Drop Shipping

What is "drop shipping?" If you've heard anything about drop shipping at all, you might think it is the answer to every internet entrepreneur's dream. In a nutshell, you market and sell a product online at a price you choose. After your customer purchases the item, and you receive payment for it, you place an order for the product you just sold with a "drop-shipper." The drop shipper charges you a wholesale price and ships the product directly to your customer. You pocket the difference between the wholesale (or near wholesale) and retail prices. The best part is that you have no inventory to hold or finance, and no shipping hassles. Wow! Sounds great, doesn't it? Well, it is. But you have to do your homework for it to be profitable.

1. First, you must find a product that will sell in sufficient quantity and at a sufficient mark-up to make it profitable. Just because you know of a drop shipper that sells croaking ceramic frogs at a great price, does not mean that anyone will buy them. Research the market for any product or product line that you are considering. Try to determine the product's demand, how much competition there is, and what the competition is charging. Some lines of business have a lower margin than others.
   
   
2. Sell only a few products, or at least make sure that the products you sell are related and targeted at the same market. Don't try to sell every drop shipped item you find. This will help you concentrate your marketing efforts and costs where they will make the most impact.
   
   
3. Find a reputable supplier. With the popularity of drop shipping, many scams have arisen around the industry. There are sham lists of drop shippers being sold for hundreds of dollars. There are middlemen posing as drop shippers who will charge you more than you need to pay. There are "turnkey" internet businesses that claim to provide a complete package of products, e-commerce, and marketing - but for such a hefty membership fee or monthly cost that you will never make a profit. Don't let this scare you away - just be aware. To get started on the right track, take a look at Chris Malta's Worldwide Brands, a directory of legitimate drop shippers that has an excellent reputation.
   
   
4. Be prepared to deal with backorders and returns. Just because some of the hassles of online business are elimitated with drop shipping, not all of them are. You will run into times when the product you've just sold is not available immediately. There will be returns and refunds. Work these matters through with your drop shipper ahead of time, so you will know how to handle them when they arise.
   
   
5. Treat this like a real business. Don't SPAM, don't use a personal or free Web page address for your store, register with your County Clerk, get a Tax ID number, and be prepared to file taxes. Proceed with the expectation that you'll make a decent profit, and the chances that you will automatically increase.

From Ana Rincon

12 Tips for a Successful Web Store

By John Clyman

Hosting services that integrate site-building tools and e-commerce capabilities can simplify building an e-commerce site, but you can still take some steps to make the most of the opportunity. Here are a few suggestions:

Before You Start...

1. Compare the costs. Monthly hosting fees are just the beginning. You'll also need a merchant account if you intend to process credit cards. That often means another monthly fee, as well as a percentage "discount" on each purchase, and possibly a fixed per-transaction fee. Some hosts, like the Yahoo! Merchant plans, take a cut out of each transaction as well, and some merchant accounts withhold a reserve against charge-backs (disputed or reversed transactions).
2. Get your paperwork in order. Secure your domain name, if you haven't already. Set up your merchant account. Even if your business has one for a retail location, you may need a different one to accept card-not-present transactions. And consider a visit to your accountant and attorney to find out if expanding your sales to new regions will have tax or legal implications.

   When You Design Your Site...

