Selling Products Online or Becoming an Affiliate Marketing Professional: Two Ways to Get Involved in E-commerce

There are two ways (and most likely many more) to make money online. The first is to sell products online and the second way is to advertise products for those who do sell products online (affiliate marketing). Both options are valid even for those who don't have a million dollars to start the e-commerce business of their dreams. This article will discuss 1) options for finding products you can sell online and 2) tips for a successful affiliate marketing campaign.

Finding Products to Sell Via Your Website
Ana Ricon from about.com (a fantastic source of good content) describes a variety of options for finding products to sell online.1 From the fantastically simple to the daringly extensive, Ricon provides a variety of options that I will quickly summarize:

Neighborhood Sales, The Flea Market Fix and the Auction Sites Solution
To simply give online e-commerce a try you can start small.....small and local that is. For example, look at those garage sales you've been avoiding for years or take a glimpse around the flea markets. These products (often inexpensive) can often be sold for semi-large (or large) profits via eBay or other product auction sites. Ricon also describes eBay as another place you might want to become familiar with for products that you can buy and resell. Some of these products might be sold by the case, by the flat, etc. and you can individualize the products and sell them for more. It might take you a while to sell all of the products but it will be worth it if you choose a product that is popular and that isn't likely to lose it's glamor over time. Ricon also suggests utilizing drop shipping as a method for selling products online. Drop shipping is somewhat like affiliate marketing in the sense that it allows you to avoid inventory and costs for labor/storage while still allowing you to sell products online via your website. However the two processes present what could be considered to be significant differences as another online source suggests:2

“Profit margins and earnings are generally substantially higher (varies considerably according to the product) than the typical 5-15% commissions you can typically earn on hard goods sold via an affiliate program.”

Additional Product Finding Options: Look into Local
An interesting suggestion that Ricon also brings up is that of networking with businesses in your area who may not have invested in their own online sales methods is a great way to find product sales opportunities. These local business professionals are likely to be pleased that someone is interested in getting their products in the current of online e-commerce. Ricon also makes the suggestion that craftsmen and craftswomen in your area may have some interesting products that are exclusive to your local area and that are “waiting” to go online. Both of these options (the local business and craftsperson objects options) would probably require more than the typical affiliate responsibilities (order processing might be a responsibility for example) but both options could certainly be good opportunities to get involved with local networking and create your name as an online affiliate or reseller.

An Affiliate Marketing Program
If you want the ease of dealing with 0 tangible products, then take advantage of the following affiliate marketing tips:

Affiliate Marketing Tip #1: Focus on Your Website
An affiliate marketing program can be lucrative....very lucrative in fact, but that doesn't mean it will happen overnight. Many aspects of a successful affiliate marketing program require a firm foundation. This firm foundation must certainly include an SEO friendly website. After all, the main responsibility of an affiliate is to attract online visitors to their respective websites. If your website and website content is SEO friendly you will be more likely to attract qualified visitors to your website.

Affiliate Marketing #2: Synchronicity Between Your Website and the Affiliate Program Products
The more synchronized your optimized site content is with the optimized affiliate product banners that you choose to sell, the better off you will be because you will 1) be able to attract more visitors and 2) will be sure that the right visitors are seeing ads that they would truly be interested in.

Whether you plan to start an affiliate marketing campaign or your own online resell business, make sure to start off with plenty of research and with the right kind of e-commerce networking.

1 onlinebusiness.about.com/od/shoppingcarts/a/productsourcing.htm
2 sitesell.com/sbi-tips/drop-shipping.html