Market Research for Online Businesses

When trying to make money online where do you start? First you need to find something you are interested in. I know that most will look for something they think is going to be profitable first, but if you have little interest in the idea, it is very difficult to keep motivated. Blogging, eCommerce, auction sites, affiliates, etc. are all good ways to make money online, but why would you want to blog if you didn't like to write? Does it matter that you can make money doing it if you really hate it? Whaatever direction you choose, you need to do some market research on your idea. Auctions need to be studied so that you can tell if you are competing against a ton of sellers who can outprice you. eCommerce stores need to have less competition, and you need to understand how to beat the competitiont here is there already. Even blogging is a place that requires you to find a bit of a niche market so that you don't have to compete with everyone on the internet. Everyone talks about technology products, sports, and celebrity gossip. What if you are a professional juggler? Why would you write about financial news if your expertise is juggling?

Things that Don't Sell on Ebay

Back when I used to sell things on Ebay I was buying from various distributors and was forced to cover many product lines. When you look for what is selling you look to see what the prices are for you to pay and what they are going for. You also have to take into account the size and weight of an item as it is difficult to make much profit when things weigh so much and you can't produce a very good profit margin. One of those things is flat panel televisions. You may be able to get a monster deal on them if you have a business in good standing with a distribution center, but the peopel on Ebay look at these as if they are making good money when they see they are pulling in $50 over what they pay for it. It just isn't the case. Ebay rapes you on the fees, and you may have to pay up to $00 just to get the thing shipped to the customer. The idiots that don't understand this try and only charge about $100 for shipping and always lose money. So...just stay away from the higher ticket price items on there. It may be more work, but the best way to go about it is quantity over quality. You can make 5$5-10 on a ton of lower priced items instead of trying to make it all in one sale when you sell new goods.

The Wedding Business

Weddings have many great business markets that anyone can get into. You have so many aspects to plan for when getting married that ultimately there are many different business sources you will need to deal with. As an entrepreneur there could be tons of great niches that you can work with. Either that or you can think about adding the wedding marketing to your current product line. I used to do this quite regularly on Ebay as a way to promote products such as groomsmen gift ideas. Buying a gift for the men who stand up for you is probably the most important decision the guy has to make in planning the wedding if he is lucky enough to have a fiance who does all the other planning...lol

Winning as an Underdog

Competing with the big boys is sometimes a nightmare. You may have the best products, but you don't have the money, or the resources to compete with them. You may be fighting those with a diamond necklace while you are working with a pearl necklace. You just have to find ways to get a head. This story about a father and son who are able to compete is something that may help...

Any company that's ever been an underdog knows how daunting and risky the position can be. That's especially true if you're going head-to-head with the likes of Kodak, Yahoo! and Microsoft.

Yet Chris and Don MacAskill took on this challenge when they established SmugMug, a photo sharing and printing site that had to set itself apart from its big-name competition. While those other sites were offering sharing and storage services to users at no cost, SmugMug was planning to charge a subscription fee at a time when many other internet companies were falling apart. And nearly everyone thought they were crazy for doing so. full story

10 Steps to Successful Sales Meetings

When i used to have to go to these meetings it was like you just wanted to be late for work that day. Same thing, every morning before we started. Seemed as if they were almost more frustrating than helpful for the majority of the people that had to attend them. They didn't bother me a whole lot because I usually had very good sales days, but the monotany of it all and the waste of time they entailed was almost too much. Doesn't matter if you are out selling a Hamilton watch, stocks, or encyclopedias you have to attend these meetings and they feel like an inquisition more than a pep talk.

Entrepreneur.com has put together a list of 10 Steps to Successful Sales Meetings to help make these mettings count instead of annoying everyone that has to go to them.

Photo Blogging for Cash?

I have noticed a ton of photo blogs out there and was wondering what kind of cash they were making. Using only their digital cameras and micro sd cards they seem to have been popping up all over the place. Using places like Flickr to post their photos, and share them, or just plain displaying thme on their blogs.

Is this a new way to make money on a hobby? The hard part I would think is to get relevant ads on your sites with out any content other than photos. Good SEO people at least label their photos in the code that may help, and have good titles, but how would you keep the ads relevnant? Seems pretty simple to me. Every post would have the word "Photo" in it from my perspective. "Photo #12: A Beautiful Day", for example would amke it so Phot was probably the most used word on the blog and in turn make all the ads relevant to photography.

Hmmm...maybe I should make one.