Introduction to making money online – Part 1

Advantages of selling online

Earning money online is virtually limitless. You can sell information or a specific product. Shopping on internet is a time-saver. Collecting information online is a time-saver. Any "idea" can be cultivated into a product.

What happens if you decide to get into this ocean of information and products business? You get confused with so many eBooks, articles, information products, and membership sites etc. promising millions overnight. Don't get overwhelmed with this massive information. I would like to give concise information to get started.

Where on the net would you sell?

Like physical products selling on shopping malls you should also require a virtual place on net to sell your products. Though it does matter what you're selling, it also matters where you sell it from. If you want do every thing for free, and then you may not succeed in business. Don't waste your time or energy. You can host your information or products for sale in a shared hosting service to start with. Shared hosting is simply multiple web sites that share the same server. Where you purchase your domain name is just as important as where you purchase your web space hosting. Now, if you're just beginning and don't really have the funds to purchase a domain name and website space, there is another way to begin if you are wishing to sell information products that can be automatically delivered by way of downloading. First of all, you can get a free 20 MB account, a sub-domain, web based FTP file uploading, built in shopping cart, your own affiliate program, and integrated PayPal/eBay selling with automated product delivery. You won't need a whole bunch of space if you use TradeBit to host your product files. Understand that any files you host you must have the right to sell them. Few more things are required before you begin. Create a merchant account on eBay if you are interested in selling there, an HTML editor for making changes to pre-designed sales kits or for creating a sales page, and an image editor for creating graphics for your sales pages and products.

Do you have anything to sell?

Information Products

This type of selling is probably the easiest way to make fast money without huge overhead costs. You may be expert in any one field. For example, you may be good at cooking, computers, science, education etc. Just write about what you know and do a research if that information is in demand. You can also do research on the net on a specific subject and write about it. Remember to give Master Resell Rights (MRR) along with the product. This would boost your sales.

The information product business excels in this capacity. That is why so many hop onto the resale rights information selling bandwagon. Just because the site says that the product is a niche product, doesn't mean that it is. A lot of times, authors of products will offer a free copy of their product in exchange for a testimonial. It's free publicity. Furthermore, the reason why those in the online business need these testimonials is to gain your trust in them and their product. Collecting your information products this way will most definitely save you money in the long run.

Physical Products

Of course, you can always sell physical products through the internet too. Practically anything can sell and fetch a pretty good price. So just make sure that you have a product to offer.

Don't worry if you do not have any physical products to sell. There are lots of affiliate programs available on the net where you get commissions on selling others products. The advantages of these programs are that you need not worry about the inventory of the products, shipping and after sales service. You just have to sell. I myself signed up lots of affiliate programs and earning decent money. I am not going to suggest any program since this write up is not meant for that. But I cannot resist telling about this company which is a pioneer on affiliate programs and survived for the past 20 years successfully. SFI has several high selling products and it is free to join without any obligation. It has also started a new program called Eye Earn. You need to pay $20 for their Eye Earn start up kit which contains T-Shirt and marketing materials. Eye Earn actually promotes Max Mall which has a wide range of products.

Okay, we figured out where to sell our products from, and what we should be selling. So now we need to understand to whom and how we should be selling these products. This would be continued in the next part of my blog.