When searching for wholesale distributors, be careful because there are a lot of companies out there that will drop ship products and claim to be wholesale distributors when they really aren't! They will take your order just to turn around and order from real wholesaler. This should spell L-O-S-S to you. What's happening is that you are buying product at a price marked up from actual wholesale price, and then you'll need to mark it up even further when selling it to your customer. There is a big slice of profit pie that you aren't getting!

Most distributors that offer thousands of different products in a number of different categories are usually that type of operation. Also, if distributor wants to charge you a subscription fee, that should set an alarm off in your head. Occasionally wholesale distributor will charge a per- drop-ship fee, and maybe have a minimum order requirement (either in quantity or dollar amount). A FEW (and I say few) legit wholesale distributors will charge a setup fee (one wholesale distributor I worked required that first order be $200 or more), but I have NEVER come across a legit wholesale distributor that charges a subscription fee.

If you are having trouble deciding what products to sell, try this: go shopping! Don't actually buy anything (if you don't want to, at least), just look around and see what products interest you.

Do you see a site that you think you could do better? Are you a sports fan? Sell sports equipment or memorabilia! Do you enjoy pool? Sell billiard supplies! Enjoy gardening, or interior decorating? Sell products for those!

A word of advice though, computer component market is crammed. You will have more competition there than with most other products.

Information products are a fabulous option as well. Not only can they easily be created by you, they are even easier to distribute because they can simply be emailed to your customers.

Can you fix cars? Write a maintenance tips manual. Write an eBook on saving money around household. Write a manual on how to negotiate with car dealers. Maybe you know how to make cue ball jump across a pool table over what would have been an obstacle. I sure don't, and I wouldn't mind finding out!

Basically, question is "What do you know?" Don't underestimate yourself either! A great way to get started is to use mind-map technique. This technique allows you to jot down ideas that relate to a core idea and build a skeleton of subjects that are all associated with each other. After only a short time doing this, you should have more than enough subjects to piece together a good eBook. For more information on mind- maps, visit these resources:

1. www.peterussell.com/mindmaps/mindmap.html 2. www.shared-visions.com/explore/literature/mindmap.htm 3. www.tsd.jcu.edu.au/netshare/learn/mindmap/howto.html

If you look long enough, or are just plain lucky, you will eventually come across someone selling complete rights to a product. You can buy it from them and resell it for as much as you want, as often as you want, and retain 100% of profits. These deals are few and far between, and can usually cost quite a bit. But do keep your eyes open for them, it may be just what you are looking for.

Hopefully a number of product ideas have sparked as you were reading this article. As you can see, there are a lot of very good options available to you. Review all of them and choose best one, or ones, for your business situation.

Copyright © 2003 by Palyn Peterson palyn@futureinternetmarketing.com

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The customer's order consisted of 1 or 2 small products from nearly every distributor I had. Through online store's software, I had it setup to charge shipping based on customers final price. When all of items were tallied up, customer was charged about $9.00 shipping, which was reasonable for size of order. But when I turned around to order products from my distributors, I needed to pay $5.00 shipping at this one, $3.00 at that one, $4.00 here and there, and $3.50 at a couple others. My shipping costs totalled nearly $20! That amount was way too much to pass on to my customer when they were just ordering a few small items. They would have cancelled their order and moved on to one of my competitors.

After that fiasco, I quickly reconsidered direction of my business.

So if you've got great idea that would involve more distributors, try opening a second online store. There isn't any rule that says you can't run 2, 3, or more online stores! In fact, you might want to do that anyways -- having multiple streams of income is a proven way of making big bucks.

Even if your stores are selling basically same products, you will be able to better corner market at Yahoo! Shopping, or whatever place you are selling.

Having multiple business will also give you opportunity to test advertising with one store and see if sales grow or shrink in relation to others. You could even provide links to your other stores and advertise them as "sister sites." If your customers trust one of your stores, they'll automatically trust your "sister sites."

Do you see why you should have only 1 or 2 distributors per online store? It is very important to keep this in mind for long term success of your business. Not only that, but it gives you a valuable opportunity to create multiple income streams.

Copyright © 2003 by Palyn Peterson palyn@futureinternetmarketing.com

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Sign up for Palyn Peterson's FREE 13 day intensive email course and discover 16 necessary basics and 5 advanced internet marketing techniques. You'll also receive a free $gift$. http://FutureInternetMarketing.com/guide.htm -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-