve a problem. Then contact the company with the rights to sale that product to propose a deal to seek resell rights.
  3. Sell products through drop shipping arrangements – This is one of the easiest ways to start selling products. Many wholesalers and manufacturers will allow you to sale their products but will ship the products to the buyer from their warehouse. Under this type of arrangement, you do not need to keep product inventory or deal with having the operating capital to purchase inventory. This is a great way to identify products to sale on auction websites such as Ebay. Also, many people design their own business website as a strictly drop ship company. The drop shipper will ship the products using your company name so the buyer does not actually know that you are only a drop ship business.
  4. You can create your own ebooks to sell as products. An ebook is defined as an electronic copy of a book. Therefore, an ebook is a preferred product to sell online as it is easy to distribute to the buyer. Again, you can create your own ebook or you can sell other peoples ebooks on a commission basis. If you have expertise in a specific topic, you may want to consider creating an ebook as your own product. This would put you at the top of the chain as you can allow other affiliates to sell your ebook while to determine the commission amount. There are a number of software products that can be used to create and protect your ebook product.
  5. You can create membership websites. You can create your own association, club or online community and charge a membership fee to access the information. This can include a broad scope such as a book or marketing group or it can be used for a specific topic where people have a shared interest. The most popular types of online communities today focus on a social network where members can interact and share experiences. You can also sell products under a subscription or membership service such as hosting a website with the latest sales resources that requires a monthly membership fee. There is software designed to launch and manage your membership website such as Wild Apricot that charge a monthly fee to use their software.
  6. You can sell geographically limited products. This is an interesting concept where you sale products made in one region to buyers in another region that do not have access to the product. I generally think about the residents living abroad that can’t purchase home country products where they reside. For example, there are a significant number of Americans living in other countries around the world. You can identify the American products that they cannot purchase in foreign counties and sale these products through your website. For example, I would think about non-perishable food items such as peanut butter, cereal, sauces and other products.
  7. To get started, find out everything you can about your target market and the competition already servicing that market. Are there only one or two big players and no little ones? If so, the barriers to entry are too high. Look for markets where there is healthy competition between product/service providers but where profit margins are reasonable.

    To be successful, use your creativity to identify consumer problems that you can solve by offering a new product. For example, you can create a how-to ebook on a specific topic to sell online. The key is that the internet presents such a large market that you can be successful with niche products that are targeted to specific product solutions.

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