Internet marketers love to promote digitally downloadable products. For some reason, many don’t want to promote physical products. To some, it can seem like a nightmare of packaging and shipping, stocking of inventory, and dealing with suppliers.
But there are some ways you can work them into your online business while minimizing the hassles. It’s good to know your options and what’s involved when thinking about promoting tangible goods for the first time.
You could start by selling products yourself on eBay. Then if you’re successful there, you could go off on your own and launch a dedicated website to sell the goods. Either way, you’ll be in charge of making sure you have enough inventory on hand, and if an order comes through, it will be your job to box it up, take it to the post office, and ship it out.
If the customer doesn’t receive the goods, you should be able to verify proof of delivery. In some instances, you’ll have to accept returns on the products, and won’t always be able to resell it again, depending on what the product is and the condition it’s returned in.
Another option is to use a dropshipping service. With a dropship account, you may have to pay a fee to get set up with your own website, but they handle a lot more things for you.
Typically, the customer would place an order, paying you for the items they purchase. Then you would pay the dropshipping company a portion of those earnings and they would ship the inventory to your customer directly.
In that scenario, you don’t have to deal with any of the inventory, but you do have to deal with customer relations. Your customers probably won’t realize they’ve ordered from a dropshipping arrangement, so even though you’re just a middleman, you’ll often be perceived as the same organization.
Another option is to become an affiliate. Millions of people shop online each year, and especially during the various holiday seasons, the demand for physical items to be sent as gifts is high. As an affiliate, you can get a share of that spending frenzy for yourself.
The major benefit of being an affiliate is that you get to hand off the customer to the product provider, and they have to do all the work of getting the product to them and making sure that they are satisfied. That’s why many online marketers start off as affiliates when adding physical products to their promotions.
Stay tuned for another marketing tip real soon, and good luck with your online marketing efforts!
To your online success,
Bill Brine
Building Profitable, Sustainable Home Small Businesses
P.S. Here’s another great resource I created to help you build your business: