What's the Best Product to Sell Online?
by Tim Knox
Published on this site: January 31st, 2006 - See
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I wish I had a dime for every time I've been asked, "Tim,
what's the best product to sell online?" I also wish
I had a nickel for every blank stare I received when I answered:
"That's simple: information." I'd have enough money
to finance another startup or two.
As more and more entrepreneurs move to the Internet seeking
their fortunes, "What's the best product to sell online,"
has become the number one business question of the decade.
The next question is always: "Why information?"
Again, the answer is simple: because no other type of product
is easier to create, faster to bring to market, easier to
distribute, and potentially more profitable.
Many info products net as much as 75% to 95% profit on the
initial sale after all costs have been deducted. And residual
sales to established customers can offer 100% profit.
Informational products come in many forms. An info product
can be a digital book (e-book" is the accepted term),
a digital report or white paper, a piece of software, a website,
a newsletter, etc. Any product that is informational or informative
in nature can be considered an info product.
Here's why information is the best product to sell online:
Fast to create, fast to market
Forget a product development cycle that is years in the making.
Forget an intense design and costly manufacturing process.
I have literally created info products in as little as two
hours and had them generating revenue shortly thereafter.
If you have an appealing topic and a computer, you have all
the tools you need to create an info product.
No inventory to stock
Forget filling your garage with boxes of cheap watches and
cases of mega vitamins that you will never sell. When you
sell information there is no inventory to stock. Your product
is digital (I like to call it electronic air) and requires
no space in your garage, just a little space on your computer.
One of my most successful info products is a 30kb e-book that
requires almost no space at all.
Low startup costs
When you sell information you can literally create a product
for next to nothing. If your product is an e-book the only
investment required will be in the time it takes to put words
to digital paper. If you become an affiliate marketer of someone
else's info product your investment can be zero.
You can automate the sales and delivery process.
Thanks to internet technology you can sell info products 24
hours a day, 7 days a week, and never lift a finger. In fact,
you don't even have to be awake or at home to make money with
an info product. I know many successful info entrepreneurs
who are getting rich despite the fact that they work as little
as an hour a day.
They check the website and their email, then go play golf
or hang with the kids for the rest of the day. You can completely
automate the sales and delivery process so your website does
everything for you.
An automated website can give a potential customer your sales
pitch, take the order and process the payment, deliver the
product by email, and even follow up in a few days to make
sure the customer is satisfied and offer to sell them additional
products.
You can offer immediate access or delivery
Online consumers are an inpatient lot. They want things now!
These are people who stand in front of the microwave impatiently
tapping their foot and frowning at their watch. Selling information
is the best way to give your customers immediate satisfaction.
As mentioned earlier, an automated website can process the
order and payment, then immediately email the download link
for the product to your customer.
There's no shipping and handling
One of the things I never liked about selling hard goods was
the manual process of taking the order, running the credit
card, placing the order with a dropshipper or filling the
order of my stock. I hated finding a box and packing peanuts
and printing the label and taping it all up and lugging it to
the post office. Every minute I spent filling orders was time
that I was not being compensated for, therefore, my profit
grew less and less with every minute spent on shipping and
handling. Informational products require no shipping and handling.
Most are delivered by email. In the time it takes you to click
your mouse, you can deliver an info product.
What if you don't have your own info product to sell?
This is one of the most appealing aspects of selling information.
If you don't have an info product, creating or finding one
is much easier than you think.
Tim Knox Entrepreneur, Author, Speaker
http://www.prosperityandprofit.com
http://www.dropshipwholesale.net
http://www.smallbusinessqa.com
http://www.timknox.com
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