There are three important things to consider when become a reseller on the internet: 1) Products and Inventory, 2) Store Front (Shopping Cart), and 3) Affiliate Sales, and 4) Promotion and Traffic. Each os these is discussed below.
Products and Inventory
If you sell physical products, you either have to carry your own inventory, or sign-up with a program that allows drop-shipping. Affiliate sales (see below) are preferred by most online marketers, because the hassle of inventory and shipping is totally off your back, and the burden of someone else. On the other hand, digital products are very unique. A digital product might be an eBook, a video, an online course, or a membership site.
The same digital product can be sold to multiple people, and they typically download it or access it online. So with a digital product, you don’t have to stock the product as you would a physical product; but you have to a mechanism to allow customers to download it (and avoid those who did not pay for it to not download it). There are numerous tools that allow you to do this, including WordPress plugins. One I have used is a membership site software called WishList, but there are simpler ones if you just have an eBook.
If you sell a physical product, then finding your niche or product(s) is your first step. Some sellers choose just one product, while others go with many. I would prefer multiple products, to spread the risk. You don’t want all your eggs in one basket so to speak; if the demand for one product changes, and you only have one product, you could be out of business overnight. When selecting products, try to pick a niche that you have a lot knowledge about, and an ongoing interest or passion.
I’ve met one lady who actually goes to China, buys container loads of products, and sells them on Amazon. Amazon provides a service called “FBA” which stands for “Fulfillment by Amazon“. With this service, you have the products delivered to one or more of Amazon warehouses, following their guidelines for labeling your products. Then they actually store them, and ship them for you. This allows you to participate in the Amazon “Prime” program, where products are delivered in 1-2 days; a feature that can sell more of your product that a competitor’s product that does not provide “Prime shipping.”
Of course, when selling Business Opportunity Leads, there is no inventory for you to worry about.
Store Front and Shopping Cart
With Amazon, you can either be an affiliate or a seller. As an affiliate, the storefront is taken care of for you. But as a seller, you have to add your products to the system, and make sure they have good titles product descriptions, and photos that will help it to sell.
If you want to have your own online store, you need an online shopping cart. These have existed for years, with free open source versions such as OS/Commerce, ZenCart, but in the last year a sales system called Shopify seems to be taking over the market.
https://www.oscommerce.com https://www.zen-cart.com
Shopify may cost $29 to $99 or more per month, depending on the package you choose, the number of products, and which plug-ins you install. But despite the fees, it has become incredibly popular, and many marketers are having great success with it, often targeting ads on Facebook to find customers.
Many high-end marketers use a more expensive and complete system called InfusionSoft. It allows you to build complex sales funnels, up-sells, one time offers, and includes a customer relation management (CRM) system to allow you to keep in contact with all your customers (and sell them more products).
If you have just a few items, you can get a Paypal plug-in for WordPress, and simply have your customer pay you via Paypal (which accepts credit cards). Paypal of course takes a small cut of each sale. Some people fear the lack of freedom of Paypal, and some claim to have had their accounts and funds frozen, and thus prefer to use traditional merchant accounts. You can get your own merchant account, and accept credit cards on your site.
Affiliate Sales
Being an affiliate means you promote someone else’s site or product, usually with a special code or number added to the URL (Web Link). A tracking system sees that the order comes you, and when the transaction is completed, you earn a commission. Commissions on digital products are often 50 to even 80% of the value of the product, where as commissions on physical products are often 5 to 15%.
There are even a few product that pay 80 to 100% commissions? How does that work? The vendor knows the “life time value” of the customer, and knows that a certain percentage of buyers will buy more products or up sells in the future. You may or may not get commission on those future sales, so be sure to ask. Once a customer has bought a product, the vendor has the email of that customer, and continues to market new products to that customer for years to come.
Typically commissions are paid out weekly, every other week, or monthly, however some systems are set up where you can specify a threshold. When the amount of your commissions exceed that threshold, your commissions are paid. Some companies still send checks, some use direct deposit, and other uses a third-party gateway for payments. Some of these are more convenient than others, but the first goal is to earn that first commission.
With affiliate programs, you can either sign-up directly with some vendors, such as Amazon or Zappo. There are also exchanges, middle-men who set up affiliate programs for 1000s of companies. The popular ones include ClickBank, JVZoo.com, and Commission Junction.
On the other hand, if you have a product to sell, you can run your own affiliate program, and get other people to sell for you, paying them a commission. Most choose one of the exchanges mentioned above, but you also get software that allows this for almost any shopping-cart system. Once you set that up, you have to go out and attract people to become affiliates, and that a sales job in and of itself. You are competing with 1000s of other companies for the attention of those affiliates. Sometimes, meeting people at conferences is the best way to gain people’s trust and sign them up as affiliates. After you getting affiliate sales coming in, then you may need an accountant or bookkeeper to help you keep up with the payments, as unpaid affiliates will not stick with you long.
Selling Network Marketing Leads is a type of affiliate system. With Traffic Authority, you become an affiliate and make commissions when you sell leads. You can also make money selling the monthly membership that teaches people about traffic, email marketing, and handling those leads.
Promotion and Traffic
Whether you build your own online store, or become an affiliate, you won’t make any money with traffic. Even if you build the proverbial “better mouse-trap”, if no one knows about it, you will not sell any.
Some people use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to promote their websites and product pages. Other run Pay Per Click (PPC) on Google’s ad network. Others run solo ads in online newsletters. Yet others sell via giving speeches and then directing the audience to the website.
Overtime, as you become a smarter marketer, you rely on data analytics and monitor your statistics. It’s possible these days to put a “pixel” (a small chunk of JavaScript code) on your cart and your check out page, and that allows full tracking of your ad budget to the “add-to-cart” and “sales conversion.” This allows you to better target your ads and be wise on how you spend your marketing budget.
The newest breed of marketers capitalize on social media marketing, such as YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and so on.
A final option is paid traffic. That’s essentially what is being sold when you sell online leads. The leads are directed to your page, which could either be a product page, or an opt-in form which takes the potential prospects name and email.
