Introduction to Amazon’s Marketing Place

By Bob Hamilton

Amazon.com is not just a bookstore. They were one of the pioneers of internet marketing techniques, taking huge losses in their early years in order to build up a whole new concept of marketing using online affiliate sales as the main driver of their deeply-discounted books and other media product sales. Today, they are well into the black, one of the most successful businesses online, and still making the Internet change around them as they look forward to the ways the Internet is changing sales and marketing. Best of all, they can help you make money on both small and large scales, supporting your business with their technological acumen or allowing you to sell books from your own website for affiliate commissions.

Though most people think of books first when they think of Amazon.com, that is not their business model any longer. They do sell books. In fact most of their online tool set has been developed to support the sales of books: reviews, ratings, sales rankings, robust product descriptions and pictures, and user favorite lists blended with exceptional traditional tools like customer service and delivery has made them the best site online to buy your books.

Today, however, you can find tens of thousands of other products, from toys and baby products to the traditional new book line and pre-order options, from used books to collectibles to diapers. Why so many different products? It’s because Amazon does not sells them directly.

Amazon is, in fact, becoming a clearinghouse for other sellers as well as a primary seller of books. In 2001, after a number of failed attempts at expanding their line from books and other new media, they launched Amazon Marketplace, selling at first used books to supplement their new book line. Gradually they expanding to the large array of products they have today. Amazon Marketplace competes directly with Half.com and eBay’s non-auction services; customers here are allowed to sell, as well as buy, whatever they like. And their most recent addition, Amazon WebStore, extends their services even further, allowing you to start your own branded store using their robust ecommerce services.

If you’re looking at entering the Internet marketing fray, becoming an Amazon.com Associate may be the way to start. An Amazon.com Associate is simply an affiliate sales client. About 40% of Amazon’s sales, according to the affiliate community (Amazon won’t say) is driven by Associate sales.

It’s very easy to join Amazon.com’s affiliate program. Fill out a short questionnaire on their site, and they send you instructions on how to get pre-encoded links to specific books and products. (You cannot simply send customers to Amazon’s site. Instead, you must be promoting specific books or items.) You get a commission that varies – a higher percentage for higher-priced products, so you’d make a healthy amount on a Kindle but not so much on a paperback – and access to images and information to sell the items. Payouts are not immediate. You must accumulate a minimum amount, and then you are paid quarterly.

If you’re just getting into internet marketing, running affiliate-linked ads for Amazon products in your web page space is one of the best ways to get your feet wet. As a long-term business model, it’s not great, but the pennies and dollars for selling Amazon products do add up over time, and it’s worth retaining the ads even after you’ve moved onto bigger and better profits.

To your internet marketing success!

Interesting in learning more about this topic? Download my free ebook on internet marketing.

Bob Hamilton is an entrepreneur, author, writer, business consultant and trainer. http://www.OpeningADollarStore.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bob_Hamilton

http://EzineArticles.com/?Introduction-to-Amazons-Marketing-Place&id=1308209

Introduction to Amazon’s Marketing Place

By Bob Hamilton

Amazon.com is not just a bookstore. They were one of the pioneers of internet marketing techniques, taking huge losses in their early years in order to build up a whole new concept of marketing using online affiliate sales as the main driver of their deeply-discounted books and other media product sales. Today, they are well into the black, one of the most successful businesses online, and still making the Internet change around them as they look forward to the ways the Internet is changing sales and marketing. Best of all, they can help you make money on both small and large scales, supporting your business with their technological acumen or allowing you to sell books from your own website for affiliate commissions.

Though most people think of books first when they think of Amazon.com, that is not their business model any longer. They do sell books. In fact most of their online tool set has been developed to support the sales of books: reviews, ratings, sales rankings, robust product descriptions and pictures, and user favorite lists blended with exceptional traditional tools like customer service and delivery has made them the best site online to buy your books.

Today, however, you can find tens of thousands of other products, from toys and baby products to the traditional new book line and pre-order options, from used books to collectibles to diapers. Why so many different products? It’s because Amazon does not sells them directly.

Amazon is, in fact, becoming a clearinghouse for other sellers as well as a primary seller of books. In 2001, after a number of failed attempts at expanding their line from books and other new media, they launched Amazon Marketplace, selling at first used books to supplement their new book line. Gradually they expanding to the large array of products they have today. Amazon Marketplace competes directly with Half.com and eBay’s non-auction services; customers here are allowed to sell, as well as buy, whatever they like. And their most recent addition, Amazon WebStore, extends their services even further, allowing you to start your own branded store using their robust ecommerce services.

