How to Start Selling Online from,Want to start you where to start, and how to do it right.
How to Start Selling Online from ,Whatever your reason for wanting to start selling online, eCommerce offers huge opportunities for anyone with an internet connection.
Of all the ways of making money online, it's perhaps one of the easiest to understand and get started with.
Our ten-minute guide to the world of online selling will show you where to start, and how to do it right!
SaleHoo Wholesale & Dropship Directory - #1 Affiliate Program
How to Start Selling Online Professionally
We’ve broken the process down into six simple steps to take you from complete beginner to professional seller.
Let’s jump right in!
What You Need to Know Before You Begin
Before you get started investing time and money into an online business, you want to be sure that selling online is right for you.
So let’s look at the pros and cons of selling online so you can weigh them up and make an informed decision.
The Pros of Selling Online
- While working from home in your pajamas is definitely a plus, there are plenty of other amazing reasons to work from home while building your own eCommerce business:
- You can work from home, make your own hours, and choose how far you want to take it. The possibilities are endless. Want to make a few extra bucks to save? Want to create an online eCommerce empire? The choice is yours! There's no glass ceiling, which means no boss to suck up to. It's pure freedom.
- It's something you're probably already familiar with! If you’ve bought or sold something online, you basically understand how it works. Which, ultimately, makes selling online an easier skill to grasp than many other home business options.
- You can follow your own interests. Are you passionate about fly fishing? Cake decorating? Refurbishing antique dolls? When you start selling online, you can often turn your hobbies and passions into a profitable business.
- It’s not as difficult or risky as starting a "traditional" business. You don’t have to invest a lot of money when you’re first getting started (not to mention, you won’t have to worry about buying or leasing a physical property).
- It has a very low barrier to entry, which means practically anyone can give it a go! What’s stopping you?You don’t have to worry about storing inventory if you don’t want to! (Hint: It’s called dropshipping, and I’ll get to that later!)It’s fun! At least, we think it is.
By the end of this guide, we’re sure you will, too!
The Cons of Selling Online
- Like anything in life, selling online comes with a few downsides. It's important you're aware of these before you begin, so you set yourself realistic expectations.
- It takes time. It may take you a month or two to start seeing consistent results. The chances of you accumulating over $100 worth of sales on your first day is, well, highly unlikely.
- There's a learning curve. If you’ve sold a few things online before, you’re already one step ahead of your competitors! However, you’ll need to step up your game to sell online professionally.
- You wear all the hats. As a business owner, you’re an incredible team of one (at least starting out). You’ll take on the roles of accountant, marketer, web designer, as well as everything else. This also means that you shoulder all the responsibility. If something goes wrong, you can’t blame anyone but yourself.
- It's not all passive income. You'll hopefully be dealing with regular sales, regular shipments, and regular customer inquiries, which means that your business will require you to do real work and invest time and effort. That is, until you can afford to hire staff! Even then, you’ll want to remain involved in everything that happens.
To simplify, this isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme.
But if you're happy to spend a little time building a reputation, developing your brand, and optimizing your processes... the sky's the limit.
Choosing an eCommerce Business Model
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How to Start Selling Online from Home (and Actually Make Money)
Want to start selling on eBay, Amazon, or on your own, but don't know where to start? You're in the right place! This guide will show you where to start, and how to do it right.
So you’re interested in selling stuff online, eh?
Perhaps you have dreams of quitting the rat-race to start your own online, eBay or Amazon business (which obviously involves waking up at 10am, working in your pajamas, taking long weekends whenever you like, and answering to nobody because you're the boss...)
Or maybe you just want a few extra bucks in your back pocket.
Whatever your reason for wanting to start selling online, eCommerce offers huge opportunities for anyone with an internet connection.
Of all the ways of making money online, it's perhaps one of the easiest to understand and get started with.
Our ten-minute guide to the world of online selling will show you where to start, and how to do it right!
How to Start Selling Online Professionally
We’ve broken the process down into six simple steps to take you from complete beginner to professional seller.
Let’s jump right in
What You Need to Know Before You Begin
Before you get started investing time and money into an online business, you want to be sure that selling online is right for you.
So let’s look at the pros and cons of selling online so you can weigh them up and make an informed decision.
