Drop Shipping – The Easy Way to Get Started Written by Matthew Coers
One of biggest challenges of selling products online is finding a cheap way to purchase items you plan to sell. If you already have a retail store, and are looking to establish an online outlet, then this is really not a problem for you. Home-based businesses, however, have much more difficulty purchasing goods for resale. That’s because distributors and manufacturers will not sell directly to a home-based business. Even if you are able to purchase goods from a distributor, minimum order sizes are generally large enough that a significant investment is required to get your initial inventories. In short, a home-based business intending to sell products online can easily spend thousands of dollars purchasing items that may be very difficult to sell online for a variety of reasons. That said, there is a certain class of distributors that will allow a home-based business to sell products on their websites, and then drop ship them from distributor’s location. There is no need to purchase pallets of goods, and no need to worry over warehousing and fulfilling orders. You sign up for an account with distributor, list their products on your website, and when you get an order, they ship it to customer. No inventories, no muss, no fuss. You can market products on your website, via online auction sites like eBay, or through prefabricated online stores like Yahoo! Shopping. Basically, anywhere you can find to promote products is generally ok, however all providers I’ve seen have very strict rules against spam e-mail. Purchasing products from drop shippers is generally quite a bit less expensive than purchasing same items retail. That said, you will not be able to buy items for same “wholesale prices” that traditional retail outlets are able to purchase them for. That’s because you are not purchasing in same quantities as more established firms, and most of drop shippers charge a “Drop Ship Fee” which is tagged on to cost of every order and can easily increase cost of items you are selling by a significant percentage. As an example of how this works, let’s assume you are selling music CDs on your website. Let’s further assume that average retail price of a CD is $15.99. Because you have an account with a drop-shipping company that specializes in CDs, you are able to purchase CDs for an average price of $9.99. When someone orders a CD from you, you charge your customer $15.99. You then pass order to your drop shipper who charges you $9.99 plus a Drop Ship Fee of $2.00 for a total of $11.99. Your net profit of $3.00 may not seem like a lot, but since you don’t have any overhead beyond whatever it costs for your web server space, you really do make out pretty well.
| | Ensure Your Own SuccessWritten by Mike Morris
Being organised is a major step to success and most important things to organise are YOURSELF and your PLAN.What do you want to accomplish? Is it a new home or to fund your children's further education, or a million and one other things I am sure you can think of. You can have whatever you want. However, this will only happen however, if you want it enough. Are you willing to do what has to be done in order to get it? When you set your goals, write them down and set a target date for reaching them. You need to set both short term reachable goals and long term higher goals, yet don't set them too high. You will become discouraged if you do not achieve them. Work CONSISTENTLY towards accomplishing your goals each day, each week and each month until you reach your short-term goals. Once you have attained your short-term goals, set them a little higher each time. This will ultimately lead to achieving your long-term goals. Goal setting is necessary in every area of life. Another must do is SELF-DISCIPLINE! Just simple things like making sure you get up early each day, get ready for your job as if you were working outside your home. Make a "to do" list of all things you want to accomplish during day. This helps to give you an organised approach to each day. You will be amazed how much you can get done using a "To Do" list. You need to be self motivated so set up a schedule and stick to it. Be ENTHUSIASTIC, as enthusiasm generates its own energy. Energy and good health are synonymous with motivated, happy people, otherwise known as achievers. The key to your success is to have plenty of P.M.A., Positive Mental Attitude. The one person you have to convince that you can succeed at whatever you desire is YOURSELF. Why? Because you can. Success is 90 percent attitude and 10 percent aptitude. Learn art of positive thinking. You can do whatever you put your mind to. It's mind over matter. Literally, if your mind is positive, your body follows suit and does all things that a successful person will do. Your attitude will either guarantee your success or guarantee your failure. The only time you are a failure is if you give up.
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