If you already have any kind of website; you should consider offering items for sale in your niche. Most likely, you already use affiliate programs like MaxBounty and shareasale.com, but why not take it a step further and offer sales of goods that you have in your home?
Selling items online right from your blog can be an incredible way to make money. For example, lets say you have a blog about MMA / UFC and you want to be able to sell items like T-Shirts, Stickers, even DVD’s. You *could* use an affiliate program, like shareasale.com that will allow you to post links and banners to different websites that offer MMA goods. Each time a user purchases an item, you’ll get a commission. The downside is that you are directing traffic from your site to a different site to make a purchase and getting a small commission in return. So lets say that instead of sending traffic to a different site you are able to sell items directly on your site and keep 100% of the profit…
I can go to the mall right now and purchase Chuck Liddell octagon shaped wall mirrors for only $2.99 a piece off final clearance. These mirrors have a retail of $29.99 each, so I know I can resell them for $12.99 and make a quick $10 profit. So I go to the mall and buy 10 mirrors.
I will now want to list these mirrors for sale on my website.
The most important part of listing them for sale is a good photograph of the item. You want your buyers to be able to clearly see what the item is. Entice them into buying.
After your photo is taken, use Photobucket, to upload your image. In Photobucket you can select from a variety of sizes for the image. I like to use “Large” or “Full Screen”. I don’t recommend using “tiny” or “small” because nobody is going to buy something that they can’t see.
Next, make a nice little write up about your item. Include the dimensions, colors and any special features. Use descriptive words to really “sell” the product: “This incredible octagon shaped wall mirror is truly a collectors item for any UFC fan. This gorgeous mirror measures 23” and has a sturdy wall hook on the back…”
Now it is time to create a way to accept payments –
Log into PayPal. You will need to make sure that you have a “Premiere” account. If you need to know the difference between accounts and such, check out my article on Pay Pal Accounts & More.
Now, select the tab that says “Merchant Services” then select “Buy it Now Button”.
You will now be taken to a page that you will need to enter information. Follow these instructions:
“Accept Payments For” – Leave as “Products”
“Do you want your customers to buy multiple products before they check out?” – Leave as “No”
“Item Name” – If you’re posting your items for sale on a blog, I suggest using the title of your post as the item name. Make sure you are very specific, especially if you have multiple similar items; “Chuck Liddell Octagon Mirror 23”, “Chuck Liddell Octagon Mirror 12”, etc.
“Item I.D.” – It is VERY important that you make an identification number for this item. Just start with 1 and each time you create a new listing enter a higher number. (Toris Tip: It helps to keep an Excel Spreadsheet or Word Doc to see what number you are on)
“Price” – This is the base price of the item – do not include shipping or tax
“Customize” – If you want to get all fancy with your button you can. Or just leave this blank and keep going and it’ll look like a normal “Buy it Now” button.
“Shipping” – Enter the amount of shipping. Be sure to account for costs associated with shipping as well as shipping. If you use flat rate boxes you need to account for the cost of the shipping label, packaging materials, insurance if applicable, etc.
“Tax” – If you want to apply tax you can. If not, leave it blank. If you decide to use tax, you will need to enter the PERCENTAGE of tax to be used. For example, if you want tax to be $0.06 on each dollar, enter “.06”.
"Merchant ID for purchase transactions": I recommend using the second option “plain text email”. I have had issues before with the encrypted option; customers complaining that they can’t make payments because they are being blocked. All this feature does is display your email address. Some people prefer “encrypted” because they want to hide their email from their customers. My advice is to allow your customers to see your email. I mean, they’re going to see your email either way when they make the payment, so hiding it in advance is kind of silly.
At this point you can either “Create Button” OR you can use some advanced features.
I suggest using “Step 2” – Tracking Inventory.
If you don’t “Track Inventory” you can end up in a giant mess. Let’s say I have a customer who buys all 10 of my octagon mirrors and a minute later another customer comes along and buys 10 more; I am now 10 mirrors short. If I am not able to get more mirrors I am going to be forced to write the customer, apologize and refund money. I may get bad press from the customer and I WILL lose money. Each time a payment is made, Pay Pal takes about 3% for processing the transaction. So if I have to refund a customer $4 on their $130 purchase, that is a total waste.
So, click on “Step 2”
Select the box “Track Inventory” then “by Item” will light up. In this section the “Item ID” number that you entered earlier will pop up again. All you need to do is enter the quantity you have available. If you only have 1, just put 1.
“Alert Quantity” – make your alert quantity 1 or 0. I use 0 because I know that when I have none left it is time to remove the “Buy it Now” button.
“Cost” – This is optional, I don’t use this feature.
“Can customers buy an item when it is sold out?” – MAKE SURE YOU SELECT the 2nd bubble for “NO” then enter your home page address or whatever url you want them to be taken to if the item is sold out. You can create a page in your website specifically for sold out items if you want.
Now you can officially create your button. All you have to do is press “create button” and it’ll give you the html code that you can use to put your button anywhere you want.
If you want to use “Step 3”, you can. It’s not a big deal. It’s more for if you are selling in large bulk and want to allow your customers to select how many of the same item they want and so on.
BENEFITS OF USING PAY PAL
When a customer makes a purchase using your Buy It Now button they will be required to pay in full immediately; which is nice. When payment is made you get an email saying your item sold and where to ship it to. You can use Pay Pal to print the postage. You can even go online to USPS.com and schedule to have the package(s) picked up from your front door. You don’t even need to be home to have them picked up. Just schedule the day and put them on the front porch in the morning. The postal carrier will leave you a note saying how many packages have been picked up. Pretty friggin simple. No trips to the post office, no worries about checks bouncing, no confusion for customers. In addition, Pay Pal is a great source to use because customers don’t *need* to have a Pay Pal account to use it. Customers love Pay Pal because they have proof that they purchased them item; so it provides a sense of security. They also get emailed a tracking number when you print the postage.
(If you don't want to use Pay Pal, you can always use a company like SnapMonkey that offers websites with built-in shopping carts, etc)
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