We all know that a lot money is changing hands on the internet
and the amount is growing everyday, but how do you get your hand into
the game? This article will show you how to get started and start
climbing the internet money ladder no matter your level of experience.
Never in history have you had so many options available to you at so
little expense.
The First Thing To Understand
Platforms!
You must understand platforms to get off to a real start to making
money on the internet and you have come to the right place. Just because
you have an internet connection doesn't mean you are set to make money,
you have to plug into some internet platform to make money. What is an
internet platform? The simple answer is they are an organized way to
communicate offers and take in the money. A platform is the nuts and
bolts that enables you to make an offer, someone see that offer, accept
it, then purchase it and often to have it shipped to them. When it comes
to making money, platforms are everything.
Here is an
important point whether you are on the internet or in the real world: To
make significant money you must understand commercial platforms, that
means what they are, how they work and how to use them, even how to make
them.
Let's start with a real world example and then take it
to the internet world. A Walmart store is a huge money platform. Go to
Walmart and you can see the item, pick up the item, know the price of
the item, buy the item and go home with it. That is a real world, bricks
and mortar platform for making money, but get this, they do pretty much
the same thing over the internet on their website as they do in the
store. You can't handle the merchandise, but you can see it in several
pictures. Just like the store you can check it out, see the price and
buy it. The Walmart brick and mortar store is the Walmart brick and
mortar platform and the Walmart internet site is the Walmart internet
platform. Simple so far, right? Right!
Take Amazon, Etsy, eBay,
Craigslist and Walmart, the internet sites of these companies are all
internet money platforms. All of these and many, many more dot-coms are
internet money platforms. Not all dot-coms are internet money platforms,
but all traditional internet platforms are dot-coms or have a
commercial "company name".com internet address. This may seem obvious,
but bear with me. It gets better.
Your First Decision
The
first decision you will have to make when it comes to your online
business and platform is whose platform will you use, yours or someone
else's? You can sell items on Amazon's platform or eBay's platform, any
other company's platform or you can make your own platform. It doesn't
have to be expensive to make your own, but it probably will be time
consuming and even frustrating if you aren't familiar with things like
shopping carts, payment systems and figuring state to state sales tax.
If
you aren't familiar with internet sales and marketing I suggest you
practice first by buying some things online and then selling somethings
online using someone else's platform. Just about anything you can buy at
a bricks and mortar store you can buy online. Get your shopping list
and get started. Once you learn how it works you can climb the internet
ladder from buyer to seller and on to your own platform if you wish.
What Are The Successful Companies Doing?
When
you buy things online first pay attention to how they are presented.
Did they use a picture? More than one picture? Other graphics? Buyers
Reviews? Did they offer other options? Did they offer an up-sale;
offering something more expensive or maybe an accessory or a bulk
package of multiple items to make the value of the total sale go up,
hence the term up-sale.
Next, notice how you check out. Did you go
to another page? Did you go to another company's website that processed
the order? What logo's did you see along the way? Different credit card
companies? Processing companies? Did you see a refund policy?
What
options did they offer for shipping? Did they have a standard shipping
choice that was included in the purchase price? Did they offer different
shipping companies and perhaps the United States Postal Service as an
option? Do they offer international shipping? You had better figure that
one out when you offer something or you might be unpleasantly surprised
to find out how expensive it is to ship 30 pounds of merchandise to a
remote area of the world and you were offering free shipping!
Starting With Someone Else's Platform
So
you make oak widgets for the dining room. You thought it would be nice
to sell them on the internet. Great idea, but how are you going to do it
and how will you get paid? Why not start with someone that has figured
that all out? Etsy is a platform for selling arts, crafts and certain
other merchandise. That might be a good place to start. Then there is
eBay where you can auction off products. Put "selling arts and crafts"
into a search engine and you will find many more.
Here is the
advantage with eBay or some similar online auction company, if you don't
know what to charge for your product put a few up for auction on eBay
and see what they bring. Cheaper than paying a company to analyze your
product, search the market for similar items and prices, get back to you
in a few months with an estimated market price and a big bill!
