Choosing the right Internet business model is not always easy. If you look around the Internet, you will notice that there are many kinds of business models. To be honest, most of the business models can be very profitable, but which one should you choose to start off your online business? It’s important to first look at the most popular types of business models available on the Internet… The Content-Rich Website The content site will always be a very profitable business model. This is because the Internet is all about information. If you provide quality information on your site, people will keep coming back! Many entrepreneurs monetize their content sizes by offering paid advertisement spaces or placing Adsense ads on their sites, where they earn money for every click that the links receive. The Ecommerce Store This is usually your traditional online store, which will often showcase of catalog of it’s products that are available for sale. As an example, you can set up an ecommerce store that only sells fishing equipment, and nothing else. Nowadays, one can easily create an ecommerce store selling physical products by setting up shop at auction sites like eBay, which allow you to set up a store in a little under an hour. The Digital Product Model Digital products are products like ebooks, audio recordings and video presentations. The big advantage with these products is that they can be delivered instantly and automatically to your customer after payment. Digital products also cost very little too produce and does not require holding any inventory. In fact, stock is virtually unlimited since a digital product can be delivered over and over again with no additional expense. (No shipping costs – that’s another big plus!) Affiliate Marketing Affiliate marketing is perhaps the easiest of these businesses to start. Companies will pay you commissions if you can send them customers who buy products from them. Basically, you’ll be provided with an affiliate link that you need to market, and whenever someone buys from your link, you get paid a commission. This means you do not have to hold any inventory, create any product, or do any customer service. All you have to do is market the product! Have you seen the business models which excite you? Personally I went with affiliate marketing first, then on to digital products. But what may suit me may not suit you. For example, if you prefer to deal in tangible products, then the ecommerce store will be suitable for you. If you like creating a community, then a content-rich site can meet that purposes. Find out what your strengths and goals are, match them to a suitable business model!
Thank you for this, it puts into context the key issues in setting up any sort of business. Well presented I would say.
Thanks for sharing this info with us all. It really shows what is needed to be successful and explains it well.
Selling items on ebay is easy and quick (don't forget about the fees ) but it's not as easy since you have to market your ebay site as well.
I was selling something is all niches that Fabian.JH mentioned... I think that some negative information should be added: Affiliate Marketing: while it is easy to start and you do not need to sale or support users, the biggest problem is that you do not own anything, but the web-traffic, there are no affiliate marketing niches that live long life (staying profitable), because of competency. The Digital Product Model - are good to sale, and I think that future of these who will be rich online. The Content-Rich Website: it's not so simple as described, there must be A LOT of great content... it's much more hard to earn money here, adsense will not be as profitable as selling your own products, so the best way is to combine content-rich web-site with online store of your own products.