If you’re looking at entering the Internet marketing fray, becoming an Amazon.com Associate may be the way to start. An Amazon.com Associate is simply an affiliate sales client. About 40% of Amazon’s sales, according to the affiliate community (Amazon won’t say) is driven by Associate sales.

It’s very easy to join Amazon.com’s affiliate program. Fill out a short questionnaire on their site, and they send you instructions on how to get pre-encoded links to specific books and products. (You cannot simply send customers to Amazon’s site. Instead, you must be promoting specific books or items.) You get a commission that varies – a higher percentage for higher-priced products, so you’d make a healthy amount on a Kindle but not so much on a paperback – and access to images and information to sell the items. Payouts are not immediate. You must accumulate a minimum amount, and then you are paid quarterly.

If you’re just getting into internet marketing, running affiliate-linked ads for Amazon products in your web page space is one of the best ways to get your feet wet. As a long-term business model, it’s not great, but the pennies and dollars for selling Amazon products do add up over time, and it’s worth retaining the ads even after you’ve moved onto bigger and better profits.

To your internet marketing success!

Interesting in learning more about this topic? Download my free ebook on internet marketing.

Bob Hamilton is an entrepreneur, author, writer, business consultant and trainer. http://www.OpeningADollarStore.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bob_Hamilton

http://EzineArticles.com/?Introduction-to-Amazons-Marketing-Place&id=1308209

10 Simple Tips on How to Publish a Book

The publishing world wants you to think publishing a book is tricky and full of pit holes to fall into. Not true! These simple 10 simple tips will help you publish your book quickly and easily, and the end result will be a professional product you can be proud of.

Tip #1 The first task to self-publishing is actually making a book out of your manuscript.

Here are just some of the decisions that go into transforming a manuscript into a book:

* Cover design
* Internal artwork and layout
* Font, for example, Times New Roman or Arial
* Type of binding, for example, spiral, ring, stitched, perfect, etc.
* Hardcover or softcover
* Book size (standard book size is 5.5″ by 8.5″)
* Type of paper book is printed on
* Color or black and white
* Number of pages. It is generally easier for consumers to justify a book purchase if the book is over 100 pages.

While your printer can help you with a majority of these decisions by offering suggestions and examples it is helpful to go to a printer with a good idea of exactly how you want your book to look. Visit bookstores and find books that you want to model.

Tip #2 Understand the difference between publishers and printers.

POD Publishers

Unlike POD printers, POD publishers may take care of the extra costs of designing a book cover, editing your book, and obtaining an ISBN number. They can be a good option if you need less than 50 books because the price is generally lower than what you would pay for a POD printer. However, make sure that you read your contract carefully and that you fully investigate the POD publisher that you are considering. Some publishers require exclusive rights to your book.

POD Printers

POD printers are just that, printers. They do not invest in your product. They simply manufacture it. The cost can be a bit expensive and generally ranges from $5 to $10 per book, depending on your book’s specifics. POD printers can be a good and cost effective option if your book is nearing the end of its life yet you still have the occasional order trickling in. This way you can order one book at a time and it eliminates the possible expense of having to keep an inventory on hand. The print quality is usually good. Again, as with any company, read your contract carefully and make sure to investigate the company.

Digital Printers PQN, Print Quality Needed

This is a good option for the author that needs fewer than 2500 copies. It is cost effective, the print quality is good, and it normally takes less than two weeks to print.

Offset Printers.

When you need more than 2500 books, your best choice is offset printing. The cost will equate to about $1.25 per book for about 3000 books. However, the more books that you print, the less expensive your cost will be.

Tip #3 Don’t forget about distribution

The next thing that you will need to handle as a self-publisher is the task of distribution. It may actually be to your benefit to hire a distributor; however, most distributors take 65% of the profit. A distributor’s main purpose is to “sell” your book to bookstores and specialty stores.

Distributors also are able to sell your book to larger chain stores like Borders and Barnes and Noble. This can be to your benefit because it means that your exposure is much larger than sticking with smaller booksellers and specialty stores.

