The first thing you may want to know about earning money on the Internet is that anyone can do it and the more you can do yourself, the lower your start-up cost will be.  You can sell anything on the Internet, from used clothing and books to cars and houses; you just have to find out if there are people out there willing to buy what you have to sell.  When you are selling on the Internet, the whole world is your audience; you won’t be limited to a local market any longer.  If you have an idea of what you want to sell, get on the Internet and do some research on similar items.  Find out who else is selling it and for how much.  The easiest way to get started selling is to sign up as a seller on an auction site.  This way you don’t have to have a website, or even a computer, as long as you have access to a computer with an Internet connection, an e-mail account that you check regularly, and a bank account.  My own Grandmother found an old fishing lure at a sale for $2.00 and sold it on EBay for $472.00!

eBay (www.eBay.com) is a great auction site for selling any items you have.  Starting with a minimum bid, users bid on your item during a set time period, and the highest bidder wins the item. This is sometimes a great way to get a good price from items that you might not get much for if you sold them at a garage sale. It's also a great place to sell specialty, hard to find, or unique items. Half.com (www.half.com) is a great place to sell used books, videos, DVDs, CDs, music, and software. Amazon.com is also a great place to sell items, especially books, music, movies, and software.  eBay’s fees start at 30 cents per auction with a final value (final sale price) fee that ranges from 1.5% to 5.25%.  You can also easily set up a store front with eBay for $9.95 per month.  One more thing that is good about starting on eBay is that most auctions are setup so that the buyer pays the shipping.  You should give an estimate in your auction listing description of the item’s approximate shipping cost, but you can also just list the dimensions and/or weight and let them calculate shipping from your zip code.

If you have lots of similar items to sell, you may want to consider setting up your own website or store front or both.  Once you design the site, find a host (service provider), and decide on an available domain name (like www.StillwaterTimes.com), you can start selling with or without having a merchant account (a way to accept credit cards).  Most people that make purchases on the Internet use a credit card or a payment service such as PayPal (www.PayPal.com) where they can have funds transferred directly from their bank account into your account.  Having a sellers account is just as easy to use, and in fact is the same as a purchasers account, and you can even accept payments for things such as services and information.

When you already have a merchant account and products available, setting up your business to sell on the Internet will be easier in terms of the start-up process.  It is also easier for your customers to simply enter their credit card number directly on your site once they’ve decided on their purchase, as long as you make sure it is being done securely and there is no chance of their information being intercepted or stolen.  If you don’t already have an existing business or items to sell, you’ll have to do a bit of searching to find the right niche that fits with your personality and has profit potential.

Another large part of selling on the web is making sure that as many potential customers as possible can find your product.  Submitting your website or store front to all the major search engines including google.com is an important step in reaching as many people as possible.  Also, find out if you can get your website listed on other related websites.

Really, any existing business that has a yellow pages ad can benefit from having a website.  You can purchase a smaller ad and put a link to your website that can have just about every detail and description of your product or service.  You also have the opportunity to update the information as often as you want.

Here are some steps to follow when starting a new Internet business.  If you have an existing business and are just expanding it to the Internet, you can skip several of the beginning steps.

1)      Get a computer with Internet access and an e-mail account.

2)      Be an Internet customer yourself.  Try to find what you need to buy online and actually purchase it.  You’ll see what it takes to make the customer pleased with the outcome of the purchase.

3)      Get a website hosting service to store your web pages.  (If you already have Internet service to your home or business with an e-mail account, such as America Online, then you probably have around 5 megabytes of web space that comes with it.)

4)      Get a domain name.  This step isn’t truly necessary, but the easier your website is to find and remember, the more your customers will be able get to it without problems.  This is the difference between having a website address of http://www.yourserviceprovider.net/~yourname and http://www.yourproduct.com.

5)      Create your web pages.  There is lots of software available to help you with this from Dreamweaver to Microsoft FrontPage.  There are also website hosting services that include website design in their service fees or have easily updated templates available so you just add your wording and your pictures.  Be sure and make it very easy for your customers to order and pay for your product.  Also add a counter (try webtrendslive.com) to your pages so you can see how many people are actually visiting your site and when.  Your potential customers need to know you are a real business.  Put your name and contact information where they can easily find it.  Add pictures of your business and employees and put customer testimonials on the main pages.

6)      Start promoting your site.  Internet marketing is a whole world all on its own and you will definitely need to do your homework to come up with the best ways to do it for your business.  Basically you will want to submit your site to all the major search engines and maybe even pay for some advertising to target specific customers.

7)      Provide the best possible service with fast shipping and a quality guarantee.  Generating sales from repeat customers and word-of-mouth recommendations are much cheaper than marketing to acquire new customers.

8)      Keep your website fresh by updating it often and offer weekly or monthly specials.  You may even consider providing content that will keep your customers coming back such as tips on how to maintain and use the products.

Sales growth is almost always slow at first for two reasons. It takes a while for shoppers to realize you are out there and people generally don’t order from a site on their first visit.  They are wondering if the site has the strength to support them and back up any products they may purchase.  If they come back to your website a few months later, and it is not only still there, but seems bigger and more prosperous, then they may think you and your website are real and worthy of their trust.  The Internet is huge. There are millions of users, and hundreds-of-thousands of sites competing for their attention. It takes patience and lots of effort to tilt something so huge in the direction of your Internet store.  But once it gets started, it has the momentum of a rocket.  If you can get a small but solid customer base, and keep them very happy, that and time are all you need.  The main thing to remember… the winners are the ones who don’t give up.

If you get stuck somewhere between an Internet business idea and becoming the successful owner of a profitable website, there is help available.  Visit Masters Technology Services online at http://www.MastersTS.com, e-mail Kristen@MastersTS.com or call 405-743-0337.

July 17, 2002

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