3. Plan your site. Know who your customers are and develop a clear vision of how your site will meet their needs. Devise a plan: Put together some simple mockups—even on paper—and decide what pages and sections your site needs before you jump into designing pages and uploading your product catalog. Remember that different users may prefer to find products in different ways: browsing by manufacturer or brand, browsing by product category, or using a site search, for example.
4. Apply best practices to your design. Common principles of effective Web site and e-commerce design are well established at this point. Consult books and Web sites, like Jakob Neilsen's Alertbox (www.alertbox.com), for expert advice. Surf your competitors to see what they do well—and not so well.
5. A few basic principles: Keep it simple. Don't make your customers work hard: Other sites are just a click away. Make sure your pages are slim and fast-loading (lots of users still have dial-up connections), but don't skimp on detailed product information that will help them make an informed purchase. Use tactics like creating thumbnail images that you can click to enlarge; this helps keep page size down but still lets customers see lots of detail if they're interested in a particular item.
6. Include critical information. Almost every e-commerce site needs to provide contact information, payment options, shipping and return policies, and a privacy policy. If you also have retail locations, be sure to provide addresses, business hours, maps, and directions, too. Other types of content that are often useful include an About Us page describing the company and providing bios of key personnel. You can also have pages for customer testimonials, news and announcements, and order status.
7. Conduct informal usability testing. Do a quick sanity check on your design and site organization. Show it to a friend or colleague who hasn't seen it before and is willing to give an honest opinion. Ask them if they can figure out how to find interesting products and place an order. Repeat this with a few different people and you'll quickly flush out major shortcomings and oversights.
8. Check your site carefully before you launch. Nothing says unprofessional like broken links, spelling errors, missing graphics, and other obvious glitches. Make sure you catch them before the site goes live. And check again after you launch to make sure nothing changed when you went from preview mode to live site.

   After You Launch...

9. Gain visibility. You don't necessarily need to pay for a search-engine submission tool: It's not hard to submit your site manually to the big players like Google and MSN Search. You can try to get a listing in directories like Yahoo!'s, but you'll have to pay for the privilege. Driving traffic to your site can be a major challenge, so consider cross-listing your products in high-traffic marketplaces like eBay or Amazon.
10. Keep it fresh. Take advantage of seasonal opportunities, refresh content regularly, and consider running promotions and specials so that visitors get in the habit of returning to see what's new. Don't forget to remove dated material when sales or other special offers end.
11. Build customer relationships. It's often much more efficient to service repeat customers than to acquire new ones. Entice visitors to sign up for e-mail notifications, offer promotions and discounts to your best customers, or find other ways to go beyond just fulfilling individual transactions.
12. Monitor your results. What sections of your site are customers visiting? How many of them buy, and how many just leave? Which products are selling well? Use whatever reporting tools your host provides to learn as much as you can. Update your site often to serve your customers better.

Find Products To Sell Online

From Ana Rincon

Ten Top Sources

Looking for the perfect products to sell online? Sometimes they can be hard to find. So, to help you start your research, here are ten top places to look.

If You Are Just Starting Out

1. Garage sales and flea markets: If you're starting out small and want to experiment with eBay, garage sales are a good place to start. Do some research into categories that interest you, and then start scouring sales for good prices.
   
   
2. eBay: eBay itself can be a source for products. Look for wholesale lots that can be broken down for individual sale.
   
   
3. Drop Shipper Directories Drop shippers are wholesalers that will ship direct to your customers so that you don't have to invest in or store inventory. Directories of drop shippers are for sale online, but make sure you're buying a reputable one. I've previewed the Worldwide Brands directory and can recommend it.
   
   
4. Local Businesses: You may find businesses in your backyard that offer just the right products, but are not yet into e-commerce. Offer to sell their product online in exchange for a percentage of any profits you make.
   
   
5. Crafters: Local crafters are a good source of unique products, and may be willing to reduce their prices for you if you purchase in quantity. Either buy the item outright, or set up a consignment arrangement with them.

   For The More Ambitious

6. Trade Shows: Trade shows are my favorite way to source products. Lots of merchants gather in one place to look for resellers. To find trade shows in a particular industry, contact trade associations and industry publications.
   
   
7. Permanent Marts: Many industries have a location that houses permanent wholesale showrooms. For example, there is a "Gift Building" in New York, and a Furniture Mart in High Point, North Carolina. Once you have established yourself as a retailer, you can visit the marts and have face-to-face meetings with product suppliers.
   
   
8. Wholesaler Directories: Your local library will probably have directories of manufacturers, wholesalers, and/or distributors. Most directories are organized by SIC code so that you can zero in on the product categories that interested you.
   
   
9. Importers/Exporters: If you are thinking big, you might want to consider contacting companies that import goods from overseas. If you're thinking even bigger, it's possible to source directly from overseas. This requires a lot of expertise, but many companies do it successfully.
   