The Pros of Selling Online
While working from home in your pajamas is definitely a plus, there are plenty of other amazing reasons to work from home while building your own eCommerce business:
You can work from home, make your own hours, and choose how far you want to take it. The possibilities are endless. Want to make a few extra bucks to save? Want to create an online eCommerce empire? The choice is yours! There's no glass ceiling, which means no boss to suck up to. It's pure freedom.It's something you're probably already familiar with! If you’ve bought or sold something online, you basically understand how it works. Which, ultimately, makes selling online an easier skill to grasp than many other home business options.You can follow your own interests. Are you passionate about fly fishing? Cake decorating? Refurbishing antique dolls? When you start selling online, you can often turn your hobbies and passions into a profitable business.It’s not as difficult or risky as starting a "traditional" business. You don’t have to invest a lot of money when you’re first getting started (not to mention, you won’t have to worry about buying or leasing a physical property). It has a very low barrier to entry, which means practically anyone can give it a go! What’s stopping you?You don’t have to worry about storing inventory if you don’t want to! (Hint: It’s called dropshipping, and I’ll get to that later!)It’s fun! At least, we think it is. By the end of this guide, we’re sure you will, too!The Cons of Selling Online
Like anything in life, selling online comes with a few downsides. It's important you're aware of these before you begin, so you set yourself realistic expectations.
It takes time. It may take you a month or two to start seeing consistent results. The chances of you accumulating over $100 worth of sales on your first day is, well, highly unlikely.There's a learning curve. If you’ve sold a few things online before, you’re already one step ahead of your competitors! However, you’ll need to step up your game to sell online professionally.You wear all the hats. As a business owner, you’re an incredible team of one (at least starting out). You’ll take on the roles of accountant, marketer, web designer, as well as everything else. This also means that you shoulder all the responsibility. If something goes wrong, you can’t blame anyone but yourself.It's not all passive income. You'll hopefully be dealing with regular sales, regular shipments, and regular customer inquiries, which means that your business will require you to do real work and invest time and effort. That is, until you can afford to hire staff! Even then, you’ll want to remain involved in everything that happens.
To simplify, this isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme.
But if you're happy to spend a little time building a reputation, developing your brand, and optimizing your processes... the sky's the limit.
Choosing an eCommerce Business Model
There are several different business models to consider before you start selling online, each with their own set of pros and cons.
You will want to think carefully about which business model is best for you. They all require different levels of financial investment and will determine how you structure your business.
Take this quiz to find out which business model is best for you
The simplicity of dropshipping does come at a cost. You usually pay a higher price to your supplier compared with buying in bulk, and you’ll usually incur a dropshipping fee.
Shipping also tends to take longer as most dropship suppliers are based in China. But dropshipping is extremely popular and many people have built successful eCommerce businesses using it. Dropshipping is best for people looking to dip their toe into selling online, those who don’t have a lot of capital to buy in bulk, and people who want to keep their workload to a minimum.
Step 1. Choosing What to Sell
Choosing what to sell is arguably the most important decision you will make as it will determine the demand for your product, price and profitability, market competition, sales, and marketing. It’s also one of the hardest decisions you will make.
Of the billions of products out there, how do you know which one to sell?
For the full run-down on choosing a product to sell, see our “What to sell?” article. But in general, you're looking for a product that meets these requirements:
You can make a profit on it. This one is pretty obvious. Don't forget to factor in things like shipping, packaging, and marketplace fees!
There’s reasonable demand for it. One of the common mistakes new sellers make is diving into selling a particular product without checking demand. Don't be that person stuck with a garage full of things you can't sell!
The competition is not too intense. Competition can really drive down your profits, particularly when there isn't enough demand to meet it. When a bunch of sellers are competing for a small pool of buyers... things can get ugly.
What Products are Selling Best Online?
This is the million dollar question. But the answer is not simple. As you will know from your own market research, there’s a wide range of products that are selling well online.
The thing is, that once a product becomes a “best seller”, it’s probably too late to start selling it as the market quickly becomes saturated. You need to learn to anticipate trends, or identify ways to sell items that are similar or complementary to best-selling products.
