I think probably one of the most confusing item for newbie (or wanna-be) internet business owners to overcome is figuring out what products to sell online. I personally have strong feeling about someone knowing what products they want to sell online before even getting into e-commerce, but that is besides the point. My goal here is to help (all levels) get a little more information that could make “finding products” to sell online a little easier.
If you are going through keyword research and analysis on your site through a tool like Digital Point Keyword Tool, or Yahoo’s keyword tool you need to remember that is just a first step. You must take the research to a new level – take it to Google. Google is the search engine that is used 68% of the time for all searches so you must know what kind of competition you are up against. Go to Google and type in your key phrase and see how many sites come back just to get a feel of the overall competition. Then go deeper – take that same key phrase to the Google search and see how many results come back when you type in: allintitle: in front of the key phrase (no spaces) and see what kind of numbers come back. If you can find numbers that come back really low (lower then 20k sites is ideal) then you have some potential, and possibly a great niche.
So the point here is to let Google tell you what your “niche” is going to be based on numbers. Once you find numbers that are good, you can use The Shipper to find suppliers. Before you get started on building the website you want to make sure that there are suppliers for the products you are wanting to offer.
Worst case solution for overcoming your “finding products confusion” could come in the form of getting access to our dropship list (FREE for 7 days IF YOU ACT NOW) and just browsing through the list of drop shippers and getting ideas that way. Just use the list to “see” whats out there!
I know you can be successful online selling products. I am a success story myself, so I know (from first hand experience) overcoming this hurdle is probably one of the biggest hurdles you will have when setting up an e-commerce site selling products. My best advice – Let The Shipper help!
finding suppliers, product research, selling products online e-commerce, google, internet, internet business owner, keyword tool, wholesale, yahoo
Do you have a website that sells products online? If you do, then you need to start paying closer attention to some of the amazing tools that Google is offering merchants.
Google Base is an amazing free program that allows you to sell all of your products via Google. Uploading them to Google Base will also make them show up on Froogle. If you have ever used Froogle, then you will love how easy Google Base is to upload products. There is no need for you to be a programmer if you do not have a CVS file of all your products to export. Google Base will allow you to upload your products one by one with ease. If you do have a CVS file of all your products then its easy to upload them all at once as well.
Most people do not realize that uploading your products on Google Base will make them show up on Froogle. More exposure to your products on places that has less competition means more opportunity for you. Do a search on Google Base and see the difference between the results there and the results you get on a regular Google Search. Huge difference! You are also building up valuable links back to your website as well that could help out with traffic and visitors to your website.
Google Checkout is the merchant account Google has created. If you are familiar with Paypal it is similar in the way it works. You need an account at Google Checkout in order to sell your products on Google Base. They have tools for easy integrated onto your website as well. Also having an active Google Checkout account will allow you to display the Google Shopping cart logo on your site as well for those that want to purchase via their Google Checkout account rather then through a credit card or paypal.
There are many reasons to list your products on Google Base, but my main reason for bringing it up on this post today, is to help you get more product exposure online from the biggest search engine in the world – Google. You will get more exposure, more links pointing to your site, and more sales for your business if you take advantage of the tools Google has to offer its merchants.
Make sure you read all that Google Base has to offer and take advantage of the tools to help improve the success of your internet business.
online business, selling products online, website design / help google, internet, shopping cart, wholesale
A huge mistake I see a lot of small internet business owners make is not staying on top of their competition. There are many ways to stay up on them, but the most important would be the ones that are selling the exact products you are selling and the price that they are selling them for. If your competition has good rankings on the search engines, and are very visible then you need to make sure your prices are better if not at least equal.
Most internet browsers do not go past the first page of results, but they will look through every one of the results and do a price compare. They may then go to Ebay, or Craigslist or another “buying solution” (shopping type) site and see what product prices are at those places. If you are not on the search engines yet, but can be found on Ebay this is a good reason to know what the prices of the competition is so you can be able to compete. I just don’t want you to “assume” that since you are brand new that you do not have anything to bring to the table. You have a lot to bring to the table if your prices are good, and you still can make some sales.