   
10. Foreign trade offices: Most countries maintain trade offices in major US cities to help their nationals expand trade with the US. They may be able to let you know about companies interested in exporting to the US that you can contact.

The nonsense about AdSense

Times Online

www.business.timesonline.co.uk

Google AdSense lies at the heart of Google's advertising empire. AdSense ads are the funny little text boxes that are scattered across the internet, displaying links related to the content on a web page. For many sites, AdSense has become the sole source of income, with some small one man band publishing outfits claiming to make in excess of $100,000 through showing the adverts. AdSense also amounts to some 43 per cent of Google's total revenue.

However, my own experience of the program has been less than favourable.

From day one, I integrated Google AdSense adverts on to PinkNews.co.uk. It instantly provided advertising that was both relevant to my readers and that fitted into the context of the website. In addition, I was able to weed out advertisers that I didn't want my brand to be associated with, such as pornography and dating.

Sure enough, a couple of months later, a cheque for a couple of hundred pounds arrived from Google, which was duly banked and the funds cleared. So far, so good.

But a couple of days later, I was informed by e-mail that my AdSense account had been terminated due to "click fraud", and that I would receive no further payments and be unable to use Google's advertising products again.

Click fraud is where people or programs - automated robots, or 'bots - click on your to an advertising link in an attempt to defraud either or both the advertiser and Google. Click fraud experts tend to run up huge levels of traffic, generating thousands of clicks and each may cost a particular advertiser in excess of £10,000.

In my case, PinkNews.co.uk had received very little traffic and consequently very few clicks on advertisements. We're talking in the region of £100 of advertising, hardly the sort of figure someone seriously engaging in click fraud would bother about.

After a number of e-mails to Google without replies and no response from their press office, I decided to cut my losses and concentrate on selling advertising direct to clients, thereby bypassing Google's system.

Then a few months ago, I got chatting about my experiences with Google's AdSense product with some friends in the industry and it became apparent that the false allegations of fraud were not unique to my business. I also learnt that some advertisers claim that money they spent on "fraudulent clicks" was never returned to them.

In order to test Google out, I signed up to Google AdSense once again. I was accepted, despite the fact that they had previously told me in no uncertain terms to never use their products again. I wrote to them to make sure that my site would meet their admission criteria. Trinh, from the American based AdSense team, checked us out and said that we were approved for the ads.

A couple of hundred dollars’ worth of revenue later, once again an e-mail from Google appeared in my inbox. It told me: "It has come to our attention that invalid clicks have been generated on the Google ads on your site(s). We have therefore disabled your Google AdSense account. Please understand that this step was taken in an effort to protect the interest of the AdWords advertisers.

"A publisher's site may not have invalid clicks on any ad(s), including but not limited to clicks generated by:

"a publisher on his own web pages; a publisher encouraging others to click on his ads; automated clicking programs or any other deceptive software; a publisher altering any portion of the ad code or changing the layout, behavior, targeting, or delivery of ads for any reason.

"Practices such as these are in violation of the Google AdSense Terms and Conditions and program polices.

"Publishers disabled for invalid click activity are not allowed further participation in AdSense and do not receive any further payment. The earnings on your account will be properly returned to the affected advertisers."

Now let's be clear: I informed staff not to click on the Google ads, or indeed any other adverts on our site. We do not encourage others to click on the adverts, we do not run automated clicking programs nor had we altered any portion of the advertising code.

So seeking some sort of clarification from Google of which particular heinous offence our site was accused of committing, I wrote to the AdSense team asking them to explain what had happened.

In what I believe to be an automated reply, I was informed: "As you know, Google treats instances of invalid clicks very seriously. By disabling your account, we feel that we have taken the necessary measures to ensure that invalid clicks will not continue to occur on your site. Due to the proprietary nature of our monitoring system, we're not able to disclose any specific details of these clicks." I was also given the opportunity to appeal this decision but reminded that, "Google reserves sole discretion in considering whether to take any action on an appeal".

By refusing to give details of the clicks involved, it was hardly going to be an easy job to explain why I felt that their decision was reached in error. However, I gave it a shot, explaining that: " We do not click on our own adverts, we just wouldn't have time. The Google AdSense revenue constitutes a tiny fraction of our revenue.

