It is the day before Halloween. There is a bustle about every home. The kids are running around trying to make sure they have all the things they need for their costumes,and some are trying to make sure everyone knows where the party is going to be. The parents are scurrying around to pick up last minute treats, bake cookies, call for babysitters, or whatever needs to be done.

The decorations are all put up, the lights all lit, the candy bowls all laid out, makeup all donned, and the party all set to go.
Tomorrow all the leftover candy will be on sale for a fraction of the cost it was today. A few days later all the Christmas merchandise will line those same shelves.
It is 54 days to Christmas and the retail environment will use every moment possible to convince buyers that they need to have whatever it is that they have on sale. Whether it is a cute new toy for Susie, a crafty six in one tool for dad, an awesome out of this world video game system for Billy, or a super deluxe baking set for mom, there is a promotional tactic being employed.

In the retail world it is all about the holidays. A big percentage of the income made is during those peak hours and days before Christmas.
Say as a small business owner who sells children's products, my store averages approximately $2000 a month January through October. Then the Christmas rush comes upon us. Everyone knows if you buy online you need to start purchasing 6-8 weeks before Christmas to ensure you will receive your gifts on time.
So, starting the middle of November the rush begins. In the 6-8 weeks before Christmas, sales jumps from $450/$500 a week to $2000 a week or more. That is why it is so crucial for you to make sure you have a good marketing strategy set up. The competion is fierce. But the need is great as well. Make sure you can be found, offer as much of a deal/steal as possible, and provide quality products with excellent customer service.

People want to spend money this time of year, they need to purchase presents for their loved ones. Some people are browsing for ideas with no idea of what to get, others are looking for specific things.
I have found a new help in reaching out to my customers. It is called Site Pal. You create your own character and record your voice, and the character talks on your website for the customers. If you are interested click on the banner below to take their free 15 day trial. It is worth it.

Some people don't have sites set up for ecommerce but still want to get into the frenzy of selling online for the holidays. Site Pal can be used even in eBay auction listings. On an average day, over 1,000 live auctions use customized SitePal talking characters to connect with their customers, pitch their products and drive customer acquisition. That is pretty impressive. And it is a great price. $9.95 a month for a permanent animated sales force to help you out every day is well worth the price I think.

If you still haven't decided what to do yet for an online business, there are numerous affiliate programs out there for almost every product imaginable. If you would like to promote ebooks you could check out Clickbank.com. If you would like to promote toys, or other merchandise you could check out Sharesale.com. I have an account with both companies and they are very good with delivering your sales commissions on time. They have a great stats board for you to keep track of all your sales progress as well. Every company you decide to promote for will give you all the banner htmls and most necessary promotional tools you will need to help earn money. Remember when choosing your programs to pick the companies that offer at least 30% commissions when dealing with ebooks and such and at least 15% commissions when dealing with physical product merchandise like toys. Otherwise it is not really worth your time. You may need to spend a few dollars on CPC or PPC to get people to come to your site and click on your options, so you need to make sure you will receive enough of an income to make it worth the pay out.

Happy hunting! Keep up the good work and keep plugging away. Next week we will discuss options for web hosting. Designing a website is not as hard as you may think nowadays, with alot of the web hosting companies offering great website builder programs included in their packages.

Good Afternoon.
I was going to continue on with another business idea to make money, but I thought I would discuss online auctions first. It still ties in with having your own store, but can be used on it's own as well if you want to get your feet wet in the online selling world but aren't ready to set up your own website.

Now, I know everyone knows and seems to use eBay as the number one auction site,but I have found over the last few years that not everyone is still feeling the love.
eBay is getting so competitive these days, some people just can't be bothered.
From the sellers point of view, unless you have your own unique product, that only you posses, you have to compete with everyone else trying to sell the same product as cheap as possible to get the sale. So, therefore, no room for profit eventually.
Also, the more people post, the more you have to promote to make your ad stand out(like paying extra for Bold,etc.)Therein, the price of your listing just doubled. Once upon a time it was affordable to post on eBay. .25c and you were good to go. Now the average costs you about $2.00.

That can get pricey if you are posting a list of items and only one or two sell with a profit of only $5.00. When I first tried this it cost me $95.00 for the first 2 weeks of posting.Ouch. That was something I could not afford on a regular basis. I started scanning around for other auction listing sites, I found and tried and few, now I use a combination of using the website traffic that goes to those auction sites, and my own online store website. Every few weeks I go and post about 20 items on www.ioffer.com or www.webidz.com and see how they are received. If they seem to sell, I keep it up, if not, I try something else.

I like these 2 sites of all the ones I have checked because they allow you to set up an online store on their site for free(up to 500 products), they can be listed as Buy now,with bidding,or make an offer options. I like to just pay a certain price online when I shop. Some people get a thrill out of haggling, and others love to compete with bidding. So having all the choices available at once is good. Once again,no charge to list the item either, unless you want multiple pictures, and special features, then it is .5c a piece. You also can leave your items up as long as you want. Unlike the auctions on eBay, the items don't end in the 3, 7 and 10 day cycles. The competition is still there for other sellers selling the same items at low costs, but not as many as in the eBay community.

