Wednesday 29 September 2010

Product Ideas to Sell Online

Product Ideas to Sell Online
By George N Root III, eHow Contributor
I want to do this! What's This?

Television and Internet advertising can sometimes create the image that an online retail business is a quick and easy way to start your own company. The truth is that unless you can find products that people want to buy, your online retail business will not last very long. Use your imagination to find the products that you believe will help you launch your online retail business.

Services
1. One of the easier start-up products for an online retailer is services, because the costs are relatively low. If you have an expertise in a popular topic, then attempt to start a newsletter and offer monthly subscriptions to your newsletter.

Another popular service is training. Set up a website that offers courses in various popular subjects such as Internet usage, language tutoring or computer repair. It will be necessary to recruit experts in these fields, but the way to compensate these experts is a percentage of the pay from each student. This will also get the experts involved in recruiting students. Follow the format established by other online training companies and modify their format to fit your ideas.

Products
2. One way to get started selling products as an online retailer is to become a supplier to a specific industry or activity. For example, you could base your business on the idea of selling art students the supplies they need for their studies. When you focus on a specific industry, it allows you to determine where the needs are in that industry and see if you can become a supplier of those needs. It is easier to find the less saturated business segments when you break an industry down into its parts and then examine the supply and demand model for each of those parts.

The market for personalized gifts is a large and growing market, and if you can find some unique products to personalize then you could find a buying audience. This means avoiding the personalized T-shirt and coffee mug businesses because there are many of those already out there. One idea for a product to personalize is to put someone's name as the character in a popular novel. This would require getting the reproduction rights to the author's work, but this is the sort of personalization you could offer with your online retail business.
Things to Avoid
3. Research to determine the products that are saturated with online retailers. Many people offer DVDs, CDs, and books online. The chances that you will find success by offering products that are being offered by too many retailers is slim.

Some people start an online retail business to try and turn their hobby or passion into a career. When it comes to business, it is always a good idea to follow the sales projection figures as opposed to following your heart. While it would be easier to establish an online retail business with products that you have a passion for, it only makes sense to do it if you have done your research and determined that there is a market for your hobby. Determine what will sell, and use that to find success as an online retailer.