"In addition, you have provided no evidence of IP addresses of the relevant clicks, so I cannot double check that they were not clicked on by a member of staff by accident. All staff are however informed not to click on adverts displayed sold either by us or by agencies so as not to distort the click through ratio we achieve."

As we suspected would be the case, Google denied the appeal. They said: "We understand that you wish to receive specific information regarding the invalid clicks we observed on your account.

However, due to the proprietary nature of our algorithm, we cannot disclose any details about how our monitoring technology works or what specifics we found on your account.

"Publishers disabled for invalid click activity are not allowed further participation in Google AdSense. We appreciate your understanding."

This left a number of questions in need of answers. Such as whether the money earned by PinkNews.co.uk was returned to the advertisers concerned. On this, Google was, at best, ambivalent: "Unfortunately, due to our confidentiality restrictions", ah, those again, "we cannot provide you with a written declaration that the remaining earnings of your account will be returned to the affected advertisers.

“However, please be assured that the affected advertisers will be properly refunded in this way." Hardly reassuring at all, really.

Even most calls to its press office are left unanswered. Google, as a virtual company, is largely uncontactable, and judging by this instance, pretty much unaccountable as well.

In particular, I am concerned at the fact that both advertisers and syndication partners are denied the right to audit the figures produced by Google. All you are provided is an average cost per click figure, together with the total revenue for the day.

This is unacceptable for many online publishers as it means that you are unable to correctly identify the amount of money owed to you, nor are you able to identify areas of growth (particularly in regards to the type of advertisers your users are clicking on).

In addition, oddly, if you are advertiser based within the European Union, the sale is counted as an internal EU sale, with the billing handled by their Irish sales office, and VAT regulated under the Irish system. The reason for this, so Google argues, is that the transaction occurs within the European Union and is thus subject to VAT.

However, if you then place their AdSense product on a website based within the European Union (such as one owned by an EU individual or registered company), Google manage to consider this transaction to take place within California, governed by Californian law and therefore the supply is not subject to VAT at all.

I'm not at all suggesting that Google are engaging in illegal practices here, but it does create an unusual situation when it comes to the VAT affairs of small business for whom Google AdSense provides the bulk of their revenue. As my accountant explained to me: "A profitable company who operates online should always be making VAT payments rather than claiming them back, that is unless they are selling something like children's clothing.

“Therefore, the Google situation is odd because companies who rely on buying advertising on Google and then monetising traffic from Google adverts will never be net VAT contributors."

Or take this as an example: a user clicks on a Google AdSense link at the bottom of this article on Times Online. Assume the advertiser is based in Britain, like Times Online. For the two parties, the transaction will take place in different continents. As far as Times Online's relationship with Google is concerned, the transaction took place in California. However, for the advertiser, the transaction took place in Ireland and is therefore governed by Irish and European law.

The end result of all this is that a European AdSense client would have to go to California to mount a case against Google, rather than in their home country and perhaps taking advantage of the small claims court with its fixed costs to settle a dispute. While this may not be a problem for major partners, it is obviously beyond the reach of a small company owed less money than the transport costs to get to the court room.

In the end, I decided not to bother chasing Google any more for the couple of hundred pounds they owed my company or the cheques (totalling a further £1,500) I received well after the six-month deadline for banking a cheque. Instead, I decided to sign PinkNews up to Yahoo!'s pay per click programme, carefully noting the right to speak to a real human being, 24/7, if we were unhappy with the figures they provided.

How to maximize your Google AdSense profits

1. You make automatic money with AdSense.
   Small as well as large websites can get AdSense ads on them. Whenever someone clicks on an ad on your site, you get paid. Google collects the money from the advertiser, keeps some of it, and passes the rest on to you via a check in the post. Some clicks can earn you more than $5 dollars a time.

2. Content-targeting technology means AdSense ads are relevant to your site's traffic.
   Google uses automatic content-targeting technology to select what ads will appear on your site. This system is quite sophisticated (but not 100% reliable) and generally the ads on your site will be relevant to your traffic. This means the ads are likely to get clicked by your traffic and make you money.
   

