How Many People Selling Physical Products

I do, but I got staff to deal with postage packing and other stuff

Physical products are a pain. But they can be more profitable because they generally convert to sales since they are actual products, as opposed to digital products. Just have to try and see what suits you best.

If all goes well with the project, I'll be selling wines starting March/April 2012. First time selling physical items and decided to go with wine. If it goes bad, I have a lot to drink. ahahha

Edit: As for investment, time and profit, I really can't say much for now. Investment, Yes, not much. Time, yes, some time to put it all in place. Profits? Expect them too.

Both! I like to keep my portfolio somewhat diversified.

I do some on-the-side selling of tangibles on eBay.

Andrei,

I am selling physical products on a drop ship basis. I retail fitness equipment. With drop ship you can almost operate from anywhere - though, ideally, your business needs to be based in the same country as where your suppliers are located. I know it is possible to ship internationally but this can be a real pain.

Anyhow, I like selling physical products and plan on this being my main type of business.

The only digital product I sell is the ebook in my signature that explains how I set up my U.S. business from here in Australia. (shameless plug, I know). I enjoyed writing the ebook and the whole process of getting a sales page, clickbank account, and finding the WarriorForum - just as I enjoyed learning the whole 'ecommerce process' when I set up my fitness equipment retail site.

I don't see too much difference between selling physical and digital products. Sure, with physical products you have the pain of handling returns and the associated shipping costs. You also tend to get phone calls from prospective buyers, which you don't get so much when selling digital (usually because sellers of digital products don't list a phone number whereas in internet retail a toll-free number is just an accepted necessity).

When I sell a physical product I get the thrill of the sale plus a certain satisfaction in giving someone something they will use.

When I sell a digital product I get the thrill of the sale plus a certain satisfaction in helping someone overcome a problem or question they have.

Anyhow, selling physical products is where I see my future.

Robert

We sell a physical product, stone chip repair kits for the do it yourselfer with custom mixed paint. It works well most of the year, but winter is borderline dead. We sell only in Canada and you cant do this type of repair outside, you needed a heated indoor space, which most of us dont have. So it's a good time for us to rethink our marketing and make plans for the spring.

I do all of the packaging and shipping, hubby mixes the paint as he's the expert there. It works well and I enjoy it. Each year business is better than the last year.

I have no experience with digital products so cant comment on that.

I love physical products, but I've only sold them as an affiliate. I have a large site that sells wedding favors and supplies as well as one that sells makeup. Everything is affiliate, but you could just as easily do dropshipping. The upside of drop shipping is that you get a larger percentage of profits. The downside is that there is more admin, customer service and financial stuff to manage. I'd rather just be an affiliate and let someone else deal with that.

One of the downsides of digital, from what I've heard, is that the return rate is much higher. You don't get that as often with physical products.

Anyway, selling physical products as an affiliate is the easiest way to go - at least to start with.

- Sharyn

If you invested in some physical products, you could go to Ebay and sell most of it within a week. Hopefully you have a garage or spare room where you can house all of the products. I think physical products are easy sales, but depending on what you're selling.... the profit margin could be low... like $5-$10 or so.

Andrei, it can depend on one's perception. Yes, i market and sell physical products but it can be viewed like this- I sell better performing sex, i sell more consistent orgasms, i sell improved intimacy between couples. If i get that message across to my prospects minds, then the physical products get sold. So what is it that i'm selling? Investment-start with a budget to have samples on hand to give or sell. Time-communicating to your market and building rapport, learning something about them and find out if they have a need or want you can supply. Profit- it comes later when your customers are satisfied and start referring for you creating more business.

If my tests prove positive, Ill be converting most of my info-products to a physical format.

Had enough of immediate refunders.

One of my most successful websites sells physical products (all drop-shipped). It's essentially a hands-off operation, other than some customer service emails that need attention. The products sell for an average of $150, and I profit over 40% per transaction. The refund rate for the product is under 1.5%...

I've also sold physical product directly (packaged, shipped etc.), and although this can be profitable, it eats in to your time considerably.

-Adam

how do you suceed on ebay? there has to be more than just listing and taking pretty pictures?

I'm really dying to get into drop shipping. I've had a couple of ideas for niches but I find it very difficult to find drop shippers. I guess this is the first drawback. I decided to go affiliate with one instead.

I sell many types of physical products and have had immense success with some, while poor achievements with others. As previously stated, I sell many types of physical products including ping pong tables, fish bowls, bird cages, electronics and other devices. I also sell a course that includes 6 DVDs and 2 books if that counts towards the 'physical' market.

Selling physical and digital products varies a lot. I had great success with some digital niches while having great success with physical niches. But, predictably, many digital and physical niches fail to succeed. From my statistics I have recorded over six years, physical niches have a larger chance of either bursting with success or failing miserably while digital niches usually don't completely fair nor make as great profits. If you want to get in the physical market, you want to make sure that you will make a lot of percentage per sale because selling amazon products and similar products aren't very profitable unless you get a large amount of targeted traffic. I would suggest finding a good wholesaler that you'll be able to profit largely on.

I sell physical products...not physical info products, but actual physical products that you think of with e-commerce stores.

I personally like e-commerce stores more than info-products. Most people think of e-commerce stores as being a real pain because of the shipping factor, I don’t think it’s really a big deal at all. Making $100K with info products or physical products still requires the same amount of work, it’s just in different areas. Most people’s objections to physical products is the shipping, but that’s a good “problem” to have because it means you’re actually selling things.

The only issue with physical products that can really eat up margins is drop-ship fees. Most people go to companies like WWB to find dropshippers, which is kind of a waste in my opinion. In my niches, I deal with the biggest suppliers and companies in that niche. And none of them are in the WWB directory…why would they want to be? To deal with ebay sellers? Despite what people think, “dropshipping” isn’t some special thing that most companies won’t do. Virtually all companies dropship…the question is the fee.

That’s why I like starting the site and focusing on a small amount of products so you can get a handle on what you are selling. It’s kinda easy to figure out what products are going to be continual sellers. I have a site with thousands of products and 70% of the orders are for the same low-dollar (high margin) sellers. So I just keep those on hand and dropship the rest. It’s an easy way to preserve margins.

Hope that helps….I average about $1M in revenues from e-commerce stores and still have a full-time job. It’s not much work once you have the systems in place. You'd be amazed at how accommodating people are if you have business to send them