What About Selling Other Peoples Products?

[TMCG]

just like the title asks.

lets say that you don't have any product to sell on your site. and rather than buy a product line...say...wholesale - lets say you offer to market and sell another company's product.

you put it on your site for sale. as you take purchase orders - you provide invoices to company - they send out there product directly to the customer that bought the item from your site (store)...and you make 30% of the profit lets say.

thoughts?

[JWDesignCenter]

Not bad, but I don't know of many companies that are willing to give up 30% of their profit to someone else....

[torka]

It's called drop shipping. Basically, once you are accepted as a dealer by the drop shipper, you market and sell their product(s) through your site. In many cases, you set the price, so your profit ratio would depend on what price you can get customers to pay versus the wholesale prices the drop shipper charges you.

When you sell a product, you turn around and purchase the product at wholesale prices from the drop shipper, who then sends the product directly to the customer on your behalf. It's just like selling a product of your own, except that you don't have to maintain any inventory or deal with fulfillment issues.

Do a search on "drop shipping" on your favorite search engine and you'll likely find plenty of additional information. You do need to beware, as there are scam artists in the industry (just as in almost any industry), and your business reputation will depend on the reliability of the drop shipper(s) whose products you're selling. You will want to be sure to thoroughly check out any drop shipper before you sign up.

You might also want to check into affiliate marketing. Basically, you market the products of others, then turn the customer over to the affiliate program sponsor to make the actual sale. You get a percentage of every sale you refer to them, so you can make money without actually having to sell anything directly. Rather, your job is simply to "pre-sell" the product and leave it up to the program sponsor to close the sale.

HTH!

--Torka

[Dale King]

AmeriCountry wrote:
just like the title asks.

lets say that you don't have any product to sell on your site. and rather than buy a product line...say...wholesale - lets say you offer to market and sell another company's product.

you put it on your site for sale. as you take purchase orders - you provide invoices to company - they send out there product directly to the customer that bought the item from your site (store)...and you make 30% of the profit lets say.

thoughts?

If you're going to go that route, why not join an affiliate program at ClickBank and get 50% of the profits or more?

Dale King

[Cratima]

From my experience money come from selling, not from making.

Do your best to sell as much as you can.

So the answer to your question is only one: sell all you can. And if selling is more profitable to you than producing, go and invest more in selling!

[DBeavers]

Originally Posted by TMCG

just like the title asks.

lets say that you don't have any product to sell on your site. and rather than buy a product line...say...wholesale - lets say you offer to market and sell another company's product.

you put it on your site for sale. as you take purchase orders - you provide invoices to company - they send out there product directly to the customer that bought the item from your site (store)...and you make 30% of the profit lets say.

thoughts?

I do most of my sales face-to-face or via follow-up phone calls.

I started my home-based promotional advertising (formerly called ad vertising specialties or ad specialties for short) business on a part-time basis way back in 1984. I made the leap to full-time permanently in July '87 and the business has provided 90 to 100% of my family's income ever since.

Most people don't have a clue about my industry, and are shocked or at least surprised to learn that over 100K people are engaged in selling custom-printed promotional advertising. The US market consumes over $18 Billion worth of imprinted promotional items every year, and the total continues to grow, while other media have slowed down in the past few years.

This is a great industry for "relationship" style sales, as you can create a customer base that will always need your products. I have a number of clients who have been buying from me for 20 to 22 years, and a much larger number who have been doing business with me for 10 to 19 years. In some cases, I'm selling to the second generation in the family business.

While rookies start with a 50/50 split of profits, the top volume dealers receive 55, 60, or 65% of the profits on every order, amounting to 15 to 32.5% of the selling price. Not bad, especially when you consider that the company I am affiliated with handles all the credit, billing, sales taxes, and much of the administrative burden, allowing me more time for sales and customer service.

I expanded my business online, and have sold to clients all across the US since 1998. And, I have built up a loyal customer base via the net with regular orders from CO, CA, AR, VA, TX, IA, SC, and elsewhere.

Focusing on helping my clients grow their business has helped me build a business that will outlive me. I hope to have one or more of my children and grandchildren follow me in this business.

Dennis Bevers
BASSCO, Inc.

[TCSM]

With all due respect to Cratima, that's just not true. If I sell 10,000 ebooks through affiliate programs, at £9.99 each, with 50% commission, then I make £49.950.

Now, if I write my own ebook and sell 10,000 copies of that, at £9.99, I just made £99,900.

If I expand upon that, and open up an affiliate program, and get 100 affiliates, each of whom sell 1,000 copies, at 50% commission, then that makes me a further £499,500.

Total from selling ebooks as an affiliate: around £50k
Total from writing ebook and marketing, plus affiliate program: around £600k

You tell me which is better? Creating, or selling...

[DBeavers]

Originally Posted by TCSM

Now, if I write my own ebook and sell 10,000 copies of that, at £9.99, I just made £99,900.

If I expand upon that, and open up an affiliate program, and get 100 affiliates, each of whom sell 1,000 copies, at 50% commission, then that makes me a further £499,500.

Total from selling ebooks as an affiliate: around £50k
Total from writing ebook and marketing, plus affiliate program: around £600k

You tell me which is better? Creating, or selling...

And how many successful eBooks have you written. I can't imagine that many eBooks by unknown authors have sold 10,000 copies at the $20.00 price range.

And having 100 affilates selling an additional 100K copies puts you in a very rare category.

Anyone have any idea the number of eBooks that have exceeded 100K copies sold, compared to the number selling less than 10K or even 1000?

It's great to believe that you can write an eBook and get 110K people to pay $10 or more for it, but hope and belief along won't pay your rent.

I've never created a single eBooks, so this is outside my area, but millions of people earn excellent income selling cars, furniture, promotional advertising (my field), insurance, and other products. The number of people who can even scrape out a living by the eBooks they have sold can't come close.

It's like the number of people who can make a career in professional sports. Playing soccer, basketball, American football, baseball, hockey or other sports for fun and exercise are fine, but few ever earn a living on professional teams.

The reality is that fewer people can make a full-time living by writing novels, performing music, acting in movies or TV shows, as professional athletes or by writing and selling their own eBooks.

Professional salespeople like me will usually do better by focusing on selling other people's products or services and letting someone else do the creative work.

Just my opinion.

Dennis Bevers

[mktgbiz]

HI Dennis...

-

[DBeavers]

Hope your year is off to a great start. We are barely able to keep up with orders, between my wife in the home office, and me out and about calling on the customers.

See you in September?

Dennis