3. Google sells your advertising space for you.
   Google has a massive network of over 200,000 advertisers using its AdWords advertising system and when AdWords ads appear on your site they are called AdSense. This means that when you sign up for AdSense, Google offers your site to all its advertisers - at a price that is determined by supply and demand through the AdWords real time automatic auction process. (This auction process is complex - I explain the details in my free course below.)
   

4. You can maximize your AdSense profits if you understand how the program works in detail.
   AdSense is underpinned by Google's AdWords system and in short, if you know how to get high paying AdWords ads on your site, you will get ads on your site that pay you a lot per click. You don't want ads that pay a few cents a time, you want dollars!

How To Build $2.5 Million Business In Two Years

Michael Senoff’s Story.

http://www.hardtofindseminars.com

I first learned about Jay Abraham from a video by Tony Robbins. Jay was speaking at one of Tony's expensive Life Mastery seminars. I was totally blown away by Jay's ideas. Immediately, I started looking for his seminar products.

The first item I was looking for was a set of tapes of the famous Jay Abraham $20,000 protégé mentor training seminar from 1990. You read that right: $20,000. That's how much it cost to attend. The press called it: "The world's most expensive seminar". The students were there to learn how to become a master marketing wizard just like Jay Abraham.

I wanted to be a marketing wizard too, but I did not want to spend $20,000. Anyone that attended the seminar received a copy of the entire program on a set of audiotapes. I knew If I could just find someone who attended the seminar, I might be able to borrow their tapes. If so, I could get a $20,000 Jay Abraham marketing education for free.

I did some digging and managed to find a guy from Northern California who had attended the seminar. I asked to buy his tapes. He said no but agreed to fax me the names of all the people who went to the seminar in Southern California. I found a lady on the list who lived in San Diego. I called her and told her I was looking for a set of the tapes from the Jay Abraham seminars. She said she had them and I negotiated a price of $50. I got the complete $20,000 seminar for only $50.

I studied these marketing materials day and night for six months. I was listening to Jay Abraham while I was jogging, while I was driving, and while I was doing yard work. I would even go to sleep with a Walkman on my head literally dreaming about marketing. That is how powerful and addictive these marketing materials and tapes are.

Along with the 55 audiotape seminar, there was a list of 900 protégés who had trained under Jay Abraham in four previous seminar sessions. The list was intended to be a tool for the seminar attendees to network with each other. When I saw this list, I knew I had hit pay dirt. More on that in a minute.
You see, like a lot of guys, I loved to barbecue outdoors. I was shopping for a new grill and one hot summer day in July I came across the most extraordinary barbecue grill I had ever seen. It is called a "Kamado" and it was billed as the world's finest ceramic smoker-grill.

Well, I knew I had to have one. There was only one little problem. This gorgeous Blue ceramic tiled Kamado grill sells for $1895 plus shipping.

Now I knew there was no way my wife was going to let me spend this kind of money on "a grill", so I told my wife I was going to sell my Jay Abraham tapes and use the money to buy my blue Kamado grill!

The original set of Jay Abraham protégé tapes that I had bought for $50 sold right away for $1700 on my very first marketing effort. I was stunned! I had made a killing the first time out of the gate.

To make sure this was not a one-time fluke, I promoted another less expensive set of Jay Abraham boot camp tapes the next day. This set sold very quickly for $900.

After these two sales, I have enough profits to become the proud owner of a brand-new blue Kamado ceramic smoker, and there was not a thing my wife could do or say about it.

Convinced that I had a hungry market, I went right to work. I still had the list that I mentioned earlier of the 900 Jay Abraham protégés who possessed all of these valuable Jay Abraham products. All I had to do is track them down.

Finding people from a ten-year-old list was no easy task. Most of the phone numbers were wrong. Many of the people no longer had the seminar materials. But one out of ten people I made contact with did. Usually, it was as neatly packed away as it was the day they brought it home from the seminar. Many tapes had never been used, not even once and the printed materials were in pristine condition.