Tip #4 How are your customers going to order and pay for their books? Order

Decide how you are going to take orders by phone, fax, email, webstore, snail mail, or all of the above. Do you accept credit cards? How will you ship? How will you take returns, if at all? Mail order purchasing is an easy and efficient process once you have established a routine. However, shipping individual books can be expensive. Will you charge for shipping? Where will you store the books?

Tip #5 What are you going to call your publishing company?

The first thing that you will need to do, once your book is written, is to start your own publishing company. To accomplish this you will first need to decide on a name for your company. Experts recommend against placing your name in the title of the company because it makes you look like a beginner. Additionally, do you really want your name listed as both the author and the publisher?

Tip #6 How much are you going to charge? Pricing Your Book

Before you begin promotion, determine how much to charge for your book. The general rule of thumb is to charge 8 times what it cost you to produce it. Therefore, if it cost you $5 to produce the book, you’ll charge $40. However, you want to consider your market and how much they’ll be willing to pay for your book. It could be more or less than $40.

Tip #7 ISBN numbers. An ISBN number is not a requirement to sell a book yourself but it will make it easier to record your book with booksellers and it is a formal registration process that signifies that you are in fact a publisher. In short, it makes you look more professional. Additionally, most booksellers like Amazon, require an ISBN number.

Visit the ISBN website, www.isbn.org

Fill out the application. It costs $29.95 for 10 ISBNs and I have been told that it takes quite a long time to process, so have patience.

Tip #8 Library of Congress Number. This is a number that is assigned by the Library of Congress to a book. It can also be referred to as the Preassigned Control Number or PCN. Numbers are only assigned to books that will be added to the library. You can apply for a number by visiting www.copyright.gov.

Complete the application and then file for a number

Tip #9 Copyright Registration. The first step in registering your book is to print a copyright notice on your copyright page, usually the back of your title page. Your second step is to publish your book. Last, you will want to visit www.copyright.gov/forms/

Tip #10. Promotion tips. There are thousands of ways you can promote your book. Tackle them one or two at a time. If you jump in and try 10 different promotion methods/tools, things will get messy and you won’t be able to devote your full attention to each promotion method. Focus on one or two at a time.

What’s All the Buzz About?

By Rob Martyka

It seems like these days just about everyone is making money online. Right?

Forget all the nonsense and pay attention. For once in your life, you are about to get something for nothing. I’m going to tell you exactly how you can begin earning money online. And I’m not going to charge you a nickel. I know how frustrating and expensive it is trying to follow the advice of the guru’s, usually buying into a program that doesn’t work out like the sales copy said it would.

Tip One: There’s always something in it for the guru.

First let’s take a look at what you come across when searching for an opportunity to make money online.

A simple online search of turn-key websites or wholesalers leaves most people with a new glimmer of hope that they too can make a living working at home. With the popularity of E-bay, Amazon and sites like Craigslist, there at first light appears to be a realistic chance of being a successful online reseller.

Tip Two: The Road Map

For the beginner, intermediate or even the most expert webmaster…the challenge is exactly to same. In no particular order you must: Build a website, Find your niche market, Find a product or service to sell to your niche market, promote your website, attract visitors, maintain your inventory or wholesale supplier, invest the proper time into customer service, fulfill existing orders, process returns and ship products.

It seems straight forward enough. Well, not exactly. Recent statistics show that over 90% of online businesses fail.

There are many reasons why these websites fail. But let’s look at how the odds are stacked against you. A lot of people think that eBay is a great way to make money online. Did you know that eBay has over 86 million users? So what does this mean for you, the newcomer listing products on eBay? It means that you will have plenty of competition. It’s hard to find a published list of full time eBay sellers but the number of merchants grows each day.

Can you make money using e-bay? Absolutely, but you have to understand the dynamics and set realistic expectations that you can achieve. An experienced eBay seller understands the importance of the rating a customer leaves once a transaction is completed. Hence earning an income on e-bay is directly related to great customer service along with quality products at affordable prices.

Tip Three: Finding products to sell.

Before you can begin selling products on your website or anywhere else you have to decide on your niche market. What is it that you want to sell? Or should I say what products are suited for you to sell. Important: Unless you have an established channel source for products you will have a difficult time succeeding. You should be the expert in your given category. Whether you want to sell fishing lures, toys, patio furniture, books or anything else you can think of research your source for products first.

