As far as internet marketing, I started out like most ‘newbies’ looking to make money on the internet. I work a full time job away from home during the day, then come home to a part-time business on the net. I have the same dreams and desires as so many of you. I want to quit that day job and be able to make a living working at home!
I remember my first venture a few years ago. I decided I was going to set up a retail site on the internet and make lots of money selling products. I had no prior experience with retail sales, but I did know what a wholesaler, importer, distributor and retailer meant. I thought it would be so easy to set up a shopping site and the customers would come running! At least that was the plan.
I came across a ‘wholesaler’ website that looked really promising. They provided ‘special wholesale pricing’ on all of their items if you signed up for an exclusive buying program. I was required to purchase in bulk at a minimum of $250 per order. The items would be shipped to me, I would stock them and try to sell them on the internet and ship them to my customers as I sold them. Sounds easy, right?
What I soon discovered was retail sales online is much different than retail sales offline. I had no concept of what I was getting into! The ‘wholesaler’ turned out to be a start-up company who claimed to sell at wholesale prices. The prices they charged me were jacked up too high and I really had little room for making profit. You see, I didn’t do my homework first! I later found that so many others were selling the very same products on the internet and the competition was too great. Those websites that had been online for awhile were established retailers and trusted by customers shopping online. I was new – an unknown. My expenses exceeded my profit and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that wasn’t going to work in my favor!
I’m NOT saying that selling products online is unprofitable. What I should have done was some preliminary research before starting. Instead I blindly jumped right into it, knowing I would start off slowly, but never knew how much competition I really had. I also had no idea what the market really wanted to buy online.
The best advice I can give anyone who is contemplating selling product on the internet, is to take the time to first do some research. Don’t fall into the same trap I did – find the true wholesalers first. Determine which products you wish to market, then search on the search engines and directories. Find out whether the products you are planning to sell are already being sold on the internet by others. Search several websites and find out what prices they are charging for those products. Determine if you can compete with them based upon the wholesale prices you are getting. Also take into account the expenses you will have for shipping, hosting fees, auctions, merchant fees and advertising costs.
I can say by experience that there are plenty of companies on the net claiming to be ‘wholesalers’ who really are distributors. They are not charging retail pricing, but their ‘wholesale’ pricing is much higher than you can get directly from the manufacturer or importer.
Best of Marketing Success!
Cynthia Bowman owns and operates Full Success Marketing, dedicated to providing a variety of resources to help internet and network marketing businesses become more successful. She also publishes a weekly eZine full of informative marketing information. Visit the Full Success Marketing website at http://www.fullsuccess.biz. You may subscribe to the FSM News by sending a blank email to: mailto:news-subscribe@fullsuccess.biz