If you are new to selling products online, or drop shipping products then make sure you are doing these things when it comes to the competition:
- Research out the price of your top 5 -10 competitors on all major search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN)
- Research out the competitions keywords on all major search engines.
- Research out the ads of the competition and see what ad makes you wanna click (and take good note of it).
- What are the big products they are featuring?
- Who is linking to them?
- Can you find out any supplier or manufacturer information from their website?
- Are they selling their products on Ebay (or any other off website place)? If so, what prices are they selling for?
If you can even do a little bit of research when it comes to the competition (especially prices) this will give you an edge that should help grow your business. It is always an advantage for you when you know what the competition is doing.
internet marketing, online business, product research eBay, google, internet, internet business owner, wholesale, yahoo
I wanted to share a quick tip on website content with those selling products online. When you set up a relationship with a supplier most of the time you will be given access to all images and descriptions that the site has to offer. This makes it very tempting to just copy and paste and make the “loading the products” job easy. My advice is to avoid just doing a straight copy and paste of product descriptions when it comes to building up your shopping cart.
I would suggest re-writing ALL of your product descriptions (and teasers) so the search engines will not sniff out your site as duplicate content (and penalize you). Think about this; if you have even 100 other people selling the products that you are and most of them are just copy and pasting the descriptions, then think about all that duplicate content across the web. You should avoid being a part of this at all cost.
Go back to your keyword list and use them to write your product descriptions and really try to be original. I know it can be tough, but it will be worth it for you in the long run with your website success (especially where the search engines are concerned).
finding suppliers, online business, website design / help shopping cart, wholesale
Just wanted to share a quick tip for the “newbie” internet business owner selling products online (when it comes to web design). I know that most internet business owners have so much on their plate its not funny. Some of the obvious details of web design can often be overlooked. For example, I see a number of sites on a daily basis and a lot of them are not showing me (the visitor) the most important stuff above the break. “The Break” meaning above the area that you have to start scrolling down on a website.
Having a featured products area that maybe spotlights one main product from each category you have would be perfect. Web browsers like to see images. We like to click on images, so make sure everything is “clickable” and easy to access. Also using some powerful keywords in the text above the break to let the readers know some of the main key areas of the site could be beneficial.
It seems simple, but if done right could mean all the difference in the world in making your site “stickier” and conversion rate higher.
internet marketing, online business, website design / help internet, internet business owner, wholesale
With so many “get paid per click” programs out there like Google Adsense, or Yahoo Publisher Ads I often get asked the question about these kind of ads being placed on a dropshipping site (and if its a good thing or not). I always try to lead people away from having annoying ads that could take away from the value of the site and what you are offering. Often times these ads turn people off, and decrease value.
There is a solution for those that want to take advantage (and make money with these kind of programs) of their sites high traffic and page rank. You should look into contextual advertising. There are providers out there that will blend text ads right into your content, and will never take away from the apeal of your site like an annoying ad block.
Making money from ads on your drop ship site this way is a great way to earn extra income per month, and not lose the potential revenue of regular sales.
The program I am linking to in this post also assures that search engine will not be able to pick up the fact that it is a paid link, so there should be no penalties.
I am always thinking about ways for those with dropship sites to make more money and increase revenue and if this helps even with $50/month, to me that is worth it!
internet marketing, online business dropshipping, dropshipping site, google, making money, wholesale, yahoo
I heard this question asked today and thought I would put in a really quick post about it. Almost 100% of the time if you are working with a true wholesaler you will not be able to get them to drop ship products for you. Most of the time the reason you are using a wholesaler is to buy in bulk and get better prices, so the wholesaler will not like working with a company selling one at a time.
There are some cases where after working with a wholesaler for a while you may be able to get them to “ship” out the occasional order (if its a pretty big one).