Always begin by selling products that you are familiar with. It would make more sense for a person with an automotive mechanic background to sell automotive parts rather than electronics. Although offering a large array of products may increase your sales, you will do much better focusing on a category that your expertise helps to promote.

Tip Four: So where do you get products to sell?

Depending on the niche you have chosen you may find the number of wholesalers that offer just the type of products you are looking for. Usually for a monthly fee you have the right to sell products that these wholesalers have listed on their web sites. You will have the ability to list thousands of products. The biggest advantage of working with wholesalers is that you do not have to carry merchandise. That means no inventory to manage and no shipping to deal with.

Once again…sounds pretty good!

Here’s the reality. Once you decide to become a wholesale member you can begin to search through the products or manufacturer’s you want to work with. You will find live product feeds that can be added directly to your store inventory or you can (for an additional fee) get data sheet downloads for each product line or category.

Still sounds like an easy solution doesn’t it?

Well, once you find the product and get them listed in your store, you have only begun. Remember adding new products should be done daily in each category since you will have to manually update your inventory for each individual product daily.

Unless you actually purchase the inventory at the wholesale price there is no guarantee that the item will be available when a customer attempts to purchase it from your site. Since most wholesalers have thousands of customers selling their merchandise, controlling the rate of inventory depletion is nearly impossible. In other words, let’s say a wholesaler offers gadget X on their website. The wholesaler will list the quantity available for gadget X. You like gadget X and want to sell it in your web store. The wholesaler publishes 25 gadget X are available. Now keep in mind that there may be 500 other websites that are offering the same gadget X that the wholesaler made available. Since you can’t control the sales rate of the item on other sites, you are taking a gamble listing items with low inventory levels. You have no guarantee that gadget X will be in stock when your customer makes a purchase. Purchasing gadget X (before you sell to your customer) is the only sensible way to be assured the item will be available.

Tip Five: Pricing to Sell?

Since the wholesale arena is all about moving merchandise, you will find other merchants out there selling the same items you are offering at much lower prices. It is very difficult to try to compete on price since the competition is so stiff. Typically if you want to make a descent profit selling wholesale merchandise, you would not consider working from a price percentage mark-up. Since there are so many niche type items available, each item should be marked up individually on a dollar basis, taking into consideration the time it will take you to process the order. For example: If gadget X is purchased at $40.00 wholesale and you sell it on your site for $55.00 you will have a net profit of $15.00 if the item included shipping. Keep in mind that you may have other merchants selling the same item with a wide price range. Internet users are more knowledgeable than ever, and will surely find you as well as your competition. Price matters especially when shopping online.

Tip Six: Fulfillment

Once a customer makes a purchase from your site you must process the order. (Assuming the item is still in stock),you must manually enter the order at your wholesaler’s website, pay for the merchandise via credit card or pre-paid account and enter your customers shipping location information. (Each order can take up to 10 minutes including printing or order verifications) One last thing: Check the return policies of all manufacturers. Some do not accept returned merchandise or will charge a 5 to 20 percent re-stocking fee. You must have a clearly written return policy for all items you wish to list.

Typically the manufacturer of gadget X will handle the fulfillment of their product. This means that you must consider the location of the manufacturer when setting up shipping rates. You will find many large items available though the various wholesalers. Take into consideration the size of the shipping box and the weight of the item. Shipping is an added cost for your customers and getting the cost accurate is critical.

Sure you can make money wholesaling online but it takes work, dedication, customer support and sometimes the risk of buying merchandise before you sell it on your site. If you are trying it out alone, I would recommend trying to promote less than 50 total items. Make a top 10 list and focus the majority of your efforts on these items.

Keep in mind I have not recommended a host or web store. Be sure to do your home work and find a store with more than minimal capabilities. Since you will be promoting your items individually, you should make sure the store has built in features to add key words, meta-description and titles to each listing.

It will take even the most advanced user up to 6 months before seeing any significant income if starting from scratch. In addition to the 50 to 75 hours of week you should be spending on your site creation and content management you should consider taking on the following monthly expenses. Web Host Fee, Web Store Fee, Wholesaler Fee and Advertising/Promotion.

If you use premium services you should expect $250.00/mo in expenses. Determining how many items you have to sell to break even will depend on your niche and price points.

Although you can make money by using a philosophy like this, many try and fail.

