You’ve created your home business website, you’ve constructed your Internet marketing plan and now you’re trying to decide what type of product to advertise online. You’re wondering whether you should promote a physical product or digital merchandise. Before deciding you should examine the pros and cons of each type of product.
Have you ever seen the bumper sticker which reads, “Whoever has the most stuff when he dies wins”? This isn’t too far from being true because physical goods are very popular. People enjoy owning tangible items which they can see and use repeatedly. The vast majority of the buying public equates success with the amount
of physical merchandise they can collect and store in, and around their homes.
On the other hand electronically delivered items are a tougher sell because not everyone is in need of or on board with such merchandise. If you’re leaning towards physical inventory then you really have to realize what’s involved. First of all you will need to find a supplier who’s offering a good price to make it worth your while.
Also when considering tangible goods you have to think about storage, packaging and delivery. This can lead to prohibitive overhead costs which will eat into your profit margin. Alternatively, you can look into drop shipping as a more inexpensive approach.
According to wikipedia, “drop shipping is a supply chain management technique in which the retailer does not keep goods in stock, but instead transfers customer orders and shipment details to either the manufacturer or a wholesaler, who then ships the goods directly to the customer.”
This would eliminate your overhead costs for storage as well as the time and expense involved arranging shipment and delivery. However with drop shipping customer service is very difficult to control if the supplier doesn’t deliver on time or runs out of merchandise.
Producing and selling digital products on the other hand eliminates many of these concerns. It’s your own merchandise which is very easily stored on your hard drive. Delivery is immediate, because your customer can download the product right after purchasing. Collecting payment is also very easy because you can accept payment on your website through clickbank, paypal or any of the major credit card agencies.
Another advantage of selling digital items is the vast market available online looking for information products. There is a huge audience for this type of merchandise which continues to grow on a daily basis. Once you create your e-book or software your only concern then is driving targeted traffic to your website to purchase your offer.
The only drawback associated with this type of product is once you’ve flooded the market with your offer and the sales dry up you will have to invent another digital information package to promote. There is also the associated cost of development of your information product.
The pros seem to outweigh the cons when it comes to advertising digital media online and in this information age it certainly seems to be the road to take to Internet marketing and home business success on the web today.