Online Sales

If idea of starting a low cost home business is appealing to you but direct sales is not, you might want to try selling products online. The Internet has made it possible for thousands of home-based entrepreneurs to earn a solid living from home -- with little investment and flexible hours.

Hundreds of large corporations pay hundreds of thousands of online entrepreneurs commissions to sell products from their websites. These 'affiliate programs' are easy to join and most are free:

< http://www.quinstreet.com > < http://reporting.net > < http://www.commissionjunction.com > < http://www.linkshare.com >

Be aware that many of headlines proclaiming lay-offs and poor stock performance have come out of technology sector. (The spectacular demise of eToys is an example!) The affiliate model is young and evolving. Many programs are being discontinued on a daily basis, so once again, research is essential.

You should also understand that your income potential with affiliate programs is directly in proportion to number of people you are able to reach online. If you explore this route, you will probably spend a lot of time learning about website promotion and ezine ad placement before you start earning a substantial income from affiliate programs. However, *it can be done* -- in your spare time -- and at very little cost.

The Service Option

Your third option for starting a low-cost home business is to offer a service that others will need. And once again, with so many people starting businesses on side, it should not be too difficult to fill this niche.

Even with tumult in Internet economy, having a website is becoming a necessity for everyone in business. Web design, site promotion, advertising copywriting and newsletter editing are all services you can offer to other home-based entrepreneurs. So are classic services like tax preparation, bookkeeping, errand running, bulk mailing, secretarial (virtual assisting), desktop publishing and more.

You'll find some great books to help you get started here:

< http://www.parentpreneurclub.com/bookreviewz.html >

Like I said, it's a great time to start your home business... so what's keeping you?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/ 09/02/BU147439.DTL&type=business

Come on John, if you were about to go out on your own, would you rely on sources you quote in your story and wade deeply through mire of that bureaucratic gobbledygook to get to occassional gem? How about sources like

http://www.workz.com where I am proud to be a columnist in their guest expert section on Small Business Ecommerce at:

http://www.workz.com/content/1679.asp

How about true home business based sites like

http://www.ahbbo.com (short for "A Home Based Business Online" run by Elena Fawkner).

How about truly valuable stuff for independent professionals at sites like

http://www.learningfountain.com

run by Paul Siegel where valuable community among freelancers helps all become better business owners?

One of your listed sources is http://ecommerce.About.com

Where I used to have a link to my website until they began requirements of new http://lunanetwork.about.com/ which requires that linked sites cross promote About.com and that partners must serve a minimum of 150,000 pageviews a month from their own sites. Now you must be a Goliath to be listed by Goliaths.

The same happened at former small business section of about.com where entire category was dropped and merged with ecommerce section, which then dropped all of Davids from their Goliath-only links list!

Now we see all over web how Goliaths are courting business from Davids as they suddenly realize that we make up almost 50% of US economy. Oh really? What a surprise! Big business falters after absorbing all of each other's money, then begins luring smaller fish when they've eaten all big ones. I did a piece on that as well at:

http://website101.com/arch/archive96.html

I have a much better list. Here's a few additional sites for you to review so you can gain a true understanding of what little guy truly needs to survive as a small business.

http://www.ideacafe.com http://www.guru.com http://www.elance.com http://www.allbusiness.com http://www.website101.com I'm not too proud to list my own site.