Affiliate marketing, or promoting others websites is still a viable solution that can have a tremendous upside. For most people, running a web store via the route of the wholesaler is too much like work.

Would if you could run your whole business for less than $10.00 a month (the cost of hosting a site)? How would you like to receive checks without ever having to place an order? Imagine never again having to list items in your store. As a matter of fact, you don’t even need a store. All you will need is website with an editor capable of pasting html and java script.

Step 7 A Better Way

If you have found your way to this article consider yourself one of the lucky ones. What I’m about to teach you will either help you build the website of your dreams or help you redesign your current site. By the way, this is not sales copy since I’m not selling anything.

Why is it Free?

I’ve been right where you are. With over 10 years of webmaster experience one thing remains constant….change. The advances made over the last decade are astounding. But even though technology has developed fresh creative solutions to old problems, the core purpose of the internet has remained. The web really is the information super highway. More than ever people rely on the internet for shopping, paying bills, checking the news, sending e-mail and of course communicating on the major social networks. By providing you with free, trustworthy information we introduce to you a friendly new platform in which you can implement yourself.

Since you now know that 90% of online merchants fail you might be ready to throw in the towel. After all most site owners aren’t webmasters.

o their websites are poorly designed,

o they don’t understand niche marketing,

o there knowledge of SEO is lacking,

o there sites are not very secure,

o customer service and phone support is poor,

o they compete on price alone or

o they don’t put in the hours needed to succeed.

Ingredients for online success.

Before you begin you must thoroughly research your market.

You must have:

1. Focus

2. Persistence

3. Patience

4. Accuracy

5. Discipline

Once you have decided what it is that you want to sell and more importantly why you want to sell online you’re on the road to web building. Remember stick with an item or service that you are familiar with.

The next step is to change your focus from “selling” to promoting. If you’re hell bent on selling your own products with the rest of the heard then stop reading now and exit. This strategy is not for you.

For the rest of you it’s time to understand that you can build your own site, promoting content related articles and products that you never have to “sell”.

Did you know that for every 1000 visitors that enter a (store – shopping portal for the first time) less than 2% actually make a purchase. If the site is poorly designed the rates can be as low as 0.25%.

Smaller shopping sites with little advertising budgets (and optimized correctly) will see a traffic stream of less than 50 visitors a day (if you’re lucky). Even small web merchants using large shopping portals like Amazon, Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL typically see less than 500 a day.

The point here is that even if you have done your homework and set up a descent (well optimized site) spent your money on advertising, you will still have unfavorable odds stacked against you. Getting targeted shoppers into your site or store is one thing. Having them make a purchase is an entirely different story.

Just an FYI here, if you have untargeted visitors coming to your site divide your targeted sales rate by 10.

Tip: Never buy untargeted traffic.

If a merchant with a properly optimized, well designed site and marketing plan is attracting 100 targeted visitors a day, only one or two of those visitors will make a purchase.

Remember, it’s the job of the web merchant to “sell” to their visitors.

Web Critic

Over the years there have been many types of affiliate programs. Unfortunately, mass number of (so called) affiliate sites come and go daily. The concept of working as an affiliate is considered more or less universal now. Simply put an affiliate supports sales or sign ups of visitors by redirecting them to the sites they choose to promote. So if I’m a gadget manufacturer with a website, I pay my affiliates a percentage of my sales profit when a visitor is sent to me from their site. The whole process is automated and tracked through a host account affiliate.

The Process

Choosing your partners. Apply to the following programs to begin your affiliate set-up.

Click Bank

Commission Junction

Digital River

Google Affiliate Program

Pepperjam Network

Once approved you can begin searching for merchants to promote.

Although your commission rates will vary greatly from publisher to publisher don’t base your selection solely on this percentage. You will find that publishers that are using affiliate programs to promote (internet trash) will pay you a higher commission since it is often difficult for them to find affiliates. Better well known sites don’t pay the same rate, but you can rest easy knowing when your visitors arrive at their site, they won’t be disappointed.

Five things to check:

1. How long has the website been in operation? – Before accepting the terms of your publisher find out how long the site has been in operation. Usually the length of time a site has been in operation is directly relational to a quality customer experience and increased sales. There are exceptions to this rule and every once in a while a site goes up that has an immediate positive impact on users. Finding and promoting up and coming sites is part of our recipe

2. What is the sites page rank Alexa & Compete? – Set up an Alexa account before you go further. Alexa works with your browser allowing you see each sites page rank and analytics. You can see traffic statistics which will help you determine if the publisher’s site is one you would like to promote.

