After so many years online, Resources for Pymes has gone through various business models. Most of the time he has sold digital information products, but he has not been the only one. Therefore, it is not uncommon for a question that has usually come in the mail to have been: "What to sell on the Internet?"
Entrepreneurs eager to find the "gold" that was hidden in that new wild west that was the Internet wanted to know the solution to the question of our experience.
La realidad es que, hoy, ese salvaje oeste ya ha sido domesticado, y la Web no es una tierra de pioneros y pequeños exploradores. Las grandes marcas han ocupado su lugar y es enorme. Pero esa madurez del mercado además posibilita, When considering what to sell on the Internet, one has more options than ever..
So in my first hand experience this is my answer to the question.
What to sell on the Internet, the 5 options that work best
There is simply no one ideal product that guarantees us success. We can arrive in different ways, so an online business model can be based on 5 main options:
- Sell services online or offline.
- Sell digital products.
- Sell physical products.
- Sell commercial promotion, or technically, visibility before an audience.
- Sell the product of others in exchange for a commission.
Let's look at these 5 options in more detail, as well as the keys to success in each one.
1. Sell services online or offline on the Internet
If we know how to do something that the market demands, we can offer our services, both online and offline.
En el primer caso, el portal web es nuestro channel de distribución de ventas y servicios. Pueden ser sesiones de Skype, asesoramiento a distancia de cualquier tipo (desde lo tradicional a lo empresarial, hasta todo ese nuevo lote coaches of all kinds who have invaded the network with dubious knowledge).
In the second case, the web is the sales channel, but we perform the service in the real world, as has always been done. As an example, we are plumbers and part of our clients come through the web, because we are well positioned or our ads work.
Simply, if you know how to do something, you can sell that expert knowledge and skill.
The key to success
Even though there are some general keys to success when it comes to what to sell on the Internet and that it works, we will see them at the end, because they are common to the 5 options we have.
In this chapter I am going to refer to the specific keys of each type of product to be sold on the Internet and that help us to have more opportunities to achieve it.
In the case of services, the challenge is to show that we are the best option. Unlike digital products, by way of example, they cannot download a sample of our services, which are usually intangible in nature.
Therefore, if we are starting, it will be necessary:
- TO iron guarantee.
- TO offer of "mini" service at no cost si es viable, para que el client experimente de primera mano que somos capaces de darles resultados y no palabras.
- TO good pricing policy, because nothing is more common than working too much for little money in the service sector
2. Digital products
In this case, it is your art or your knowledge (which you can sell on the Internet directly as in the previous point) but "packaged" so that customers can acquire and use them for themselves.
Examples Books, training programs, videos, seminars, songs, works of art ... Simply, your services are adapted so that your knowledge is applied by the client, instead of applying it yourself.
The advantages of digital products are obvious:
- It is not necessary to carry inventories.
- Once the initial investment is made, can be profitable for a long time.
- You can expand the catalog and make profitable those good customers who have already bought you another product and have obtained value with it.
The key to success
Show, show, show.
We have to offer a sample of that digital product that they can test easily and without risk, and include in it our best silver bullet.
Because that bullet will probably be what the customer decides to buy, in order to get more of that value that has left him speechless in the demonstration.
3. Physical products
In this case, the web is one more sales channel to take our products further.
It can be the only one, if we only sell online, or it can complement other channels, such as a physical store or the distribution of the product to other stores for its final sale.
The key to success
A key here is Logistics. Fundamentalmente cuando estamos compitiendo con plataformas que disponen esa parte estupendamente aceitada, como Amazon, as an example.
Before, the Internet was equal to a low price, but that route is very popular and generally it is always inadvisable to compete on prices. Si esa es nuestra competitive advantage, será mejor que tengamos una ventaja de costes radical, debido a que si no, solo estamos encendiendo la mecha de una bomba que nosotros mismos hemos puesto debajo de la silla.
