The Best Online Home Business, Minus The Headaches

by Kirk Paulhamus

You have options when it comes to marketing products online, each option having its own benefits and drawbacks. Let's look at the first option.

Marketing Your Own Product Benefits: a) Your earning potential is greater because for every one purchase made you receive 100% of the profits. b) Its more likely that you are the only one selling the exact same product as you (color, size, shape, material, etc…) would be less likely. c) You may have a special talent or gift for making something that you would like to make money from doing. d) You can also find other marketers, referred to as Affiliate Marketers, to sell your product for you.

Drawbacks: a) You would be responsible for collecting payments, and dealing with return checks. b) You would have to respond to and take care of customer complaints. c) If it is a physical product (not an e-product) there is the problem of figuring postage and frequent trips to the Post Office. d) Dealing with customer satisfaction in general, which includes but not limited to lost, broken, and/or dislike of your product for whatever reason.

Now let's look at a different way that you might want to consider marketing products online, which I referred to earlier, this is called Affiliate Marketing. This is where you sale other peoples products for a commission. We will look at the benefits and drawbacks here as well.

Online Marketing As An Affiliate Benefits: a) You don't have to figure out what you know how to make that other people would want to buy. b) You won't have to take payments or deal with return checks. c) There is no figuring postage and trips to the Post Office. d) No having to deal with angry customers. e) There is very little start up cost involved.

You see as an affiliate all you have to do is get the customer to the sponsor's website they take care of the rest. You receive a commission for sending paying customers to their site.

Drawbacks: a) You only earn a percentage of the sales that are made. b) You may not have the self satisfaction that you would have from coming up with your own product to sale. c) You may need to buy the product you are selling so as to gain a working knowledge of the product. The more knowledge about a product that you have the easier it is to sell.

If you a beginner at Internet Marketing and/or marketing in general, I would suggest starting out as a Affiliate Marketer until you learn the ropes to marketing products online. Learn things like how to find the hungry niche markets that you can add value to. It's best to decide on a product to sell and then you can build your website.

The best online home business would be to create and sale your own product, but as a beginner you should start off as an affiliate selling other peoples products.