3. Site Design/Content- Check out the site yourself. If you think the site is poorly designed, then the visitors you send will probably feel the same way. Make sure the content on the site matches or compliments a category on your site. Look for content within the site that may be easy to promote.

4. Customer Service- Once on the publisher’s site make sure you look at the customer service options. Make sure they have a working customer support phone number or contact page to resolve complaints, answer questions and provide relevant FAQ. Read through the stores policy and don’t forget to look at customer return options.

5. Shopping Experience- Go directly into the website’s store. Is the store secure? Is the store easy to navigate? Can you find brand name items or discounted pricing? Is the merchandise of quality? Would you make a purchase from this merchant? Add an item into the shopping cart and determine the shipping options the merchant offers.

Once you have selected the publishers/merchants you want to work with, begin finding and writing web copy for each page of your site. For example if you’re promoting toys you will want to write about toys and find articles that are related to toys.

Essentially you are now the critic of each category on your site. It only makes sense to add web copy for each publisher listed on your site. Even if you have 100 different publishers, each offer needs its own copy.

Make sure you differentiate your pages. You don’t want a page filled with advertising that doesn’t match the content.

Promotion:

SEO. Optimize each page on your site. Pay attention to your meta tags, keywords and page titles for each page. Add alt text to all images within the page. A good tip is to use a saturation rate between 6 and 8 percent for your chosen keywords.

Links

In order to achieve a higher page rank there are many factors to consider. We recommend buying up to 5 one way links from websites with a page rank of 4 or higher.

Create a list.

Be sure to add an opt in newsletter or other free content. Once you have a database of newsletter subscribers you will be able to reach all of your customers with a list of your best offers. Even though your visitors have opted in to your newsletter don’t spam them every chance you get. Once every 10 days you should keep them up to date with your latest offerings.

Update Content:

There’s nothing worse than a page that never changes. Schedule weekly maintenance and change your articles as often as possible. Be sure to check each of your publishers for changes in policy or new product offerings. The early bird gets the worm. Consistently add new products and merchants that meet your criteria.

Social Networks & Blogs:

Set-up and broadcast your sites existence on the social networks. Forgetting to spend time on social networks is a huge mistake. Here’s your opportunity to tell your entire network what you’re doing. Add a blog link to your site and be dedicated to adding new content daily. There’s nothing like promoting yourself.

The Goal:

It may seem a little lofty, but your goal is to get in excess of 1,500 visitors each day. If you followed the steps outlined above for choosing a publisher to work with, have written quality copy and have optimized your site correctly, you will find your conversion rates will hover around 2%

Growth:

Once you add your personal touches to your site and establish a base rate for monthly commission your next step is to clone the site and continue promoting new products and sites. If the steps are followed there’s no reason to believe a second site won’t match the original in earned revenue. If you are diligent and have the passion to succeed…you will.

Robert Martyka Author/Web Developer
http://buzzypages.com
http://twitter.com/BuzzyPages

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Introduction to Amazon’s Marketing Place

By Bob Hamilton

Amazon.com is not just a bookstore. They were one of the pioneers of internet marketing techniques, taking huge losses in their early years in order to build up a whole new concept of marketing using online affiliate sales as the main driver of their deeply-discounted books and other media product sales. Today, they are well into the black, one of the most successful businesses online, and still making the Internet change around them as they look forward to the ways the Internet is changing sales and marketing. Best of all, they can help you make money on both small and large scales, supporting your business with their technological acumen or allowing you to sell books from your own website for affiliate commissions.

Though most people think of books first when they think of Amazon.com, that is not their business model any longer. They do sell books. In fact most of their online tool set has been developed to support the sales of books: reviews, ratings, sales rankings, robust product descriptions and pictures, and user favorite lists blended with exceptional traditional tools like customer service and delivery has made them the best site online to buy your books.

Today, however, you can find tens of thousands of other products, from toys and baby products to the traditional new book line and pre-order options, from used books to collectibles to diapers. Why so many different products? It’s because Amazon does not sells them directly.

