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Drop-shipping is the coolest internet concept you’ve never heard of. With drop-shipping, you have no inventory, no warehouse, and no stock cluttering up your home. Simply sell the products through your website, process the orders, and have the wholesaler ship it directly to your customer. It’s like having free products to sell online!
Contrast that with another technique, affiliate marketing. When you recommend products to your customers, you send them an e-mail that contains an affiliate link – one that takes them directly to a website where they can purchase the product. You get a commission from each sale.
In affiliate marketing, a lot can go wrong. Maybe your customer doesn’t go to the website. And if the site is poorly designed or contains inaccurate information, you can’t make any changes. Perhaps the biggest problem is that you have to trust someone else with your money – and hope they’re honest.
Once you are ready to start an online business, you may feel overwhelmed by the challenge of finding unique products to sell. You don’t want the same old stuff everyone else has – you want to succeed in your own niche. Here’s how to plan your sales for maximum profit.
Offer products that are in demand and offer you a higher markup. Figure out how to make sales online using higher-end products. Let’s use the home-schooling market as an example. Now, I can sell a single book and make, say, $5. But what if I could offer an entire course, one with a $50 markup? Suddenly, my profits are ten times higher, without any extra work! Here’s how you can increase sales and make more profits from your online business:
Step 1: Choose a high demand homeschool product that has a high markup. Of course it has to be something you can resell or be paid an affiliate commission.
The most profitable and effective web pages on the internet are the ones that have one page and sell only one product.
Why does it work?
Well, it focuses everything on that one product.
On a single-page website, you decide whether to buy or not to buy. That’s all. There are no buttons or links or other products to divert you from your goal. Sometimes, a box appears to offer special deals or promotions in exchange for an e-mail address, but otherwise the decision remains simple. Buy? Or not?
Since there are no distractions, the only thing speaking for you is your sales letter. Make it powerful, make it compelling, and the customer will buy. Make it boring or incomplete, and your customers will bye-bye. If your sales letter is written well, your sales will increase. The sales letter must explain to the customers exactly how your product will solve their problems. Be specific, and speak directly to them.
A lot of people have sought my advice over the years. They want to boost the economy and help depressed areas develop business solutions for long-term gain. Yet for all their planning, most don’t know the difference between a job and a business.
If you have a business, the opportunities for profit are only limited by your imagination. However, the profits from a job are limited, even restricted. You exchange your precious time for a specified amount of money (usually best described as “never enough”). It’s easy to see the benefits of attracting business to a community, rather than simply seeking jobs.
But if you really want to transform the economy of a community, then teach the people in that community to think entrepreneurally. Teach them to find a niche, find the needs in that niche and then fulfill that need for a profit.
In my first article, I shared why you must create information products instead of books sold in a bookstore. Since this is new to many business owners, info products appear to be an extraordinary way to make money online. Today, I want to give you the most amazing tips for creating information products.
Tip 1: Think of the trade your customers are making.
Your customer is making a trade, his money for your knowledge. Make it easy by offering your customers something truly special. E-books on making money are always popular, and many customers are willing to pay $47 for an e-book that explains how to make $4700, save $4700, or keep $4700 more of their income away from the tax-man.
Information products are one of the hottest selling items on the Internet. And for good reason. Where else can you get timely, relevant information that is exactly what you want…even at 2 am in the morning?
The Internet has one major advantage over books. Books are usually not specific enough for most people. I don’t want to read a whole book on developing HTML coding and website engineering – I only want to record and edit my presentation so I can sell it online. Finding a book at the bookstore which relates to just this topic could be a long and frustrating experience. But thanks to the wonders of the internet, we can easily find an e-book or video on the internet that can teach me exactly what I need to know.
Another problem with buying information at the book store is that its information is at least one year old. That’s how long it takes to edit a book, send it to a publisher, get it printed and finally placed on the shelves in your local book store. By contrast, an ebook or other information product will usually have the latest, cutting edge info on your topic because they are so easily updated.
Recently, my daughter played in a softball tournament in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Although we homeschool our children, Idaho’s public school system welcomes home schooled kids into their sports programs. It’s been a wonderful experience, and our children have been warmly welcomed by their teammates. Of course, it helps that they are great athletes!
Anyway, my daughter hit a screamer to right field and through a series of overthrows and mishaps found her way to home plate and scored the tying run. They went on to win the game and Gentry was voted Most Valuable Player of the game!
That evening, I learned a valuable lesson.
Here’s what I want:
I am looking for a simple, proven method to raise my children. I don’t want to pay any money, I don’t want to lose my free time, and I don’t want to work hard doing it. Oh, and I want perfect results too.
I want godly children who are obedient, polite and who love God with all their strength. But I don’t want spend a lot of time or effort on this. And I certainly don’t want to be out a lot of cash. I just want it to happen naturally.
If I can’t get with the program, perhaps instead I could find a couple of kids who are already like that, and raise them instead. I don’t want to sacrifice time, money, or effort. I want perfection without any problems.
As an expert in teaching families to start online businesses, I am asked a lot of questions about selling on the Internet. By far the most common question is, “What do I sell on the Internet?” or “WHAT TYPES OF BUSINESSES HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFUL IN E-COMMERCE?”
My answer is always the same – you are asking the wrong question. Products come and go. What is hot one year, is forgotten in the next. Your clients will stay with you forever — if you take a few basic steps to ensure their loyalty. Why not start by collecting their name and e-mail address?
Collect all the e-mails from your visitors. Many autoresponder services include a simple e-mail capture form, making this quick and easy. Those auto responders can also be used to contact your clients, making the job of selling easier. Automatic systems like this one will build your business even as you sleep.