There are several ways to make money by selling products online. You can provide products that you have actually made yourself or act as a reseller or affiliate marketer of products created by others. This article explains the options.
Your Products or the Products of Others
If you are a retailer looking to become an etailer, or if you are an author, visual artist, musician, animator, graphic designer, photographer, videographer, or software developer, you may wish to sell your own products on line. If you do not have your own line of products, you can become a reseller or affiliate and point people towards a selection of products produced by others.
In both cases—selling your own products and products of others—you can often choose to have your own site or sell from a site provided by a partner. With an affiliate or reseller plan, a premade website may be available for affiliates or resellers to use. If you were to create digital books to sell for the Kindle, Nook, iPad, Sony Reader, etc., your products would be listed with each of the digital reader sites, but you could also choose to have your own site. If, on the other hand, you are selling jewelry—i.e., a physical product that you make and ship yourself—you can still have this choice. You can create your own website, but also list your products on collaborative sites where local artist’s work is listed.
You Ship or Use a Distributor
Ecommerce web hosting plans are available that can link you directly to shippers and allow you to sell your own products worldwide. If you are a reseller or affiliate, you may not be involved in product delivery at all—the party whose products you feature may take care of all that. If you are using a self-publishing site, such as CreateSpace or Lulu, you may choose to sell both on their sites and on your own, as well as an Amazon.com and through other outlets, depending on whether your products meet their criteria. For example, in the realm of books, some outlets require that books be industry standard sizes or they will not offer them.
Site Considerations
If you decide to sell products online, you should consider how you will spread the word about your products. Listing them on multiple sites, not just your own, is one way. Advertising is another. Writing blogs or articles that further explain your products (or the products you sell) is another. Providing excellent customer service is yet another. Other techniques you might try include:
- Twitter posts or other social media use
- a Facebook Store
- a newsletter
- an email campaign, like Constant Contact
- Coupons
- Freebies or giveaways to lure customers
- text message marketing
With the huge increase in use of social networking sites, some type of giveaway, contest, or freebie is actually a great way to advertise and spread the word about a new product. While this is a great option, be careful to not use it too often or in a way that becomes annoying or cumbersome. If it looks like an advertisement and you are pushing it onto pages where people are not interested, they are not likely to respond to your advertisement and certainly won’t share it with others. Offering something of value, presented in an exciting way, can have the opposite effect. People will not only take advantage of your offer but will often share it with family and friends, who will then share it with their family and friends. As you can see, the word can spread very quickly to a lot of people via social networking mediums.
Combining these elements through a text message marketing campaign can further your reach and add another exciting method to your advertising. Text messages are a very common form of communication and will reach people anytime, anywhere. Emails may still be effective for some clients but the majority of people want a small amount of information that will help them determine if they are interested enough to find out more. With text marketing that is exactly what you give them. These messages are limited to 160 characters so they have to be short and to the point. Targeting the right audience at the most opportune time can provide great results. If you are having a huge 24 hour online sale, send out a quick text message to your client base as the sale begins and include a link directly to your site. Add a special offer to the first 50 sales and see if this increases the traffic to your site even more.
As you can see, there are many avenues to explore when selling products online. The path you take will depend on the type of products you are selling, your target audience, and other relevant factors. If you have a well established informational site but don’t want to sell a product, use your site to sell products that your readers would be interested in. This is a way to provide additional resources to your website visitors and for your to make money from your site. Look for reputable companies that have well established affiliate programs to ensure you are credited for all the referrals you send their way and to make sure you are paid in a timely manner.