Product Sourcing – Find a product to sell

While it’s possible to purchase items at garage sales, etc. to sell on eBay, if you plan to establish a real business you need to find sources for good selling products. The idea of course is to purchase at a low wholesale price so you can sell at a higher retail price. Most wholesales don’t work with small home based businesses, which is the advantage of working with a drop ship/wholesaler like World Wide Brands.

There are many methods for product sourcing including:

• drop shipping – you get a smaller profit margin but it’s a great way to start
• light bulk wholesaling – some wholesalers can have a large minimum order requirement. Light bulk wholesalers have a lower minimum order requirement that helps you build your business.
• overstocks and liquidations – these can be a great resource but it’s not a renewable source. Once the items are gone they are usually gone for good.
• importing – prices may be cheaper importing from overseas, but the fees associated with getting the products to you can be very expensive.

Start Your Internet Business

E-Commerce, or sales conducted over the internet, continues to grow at a fast pace, even in light of the current economy. This growth is due in part to the large number of small home-based businesses.

There are plenty of companies that will sell you a “complete solution”, but it’s important to understand the difference between a good, customizable solution and a “one size fits all” solution. The last thing you want is an online store that looks like a thousand other online stores. It’s often better to take control of your business from the start, so you can be in control of the creative process.

In the long run you’ll be in a better position if you learn the basics of purchasing a domain name, and setting up web hosting rather than leaving it all to another company. This gives you more options down the road rather than being locked into a set-up you no longer like.

You can purchase complete internet store solutions, and also e-commerce hosting providers. The latter is a “framework” that you use to set up your own store and put products on it. It takes a bit more of a learning curve, but gives you more control over the look and feel of your store. An example of an e-commerce hosting provider is Yahoo Merchant Solutions.

Once your store is up and running, traffic or visitors is your next focus. The free option is called SEO or Search Engine Optimization. This involves developing the content of your site so that the search engines give you a good ranking for the search terms you want. This can takes months but is always a good long-term strategy. Alternately, you can purchase ads on search engines such as Google. This is called PPC or pay-per-click. You pay an amount for each time your ad is clicked, driving traffic to your site.

Many turn-key stores will provide search engine optimization, meaning they have optimized the use of words and web page tags to help your site rank higher.

Your next step is to find products to sell…