Can You Really Make Money While You Sleep Online?
There are many ways to earn money on online businesses, and some are listed below:
1. E-stores. With the power of the Internet, you can now create your web site (or have someone create it for you) and have your own shopping center and sell goods and services to anyone anywhere in the world. You can have a fully automated system that allows your store to operate on its own, 24 hours a day - this means undertaking sales transactions and generating income even in the middle of the night, while you are sleeping!
There are numerous advantages of having an E-store. You are providing your customers with the ability to shop at their own convenience, no matter what time of day. You can also create an opportunity to 'reach out' to your customers through a personalized customer service by asking for their feedback or by setting up an 'online community' for them to communicate with you and the other online shoppers.
The challenge here, however, is to 'steer' potential customers to your store by having them learn about your website. Intense advertising might solve this problem. Another issue that needs to be addressed is determining the kind of products and/or services to sell. Whether they are books, videos, software, or a skill, the answer here is providing customers with a variety of products while knowing the familiar commodities (those that are selling well) at the same time. There are also a number of conservative people who are hesitant to give sensitive information over the web, especially their credit card numbers, but this can be worked out by resolving the security issues.
2. Marketing. Online advertising is also another way of earning money on the Internet. One way to do this is by joining an affiliate program that enables us to sell a company's products and earn income from these sales, or earn commissions by enlisting other people to market these products. It is a great way to form business relationships that may prove to be lucrative.
When planning to join an affiliate program, you have to at least bear take the following into consideration:
Believe in the product. You have to believe a product's sales potential. It would be hard to make a pitch to other people if you yourself would not even want to buy it!
Reasonable pay. Choose a program that will pay you sufficiently and allow you to keep a profit even after deducting your expenses.
No sign-up fee. An affiliate program that charges you a fee or requires you to purchase something first before joining would most likely be an illegitimate one.
This also poses a challenge, specifically on the web site traffic (or the number of visitors to your site). It is important to have a large number of people visiting your web site and to know who they are, because this is what attracts advertisers. One way to do this is to conduct online surveys that requests for the visitor's personal information. A favorable response can be guaranteed using freebies and other incentives.
3. Subscriptions. This can be done by providing customers access to information for a certain fee - be it a daily or weekly copy of a 'newspaper' or a 'magazine', or other documents such as thesis or research papers. While a vast amount of topic can be accessed on the Internet for free (using Search Engines), there are still those that are of value that people would be willing to pay for them. There is also the benefit of reduced business costs, because it is less costly to send information over the Internet than to ship them overseas.
No matter what business you decide to pursue on the Internet, there will always be the great potential of making money easily (with considerably less workload), given the best ideas, the right tools, and the proper attitude to go with it. While it is true that there still remains the risk of encountering a possible scam with all the glorified facts and figures (the 'get-rich-quick' scheme), the important thing to do is to examine each opportunity thoroughly to know if it really works before putting any of your money on to it. How to start a successful import business using the Internet?
The Internet has opened up a whole new era of business opportunities. Falling trade barriers combining with easy access to trade information thanks to the Internet have created dramatic possibilities and sparked the growth of global online trade in virtually every area.
Many companies are taking advantage of electronic media quite aggressively by making new contacts, tapping into new markets and reducing costs with the help of online technologies.
Whether you are starting a new import business or planning to expand your existing business, you too can use the Internet as your primary channel for getting information, sourcing products or services, finding suppliers and doing your marketing.
Before the Internet era, finding a viable product for importing was not an easy job! Trade shows and traveling to foreign lands were the two best options available for getting hands on information on a product and its supplier. Today, required information on any conceivable product from virtually any market is available at your finger tips.
Finding a product
If you know what you are planning to import, a substantial work is already done! Otherwise, your first step is to choose a feasible product or service to import. Whether you are planning to import a general merchandize or an industry-specific product, do your homework right.