That brings me to the buyers point of view. Great for low prices, but as more people list,you have to scan through pages to find a good deal. Alot of the sellers only sell to Americans to keep the costs low for shipping.

The big thing for todays resellers is using dropshippers. What dropshipping is, is a company who has the inventory stored in a warehouse allows you to sell their products with out physically buying the items first. Then when you have a buyer for the item you put the order in to the company and they will dropship the item to your customer without their own company info on the box. That way, you pay a wholesale price they ask for and sell it to your customer for a retail price, you collect the money, give the lower price to the company when you place the order for the customer, and the difference is your profit. I use this method for most of my products. As you start making more money you can just go to wholesale sites, buy more products at even cheaper wholesale prices, and earn more profit. You will have to store the merchandise yourself by then, so usually most people wait to proceed to that step when they can afford a storage space or extra room in the house for their storeroom.

Dropshippers can be found online, but you have to do alot of research and spend a few dollars to find good ones. Most of them say they are, but they are what is known as "middlemen." You would still get a discount, the profit margin would just be a little bit smaller. A good place to get into even though it is pricey to start is OneSource, brought to you by www.WorldwideBrands.com It costs $299. to sign up but it provides so many viable good sources it is worth the money in the long run. One time fee. There are other cheaper sites, but they are not quite as extensive. If you prefer to go that route, I recommend Shopster.com They have the option you can make a store through them, so you would not have to invest in a hosting site for $20 a month as well. Lots of products there. The profit markup isn't quite as high as with worldwidebrands, but still good enough to learn the ropes with. They ship worldwide as well. Other big sites like Doba.com, only ship to the US.Shopster has good customer service to help you out. They are offering a 7 day free trial for you to check it out and see what you think. Then it is $29.95 a month with a one time $99 startup fee.

If you are interested in starting up your own online store, want to try the dropshipping method, and would love to have this great opportunity to try your own business online with relatively low start up costs, check into one of these two companies. Then remember, for promoting your products, use the auction sites as well as your website. Also, ioffer.com has a promotional tool you can use to create flyers for your products. You could print some of those out, and try putting them up around your neighborhood, or door to door mailboxes. You can promote in so many ways. They don't all have to be costly either.

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Good day. Today we will go more into depth about the premade websites I briefly mentioned the other day. I left the link for the Zlio shop for anyone to take a look. That is a good store idea for anyone who is just starting off and doesn't really know what direction they want to take.

Zlio provides the software,templates, and monthly web hosting needed for you to setup your own shop for free. All you need to do is find the products you desire from the list available, click on the "add product to store" button and that is it.

Zlio is in affilliation with numerous stores that have agreed to pay anywhere from 3-14% commissions on anything sold. There are around 3 million products to choose from in almost every category you could think to need or want. Zlio makes a deal with these companies, takes their own cut(hence being able to give you the website creation and hosting for free), and then there is still enough for your commission.

There is also a community setup there so you could create a profile, look around at other people's stores and link with them to help exchange traffic and profits. Zlio offers promotional tools and options for you, to help you market and promote your store as much as possible. There are several templates to choose from to create the look and feel of your storefront as you would like it to appear so it will be uniquely yours and not a generic website just like everyone elses.

You can make money from commissions off of your own chosen products in your store. When you get more adept at it you could always open up another store for another niche idea( a chosen specialized product or group of people to market to). There is no limit to the amount of stores they allow you to have for free. Just remember though it is up to you to market and promote so the more stores you have, the less time and money you will have to promote the best for each store.

You also have a personalized affiliate link to promote to get others to sign up and make a store to sell things themselves. For everyone you sign up you get 10% of their commissions, and then5% of everyone they sign up afterwards. Now if a commission is only $5.00 and you get 5o cents it may seem pretty pointless to try since the 5% would then be only 25 cents, but remember when it comes down to that level it will be all about the amount of people signed up underneath. Since that won't be your main focus of income anyways, it is not really a concern, just call it a little extra bonus.

I hate to mention the cons as well as the pros when trying to promote a business opportunity, but I must. It is not a big concern, just merely a mention. Right now, this option is only available to sell products to the USA and France customers, but Zlio is in the process of getting it setup to be able to expand their sales and shipping to worldwide. So I stillrecommend this idea since there are still millions of shoppers out there, and more to come in the near future.

So if you enjoy shopping, are pretty up on the current trends in todays market, and think you would like to try your hand out in this type of business, it is a legitimate business that is cheap to start up and get going. You can purchase your own domain name later on and provide yourself with a more professional front. If you have any questions you can email me at melanie@bestdeals4ushop.com or melaniebremner@bargainbin4kids.com