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Written by Administrator
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Sunday, 26 August 2007 17:40 |
| How Much Time Do You Have To Spend On The Business? | | This is important even at the product selection stage because if you don't have a lot of free time you may want to stay away from businesses that require you to do things like physically ship products you sold. Lets's take a look at some differnet types of internet based businesses. - Traditional retail where you buy inventory and sell it
- Drop Ship business where you take orders and send them to a third party that packages and ships the products you sell
- An information, ebook, photo, or music site that sells products the customer downloads after purchase
- A subscription site where visitors pay a fee to participate or get info from the site
- A directory or other type site that sells advertising
- An affiliate links site
Any of these business ideas can work an make money. Some require more time than others but all do require time to build, maintain and operate. | 1.
Traditional Retail
| If you have the time and money to invest you can build a profitable venture selling products on the internet.
Your Obligations: With a traditional retail site you buy products, promote them on your web site take payment and ship the product. You will have the expense of the inventory, a payment processing system, the expense and time of shipping the product and the expense of hosting the site.
| | 2.
Drop Ship Business
| There are more of these than you think out there. Take a good look at some of the ecommerce sites you visit. Some of them are probably drop shippers and you didn't even realize. Some customers may have an objection to drop ship sites. That is why the good ones so carefully disguise the nature of their business
Your Obligations: You may still have to supply a payment processing system and all of the other aspects of a traditional retail site but you avoid purchasing the inventory and shipping sold products.
This means there is slightly less demand on your time.
| A company like Doba.com - Product Sourcing. Simplified.  creates the perfect opportunity for setting up a drop ship business.
 | | 3.
Information Site, Ebooks, etc.
| With information sites you may avoid the cost of inventory but you will have to spend the time to develop the product, eitehr by creating ot yourself and purchasing the product and repackaging it.
Your Obligations: You shave the expense of a web site and a payment processing system.
| | | | 4.
Membership Site
| You've got to develop the content for the site and yu'll have to keep it current. There are many out there developed as self sustaining communities that rely on the member esto generate the content. You, as the owner, provide the venue and the interface. It's a public site with many users.
Your Obligations: You have the expense of a web site and a payment processing system. You will also have to maintain the community.
| | | | 5.
Directory Site
| There are literally millions of directory sites out there. To large degree they clog the internet and make searching for information difficult. The worst ones are just mirrors of some other directory. They provide no original or unique information and they waste a visitors time. They exist soley to generate traffic between themselves and other directories in their network. Revenues come from affiliate links, listing fees and advertising.
Your Obligations: You may still have the expense of a web site and a payment processing system.
| | | | 6.
Affiliate Link Site
| Some promote only a single product or vendor Others may promote hundreds or even thousands. The key for any affiliate site is creating content that will draw the visitor in
Your Obligations: You still have the expense of a web site but you probably won't need a payment processing system since your are really just advertising someone elses product.
Many of the links you see on Gulf Coast Info are affiliate links from a variety of affiliate programs. You will see two types of affiliate programs. The first are those that are run by the actual merchant. You must seek out and apply to these merchants, one at a time. The second are third party affiliate administration sites. By far our favorite is Commission Junction. We also use the LinkConnector.com Network . We have also used  clixGalore Affiliate Marketing & Networks.
One of our latest favorites is shareasale.com. They have many exclusive listings of very unique merchants with the potential for generating substantial affiliate income. There are many others out there but these are the ones we have had the best luck with. | | More About Affiliate Marketing And Developing Your Own Affiliate Program | | | Our Favorites: We like Affiliate Link sites, Directory sites and the Traditional Retailer. Like any of the other sites, they require work but we have found the work to be much more enjoyable with a level of risk that is controllable by you and not some third party. |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 30 January 2009 15:48 )
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