Delivering The Goods
Once you have decided on what product or service you want to sell, you will then have to determine how your customers will receive their purchases. If you’re selling a physical product, you’ll have to concern yourself with package and delivery issues. If your product is electronic (information, subscriptions, website services), your focus will be on electronic security for your wares.
Packaging products: by hand or by pixel?
If you are selling products that you manufacture yourself, such as handmade crafts, then your shipping and handling costs should be thoroughly researched before you launch your business. You must have sufficient shipping material on hand prior to selling, because if you fail to deliver orders you will lose business fast. Also, you need to factor in the cost of shipping and packaging materials when you set your retail prices. Most Internet shoppers expect to pay a shipping charge for physical products ordered online, but make sure you mark up the price enough to cover the packaging you’re sending your product in.
You may choose to sell products through an affiliate or associate program. In this case, the affiliate company will typically drop-ship orders to your customers right from their warehouse—so as a merchant affiliate, you will never have to bother handling the merchandise yourself.
One of the advantages to selling electronic products that you might not have considered is instant gratification for your customers. When you offer e-books or other information that can be accessed immediately, your customers will enjoy not having to wait for something to be mailed to them.
You also save time when you sell electronic products. Rather than spending a good portion of your work day packaging products and standing in line at the post office (or waiting for the UPS truck), you can almost completely automate your content delivery system and spend your time developing your website and marketing strategy.
The major issue for purveyors of electronic goods is security. If your downloads are not protected through passwords and secure links, anyone can get to them for free—in which case they won’t bother paying you. Also, once a customer receives your electronic product, there is little to stand in the way of passing it on to a few friends (or more than a few friends).
If you intend to develop your own electronic product, part of your research must include methods of security and protection that will keep people from accessing your information without paying for it. This will sometimes require a considerable initial investment, though it will pay for itself in sales with your carefully planned marketing strategy.
On the other hand, if you are not comfortable dealing with electronic programming and security issues, you can join an affiliate program that will handle everything for you. Affiliate programs that involve electronic products already have built-in security measures that protect you from theft.
