“What Products Can I Sell Through an Online Business?”

The easy answer to the above is, “Absolutely anything you want.” I’ll ask a question straight back: “What products have you bought via the internet over the last year?” If you think back it is quite likely you have purchased a wide variety of items such as DVDs, CDs, books, printer ink, presents for loved ones, even the weekly groceries. The internet is merely a marketplace where, as at any local village market, you can buy whatever happens to be up for sale.

If the question in the above headline relates to an internet marketer working from home, then the answer is obviously rather different. You obviously can’t take orders for groceries or carry a stock of very large and bulky items; – well, I suppose you could but I wouldn’t recommend it! Not many of us would be happy to carry a stock of washing machines and freezers in our garage.

So what are the ideal products to sell through an online business? For the sole trader, we are primarily in the business of information publishing although some marketers also deal in items of software too. The easiest products to deal with are, fairly obviously, digital items which can be downloaded by the customer from a link in our thank you page. Our involvement in the actual processing of the sale is non-existent. All the work would have been done in setting up the website and the payment system when the product was launched and will go on processing sales for as long as we want it to. This is one of the best ways to bring in passive income when the sales process is on automatic pilot.

DVDs, CDs and printed reports are another favourite for the internet marketer. These can be easily and cheaply sent out. One of the particular attractions of these products is that they can be produced to order. A customer will purchase online and pay for the product at the time of order. The disks or the paper report can then be produced to meet the order. There is no need to hold any stock which, for someone running a business from home, is obviously a huge advantage. If you don’t want the hassle of doing this yourself, you can always outsource to a fulfilment house who will do it all for you; – produce the disks or report, pack up the order and send it out. The cost per item is very small.

Most people these days use the internet for purchasing on a fairly regularly basis. Even the big multi-national companies are doing more and more of their business online. For the internet marketer working from his or her own kitchen they are, in some ways, restricted as to what they can offer for sale. The big plus is that information products can be quickly and easily created or sourced and have a huge profit margin. A DVD may cost you £1 – £2 to produce but the information on it may be worth £90, £190 even £900. That’s a spectacular profit in anyone’s language. The cost of running an online business is very small so it is not difficult to see just how much of that profit margin will be yours to keep.