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Offering Affiliate Marketing There are several excellent resources online where you can get people to do affiliate marketing for your products. Register on any of these affiliate marketing websites to become member. You can post offers or await other affiliate marketers to contact you for further details. Creating Affiliate Links Affiliate marketers work by creating links to your products. Therefore, you will have to set up an online store, website or marketplace before offering affiliate marketing to third parties. Amazon and eBay among others provide an excellent resource for their affiliate marketers. You can explore how these companies work with affiliate marketers to create links that can be used by your affiliate team. Advantages of Affiliates Affiliate marketing is time tested and proven method of promoting and selling your products. It allows you to sell online even while you are asleep. Affiliate marketing enables your products to be promoted by dozens of people located in different parts of the country or even the world. Often, bloggers will also write good reviews of your products while providing an affiliate link, to tempt customers and bag some commission from the sale. Affiliate Marketing Disadvantages Affiliate marketing also comes with a bundle of disadvantages. Often, it takes long time for affiliate marketers to get a client. Several customers prefer to buy directly from a website rather than going via an affiliate link. Further, affiliate marketers will also be promoting similar products from rivals. You have to offer part of the money as commissions to affiliate marketers. This eats into your overall profits. 6. Dropshipping Dropshipping is a relatively unknown business in many parts of the world. However, it is an excellent way to sell online. Dropshipping does not involve much costs. All you need to do is advertise your products on a great dropshipping website like Alibaba.com for a small fee. What is Dropshipping? Dropshipping is a simple way to sell online. You post products for sale on a dropshipping website. When someone buys the product, they will place an order with you. All you need to do is dispatch the stuff to the address provided. Usually, dropshippers do not order stuff for themselves. Instead, they promote variety of products from own website or affiliate marketing or online stores on Shopify and Etsy. Dropshippers will promote a product by adding a mark-up. Upon getting an order and payment, they will buy the stuff from an online seller like you. The dropshipper will pay you on behalf of the client. Dropshipping Advantages Dropshipping does not require you to have an online store or website. Instead, you will promote the stuff you sell online on dropshipping websites. Whenever a dropshipper looks for a product, your stuff will feature in the search along with the price and specifications. If the client likes your product, they will place the order and make a payment. Dropshipping is also an ideal way of finding wholesale markets for your products. Lots of dropshippers will place bulk orders on behalf of brick-and-mortar stores and online stores. It saves you the bother of looking for clients too. Dropshipping Disadvantages Selling via dropshipping websites can pose several disadvantages. One of them is bargaining. Most individual dropshippers that place an order will haggle over prices since they look for fatter commissions. Also, you have no control on prices charged by dropshippers that buy your stuff and sell to others. This can cause your stuff to lose integrity in the market. Further, most dropshipping websites are known for cheap stuff. Your product can get that unwanted tag as an inferior product when posted on a dropshipping website. 7. Sell Via Apps Thanks to increasing proliferation of smartphones world2. Etsy If you are making something unique, open an online store on Etsy. It is the best place for selling handcrafted products. You can sell anything from paintings to costume jewellery, homemade oils, spice mixtures etc., on Etsy. Opening an online store with Etsy is also pretty simple. You can register on the website and give it a free, two week trial. Once you know how an online store on Etsy works, you can opt for opening your own marketplace on this portal. Advantages of Online Store Selling online on resources like Etsy and Shopify gives you instant access to a marketplace with millions of buyers. Greatest advantage of selling on Etsy and Shopify is that you can target clients looking for something unique and rare. Another major advantage is, you can coin own terms and conditions, returns policy and payment systems. Generally, online sellers on Etsy and Shopify use PayPal. This gives you instant cash whenever anyone buys your stuff. Other than the small fee you pay to these websites for your own marketplace, Etsy and Shopify do not charge seller commissions. Flipsides of Online Store Setting up your own marketplace using Etsy or Shopify has its own flipsides too. Firstly, you have to ‘rent’ the store from these two e-commerce portals to sell online. This means, you will spend even before you earn. The money is charged on monthly and annual basis. Secondly, Etsy and Shopify are mainstays of shoppers looking for very unique products. Hence, the number of clients is limited.3. Own Website to Sell Online You can also set up your own website to sell online. Understandably, this sounds daunting considering your direct competitors would include Amazon, eBay, Walmart and hundreds of other well established businesses. But this need not be a deterrent: there are thousands of small businesses that sell online through their own websites. Setting Own Website Setting up your own website to sell online is fairly simple. First, you need to buy an excellent domain name that matches your business and its unique identity. Nowadays, domain