However, according to our own data and research, products in these five niches are always selling well. You’ll just need a bit of creativity (and a dash of intuition) to discover the next best-selling product
- Blocks and Lego Products
- Home Decor
- Pet Supplies
- Baby Supplies
- Coffee Accessories
Another strategy to consider is selling products that tap into consumer’s physiological needs. American psychologist Abraham Maslow created “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” way back in 1943 and it’s still relied on by marketers and salespeople today. The hierarchy of needs are:
Self-actualization: The desire to become the most one can be
Esteem: Respect, self-esteem, status, recognition, strength, freedom
Love and belonging: Friendship, intimacy, family, connection
Safety: Personal security, employment, resources, health, property
Physiological: air, water, food, shelter, sleep, clothing, reproduction
If you can identify products that fit into these deep-seated human desires, then you are almost guaranteed to have success selling them. You can see how luxury goods might fit into the ‘esteem’ need,
Step 2: Finding Suppliers
Finding a supplier is probably the second most time-consuming part of selling online, and also comes with a raft of boobytraps to avoid - so be careful! A supplier is one of your most important business partners so you want to make sure you choose the right one.
Your business model will largely determine what type of supplier you work with. But let’s get down to the nitty gritty. How do you find a supplier you can trust?
There are several ways to look for suppliers:
SaleHoo’s Supplier Directory
SaleHoo can help you save time and minimize risk when choosing a supplier. SaleHoo’s directory has more than 8000 legitimate, low-cost suppliers of a massive range of products, located all over the world. SaleHoo’s staff check and verify all suppliers before adding them to the directory so you can be confident that they’re reliable and trustworthy.
Finding Dropship Suppliers
If you want to go at it alone, you can use search engines like Google and online marketplaces like Alibaba and AliExpress to find dropship suppliers. It takes a lot more time and you have to watch out for fraudulent businesses and scams. But if you’re willing to invest the effort, you can find good dropship suppliers this way. Start by searching “[your product] + dropshipper” and go from there. On websites like Alibaba, you can contact suppliers directly and ask if they provide dropshipping services.
Finding Wholesale Suppliers
Google is your friend when it comes to finding wholesale suppliers. However, you should be aware that often the best suppliers don’t have a lot of time and money to invest in marketing (and their websites can look really cheap), so they can be hard to find online. If you’re wanting to secure the best deal, you’ll have to do a bit of groundwork. One way around this is to work with local wholesale suppliers, or to visit trade shows and meet suppliers face-to-face, the old-fashioned way. A lot of the sellers on Alibaba, AliExpress, and other major online marketplaces will be wholesalers, so you can contact them and make enquiries. If you want a shortcut, there’s always SaleHoo.
Finding Manufacturers
You can find manufacturers much the same way as you find other suppliers - on Google, SaleHoo, and popular online retail sites. But if you’re getting them to manufacture your product, there are just a whole lot more boxes to add to your checklist. You need to be even more vigilant and ensure you do due diligence. Ideally, this means visiting the factory, meeting the manufacturer, and testing their products and service before committing to your first order. Finding a great manufacturer is essential to the success of your business.
Step 3: Setting Up Your Business
Choosing a business name
Make sure it’s something you feel comfortable broadcasting via your social channels as well as in person. For example, don’t name your business “Miss Kay’s Underwear Store” even if you’re selling underwear. Who’s going to want to share (or even click on) a store’s social page if they think it’s a joke? Make sure your business name is on-brand. Even better, choose something original so that the .com domain name is still available.
Registering your business
Business regulations are different across countries and, in the United States, they vary from city to city and state to state. A simple Google search of your country and city will tell you whether you need to register your business in order to operate legally.
Applying for a Sales Tax ID (or reseller’s license)
If you are serious about starting an online retail business and sourcing products from wholesalers, in most US states, you'll need a Sales Tax ID. A Sales Tax ID is a number you obtain from your state and/or local government that allows you to charge sales tax whenever a buyer in your state, county and/or city purchases an item from you, even if it’s an online purchase. Note: This is only relevant for businesses in the US, or with customers in the US.
Setting up payment options for your store
When you launch your online store, you want to be ready to start accepting money. That means you need to offer a range of payment options for your customers. These days, it’s common for online stores to cater for credit cards, Paypal, Stripe, Afterpay. You don’t need to be signed up to every payment option, but the more flexible you are, the more sales you will make.
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