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Think_Before_You_Bank_on_the_Web
| Think Before You Bank on the Web
When people first heard about Ebay, it seemed like a dream come
true. For just a couple of bucks, you could list all your old
stuff online and clean out that garage or attic without having
bargain hunters invade your property. Small business owners also
discovered Ebay and found that it was a great way to move items
that weren’t flying off the shelves. Artists and specialty item
sellers found a home at the online auction site and a worldwide
audience of potential buyers looking for just what they are
selling. Entrepreneurs took the whole thing, ran with it and
created some very successful businesses within a business.
Just when it seemed that Ebay was a dream comes true for almost
anyone selling stuff, the website just got too big. All of a
sudden, people found themselves paying huge fees for a featured
listing. Without a featured listing in the correct category, you
were just another seller among the millions. Such listing fees
often ate up most of any potential profits to be made and
offered no actual promise of success. Today, it seems that
creating a listing on Ebay and paying the requested listing fees
is akin to dropping coins into a slot machine. Welcome to the
world of trying to make money online!
Most people laugh about web-based get rich quick schemes, but
there is no place to make or lose money faster, except maybe the
stock market. For better or worse, the nature of anything
web-based is to get in on the ground floor, make your money and
get out before too many others join the party. Anyone who banks
long term on the web tends to lose. Just ask any of the once
highly touted online marketing websites. The problem is that
when they lose, they tend to take many people with them.
There is no doubt that anyone who has a legitimate item to sell
needs to have it available online. The question is, “How much
are you willing to spend to become an Ebay Power Seller, get a
high sales ranking on Amazon or be listed somewhere in the top
twenty on the search engines?” Whether you have a personal
website or depend on some mega-shopping website to get your item
out there, it’s going to cost you some bucks to bring people to
your product. So before you quit your day job and get ready to
rack in all those big web bucks, make sure it will be worth your
while.
Getting a product noticed on the web can be a very expensive
lesson. More then a few online merchants invested all their
efforts in one online marketing plan, made money and then lost
big. Others never even made it out of the starting gate. Here
are some simple ways to avoid complete online financial failure:
1. Never put all your eggs in one online shopping basket.
Do not depend on one website, one submission program or service,
one e-shopping mega-listing site or one payment method for your
online income.
2. Avoid digital products unless you’re an expert.
Don’t be taken in by reselling schemes to market useless
reports. If you have life experience in a particular industry or
expertise that others may be able to profit from, use it to your
advantage. Create and market an ebook. Before you do, research
the procedure, expected cost and profit potential.
3. If you can’t sell soap to your neighbors, you will not sell
it online.
Tens of thousands of people are taken in each year by
extravagant plans to sell jewelry, medications, vitamins,
cosmetics and household cleaning products online. Most of these
people would not be a success trying to sell these things
offline to neighbors and will not fair any better in the digital
world.
4. Do not depend on Affiliate Programs for a substantial income.
Affiliate programs are a way to get a few extra bucks out of a
popular website. A stable and fairly honest affiliate program
like the one offered by Amazon.com is good. Some multi-merchant
affiliate websites like Share-A-Sale are also worth a shot.
Others may be geared to change once you start making any money,
essentially robbing you of commissions due for sending motivated
buyers to their merchants.
5. Sell unique or competitive products.
Don’t be taken in by scams that get you to purchase a bunch of
wholesale junk, and then try to sell it on Ebay. If you do plan
on buying to resell online, do your homework. Find out who else
is selling the same thing for how much they’re charging. The
most successful online merchants sell items that are unique or
in such high demand that the market allows for a wide variety of
sellers and prices.
6. Less clicks mean more customers.
The less complicated you make it for customers to purchase your
products, the more you will sell. It’s estimated that for every
one click a customer executes to find or purchase your products,
you can lose as little as ten or as many as one thousand sales.
Make it easy for them, even if it’s harder for you.
7. Expect the worst, enjoy the best.
A responsible real world merchant will be ready for major
setbacks like natural disasters, thefts and personal injury
lawsuits. Online merchants regularly face cancelled listings or
withheld payments fueled by buyer complaints, website or payment
processing outages and sudden search engine dropouts.
8. Selling is an art. Are you an artist?
Not everyone has the personality and skills needed to be a
success at selling. Anyone who wants to sell online has to be
able to translate his or her personality and skills into the
digital world. If you are completely baffled by the internet and
lack the time needed to learn what it’s all about, becoming an
online merchant would probably be a very bad idea.
The vast majority of people who try to make money online will
never meet their own financial expectations. In most cases, the
culprit will be poor planning. In others, bad execution.
Overall, anyone planning a web-based business needs to approach
his or her endeavor in a serious way. While optimism is always a
good motivator, it cannot replace proper planning and risk
assessment.
About the author:
Title: Think Before You Bank on the Web Topic: Web-based
Businesses Author: Bill Knell Author's Email: billknell@cox.net
Author's Website: http://www.billknell.com Word count : 1045
Terms To Use Article: Permission is granted to use this article
for free online or in print. Please add a link to or print my
website address of http://www.billknell.com
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