names are available for as low as US$9.99 per year. Once you have a domain name, buy hosting space for the website from Bluehost or other hosting provider. When your website is hosted, you are almost ready to go. Once you host a website, there are several free and paid themes that you can select for your online store. Set-up Payments Portal The main purpose of every business is to make money. Therefore, you will need to set up a secure payments portal on your website. This can be done in collaboration with a bank or through a commercial payments gateway. You need to subscribe to the payment gateway to avail their service. This will ensure that money paid by customers goes directly into your bank account. Use Delivery Systems Since customers will want doorstep delivery of their orders, you can sign-up with a great logistics provider who will pick up the package from you and drop it at the customer’s address. Depending upon your location, there will be several excellent logistics providers that would willingly offer the service. Check with your local post office if they have special offers for e-commerce packages. This will depend upon your location and country. Define Rules & Policies Before you sell online, it is important to define your policies regarding orders and delivery. You can learn a lot about these rules and policies by visiting any top online store like Amazon. Find which of their policies are best suited for your website to sell online. Generally, returns policies are the most intricate. Remember, accepting returns can be compulsory under law in some places. For this, you may need to consult an attorney. Marketing & Publicity When you launch own website, marketing and publicity can prove a major burden. Advertising costs a lot. One of the best way is to use SEO on your website to get organic traffic from search engine. If you have budget then Google AdWords and Facebook will be a great option to advertise your products online. You can use free resources like opening a Facebook page and getting people to like your online store. Also use Pinterest and Instagram. Another major resource that can be used to sell online through your website is YouTube. Open a free YouTube channel under the brand name of your online store. Post short and simple videos about the stuff you sell online and their benefits to users. Advantages of Own Website Having own store to sell online has several advantages. You develop a brand awareness and identity. You also get to fix terms and conditions. Getting instant payments is possible through the gateway. Having own website to sell online also means there is no limit on how many products you can post, the number of pictures and description. Disadvantages of Own Website But setting up your own website to sell online comes with myriad problems too. Firstly, you need to put extra efforts to promote the website. You may have to enlist help of a Search Engine Optimizer (SEO) to ensure your website finds top rankings on search engines like Google. Managing logistics can become nightmarish, especially during festivals and gifting seasons. 4. Sell on Facebook Marketplace Facebook Marketplace is a great way to sell online. If you are wondering how to sell online on Facebook, simply visit this link. You will be amazed at the number of products sold on Facebook Marketplace. Here are some simple steps on how you can open a free account on Facebook Marketplace. Open Facebook Account The first step is to open a Facebook Business account in the name of your online store or product or brand. To do so, you will need a valid email ID and address. Facebook Business also has premium services like advertising. You can opt for these if needed. Alternatively, use your own Facebook page to create a Facebook Marketplace account. This works out simpler since you get instant access to customers and do not have to wait for Facebook to validate your retailer profile. Setting Payments Gateway Setting up a payments gateway on Facebook Marketplace is very simple. You have only to create the necessary links to receive the payment and link it to a PayPal account. When you sell online through Facebook Marketplace, the money paid by customers goes directly into your PayPal account. Posting Products Posting Products on Facebook Marketplace is similar to updating your own profile. All you need is excellent pictures and product description. Also remember to mention the price when you create the ‘Buy’ link for customers. Marketing & Publicity A Facebook Marketplace page can be promoted quickly through your Facebook account. You need not spend money on advertising and publicity. Secondly, you can get as many people to like your online store and promote it to others through their Facebook accounts. Facebook Marketplace Advantages Facebook Marketplace has a couple of major advantages: It allows you to spread the word about stuff you sell online rather quickly. As we mention earlier, you can also get people to ‘Like’ your page and spread the word around. Secondly, you can post upcoming and new launches immediately on Facebook Marketplace. Facebook Marketplace Disadvantages Facebook Marketplace comes with its fair share of disadvantages. Main among these is the geographical limits. This means, Facebook will display stuff you sell online only to people located in or near your city. Thus, the number of people that view your products and buy is very low unless you live in a very densely populated urban centre. Further, most online shoppers are not very comfortable buying stuff on Facebook Marketplace. 5. Sell through Affiliate Marketing You may never have heard of affiliate marketing or know its benefits. It is an amazing way to get others to promote and sell your products. Affiliate marketing is very simple. Once you have a website or open a marketplace through Shopify or Etsy, get bloggers and other businesses to promote your product