E-business is booming, a trend that will more than likely continue
for some time to come. The web is growing at an amazingly
explosive rate, making it a viable way to earn a living
and most entrepreneurs know that offering visitors the ability
to shop online has become almost mandatory.
According to Net Ratings and Harris market research groups, almost
half of all Americans buy online. Sean Kaldor, Vice President
of e-commerce at Net Ratings says ''online shopping is not
trivial when more than 80% of all web surfers and nearly one out
of every two Americans are involved... e-commerce has gone mainstream.''
But how does the average person start a web merchant business.
How do you overcome the huge learning curve when you
don't even have a clue where to start. Many people can't
write HTML to create a storefront nor do they care to learn,
it's just too darn techie. So where do you start? Where do you
get sound advice telling you step by step how to get your online
business up and earning?
Got Answers?
And that's what this special article is all about . . . helping
you find the right direct marketing approach to create, roll
out effortlessly, and make a lot of money quickly with a
successful online store!
Many People Have the Same Problems!
Listen, if you're like most people
you are probably thinking, "yeah, it's really hard trying
to find a cool product or service to sell... the market is either
saturated or the competition is just way over my head... how the
heck am I ever going to compete with the big dogs.... they have
more money, more experience and more time to do this." ... Guess
what, you are not alone!
"I want my own web business so
bad it hurts! It seems like I'm letting the best opportunity in centuries
pass me by. I know the Net is HOT... and there are lots
of people making money, but I'm totally lost and confused.
I just have NO IDEA for a product or service to sell online. Please
help me.
"Want to start up a business"
I have had 25 years of corporate experience.
I want to own and operate my own business. I am looking
at franchises but so far I have not found one that excites me.
Any ideas, suggestions? I will consider partnering up with someone
in a similar situation. Thanks.
"I need Ideas"
Hello, I am interested in starting
a business, but I have no Ideas!
If anyone does and they would like to share them
please email me.
"Wholesale Help""
Hello, There seems to be a
lot of information in print and online about opening retail
businesses. I want to start a wholesale supply business to
the retail floral and nursery industry. Has anyone had experience
starting wholesale businesses?
Your Worries Are Over!
You don't realize it, but in the next few minutes you're
going to learn how to easily build a highly profitable
online store without inventory, shipping, warehousing, employees
or being a techno geek.
Here's a 6-Step Blueprint to eMerchant Success:
1. Find a hungry and expanding niche market
Why? Because you'll have a much easier time selling products
to a targeted market already buying products in a specific
niche on a regular basis. After all, do really want to chase
customers or have customers chasing you?
Most successful entrepreneurs work backwards from those that usually
fail at product or service selection. Those that are most successful locate
strong wants or needs in the market first, before considering how to fill
those wants and needs.
The average entrepreneur falls in love with a product
first then tries to find a market to sell to. Make your life
stress free by not following the typical "marketing guru" advice
of finding a "hot product" first. Actually, it's the *hungry
market* that makes the product hot. Question, how hot is a product
that has NO market?
By selecting a niche market, having brand products and
getting targeted traffic that easily converts into new paying
customers gives you a license to print money. These customers
want the product so badly they will respond to any offer providing
it, so it's easily promoted and marketed in a variety of ways.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
2. Give Them Products They Like to Buy
In order to be successful and making significant income,
you have to determine if the products you want to sell
are suited for an online store because not all are. You need
to have a high margin and low shipping cost product in order to
maximize profits.
The product should be easy to ship and easy to keep on
hand. Better yet, have the your products drop shipped
for you or have it available as an automatic "download" to help
reduce your headaches and increase your free time. You should
never have to worry about renting a warehouse to store inventory,
or worry about how difficult it is to package and ship the product.
You want it to be easy... a "no brainer".
For example, gifts, airline tickets, downloadable software,
books, CDs and video games do extremely well on the web
because of the low cost to deliver them and the high profit
margin they have. Things like living room and bedroom furniture
don't do so well.
Other markets, however, are now making great
strides in this arena. In general, the more difficult and/or
time-consuming it is to purchase a product, the more likely consumers
will prefer to use the Internet over the traditional shopping experience.
You need to have products in a niche market not controlled
by any one manufacturer or distributor. If there is a monopoly
on the product, your product costs will be higher leaving you
with little or no profit. Obviously, that's not a good thing!
Two great sources for brand name products that I highly
recommend is the
Drop Ship Source Directory
which provides a listing of 500,000 wholesale products including
brand names from Adidas to Panasonic to Zogg's.
and the
Drop Ship Wireless Toolbox
works nicely as an auto-pilot affiliate program for easy supplemental
income.
3. Develop a Theme/USP
Build your own theme based site that is loaded with high
value information that focuses on your customer's needs. Create content pages
full of targeted keywords which rank well with the Search Engines and pulls
in lots of traffic. Get those visitors to buy something!
Let's say that you decide to create a theme based site
all about plants. Your home page explains how your site is "the"
place for everything related to plant life, from dirt to full blown
plant nursery. By developing a niche market theme "plant life",
you have also created your USP or Unique Sales Personality... "the
site for all home/garden plant life". Your USP lets visitors to your
site know how your site is different from the competition and what's
in it for them.
