Home Business

Sell Other People’s Products

It may sound strange to some readers, but you can actually make a good living by selling other people's products on the Internet. This is accomplished through of an online system of profit-sharing called an “affiliate program,” a concept that was originated by Amazon.com in 1997. In just a decade the industry has grown into a multi-billion dollar business, and it’s still only in its infancy really.

To explain the process more accurately, you make money by referring customers to an already existing online store. First, you make an agreement with the online merchant to share some of the profit whenever a customer you send makes a puchase on their website.

From that point on, you receive a percentage of every sale that you send their way. Think of it as a commission that the merchant "rewards" you with for generating business for them. Commissions generally range anywhere from 2 percent to 75 percent, depending on the price of the particular item and the volume of sales.

Now, the whole system may sound somewhat unremarkable, similar to working as a commission-based salesman at your local electronics store. But there is a key difference that makes this system possibly the most lucrative home business idea yet devised.

The salesman at the physical stereo store has to work hard for every single dollar he makes. He has to wait at the store 8 hours a day for new potential customers to walk through the door. He’ll probably lose his voice one day from delivering the same exact sales pitch over and over, or at least lose his mind from boredom.

Multiple Passive Income Streams

The beauty of an online affiliate system is that it’s possible for you to set up multiple passive income streams. A passive income stream simply means that you are making money without having to actively work for each dollar. And setting up multiple such streams equals big money over time for relatively little effort.

Remember, you are simply receiving commissions from an online merchant. Since it’s not your store, you don’t have to worry about anything of a logistical nature--no worries about inventory, warehouse storage, shipping costs, handling returns, customer service, or taking orders.

The nature of the online world is such that, once you set up a system to drive customers to the online merchant--for example, through a website you build--it continues to drive customers night and day without any intervention on your part. In other words, it does all the “selling” for you passively once you set it up, and you never have to do any active selling such as delivering a boring sales pitch or calling potential customers on the phone.

In short, you can establish a passive income system online, and once it’s in place and running on its own (with the occasional need for maintenance), you can pretty much sit back and watch your commissions come in.

Some of you may already be familiar with the concept of setting up multiple passive income streams. Author Robert Kiyosaki touted a similar strategy in his bestselling book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad.” In his book, Kiyosaki stresses the need to create what he calls “multiple streams of passive residual income” in order to build wealth.

It’s a great motivational read, but Kiyosaki never does outline a specific way for you to accomplish his suggestions, aside from mentioning the use of the real estate or stock market, both of which are extremely high risk.

Internet marketing pursues the same aims, but without the same high risk. And it’s not as technically difficult as you might think. Gone are the days you must pay a professional web designer thousands of dollars just to build you a simple customized website.

For those of you who have no idea how to build your own website, low-cost options abound these days. Check out our resources section at the end of this article to help get you started on your own Internet marketing career.