4. Sell On eBay
eBay
is reputed as the largest online community of buyers and sellers, providing a world-wide marketplace. eBay just provides a platform, while individuals buy from and seller to one another. You register to become a member of the eBay forum, which puts you in a position to sell to or buy from other members. eBay not only provides the forum, but also delivers various online resources to facilitate the process, protect the participants and allow individuals to track their activities. So, it provides the tools and rules of the game, leaving the individuals to express their business interests within that framework.
While there is a lot to learn about doing business on eBay, the sale process, simply put, entails clicking the "Sell" button on any eBay page for the "Sell Your Item form" to take you through the step-by-step item-listing process. To do this, however, you must first register as a member and create a seller's account. You will also need to sign up for a payment method like paypal. Thereafter, you can list your item(s), which means providing the details: title, description, price, payment method, shipping cost and a photo. When your item is bought and you receive payment, you must ship it promptly to the buyer.
eBay offers a few selling formats that you can choose from: standard online auction format, setting a fixed price, using best offer, using your own eBay Store, or listing an ad in the Real Estate category. However, before you can get to the stage of actually selling on eBay, it would be expected that you will take time to study and understand the rules of engagement and modus operandi, including the applicable fees. For example, eBay has a fairly long list of prohibited and restricted items which you must familiarise with if you desire to sell to products.
What to sell? A huge array of products can be sold on eBay, excepting the prohibited items. They don't have to be brand new, meaning that some of the stuff occupying precious space in your house or office could in fact be gold wasting away. You can also buy things to resale or buy offline to sell online on eBay. With the benefit of a worldwide community to offer your products to, you obviously have a large market. You should therefore be able to generate a reasonable revenue if you master the system.
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5. Sell Digital Info Products
Digital information products have been one of the hottest wares on the internet. The reasons are not far-fetched. Firstly, they slash the production cost. You could write and produce an ebook at peanuts' cost. Besides, you control the processes and take your own decisions. Not so if you want, for instance, to get a publisher to publish your material. Besides the cost, you have to win the challenge of getting the publisher to agree that your work is worth his attention. Then there is the exceptional delivery flexibility. No packaging and shipping costs to worry about with digital products, while delivery is instantaneous, eliminating the risk of failed delivery. Buyers download your product straight to their PCs, saving you a lot of delivery handling problems.
Two key options are available to you for generating the digital information products, principally ebooks, that you'll sell on your website. The first, already alluded to, is to produce what to sell. This effectively requires that you write on the subjects you choose or hire somebody to do so for you. If you have difficulty putting pen to paper, you still have a solution: seek out businesses offering resale rights on their digital products and simply buy the rights and resale the product. With the second option, you can be up and running virtually overnight.
6. Sell Physical Stuff
Selling physical products on the internet remains one of the major platforms for internet revenue. Major global companies are engaged in it and small businesses are also actively involved. The growing profile of the internet for the sale of wares derives from the increasing reliance of shoppers on the internet, first to find information on what, where and how to buy and, second, as the place to buy. The internet has become a huge global mall and, in economies with high internet penetration, the starting point for most buying processes. Notwithstanding the popularity and flexibility of information products on the internet, hardware sales still accounts for a higher proportion of global internet revenue.
What you sell will depend on the market niche you seek to serve. The range of what is available today is expansive: technology products, electronics, books, gift items, software packages, household items, tools and a host of others. The options are to sell exclusively on the internet or to complement offline sales with an online storefront.
When you sell physical wares on the internet, you need to deal with the critical issue of delivery to buyers. You must therefore organise an effective and dependable shipping arrangement to ensure you deliver on target. One option will be to stock goods and on making a sale, ship through an arrangement you control. The alternative is to adopt a drop-shipping system: you contract with the product manufacturer or dealer who delivers straight to buyers. The moment a shopper pays you, you remit payment to the supplier with instruction to deliver to the shopper. In effect, you provide the shopper's shipping details to the supplier who ships directly to him. A drop-shipping arrangement can save you a lot of headaches in logistics and stocking/warehousing costs and should prove attractive if you can structure it.
If you can identify a niche product and target the right market, chances are that you will do well selling physical products. The need to define your market may be fundamental to your success. You can sell to the global market, but what can you identify that will fly? If you find it, you should have a good business. Or should you just target the local market? Or even just a segment of it? Or perhaps Africa? Or Nigerians in the diaspora? If you can match a product(s) to a market niche, you have a starting point for a good online outing.
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