Finding the Right Merchandise: The First Step in Learning How to Sell Products Online

Posted on July 14, 2009
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Aside from joining an affiliate program, one of the other profitable ways to make extra money online is by learning how to sell products. I will be showing you a number of methods for actually making sales on your own website, or on sites like Ebay, in future posts. However, the first thing you need to do is find out what to sell.

You probably already have some ideas about this. Maybe you have an offline business, and are familiar with the best selling products in your niche. Maybe you have simply been following news or television ads about the latest hot product. In either case, once you have a product in mind that you think you could profit from, you will undoubtedly begin to look at ways of getting a few test products at a low cost to see how well the item actually sells. The aim of this post is to show you a creative way of getting very low cost or even free sample products that you may not have thought of before.

Before going into exactly how to do this, I have a brief back story that describes how I discovered this method. A few years ago, I wanted to purchase an Ipod as a gift, but at the time the $300-$400 price was a bit over my budget. I looked all over the internet, but I simply couldn’t find a great deal for the product. Eventually, my search led me to a site that promised a free IPod. Naturally, I was skeptical of the offer, so I checked around to see what others said about the site. To my surprise, the reviews were good, and since the site was free to join anyway, I signed up.

After reading the site’s terms carefully, I found that in order to get my free product, I would need to complete a sponsored offer, and get a few friends to do the same. The offer I selected was a trial of the Blockbuster Online service. The trial was free, and I was credited for the offer quickly. I then got a few friends to do similar offers, and before long I had earned the free Ipod. The company who awarded it to me even covered my shipping charges. If you follow this approach, you may incur a small shipping fee of perhaps $5-$10 for your free trial item, but that is it! In the end, you will have earned a big ticket item that you can sell on eBay or any other site.

If your test product sells well, you can look into partnering with a wholesaler to buy a larger quantity of merchandise. You can get many kinds of high value items that are hot in stores right now using this method. For a small sample of the items available check out the Freepay Network. In my next post, I will show you how you can get free products, even if you can’t find friends to sign up as referrals. I hope you come back soon for more information about how to sell products online as a means of earning a work from home income.