PayPal
and eBay have split, but it still is nice to have a PayPal account. You
can get one and a business debit card for free. I have one in my
pocket. Square and other companies process payments online. There was a
time you had to go to a bank and pay ridiculously high fees and sign
contracts to have a merchant account to process payments online. Not
anymore. Don't like PayPal or Square? Other payment processors are a
search engine search away. Speaking of search engines Google has a
payment system and so does Apple. It seems like everyone is getting into
this, even Microsoft.
What about Craigslist for the things around
the house you could trade for cash and not miss? Craigslist is a little
different because people often meet in person, exchange the money at
the meeting and the buyer simply carries the item home. Still it is a
platform and you could learn somethings while cleaning out the basement
or garage and make money to boot!
Your Very Own Platform
Creating
your very own platform doesn't have to be expensive, but it does
involve some work. Buy your domain name from a domain name registrar. Go
back to the search engine and find one you like, then enter some
choices you like on the registrar's available name search engine and
pick one that is not taken. Should cost about ten bucks and the price of
a coffee give or take. Now find someone to host it, that is put it
online for you. You can find free hosting using a search engine and if
you are learning free is good enough to start.
Follow the hosting
company's instructions to link your domain to their hosting site and you
are now on the internet. Well, you do need to put up a website, but you
can drag and drop to do that with a little text editing and maybe a
picture or two from your smart phone. YouTube has videos that show you
how. Weebly is one popular free hosting company, but there are others.
Start for free and if you need more options you pick a monthly paid plan
that fits your needs.
Digital Product Options
So
you finally finished that great novel you have been working on since
the kids were in diapers. Amazon has a kindle eBook service where you
can publish a digital book and keep most of the money that comes in from
the sales. Maybe you made a three mp3 recorded series on fly fishing or
making chocolate cakes or how to do anything. Gumroad is a popular
platform for the sales of digital products like these, that means
eBooks, videos and courses with multimedia including PDF files for guide
and workbooks. Once again, they aren't the only one.
With digital
products there are so many options that it is hard to justify creating
your own sales machine from start to finish. I have websites that
promote my products and then seamlessly link the buyer to another site
and company that handles the sales and downloads.
Promotion
People
have to find what you have to sell. If you put your son's skateboard on
Craigslist someone will see it, probably a lot of people. If you put it
on your new website there is a good chance that only you and your close
friends you show your neat new website to will see it. You have to
promote your website and your products if you use your own platform and
it doesn't hurt if you promote them if you use someone else's platform.
The
topic of promotion is much too big to cover here, in fact, if you were
to count the content on the internet a large percentage is on this one
topic and that is too much to cover in an article. On the other hand I
can't leave you without a clue, back to the search engine and enter
terms like "internet marketing," "internet promotion," "product
promotion," "advertising on the internet" and you should find more than
enough to keep you busy for a lifetime or two. While you are looking,
you might as well learn about AdWords, Facebook ads, banner ads and
network ads, so enter that in too.
What To Do Next
So
what do you do next? Start! Sell something on Craigslist and learn how
to set up an account. See how they handle sales. Make a digital trip
over to eBay and Etsy to see how they work. If you don't have something
to sell, then keep your eye out for something you can resell. Since you
have got that search engine warmed up enter "drop shipping," "drop ship
services" and "drop ship products" to find something you can resell.
Remember
this: TEST, TEST, TEST. Don't buy ten cases of something to sell before
you know there is a solid demand. Don't offer a hundred things unless
you know you will make money on the transactions instead of lose money.
Try using a drop shipper to avoid keeping inventory or investing money
in your products. The common drop shipper will fill your orders as they
come in, one sale at a time. Oh, and one more thing, Good Luck!
If you would like to learn more about making money and building
wealth I am pleased to offer you my new eBook, "Empty Pockets" as a free
resource. It is a book covering the reasons most people are not wealthy
and how to fix them.
