Any new endeavor should start with research. It is simple when you have the whole world on your key board. First of all, I suggest that you start your business with something you like and know a little bit about. Harder than it sounds, not at all, you will be surprised with how much you know about things once you get going. Do you want to sell things on line? There are several ways to do this. I suggest to concentrate on one or two things and become an expert on this as opposed to selling many things. You can start with an online site such as Ebay, where your items are posted and bids are taken over a period of time, and of course the item goes to the highest bidder. Pam started by going to yard sales and flea markets picking up old ashtrays. She signed up for Ebay and sold her wares at a enormous mark up. She would pick up an old ashtray for as little as a quarter and sell it for as much as the ebay auction would dictate. Many of them sold for upwards of $200 dollars. Smoking is becoming a thing of the past as well as ashtrays, but in their height of popularity through the 1920's to 1960's, some beautiful and ornate pieces were manufactured. Pam did this part time from home and made herself a sizable income from this second job. This type of selling is very easy . To do any type of selling on the net, even if it is through a public online auction such as Ebay, you really need to have your own web site to have a home base to post all your items. If someone bids on your item on an on line auction, they can be referred to your other items on your web site for sale. You already know this bidder is interested in the type of item you are selling, by referring them to your web site, you are bound to make a sale. Building your own web site is free. There are thousands of free sites that will provide a template for you to create your own web site in as little as a few minutes. Every web site needs to have a web address, these are also free from the sites providing you the templates. The problem here is the web addresses provided for free are fairly generic and unless you provide the address to a customer, they probably won't come about them in a search. For as little as 20 dollars a year, you can buy a web address that names what your business is. Again, very easy, just put purchase web address in your search bar and a thousand sites come up to do this for you. You would want a .com address or one of the other popular ones. If you are selling books, for example, you would want a catchy web address that denotes what you are selling, for example, (books by you . com) the web site will let you keep trying addresses until you come across one that is not taken. There are sites on the net that you can sell their goods on your own web site to your customers and you never have to handle the item at all. The customer buys from you, you in turn buy from the manufacturer and have it sent to your customer. You do no work in the shipping and handling, all you do is take the order. You can research all kinds of products that you would like to sell, pick one or two, create a bang-up website and sell. All you are doing is creating the advertising for this product. Patsy researched the web to find a quality product for a very low price. She found these necklaces that she had seen her teenage nieces wearing. They were $1.90 a piece plus $1.25 shipping and handling. When she found out from her sister that the necklaces cost 35 dollars at the mall, Patsy decided she would sell these on her web site for 15 dollars apiece plus, the $1.25 shipping and handling. The necklaces were called "mood necklaces". Every time someone purchased a necklace from her , she in turn would purchase it from the other company and have it sent to her customer. She never had to handle the necklace at all. It took a few months, but the orders started coming in. Patsy boosted her sales by advertising in a regional magazine. This paid off , for once the add came out , she was overwhelmed with sales. The most frequently asked question right about now is- How is the money handled from the sales? Again, today's technology has made this easy. You sigh up for an on-line credit card payment handling company for free, such as "Paypal". This is the most well known and used company. To sign up takes only a few minutes. How this works - A Paypal icon is put on your web site and when anyone wants to purchase your items, they click on this an pay for it with a credit card. In turn, the site is connected to your bank account. Very Easy, you now have a way to accept credit card payments. I opened a separate bank account for this, but I know of many people that have it go directly to their checking accounts. You can always accept checks, which are sent to your address and the product is not shipped until the check clears. Where there is a will, there is a way. You can market anything today. Phyllis prided herself on feeding her family of 4 for under $100 a week. This is pretty good in today's day and age. She wrote up a months worth of shopping lists and recipes on a daily schedule. She detailed when to serve left overs, etc.. She marketed it on her Web site as-"How to Feed A Family for Under $100 a week. She sold her pamphlet that consisted of 4 pages for $20. It cost her the price of a postage stamp to send. After three months, Phyllis had a lucrative part-time business going. She jokes that she doesn't have to feed a family of four for under 100 dollars anymore. It is important that your website has all the key words to optimize the amounts of hits you will get when someone is searching for a product like yours. This can be tricky, but I suggest doing it with friends and family, get a brain storming session together before launching your site. In the case of Patsy and her mood necklaces, she needed to use words that pertained to teens, jewelry, and mood necklaces. You need to think like the customer. If I am looking for an item, what would I put in a search engine to find it? The words you come up with are the words you want in your website to guarantee your customers find you. Remember when deciding on a product to sell you look to find a need. We are in a recession now, what will people be purchasing and what will people not be purchasing? You also need to do the research and know about the product you are going to sell. Become an expert in a product, offer it for less, advertise, and do this all for free from home. It is easy, but does take some time. If you do it right, you too can be having your coffee at home while the magic of the net works for you.
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