Your Theme/USP should become your new domain name (plantlife.com,
plantnursery.com, etc.) because it contains keywords people
search for in search engines and clearly states what your site
is all about.
You of course create high value information
and keyword focused pages. For example, your page about plants explains
all about how to make beautiful planters for the home and garden.
You could even expand it into an entire "Planters Section" with
a page on the history of planters and another one about how to market
and sell planters.
The main point is that you create excellent, high value
content that delivers what your reader searched for in the search
engines. And you also place relevant TEXT links right into product
articles, reviews or recommendations. Links to...
* Books about the topic (ex. plants if that's
what the page was about)
* A garden supplier for planters, dirt, etc.
* Naturally, your own plant products and supplies!
See how this works? By writing about a niche
that you know and love, the content comes easy. And by diversifying
your product line among several related and excellent merchants,
you develop multiple streams of income from one site.
To get a deeper understanding of how themes and keywords
work, let me recommend an information packed FREE 5 day intensive
e-mail course that shows you exactly how to build a profitable
theme based site. Just send a blank e-mail to get it by
clicking here now
!
4. Build a Web Site That Sells
It costs you, in either money or time or both, to get a
visitors to your site. Therefore, it's in your best interest to convert them
into paying customers and keep them as customers rather than wasting the
opportunity and forking out more cash to attract new surfers.
So how do you "keep" a visitor? Offer quality content
and give your visitor something unique, something valuable, and something
that can't be found in a million other places. This is absolutely *crucial*.
Put yourself in your visitors' shoes for a moment. If
they don't see useful and informative content that caters to their need
and tells them how your products and/or services solves their problem,
they're gone. Click!
Don't SELL! Instead, warm your visitors up by marketing,
giving them unexpected, overdelivered benefits they can value
and respect. This develops a "ready to buy" frame of mind and
they will order with pleasure. It's your warmth and personal marketing
effort that will boost your sales. NOT sales hype!
Selling online is about building relationships one customer
at a time. Since the web as a sales medium is impersonal by
nature, it's important to build trust and credibility through
your sales content. Stay customer focused at all times. It's what
THEY want, not what you want!
The more focused your site's topic, the less likely your
visitors will be able to find similar information elsewhere.
Create top-of-mind share by showing visitors that your site is
worth their time and REPEAT visits. Make your site "sticky" by
building curiosity. Keep them coming back to see what's new... to
discover more of those benefits, benefits and more (you guessed it)
benefits.
Publish a weekly or bi-weekly newsletter. An e-zine is
critical because it allows you to remain in constant contact
with your visitors and to sell more products. Great site copy goes
hand-in-hand with a great e-zine.
5. Automate Your Order Process
The choice you make here will depend on your individual
budget, circumstances and personal preferences. These are easy
and very effective ways to get a storefront up and making money
at a very reasonable cost.
Web-In-A-Minute
has created simple "ready made" e-store sites
that are very attractive and highly professional. They are based
on a series of tables, it's easy to switch the look of your pages
by simply changing the table properties. Easily modify any of the
pages by deleting the sample text and replacing it with your own words.
It's the perfect design package for your web site - one
that combines form, function, and speed ... one that will establish
your *credible* online presence. Just add
e-commerce solutions
: one neat package, from one company, i.e.
not just merchant accounts, but also a secure server to process
credit cards over the Internet, a proper shopping cart, processing
software, real-time gateway transaction processing, etc. and you're
ready to make money!
These ready made web sets contain 22 pages including
catalog pages to display your products and makes it easier than
ever to add more pages to your website. Be sure to review all the
pages within the Template Preview... they provide lots of tips to
help you solve some of the most common design problems and develop your
own unique look and feel. If your working with a limited budget and
web skills the next strategy may suit you better.
6. Use a Low Cost Total E-commerce Package
The
web merchant
provides a template based web site creation
tool that allows for a fair amount of customization. You can
see the start of your new internet presence unfold before your very
eyes.
Most people already have a dialup connection
and an e-mail address with their local ISP. What they don't
have is an easy way to create their own web site. The web merchant
has several major advantages for the up and coming netpreneurs.
It's very easy to create a web site with a secure
store and you don't need any HTML or programming skills. Step-by-step
creation and HTML wizards do all the hard work for you, solving
a major problem for most people. If you can type, you can open your
own Internet Store for just $49.95 per month
, which includes:
Web site (Internet Store)
Shopping Cart Payment Gateway (credit card processing)
Virtual Terminal Merchant Account
Plus these other POWER FEATURES:
* Pre-Integrated Merchant Account
* Built-In Cash Register
* On-Line, real-time credit card processing
* Virtual Terminal Functionality
* Secured transaction processing using SSL technology
* Unlimited product search engine
* Automated e-mail confirmation to all customers
* A hit counter (Customer Counter)
* 24 X 7 merchant upgrade and edit capabilities
* Continuous Internet hosting
Now, you're ready to go. Start building traffic
and get those customers buying. Long live e-commerce!
Proven web merchant tips, tactics and strategies delivered
right to your email box.
ABSOLUTELY FREE!
