Using Drop Shippers

If you want to sell products online, but you don't want to spend your own money up front for those products, you want a Drop Shipper.


You're going to spend a few bucks to get your Home-based Internet Business started. Not a lot of money if you do it right, but there will be some costs.

When you start your Product Sourcing, you need to decide whether you're going to spend more money buying bulk quantities of products from Wholesalers, storing them at your house, and shipping them to your customers yourself; or whether you're going to start out using Drop Shippers.

Using Drop Shippers allows you to sell brand new, brand name products to your customers without paying for those products

before you sell them. In other words, your customer pays you for the products before you pay your Wholesale Supplier for them. Pretty cool, huh?

Here's how drop shipping works:
1.  You open an Internet Store, or start an account on an Auction site, like eBay.
2.  You find a Wholesale Supplier who is willing to Drop Ship the products you want to sell.
3.  You establish an account with the Drop Ship Supplier(s) you choose.
4.  You receive images and descriptions of the products you want to sell from the Supplier, and place them on your Internet Store or Auction.
5.  A customer finds your Store or Auction, and falls in love with a product that you have priced at, say, $80. They purchase the item with their credit card. Your Store or Auction charges their credit card $80 plus shipping.
6.  You email the order to your Drop Ship Supplier, along with the customer's name and address.
7.  The Drop Ship Supplier sends the product directly to your customer from the warehouse, with YOUR business name on the package.
8.  The Supplier charges you the wholesale price of, say, $52.00, plus shipping (you've already passed the shipping charge on to your customer, so the shipping costs you nothing).
9.  Your customer gets a great name brand product from your store or auction shipped to their door, and they tell all their friends about you, and you make even more money.

What should I sell on the Internet?

how to answer to that question, your only choice is research, and lots of it. Based on years of experience, here's the basic process that  successful Online Retailers would go through every time we try to decide on a new product to sell on the Internet.

Find out what the Demand for the product is:

On the Internet is just another place to sell products. The basic concept of Demand is the same on the 'Net as it is anywhere else, and has been for all time. If there aren't enough people who want it, there's no profit in selling it!

Find out what the level of Competition is:

Again, the internet is the same way. The 'Net is just another place to sell things, and if there are too many people selling the same things, nobody makes any money on them.

We start with a dedicated Internet Store shopping site with a high degree of popularity, like Yahoo Shopping, for example. We spend hours in there, acting like a customer, using different search terms to search on the products

Find out what the General Interest level is

 General interest in a product helps to gauge where our Demand and Competition numbers fall into the big picture. For example, if there isn't much Demand for a product, and there isn't much Competition, it would seem that it might not be a good seller. You can't sell something to people if they're not out there looking to buy it. If there aren't many people out there trying to sell it, either, then it's probably not a good idea.

Find out how others are Advertising this product:

 Same thing on the Internet. If you're going to sell a product Online, you're going to have to advertise it in some way or another. Today, Pay Per Click Search Engines are the dominant force in Internet product Advertising.

Once again, we act like a customer. We use as many search terms as we can think of to search for the product we think we want to sell. What we're looking for here is two fold:

 How many other people are paying to Advertise the product Online?

What do their ads look like and say?

Micro-Management: Legal Handling of Your Scattered Employees

You may not have any employees at all. However, from time to time you may find it necessary to bring in some extra help. When you do, you have two choices: hire an employee, or enlist a contractor. Both of these methods have different tax concerns—and because they are far less complicated for contractual help, most virtual corporations choose to outsource the services they can’t provide themselves.
Employee Tax Issues: Any business owner knows an employee is an investment. If you’re running a virtual corporation, in the beginning stages it’s almost always better to outsource extra work. However, as you grow you may want to consider
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hiring someone who will work with you on a long-term basis and know your company almost as well as you.
In regards to taxes, as an employer you must pay Social Security, Medicare and unemployment tax for any permanent employee. One concern related to the virtual office is the physical location of your employee. You may choose to hire a telecommuter—someone else who works from home. If your employee(s) live in another state, you must file a W-2 (standard income tax form for employees) with that state. This costs an additional fee, but usually no more than $10 annually.
Regardless of where your employees live, you must provide all regular employees with a W-2 at the end of each tax year.
Contractor Tax Issues: The independent contractor is responsible for all of his or her own taxes. Therefore, most virtual corporations prefer to work with contractors, or as they are often called, freelancers. As a virtual business owner, your only tax responsibility for freelancers is to provide them with a Form 1099 at the end of the tax year, provided you paid them more than $600 in the year. You must keep track of any outsourced work you purchased so you can report it on your own tax forms.
NOTE: If you’re not sure whether a person who has done work for you is an employee or a contractor, the IRS provides a set of 20 questions to help you
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make that determination. Basically, if you directly control the way the work is done (you are in direct supervision of the person working for you), you should treat them as an employee. If you simply assign a task and do not control how it is done, but rather receive a finished piece of work after a specified time period (such as web copy writing, site design, or outside bookkeeping services); the person handling the work is considered a contractor.

Wording Your Job Advertisement

Placing an ad for your job opening on an internet job board or classified ad site is a great way to find just the person you’re looking for, whether you need an employee or a contractor. Unlike a newspaper or magazine classified ad, most online job advertisements allow unlimited word space to describe your open position or project. Generally, employers do not pay for internet classified ads, as those who run sites that specialize in job listings charge the users in return for allowing employers to post. In order to ensure you received targeted, qualified responses, there are a few guidelines you should follow in writing your ad.
• It’s not a classified ad, it’s a marketing tool. Approach writing your job advertisement as you would a sales letter for your product. Remember, you are “selling” a position with your company, and it should sound desirable. Be descriptive! You can either tout the benefits of working for you, or try a little humor and reverse psychology: “Open position for a virtual slave to do all my drudge work so I can make money for both of us. If you’re willing to glue a phone to your ear and type your fingers off, apply now.”
• Make your job title headline news. Which position would you rather apply for: “Secretary” or “Virtual Administrative Assistant Working from Your Own Home”? Most online job boards list posts as a series of links
to the full description of the position, named whatever you submit as your job title. By making the title of your advertisement sound like a spectacular employment opportunity, you will have more people clicking your link and more applicants to choose from.
• Be Specific. The more detail you use in describing your job opening or freelance project, the more likely you will be to receive replies from qualified applicants. Spell out exactly what you expect from the person you will hire, how the work will be performed, whether there are any benefits or bonuses, and if further opportunities for freelancers will arise in the future. However, too much detail can also harm your results; long posts may seem intimidating or daunting to online job seekers. A good rule of thumb is to keep job listings under 500 words. Remember to include your contact information—if they can’t find you, they can’t apply for the job!