What To Sell

The first thing you need to decide before starting your business is what you are going to sell. Everything else is secondary to this decision. Once you’ve decided what you’re going to sell the rest can be learned as you go along. Getting a website, marketing, pricing and all the rest of the things you will need to get to grips with, all come later. The first big decision is what to sell.

Let’s narrow it down. Are you going to sell products or a service?

Physical Products

There’s so many products you can sell online that you’re spoilt for choice. To begin with there’s physical products. Actual widgets. I strongly recommend that if you are selling physical products you start on Ebay. I have made a number of posts on this blog about the reasons why so I won’t go over them here.

The kind of physical products you sell is really up to you. A few things to take into consideration though are the size of the products. Your business is going to be online so shipping will be a factor in your work load and your chance of selling the product you choose.

A few years ago a friend and me set up a computer business. We bought ex office computers from an auction and resold them. This model wasn’t successful on the internet because once the postage cost had been factored in it took the price of the computers too high.

Not only that but the work involved in packing the computers and arranging shipping was time consuming. It wasn’t simply a case of walking to the post box and dropping a few parcels into it. We has to organize a time for a driver to come and pick up the computer, so we were tied to the house. This was inconvenient when you are working full time.

On top of that sometimes the internal parts of the computer became dislodged during shipping. When the customer received it and turned it on, it didn’t always work. So we had to pay for shipping it back. Selling computers on the internet is not a good idea unless you’re Dell. I’d advise you to avoid this product.

The point I’m making is to consider how easy it will be to ship your products. I sell art products on my website and through Ebay but there’s some products I won’t list because I don’t want the hassle of shipping them. For example large size paper and canvasses. The profit is not worth the work involved in shipping them so I don’t sell them.

You don’t want your online business to become a monster that rules your every waking hour. You want to be in control of it. You want to dictate how much work you put into it. Ask yourself how much work will be involved in shipping this product.

You will also need to establish a good supplier. If you are going to specialize in selling in one genre like toys or baby clothes etc, then you will need to find a supplier who is cheap, allowing you to achieve a good mark-up. The supplier should also be reliable.

Make sure you choose a product that sells. Obvious I know, but important never the less. Make sure there is a market for your products before you commit yourself to buying stock. This comes down to basic research.

It’s good if you have an interest in the products you decide to sell but it’s not essential to your success. If you’re a keen cyclist who sells cycling products then you will be a source of valuable information for your customers.

As I said, though it’s not essential. I’m quiet knowledgeable about art products now but when I started, I didn’t know anything about them. I’ve learned by reading the manufacturer’s sales brochures about their products and by visiting art forums.

You will soon acquire all the knowledge you need about whatever products you decide to sell in no time. If you’re undecided, what physical products to sell just go browsing through EBay and see what is selling. Look at how much they are selling for then source the products wholesale and work out what margin you can get from it. If it’s a good product, easy to post and it’s selling well, it could be just the thing.

I’ve rambled on a bit in this post; in fact, I’ve gone on a bit too long so I’ll discuss the second part of the post “selling services “next time.

See ya

Paul