It is really important to know the difference -
- A drop shipper is a company that will ship out the proucts for you no matter where you sell them (on your website, on Ebay etc) and it does not matter if one products or 100 is ordered. That is what a dropshipper is.
- A wholesaler is a company that will sell you products at a “wholesale” price (a better then normal price) but do not ship out the products for you. Typically you purchase more in bulk, or there is minimum order amounts involved.
- A Bulk Wholesaler is pretty sell explanitory from the name. You will be able to buy mass amounts at a time, and get a much better price per unit, but have to be willing and able to put the money upfront.
Hopefully this helps with some of the questions about dropshipping and wholsalers and the difference between the two.
dropshippers, finding suppliers, wholesale drop ship products, dropshipping, eBay, wholesale, wholesale products
If you are thinking about drop shipping (or working wholesale) jewelry there is a few things I want to make sure you are aware of. Most people when they think about products they want to sell online, jewelry is one of the first things that comes to mind because it can be such a high ticket item. We often let “greed” cloud good judgements, and that should not be the case with an internet business.
If you are wanting to sell jewelry online then you should conisder narrowing down a niche. You ask a niche with jewelry? Jewelry is Jewelry right? Take a second to think about these different jewelry niches – Pet Jewelry, Christian Jewelry, Celtic Jewelry, or a specific Religion Jewelry etc. These are just a few of the top of my head. You see where I am going with this? You have to narrow it down instead of being so general, or you will never be able to compete.
When looking for a jewelry supplier make sure you find one that will let you narrow down the product to a specifi niche to make it easier to compete. If you are looking for more ideas to narrow down the “jewelry niche” then use a keyword suggestion tool like the one at http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion and that should give you a great idea as to what people are looking for (so you can narrow down a niche).
product research, selling products online internet, wholesale
I talk with people all the time that run blogs and wonder if they can sell products online with a blog site. I really don’t think its a bad thing at all to be honest, (if done right, with the right software). For example; some sites start off as blogs and get big by accident. Lets say that you run a “hunting blog” and start to get a bunch of people asking your what you recommend for this or that. Perfect opportunity to find the product that you do recommend and sell it! It is much better to get direct access to the product as well through a supplier, rather then affiliate because you will always be making more money.
Don’t forget about the readers that “launched” you and make sure you keep providing the great information they have come to love (and keep coming back to). I think you can find a good balance with blogging and making money selling products on a blog site. Its all about making money and you readers have to figure thats why you are doing it.
I guess the point of this post, is rather you are a new blogging site or old, think of all of the potential revenue streams of your blog and take advantage!
internet marketing, selling products online, website design / help dropshipping, making money, wholesale
Lets get straight to the point – Ebay is HUGE, and its user base is even bigger. You need to take advantage of selling on Ebay starting today. I am amazed at all of the kinds of products that I hear about all the time that is being sold on Ebay. It is a truly amazing market place!
I am not a big fan (persoanlly) of going out to garage sells, or rummanging through my attic, or going to estate sells to find products to sell on Ebay. I think there is a much easier approach and that is why I wanted to remind you that through The Shipper drop ship list you can get access to products at Bulk Wholesale price that you can sell on Ebay.
Typically its much easier to get better prices from supplier when you purchase many items all at once rather then the normal dropshipping sites “one at a time” approach. Now I am not bashing that style, I am still a huge fan, but it has its place – on the regular web, but we are talking about Ebay right now, right? If you have some money to invest on a list where you can find products that are selling at bulk wholesale price I would suggest our bulk wholesale directory list. If have even a little more money to purchase several items from a wholesaler at a reduced price, then your chances of really making some good money on Ebay increase dramatically.
The Shipper can help you find products you can sell on Ebay through our bulk wholesale list, just contact us via our live chat, or email us anytime! We are looking forward to helping you succeed when it comes to selling products on Ebay.
dropshipping, eBay, selling products online dropshipping, dropshipping site, eBay, find products, wholesale
