| That's a good question. Luckily you can do either one with a Yahoo! store. It makes no difference whether you sell a product or a service from your Yahoo! store. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Selling products online has certain advantages. When selling products, you're not constrained by a limited amount of inventory. When selling products, you can grow your business more quickly because the more products you sell, the more income you make. Tip: Choosing the Right Kind of Product If you're going to sell a product from your home office or small business, keep these merchandise characteristics in mind. Products should be light and easy to ship, not perishable or fragile, and shouldn't have to be touched or handled for a shopper to make a buying decision.
The disadvantage of selling products is that they normally require you to stock and ship them. Ana Ricon, the About Guide to Online Business at onlinebusiness.about.com, speaks about the importance of supply and demand for the products you plan to sell. The advantage of an online services company is that making a profit is quicker and easier because the entire price of the service is paid to you. Also, there is the opportunity to generate repeat business if your clients are pleased with your service. The main disadvantage is there is only so much time. We're only human and a person can perform only a certain number of services in a 24-hour period. Selling services can provide you with immediate revenue but will never give you the biggest bang for your buck in the long run. In short, you can sell only so much of your time, whereas you can sell an unlimited amount of products. The trick is to turn a successful online service into a product. An example is to have a service that helps people market their online business, such as Internet marketing, and then sell them a book on how to do it themselves. Zero In on Your Product or Service As in any business, supply and demand determine what products or services succeed in the marketplace and which ones do not. Internet search engines can give you an approximation of how frequently people search for your product. There are a number of online tools that when used together can help you decide whether the product or service you have in mind is really in demand by consumers and what the supply for it isthat is, how many businesses are selling the product or service. Here's what to do. 1. | Go to Google's Keyword Sandbox at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordSandbox. The Google Keyword Sandbox is a great little keyword suggestion tool that you can use to see the popularity of your product or service. For example, suppose you want to sell baby toys. Type the phrase "baby toys" into the search box on the Keyword Sandbox page. Google will return a large list of suggested terms. Choose a few that are relevant and targeted to your product or business. Sometimes, to the right, you'll see related terms and common misspellings. Note these, too.
| 2. | Go to the Overture Term Suggestion Tool at http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/. Take the keyword terms that you found at the Google Keyword Sandbox, enter one of the terms in the search term suggestion tool, and see how many people have searched for that term, and any combination of the terms or keyword, over the last 30 days. Overture will help slice and dice the keywords for your product or service and help you better describe the product or service you wish to offer.
| 3. | Go to the Google search engine at http://www.google.com, enter one of your popular search terms or keywords identified by the Overture tool, and see how many websites appear under that search term. Your objective is to target keywords most frequently used by your target audience but with the least amount of competing pages. Important: Be specific with your search terms and keywords. For example, using the keyword phrase "baby toys" produces a number of different search terms at the Overture tool, such as "educational baby toy" and "baby learning toy." Using these terms at Google will help you see competitive variations on your product.
| 4. | Finally, find out who your competitors are. Go to Yahoo! Stores at shopping.yahoo.com, enter your product or service, and you will see how many companies you may be competing with in your product or service area.
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Web Resource: Streamlining Your Research A product that streamlines this research is The Market Research Wizard (e-comprofits.com/marketresearch.html). This program analyzes the factors mentioned above, and then rates the probability of successful sales on the Internet. It is very useful for comparing the relative ranking of different products. I like the product, but it takes time to arrive at the best combination of keywords. The free trial is limited to five searches. The registered program costs $97. |
This four-part process can help you see what products and services are in demand and who, if anyone, is offering them. Choosing an Online Business Though choosing an online business may seem complex at first, there are basically three ways to sell through an online storefront. Tip: Can't Think of a Product to Sell? Try This You've tried and tried, but still can't come up with a product to sell. Why not find a merchant who already is selling products, but not online, and offer to sell them on the Net? You create the site, the merchant supplies the product, and you both make money
Start from scratch. You don't have to limit yourself to selling other people's products or even services. Consider selling your own creative work. Or maybe a service. Ask yourself this: What one thing do you do better than everyone else? Maybe you're a good photographer. Or perhaps you enjoy writing. Maybe you enjoy working with your hands, creating works of art or unique items that can be sold as gifts. You can also create your own information products such as ebooks or music files and sell them to consumers. Sit down some evening with a pad and pencil or drop by your local coffeehouse and make a list of what you enjoy doing. You might be surprised that what you like to do can be turned into a product or service you can sell online. The key thought here again is to do what you enjoy! The second way to start an online business is through the traditional retail model. Buy products from wholesale distributors and resell them for a profit. If you'd rather not stock inventory at your home business then have the distributors drop ship your products from their warehouse. You take the orders; they do the shipping. You can also buy your products from local businesses. You may find businesses in your neighborhood that sell products, but do not have an eCommerce storefront. Approach them and offer to sell their product online in exchange for a percentage of the profits. A good example of this is the local crafters. They are a good source of unique products, and may be willing to sell to you at wholesale if you purchase in quantity. You can either buy the item outright or set up a consignment arrangement with them. Finally, there's no reason why you couldn't combine two or three of these online business approaches into one online storefront.
Once you've targeted your customer niche and the type of products or services you want to offer, it's time to decide upon a market niche and that most important part of your unique selling position. Turn the page and let's move on. |