As I continued to contact these people, I made another discovery: A person who pays $20,000 for a seminar is considered a gold mine to marketing information sellers like Jay Abraham, Gary Halbert, Dan Kennedy, and Ted Nicholas. These marketing gurus will spend thousands of dollars to locate and have a chance to sell to this type of buyer who they refer to as 'Big Fish'.

These sellers get together to enter into joint venture partnerships. They refer and endorse each other's marketing materials to these same hot buyers using all their in-house customer lists.

Because of this, when I found a person who had attended the $20,000 Jay Abraham seminar, they would usually have tons of other marketing materials from all the other great marketing promoters as well.

All the materials I sell are purchased from the original owners. Many have even mortgaged their homes and maxed out their credit cards just to get their hands on this critical information. I make these packages available to you at huge discounts.

Isn’t it a great business idea?

How to make money from your blog: 5 tips

I recently wrote a column detailing how to get a blog up and running to boost your small business.

If you're interested in taking it further — blogging for bucks, if you will — here are five strategies that could turn your blog into a moneymaker.


Sell advertising. This is likely the most common means of leveraging a blog to generate income. If yours happens to become a well-known blog, or one that is well-received in a particular niche, it's always possible to sell ad space on your own. For lesser-known blogs, services such as Google's AdSense or BlogAds enable bloggers to establish ad programs.

AdSense's — which lets you select several ads that are consistent with the content of your blog — pays you based on how many readers click on the ads for further information. Even better, it's free. BlogAds, on the other hand, hooks bloggers up with would-be advertisers and levies a commission in return for any ad placements that result. "The nice thing, too, is that the ads are relatively unobtrusive," says Scott Allen, co-author of "The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online."

Help sell others' products. Here is another click-through opportunity. Affiliate programs enable your blog to serve as a conduit between readers and online sites offering various goods and services. One popular choice is Amazon.com. If, for instance, you offer book reviews or even just mention a book in passing in your blog, an affiliate program provides a means for your readers to click directly from your blog to Amazon to obtain further information about the book. If they break out the checkbook or charge card, you get paid as well.

Solicit contributions. Not every blog-related income opportunity involves hawking goods or services. As Blanche DuBois did in "A Streetcar Named Desire," consider relying on the kindness of strangers. Ask for contributions. If, for instance, your small-business blog supports a cause or issue in some fashion — say you repeatedly mention tax reform, health care or some other topic — you can always ask for reader support.

Even if you've attracted a group of regular followers who simply enjoy reading what you have to say, they may be willing to underwrite their loyalty with a little financial help. Programs such as PayPal make it easy to establish a simple on-site contribution collection button. "There are lots of worthy 'cause' blogs that would qualify for donations from grateful members of the blog community," says Las Vegas communications consultant Ned Barnett.

Market your services in your blog. Many people associate blogs exclusively with a cyberspace-based soapbox — a place to shout your opinions and little more than that. Granted, blogs are an ideal venue to share your thoughts with others, but don't overlook their capacity to generate new business as well. When appropriate, work in references to what you do and, in turn, what you may be able to offer any would-be client or customer who may be reading your blog. That can spread your opinion and your business moxie at the same time.

"Instead of short commentaries that begin a dialogue with readers, as many blogs do, I write the equivalent of journal articles that demonstrate my abilities, strategies and perspectives on specific issues," Barnett says. "When it resonates, it means money. Since starting this approach, I have generated three new paying clients and brought in about $10,000 on revenue — directly attributable to specific blogs."

Use a blog to deepen your existing customer relationships. Nor does any marketing material inserted in blog content have to be limited to bringing in completely new business. By using a blog to regularly communicate with existing clients as well as other readers, you can take advantage of the opportunity to fully inform them about everything your business does. That may expand your readers' understanding of the full scope of your products or services.

"My blog has helped existing clients determine the range of my skills and services," says Ted Demopoulos of Demopoulos Associates, a Durham, N.H. consulting and training concern. "One client who had only used me for training in the past was surprised at my range of expertise and is now using me for a consulting project. Another who only used me on technical projects is now considering me for a more business-oriented project."

By Jeff Wuorio