Amazon is, in fact, becoming a clearinghouse for other sellers as well as a primary seller of books. In 2001, after a number of failed attempts at expanding their line from books and other new media, they launched Amazon Marketplace, selling at first used books to supplement their new book line. Gradually they expanding to the large array of products they have today. Amazon Marketplace competes directly with Half.com and eBay’s non-auction services; customers here are allowed to sell, as well as buy, whatever they like. And their most recent addition, Amazon WebStore, extends their services even further, allowing you to start your own branded store using their robust ecommerce services.

If you’re looking at entering the Internet marketing fray, becoming an Amazon.com Associate may be the way to start. An Amazon.com Associate is simply an affiliate sales client. About 40% of Amazon’s sales, according to the affiliate community (Amazon won’t say) is driven by Associate sales.

It’s very easy to join Amazon.com’s affiliate program. Fill out a short questionnaire on their site, and they send you instructions on how to get pre-encoded links to specific books and products. (You cannot simply send customers to Amazon’s site. Instead, you must be promoting specific books or items.) You get a commission that varies – a higher percentage for higher-priced products, so you’d make a healthy amount on a Kindle but not so much on a paperback – and access to images and information to sell the items. Payouts are not immediate. You must accumulate a minimum amount, and then you are paid quarterly.

If you’re just getting into internet marketing, running affiliate-linked ads for Amazon products in your web page space is one of the best ways to get your feet wet. As a long-term business model, it’s not great, but the pennies and dollars for selling Amazon products do add up over time, and it’s worth retaining the ads even after you’ve moved onto bigger and better profits.

To your internet marketing success!

Interesting in learning more about this topic? Download my free ebook on internet marketing.

Bob Hamilton is an entrepreneur, author, writer, business consultant and trainer. http://www.OpeningADollarStore.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bob_Hamilton

http://EzineArticles.com/?Introduction-to-Amazons-Marketing-Place&id=1308209

Getting Your Web Store Online

By Jeremy L

So you’ve decided decided to take your store to the next level and explore opportunities in e-commerce?

There are a lot of options for getting your store online. You can start from scratch and pay a web design firm to build you a brand-new web store or you can take advantage of the technology platform that industry leaders in e-commerce are offering. Companies such as eBay, Amazon and Yahoo! offer already designed solutions that handle the most tedious parts of e-commerce: credit card processing, security issues, ability to handle large amounts of traffic and orders. I advise all of my clients to invest in a web store that has already been built. I don’t believe in re-inventing the wheel and I don’t believe that any web development or design company hired will be able to reproduce what Amazon.com has already produced and is successful with.

On the face value let’s look at it from just a cost perspective.

If you hire a web development firm to create a new web store for your business, you can expect to pay $4000-$5000 easily. You may have some web development companies that offer it for less, but you get what you pay for in those instances. Not to mention you’re stuck with that technology. Two years from now, if the web takes a new turn in web browsers, video, computers, etc. then your website is still going to be a website that was built two years ago, unless you pay the company to come back and redesign the website again.

If you pay Amazon, Yahoo!, or eBay to build your web store and you build your website on top of their already proven technology, you can expect your business to pay around $40-$60 a month on average. Compute the costs and you’ll find that you’ll pay approximately $600-$700 per year to host your store on a state of the art platform. This solution is cheaper, more efficient and the most flexible.

Flexibility in business technology is worth its weight in gold. You’re not going to be stuck with an outdated website in 3 to 4 years. Amazon, Yahoo! and eBay are going to continually update their web design and web architecture for your store.

The System That Jack Built.

The last thing any business wants is to pay advertising costs, drive a customer into the store, the customer is ready to buy, has the money in hand, but can’t make the transaction because the cash register is down. That is a nightmare for the business and it can’t happen in an efficient business.

You may find an excellent web designer or web developer that can put your website together for minimal costs, but can this web developer be 100% sure that his technology is 100% failsafe?

Take into account the amount of money lost by an order not processing correctly: now multiply that by just one order a day for a year. That kind of loss starts to add up. What if the website they build experiences a glitch and your website goes down during the night. Customers are ready to buy, but your website is down. These are unnecessary costs and it takes away from your business efficiency.

A Quick Overview of Each Web Store.