For some time, the Internet has been the place to find what is specialized, what cannot be found elsewhere. If we sell something that others do not sell, and we connect with the niche that wants it through good marketing, we will have more opportunities.
At the same time of that, the usability A reliable return and warranty system, a good feedback system, and customer loyalty are hallmarks of companies that are successful when it comes to selling physical products online.
4. Visibility to an audience (in other words, commercial promotion)
This is the way of life of many media, Youtubersetc.. Nuestro servicio es dar visibilidad a otras compañías a los ojos de su público target.
Ya be patrocinando algo en nuestros videos, o insertando promoción comercial en nuestro contents web, es una de las primeras opciones que muchos emprendedores consideran al momento de elegir qué vender en Internet.
The key to success
A great audience, that's the key. And to get it excellent content It is the necessary condition, taking into account that it has to be excellent for the audience we are addressing. It does not matter if those who are not part of that audience think that what we do is worth nothing (an example of this is many youtubers, which move certain masses, while others do not understand success and even disdain what they do).
Mucha gente subestima el enorme traffic que se requiere para ganar un salario decente..
We are talking about that, with less than 100,000 visits per month, we do not even consider that this could be our main source of income when considering what to sell on the Internet.
5. You sell the product of others in exchange for a commission.
Or what is usually called «Affiliate marketing». In this case, you don't have to keep an eye on the product inventory, product design, bug fixes ... All of this is the responsibility of the product creator. For this case, you are a simple commission agent.
Some affiliate models work well, especially since Amazon and other stores have started affiliate programs.
The key to success
The key to success is similar to the previous option of what to sell on the Internet: generate a large audience and superior content quality.
Product reviews, by way of example, are generally a good part of the content that these types of websites include. If that's the case, they should be trustworthy, honest and deeper than the rest.
Al final, los usuarios y Google premiarán y harán visible esta calidad, tanto en esta opción de qué vender en Internet como en la anterior.
Cuando se le preguntó cómo ganar dinero con un Blog, or what profitable products to sell on the internet, this has been my answer. What happens is that, perhaps, we are not asking the right question.
The real key question about what to sell on the internet
The question is this: Success is not going to come because we choose one of these 5 things. The chances of success will not really depend on why we sell on the Internet, but on How do we sell it on the Internet?.
Therefore, success will depend on:
- Choose a market whose demand is booming. I always repeat it: "market, market, market." As an entrepreneur friend says: "If the market I am going to access does not have a feverish demand and does not yearn for what I am going to do like water in the desert, I don't even bother anymore."
- Do something really disruptive. Debido a que ya hay mil persons haciendo lo mismo de siempre, fundamentalmente cuando consiste en qué vender en Internet, está más chévere que nunca.
- Note that the Internet is not the land of milk and honey. Fundamentally now, which is a mature environment, whose niches are dominated, on many occasions, by companies with twice the resources of us.
- Be willing to run a long-term game. Because if you want fast money, forget about the internet. Above all, Google is going to plunge you into the depths if you are just starting out and it is not going to consider giving visibility to your results in at least a year, even if they are very good. Keep in mind that, since search engines (Google) are the gateway, if you are not there, you do not exist, and at first you will not be there.
- Understand that the main thing is not what to sell on the Internet, but marketing to make it visible.. If the search engines (Google) are not going to consider you at first, you will have to compensate in some other way and make a marketing plan that gives you that visibility that Google will deny you at the beginning.
In 2003, he was an online tax advisor. I chose the first option when choosing what to sell on the Internet. At that time, one of my first clients was also exactly an online entrepreneur. I had selected option 2 and was making more than 3,000 euros a month selling a clean PDF of how to link.
Seriously.
Eran los tiempos en que el google algorithm no se perfeccionó y no había competencia en el mundo de habla hispana.
But it's been more than 15 years of that. Times have changed and when choosing what to sell on the Internet we must take more into account how we are going to do it. If we are clear about that second part, which option of the 5 we choose will matter much less.
