Sounds like you were a 'newbie' and affiliate products appeal because you don't have to create a product - you just need to point people to it and collect the money. Too bad it's not quite that easy ... but it does appeal to new marketers.

There are many threads here about how to get started - what you need to know etc. For one that is pretty much guaranteed to work IF YOU WORK IT...go to this link.

https://www.warriorforum.com/warrior...days-ebay.html

That's what the ads said - and they were trying to SELL your something. It didn't work back then and it doesn't work now. You can learn to choose a niche, to built a site/blog, to use ads effectively to get traffic, etc etc....YOU have to put it together. There are so many more free helpful sites online now than there were 10 years ago...but too much competition to just drop links and wait for the cash.

Read enough on this forum to get an idea for which members are posting from experience/knowledge and which are posting for 'exposure'. In other words - choose who to follow, who to listen to....when you get stuck asked questions IN DETAIL and chances are someone here can help.

Just one way, and this for INFORMATION products. Although I have sold 'real' physical products, and even services...information is always in high demand and can be created or acquired easily.

The PROCESS. Create a ONE page HOTSHEET on a subject (any subject). Put it up for sale, I have my people use GUMROAD because it is a complete platform.

Then write a 4 page mini report on the same subject, put it up for sale.

Then a 10-15 page mini report, with graphics/pics and put it up for sale.

Pause. Ask questions. Any sales from organic traffic (those buyers on Gumroad).

Who is the market, where are they, how can I get them the link? If I do and nothing happens, I look at the copy, maybe the promotion isn't good enough.

The objective is to spend a month, CREATING products, writing copy for them, trying to sell them, getting feedback and fleshing out the concept/idea while identifying problems.

A hotsheet can sell for a buck, to about 3.95, a mini report for 5 to 7 and a bigger report for 10 dollars. The first month is used to get to know what you can and can not do, what time you really have to devote to it, your understanding of copywriting/promotions and then your areas of weakness.

Some folk don't like to sell information, and if you choose a product, you'd be hard pressed to find better advice than in the eBay thread in the Path forum.
https://www.warriorforum.com/warrior...days-ebay.html

GordonJ

I am this way so I can relate. I cannot begin a project
unless I know exactly what needs to be done through
completion.

If you require step-by-step instructions for things that
you plan to develop, I recommend using ChatGPT as
it is perfect for this. You just describe whatever project
you want to do, and ChatGPT will give you a detailed
plan with complete instructions.

Setting up some of these online ventures can take
several weeks, so you will need to schedule the time
to work on them on a consistent basis.

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This business, as with any other, is primarily about answering certain questions.

WHO is your target customer?

WHERE will you find them? You must get their interest, and bring them from wherever that is to your turf. Example: run facebook ads for residential roofers who are looking for more jobs. You take them by a click in the ad from fb to your website (more details below).

HOW will you get them to show their interest, and begin consuming content from you? This is a step most often made into a dog's breakfast. Newbies keep trying to smuch Traffic (generation of the lead) and Conversion (turning that lead into a buyer) into a single step. Eg. they arrive at your website, a landing page that sells the idea of a free mini course on lead generation of roofing jobs.

If this was a simple affiliate offer, what most newbies would do is send the lead directly to the sales page (this is called a hop). They would not capture the lead's name and email address...pre sell them...or give them more than one opportunity to buy.

When someone joins your email list, you have the potential of sending them to that sales page several times.

Let's stop there for now.

What you have gotten confused about, I believe, is the number of * platforms * your customer could be found upon.

ebay is a platform.
facebook is a platform.
amazon is a platform.
so is etsy.

It is best to specialize, at least at first, in a single platform. Why? Because you must find out its rules and processes so that you can use it. Otherwise, you risk getting banned and losing the real estate you've been building your business upon.

This is why developing your own email list is so important: it gets your potential customers off the platform, which you don't own, and onto your list, which you do own.

Platforms have compliance issues, arbitrary rules, and other complicated elements that can be changed on you at any time. Getting familiar with one becomes "the devil you know".

So, * somewhere *, you need an ongoing supply of potential customers.

Where you get this is up to you. Which platform you choose to become familiar with is up to you. You could even do joint ventures, where you access someone else's buyers list in exchange for a % of the sales dollars. That's yet another kind of platform. You don't own it, either, but you do have a little more control.

Then you need a way of capturing those leads.

And then you need a way of converting some of those leads into buyers.

Conversion can be a sales letter with a buy button at the end...a video sales letter with a buy button... a live call with a salesperson... any number of other methods.

Now I know from your post that you are looking for "The One Right Way". There is none. Sure, sellers will try to leverage this search for confidence and certainty, but you must still develop the skills yourself. You need certain competencies. And you can't read them out of a book and then suddenly have them. You must do them for awhile, and see it all for yourself.

There is no "One Right Way". Additionally, something that works well for me might be absolutely terrible for you. Your personality type just might not be a match for it. There are many things that aren't a match for me: for instance, SEO has never been something I've felt comfortable with. But direct outreach, calling or messaging someone? Sure, I can do that.

So beware of someone trying to sell you the "One Right Way". They have only their expertise, their knowledge of platform syntax, their personal alignment with a particular method. They can give you the map. You still have to walk through the mud of the territory. If business success was paint by number, a whole lot more people would be rich.

Compare what I've said to Gordon's post, and match up the specifics of what he said with the general cases of what I discussed.

There are dozens of really good courses out there that work, utilizing a variety of eCommerce methods. What none of them tell you is that sometimes, you simply pick the wrong product and niche - even though the numbers look good in your initial research.

I can definitely tell you that after building more than 200 eCommerce websites, we have had some huge successes that we did not anticipate were going to be all that great and others that we thought were going to be money-making dynamos that barely broke even.

The key is to develop a list of possible product niches that look like they may be winners. Then, pick one and give it a shot. If it works, great. If after 3-6 months, it doesn't look like a winner, move on and start building the next one on your list.

Bottom Line: After doing this for 20 years or so, I still have no "formula" for determining a "can't miss" website idea. All I know is what stands a chance of working out.

We have tried everything - affiliate, stock and ship, dropshipping, arbitrage. All of them can work to some degree if you pick the right product at the right time and not only build your site correctly, but are wise with your marketing spend (and are a little bit lucky with your product niche selection).

For us, dropshipping has always provided the best bang for the buck considering that it is a no-risk eCommerce model (you don't have to buy any inventory with dropshipping, after all). Still, time IS money, so no matter what method you choose, you are investing a lot - even if it is not actual money.

Really, the key is to find a method that suits your own time commitment and to actually follow ALL of the steps that the many courses built around that eCommerce method lay out. Then, know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em and that some ideas will be make some money, some will make a ton and some won't make a cent. Then, it's just rinse and repeat until you get to where you want to be monetarily.

https://www.warriorforum.com/warrior...days-ebay.html
That's the link to a step-by-step guide to make money with ebay.


Well, it has some good discussions and q and a parts between the steps. But it tells you what to do, in what order, and why.

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your exchange helped me a lot

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