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Can You Make Money Online
With today's affordable computer technology and Internet accessibility, going online is a better choice if you:
*make more money with less effort;
*no or very limited budget;
*multiple income streams;
*work with the comfort of your home and schedule;
*profit coming in by next week;
*unlimited profit potential; ...
Let me explain a bit further.
With online businesses, you have, at least, these advantages:
*Wider potential market
For the first time, you, as an individual, can reach a worldwide market.
Billions of people are surfing around everyday. And a rapidly increasing number of people around the world use the Internet to purchase items they can't find locally or just don't care where the product is shipped from, as long as they want it.
(Or even better, if you sell info products that can be downloaded immediately after payment is processed, it doesn't make any difference for your customer where you live or where your web server is.)
If you're fast on your feet, you have the opportunity to make some of them your customers. Think about it. The Internet provides a small business in Peoria, Illinois, or Johor Bahru, Malaysia, the opportunity to be a global player, with little expenditure except time given to learning.
A global opportunity awaits you! Isn't it exciting?
*Lower costs
If you already have a product to sell, what's the initial cost to put up a web site to sell it? Here's a round down:
--Domain name registration, $8-35 per year
--Web hosting, $0-35 per month
--Advertising, $0-100
And that's it.
Actually you can get everything done for free except domain name registration. So the minimum cost to start selling online is $300 per year!
I mean it, everything. And in a professional way. Web hosting, affiliate program management, credit card processing, mailing list, CGI script...I can let you know where to get these services.
Even if you would buy all the most professional and expensive services and software right from beginning of your online venture, it shouldn't cost you more than one thousand dollars.
Typically, $100-200 is what you need to start an online business from scratch.
Online business is much cheaper to run as well. You don't have to pay for office rental or equipment. You don't have to employ anyone before you make 1 million dollars.
Once you put everything into autopilot (we'll talk about that later), your running cost will be nearly zero.
*By-pass middleman
Internet was regarded as advertising medium several years ago. It's not the case any more. A web site is now better understood as place of doing actual business, actual transactions.
Online direct sales enables you to jump any distribution chain that ratchets up prices to the end user. It means much higher profit margin for you, lower price for your customer, or both.
In traditional business world, distribution and retail cost can be up to 90% of the selling price! Now you can pass part of that savings to your customer and keep the rest in your own pocket.
In fact, a really scary development to many manufacturers is the growing temptation to sell directly on the Web and by-pass the complex distribution chain they have built over many years. The manufacturer doesn't want to anger distributors and dealers. But buyers don't care. Neither do you.
*Sales process automation
Nearly everything can be put into autopilot for an online business.
From product presentation (the site itself), information inquires, price quotation, to payment processing, order fulfillment, customer service, just to name a few. Even the profit will go into your bank account automatically!
All these can be done while you are sleeping or enjoying happy time with your family at beach!
This is rather impossible for off-line business.
It then translates to more leisure time, or better, more time and opportunities to develop your next online project. Therefore, more money ahead.
Above all, automation itself means much higher profit margin. You don't have to spend time or money on routine operations. You don't have to employ anyone to run it. It runs by itself, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!
*Multiple income streams and unlimited profit potential
This is the natural result of advantages discussed above.
Automation frees up your valuable time and makes it possible for you to repeat the success time and time again. Over time, you will be able to build multiple web sites selling different product lines.
Even if one of them couldn't pull in orders after some time due to saturated market, you can rest assured that you have other income generators still making money for you.
A worldwide market enables you to exploit varies product ideas. Your imagination is the only limit.
*Easy communication with customers and visitors
Just imagine, how I can deliver these products and services to you in the off-line world? How can you sign up in the first place? I don't know you, I have no idea where you live, what you like, how old you are...There's no way I can contact you in the off-line world.
On the Internet, you complete up a form and any of the products or services are mailed to you automatically.
This communication capability doesn't end here of course. You can easily inform your visitors/customers new content at your site, give them special gift or discount, keep in touch with them via mailing list, answer questions by email...the list goes on and on.
The best part is, you capture names and email addresses simply by setting up a form, just like the one offered and you completed on my site. A big time money saver!
Better communication means higher chances to:
*build your credibility
*get more traffic
*sell to your visitors
*have better customer service
*build a mailing list which will bring in advertising dollars
*sell more backend products
And all these benefits don't cost you anything!
*Short summary
I can easily name more advantages of Internet business: test and adjust your marketing methods fast, don't need to talk to strangers, you can start as a hobby first while keeping your full-time job, you can work when you want to (if you are as lazy as I am, you should know what I mean)...you have the idea.
What more can you expect?
Just go online!
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You've heard of enough bad news. Economic downturn, dot-com fallout, weak stock market, all the online scams...Some people just don't believe this "e-business" kind of thing any more.
But before you walk away, I want you to think about something for a moment. Did you know that between 1998 and 2000, online shopping within US grew a staggering 580%? It's true. Forrester Research reported growth from $7.8 billion US in 1998 to $45 billion US in 2000. And online sales reach $5.7 billion in December 2001, - up 14% from December 2000, in spite of bad economy.
Now think about this. Online consumers couldn't care less about the dot-coms dropping off the Web. More and more people are coming online to shop, and the number of purchases that they're making each year are continuing to increase. Those new to e-shopping are making 9 purchases a year and those with more web experience (5 years online) are making 20 purchases a year.
So what's going on? Online spending is growing at fantastic speeds. e-Shopping is becoming a routine part of consumer life. Yet all we're hearing about right now is failed dot-coms. One by one, companies like Furniture.com, Pets.com, MotherNature.com, Toysmart.com, Living.com, Mortgage.com, Garden.com, etc...have closed their doors, and each time the pink slips are handed out, the media has a feeding frenzy. Feature stories promising easy wealth and overnight success have now turned into the dot-com obituaries. It's enough to make your head spin.
And that's why these statistics I've just shown you are important. Obviously the whole story is not being told. If online shopping has reached 5.7 billion per month, all of this money must be lining someone's pockets.
But whose?
A large portion goes to individuals just like you, and small businesses who sell unique products directly at their web sites!
Small is a big advantage. Big businesses dominate the traditional business world. The Wal-Mart's and Microsoft's have steadily forced smaller, family-owned businesses out of the way. Not so on the Internet. Three out of four Internet businesses are very small, often only one person working from home.
You can find many direct sales web sites popping up online everyday. Some will fail. The ones making money all have something in common:
*focus on a well-defined, easy-reachable niche market
*sell a unique product or have a unique selling proposition
*streamlined sales process
*active and effective web site promotion
*develop backend products
There is still plenty of room for new businesses on the Internet. Now is an excellent time to start or promote your e-business.
Take advantage of your competitor's hesitation at this dramatic turning point and scoop up your share of the market!
Follow the path to greater success!
