What Businesses are Succeeding on the Net?

The most basic question any Internet business owner will have to answer at one point or another?"what should I sell?".

After the settling down of the dot-com bubble, sanity checks have brought realistic expectations to the fore. Initially, a backlash was seen, forecasting the doom of the Internet. Finally, merits have made the Internet gain its rightful place. In breakthroughs that show the promise of e-commerce wasn't all smoke and mirrors, four dot-coms recently reported their first quarterly profits.

The list of the Internet's publicly held moneymakers includes eBay Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Yahoo! Inc., Overture Services Inc., Expedia Inc., FindWhat.com Inc. and E-Trade Group Inc. Several privately owned dot-coms, including search engines Google and DealTime, say they have been making money, too.

Should you be selling a product or a service?

The Internet is primarily used to communicate, entertain, educate and research. It is thus no wonder that nonperishable, information-intensive products - including computers and software, books, travel, consumer electronics, magazine subscriptions - are the most popular online products at present. Content-rich sites, subscription-based sites to advertiser-supported sites focusing on a wide range of topics, have been sprouting all over the Internet.

Services such as hotel reservation, air travel and investments have successfully translated themselves to the Internet.

Unique services such as Online driving schools have been prospering. Some states in the US have set up online payment sites for Government services. Residents of a state can log on to a common site to pay all bills and other expenses, such as parking tickets to the local/County courts.

However, all kinds of services cannot be run entirely on the Internet. The Internet is less effective when face-to-face selling is needed to close a deal. The Internet can give lots of preliminary information that's useful in setting the scene for the closing. But the actual closing takes place offline - i.e., not on the Internet.

Products can also be marketed and sold successfully on the Internet. The kinds of products and services that sell best on the Internet are those that take advantage of the convenience of the Net. Remember that convenience is the primary reason why consumers flock to the Internet in the first place. People can shop any hour of the day at any site. They can avoid crowded stores, irritating sales clerks, and even avoid pickpockets.

Offbeat or unusual products and services often attract online attention and sell strongly. You would generally not try to sell items people can get at the corner store. Thus, few toothbrushes are sold on the Net; the same thing with daily food and beverage purchases. But special cheeses, rare cigars, Turkish plates, long-aged wines, even diamonds, can and do sell on the Net.

Most products sold by catalog and mail order also sell well on the Net. However, people tend to buy only those products that could be shipped at a reasonable price. Higher shipping costs diminish the price competitiveness of online products and turns-off a lot of potential buyers. In fact, high shipping costs is the primary factor that discourages people from buying online more than any other single reason. An Ernst and Young report shows that 53 percent of online shoppers are concerned with shipping costs that are too high, compared to only 19 percent who are concerned with credit cards being stolen.

As an online merchant, you have to work out the advantages as well as disadvantages of selling either products or services. However, in the recent past, online services have known to flourish. Nevertheless, if you chose to sell products you need to rethink your product offering if the total costs of the product and the shipping are higher than what is offered elsewhere.

Take some time to evaluate your products or services. There is a growing market of potential customers on the Internet, you just need to offer the products and services they are looking for.

Larry Blake's most recent books and reports are now available online at his web site, http://infobook-ezine.com. His latest blog reports are very informative and cover all aspects of Blog marketing ideas and opportunities. Get all the Blog marketing details: infobook-ezine.com/blog-report.html

---

10 Explosive Ways To Elevate Your Sales

1. Publish an ezine.Your ezine will provide you with a... Read More

How Do You Live the Internet Dream? Automate, Automate, Automate!

There's no doubt that one of the things that excited... Read More

How To Hold On To Your Customers Like Hell And Make Them Pay You Again And Again!

With the years competition online, has become fierce. Studies shows... Read More

Internet Marketing ? Have a Beer With Your Own Internet Marketing Consultant

Did you ever wish that you could sit at the... Read More

Top 3 Online Business Success Needs

1) Web SiteThis is for sure the most important part... Read More

Niche Marketing: Finding JV Partners

Joint Ventures (JVs) are one of the most powerfull techniques... Read More

5 Things More Important to Internet Buyers than WHAT Youre Selling II

Web commerce is all about courtship, not salesmanship. In life,... Read More

How To Actually Make Money In Network Marketing

Most people that I know who are, or have been... Read More

9 Great Reasons To Help An Internet Marketing Newbie

Zig Ziglar the famous self help guru was once quoted... Read More

The Most Successful Internet Marketing Model - Start with Free Tools, Spend Money Later

There is a particular web site where I regularly place... Read More

The Easy Days

The easy days are gone when you could build your... Read More

Niche Marketing - How to Find Your Perfect Niche Market

If you don't find a niche market for the product... Read More

Physical and Mental Fitness for Internet Marketers

As you may have already read in our article "Health... Read More

Boost Your Web Site Sales

The following strategies are used every day to boost sales... Read More

Online Sales: 10 Heavy Duty Tactics To Sky-Rocket Your Online Sales

Here are the 10 heavy duty online sales tactics that... Read More

Long Copy Secrets - Keys To Mental Engagement

Master copywriter Robert Collier often used a technique to get... Read More

I Was at the Point of Giving Up With My Website - Then Something Wonderful Happened!

This wasn't meant to sound like one of those "rags... Read More

Sheep Spend and Lose, Leaders Make Money

Remember that leaders spend more money on learning and growing,... Read More

Aesthetics and Web Marketing

For four years I worked in the editorial department of... Read More

Starting an Internet Business is not for Everyone

Creating and building your home internet business does not need... Read More

The Website Marketing Strategy that Never Fails

Developing a successful web site takes more than simply building... Read More

The Power Of Giving

1.Why give away what you could sell?That's a fair enough... Read More

Reselling Resold Resale Rights

What the heck am I talking about?Let me tell you... Read More

3 Simple Steps for Revealing Marketing Secrets of the Experts

Learn the easy method I use to reveal marketing secrets.... Read More

Product Not Selling? This Could Be Your Lucky Day!

So you've created a digital product ready for sale on... Read More

Website Sales: 10 Shocking Tactics To Energize Your Sales

Let me reveal to you a few shocking website sales... Read More

At Last, A Plain English Guide to Internet Marketing

Have you ever been horrified and intimidated at the convoluted,... Read More

If you Sell a Product, Use Online Marketing, Part 1

When you offer your products via an email campaign to... Read More

5 Sure Fire Ways To Send Visitors Away For Good

Way No. 1 - Clog Up Their Internet ConnectionImagine it.... Read More

Make Use of the Signature Line in Your Email

Think about it, how many emails do you send out... Read More

Anatomy of an Online Marketing Failure

Wife: "I'm getting sick of these harrassing bill collectors who... Read More

Dont Treat Your Business Like a Casino

It's amazing how many people are jumping into the internet... Read More

Money Can Still be Made on the Internet

Even though the days of an IPO generating millions of... Read More