Browse through Catalog repositories, B2B exchanges, electronic trade boards, trade journals and virtual trade shows to find a product. If you know the manufacturing country from where the product is possible to source, check out the country specific portals and exchanges. Here is a list of high quality electronic trade boards:
For China made products: (www.alibaba.com)
Sourcing from India: (www.trade-india.com)
For Russian Products: (www.rusbiz.com)
Products from Europe: (www.europages.com)
From South Korea: (www.ec21.com)
For other country-specific or industry-specific B2B exchanges check out this list: (http://dmoz.org/Business/E-Commerce/Marketplaces/)
Your criteria for choosing a product for importing should include:
* Your prior knowledge of the product you intend to import and its industry. Your possibility of success increases considerably if you know the product well.
* Access to required quantity of this product. If you spend time and effort in developing a local market for a product and unable to deliver, you will loose business and reputation.
* Quality of the product. This is a crucial aspect for developing a market for any product. Quality of the product should be consistent with market requirement.
* High profit margin. As import incurs many expenses that are specific to this type of business only, prior to import anything, you should carefully calculate all required expenses and see that you still make handsome profits. You can check out the sites of your prospective competitors and make a price comparison to get initial idea on your products present market price.
Finding supplier
Once you know - what you are planning to import - your next step is to find a reliable supplier for this product.
Emarketplace or B2B exchange
B2B exchanges can be a good help in getting suppliers of the products you are planning to import.
The possible steps, you have to take to find a supplier from a B2B exchange, are listed below. As an example (www.rusbiz.com) is used.
Register your company. Often this service is free!
Go to "Advanced Search"
Write your product name in the relevant box
Select required criteria and click on "Search"
You will find a list of companies.
Check out each of them until you find a suitable one.
Chamber of Commerce
Another option is to contact Chambers of Commerce to find a supplier. A Chamber of Commerce is an association of companies that protects and promotes business interests of its members.
For a complete list of Chambers of Commerce from various countries check out this page: (http://www.worldchambers.com/CCII/index1.htm).
Trade Leads
If other methods did not bring any fruitful result, you can consider posting classified ads in a range of trade boards. There are many trade boards available on the Internet. While posting trade leads make sure that you specify your requirement precisely. A well-written ad will bring much better result. Post your trade leads frequently until you find a good supplier for your product.
Once you found a supplier that suits you, check him out thoroughly. Your supplier should meet the following criteria:
* The supplier company must carry the product for a substantial period of time.
* It should have experience in export - preferably to your country.
* It should have readily available export references.
* It should be a reputable company in its country.
If the company meets the above criteria get Dun and Bradstreet report of the company to verify its financial background.
Selling imported products
Before even thinking about importing a product or service, you should know exactly who your customers are and how you are going to sell your products to them. Although, there are numerous ways of selling a product, selling through the Internet is gaining ground fast.
Selling through your own website
Considering the growth of e-commerce, today, any consumer-oriented product is viable to sell through the Internet. Your success will largely depend on your ability to market your website appropriately. Your website should have the following qualities among others: appealing design, well described product specification with clear pictures, great content, fast connection, easy-to-use shopping cart and a good merchant account.
Drop ship
As a drop ship distributor, you carry the inventory and your joint venture partners make the sales. Once a product is sold you get the payment from your partner but ship out the product directly to the end customer.
Selling through distributors
Selling through resellers with expertise in your field lowers marketing and selling costs. If you sell products through a number of distributors and each of these distributors use diversified marketing method, your sales potential get multiplied without spending extra on marketing.
E-marketplace
An E-marketplace is a business community, where you can expect to see a large number of buyers and sellers. For a seller it is a low cost, highly functional and easy-to-use sales channel.
Benefits of selling products through emarketplace also include:
* Low customer acquisition cost
* Improve customer service
* Efficient information sharing method
* Reduce supply chain cost
Entrepreneurs who want to get serious about importing have to acquire substantial knowledge of the process. Many of the information needed to carry out an import export business is available on the Internet. Anybody with enough enthusiasm to learn can easily find them and use to build a profitable and interesting business.
|
