Question for Kim:”In your experience, what sells on the web?”
My answer: Anything and everything can sell on the Internet if there is a market for what you are selling, the price is right and people are aware that you have products to sell. I can tell you what doesn’t sell:
1. Books or seminars about how to get rich off of the Internet.
2. The same type of books and seminars (or videos) except they talk about making millions blogging.
3. Any kind of short term investment system with day trading. A lot of people have lost their life savings trying to make money shorting or betting that their stocks will recover and go up.
4. Pyramid schemes or Ponzi schemes where the way you are suppose to make money is to get people to sign up and you make a commission off of things they sell. People don’t have the money for experimenting or risking that they are on the “ground floor” of these schemes and frankly, a lot of them are illegal.
Things that do sell:
1. Anything to do with people’s hobbies. People always find money for their hobbies. There will be a contraction with the depression/recession we are in but people still will find cash to get things they really, really want. It may be collecting model cars, comic books, certain types of trading cards, it doesn’t matter. People find money for things they want.
2. Self-help books or videos that actually teach you something. Word-of-mouth helps get the product information out and people do listen to their friends and relatives if they like the same things that they do.
3. Things that have to do with pets. That could be a subset of item one but pet products sell very well over the internet.
4. Baby or children’s clothes if they are priced right sell well. Parents are always looking for inexpensive fashionable items for their kids.
5. Things that can really save money or labor for a person. The profitable things that sell are things that can add minutes or hours to a person’s day so they can do the things that they want for items one thru four.
6. Anything that you are passionate about that somebody else share’s the same passion. You may not make a lot of money selling books on worm farming but for people who are into conservation with their gardens or the environment, you may make some sales.
My suggestion though is to be different and get involved on the manufacturing side as well. You will be helping out the economy and actually providing something for the economy if you can.
If you are doing well selling on the web - and please no instant fortune scams or schemes, drop me an email and share your success story and I will post it on my blog.
I will try and get an occasional series going with this if there is interest in it. I am trying to prove a point that even in down economic times people can still sell goods and services and make a profit and even a living at it. If you can help prove my theory one way or another, let me know!
Kim Isaac Greenblatt
What sells on the web-prelude?