Yahoo! Small Business Merchant Solutions

As of October 2009 Yahoo! Merchant solutions hosts more top 500 Internet retailers that any other e-commerce provider. They offer design tools where you can create the store yourself with easy-to-use tools or you can hire developer to developer site for you on their platform. Adding products to your web store is extremely easy, Yahoo has a product Wizard that guides you through this process. You have the ability to accept credit and debit and PayPal payments. You also have the ability to measure your success with reporting capabilities offered to you by Yahoo!

Web store by Amazon

Amazon offers a simple easy solution to creating your own store. The technology offered to your store is the same technology that powers Amazon.com, therefore very reliable.

Amazon sets themselves apart in one category: the ability to allow product recommendations, customer reviews and recently viewed items. Amazon.com increase their sales every day with this technology. How many times have you been on Amazon.com looking for particular book and found another book that you wanted too? This is because Amazon uses product recommendation technology to target customers interests. This technology would cost several thousand dollars alone to add to your website.

Amazon offers the ability to put your products in Amazon’s marketplace. Already millions of people are viewing Amazon.com and searching for products, they will have the opportunity to view your products in the Amazon search feature.

eBay’s Pro Stores

Pro stores also offers easy e-commerce storefronts: built in templates and custom designs. What sets ProStores apart is the built in inventory and order management tools they offer. EBay has this down to a science and you’ll receive that benefit if you host with ProStores.

A few other recommendations:

People want to know they can trust your business. Features like PayPal give the customer the option of not giving their credit card number to the merchant is a big plus.

Features such as SSL security certificates provide some comfort to customers.

Registering with or making it known through your web store that your business is registered with the Better Business Bureau is a big help.

The number one reason that customers don’t buy from a web store that has the product at the price they want is for fear of fraud or the theft of their credit card numbers.

Now that you have this information you will be better informed about making decisions about putting your store online. Hope this helps, if you have any questions about Small Business Consulting or Small Business Web Design feel free to contact me on my website http://www.thesmartCIO.com.

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Moneymaking in Amazon

By Mika Hamilton

There are many amenities that Amazon has to offer for buyers and sellers alike. But, the best way to benefit from the online retail website Amazon.com is through being a member and by knowing the different ways you can make money out of Amazon.

The first and most obvious reason is that you have the goods and they can help you sell it on Amazon itself. But what if you have your own website? Then, you too can have that head start with your e-business by using Amazon’s 1-Click Ordering.

Also, through Amazon’s product ads, a cost-per-click program that showcases your products to the millions of online shoppers, it’s as simple as uploading your products and putting their price and voila! It’s for the world to see! This program on requires minimal costs, allows you to gain more traffic on your site, and increases your chances of higher revenue, with more hits and clicks.

If your business is more service-oriented than that of your products, there is also the feature of Clickriver Ads, a site which also offers the team-up of your services being promoted alongside your products.

Another way to be able to maximize making money in Amazon is though its Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) program. Through this, you get to store your products on Amazon’s fulfillment centers, and they can safely and directly pack and ship those products, and offer quality customer service, on your behalf.

As a seller, no other site can guarantee the accuracy of your payments but through Checkout by Amazon, Amazon Simple Pay and Amazon Flexible Payments, these programs ensure and have proven fraud detection and allow your customers to be able to access the most secure and trusted online payment solutions.

Amazon has so much to offer for everyone of different backgrounds whether you are an author, you can also avail of CreateSpace, a member of the Amazon group of companies, that provides a fast, easy and economical way to self-publish and share your content with potential customers on Amazon.com and other sites.

As a developer you can increase your site’s productivity by the numerous programs that are offered such as Amazon WebStore, Marketplace Web Services, Fulfillment Web Services, Amazon Web Services, Advertising Web Services (Product Advertising API), Amazon Flexible Payments and Mechanical Turk.

All these affiliate programs, are in a solitary effort of making your e-commerce more up to date, and customer friendly, and allow developers to create newer and more innovative ways of handling the business, at the click of a button. They include all the tools needed to freshen up your site, up to the ways where payment can be made easier and more accessible.

There are many ways to make money from online retail website and things that Amazon can offer from budding entrepreneurs to old school merchants, looking for some new way to jazz up their businesses. All it takes is a few minutes of your time, to get busy and check out http://www.Amazon.com to see the endless number of possibilities it has to offer.

Do you want more money making ideas? Check out our website where you will find tons of ideas such as doing online surveys for money, affiliate marketing, or just earning a little extra pocket money. For more ideas visit http://www.101waystomakemoney.com

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