Blog | Entrepreneurship

The Advantage of Selling Physical Products Online

Why most people might want to consider selling physical products to supplement their income

When it comes to being a digital entrepreneur, you have many options in terms of what you can sell. Many people’s idea of a digital entrepreneur is someone who sells online courses, books, and consulting services. But that’s only one side of the coin. Yes, there are a lot of people selling digital products, but there is an equal number of people successfully selling physical products, from their home, with no manufacturing experience necessary.

Most people likely think of online selling as digital products because they don’t consider big online retailers such as Amazon.com as entrepreneurs but rather as huge monolithic companies. How could you compete against that? The good news is you don’t have to.

What if you could replace your income by starting an online business that sold physical products on Amazon.com? What if I told you that it wouldn’t even take that much time out of your week? Later this month, we’ll cover how you can do this through a dead simple and effective system created by Brad Degraw.

Why selling digital products might not be for you

First off, let’s talk about selling digital products. These are tempting. It’s a great thought to be able to produce a book or a course and sell it online. Certainly that’s a product, but the reality is that it is very difficult to do. Unless you are already a great writer or thinker, have an existing platform with authority, and a large email list to market to, you will be facing an uphill battle.

Also, building the type of platform it takes to sell digital products is time consuming. You have to be active on social media, speak frequently, blog, and network. It’s a lot of fun if you are inclined to do it, but it’s a lot of hard work and long hours—and it can take years to build.

The reality is that there is only a small percentage of people out there who can make a lot of money selling information and expertise.

Why anyone can sell physical products for profit online

Physical products are much easier for the average person to sell and profit from online. All you really need is to implement a very simple system and know how to find the right market and choose the right product. Once you do that, thanks to the Internet, it’s easier than ever to find a manufacturer to work with. Then, it’s a matter of listing and optimizing your product online. Later this month, we’ll show you how to do that effectively with Brad’s system.

The advantage of physical products

An obvious advantage of selling physical products over digital products is that you don’t have to be an expert or have a huge platform online to make a great profit. As long as you can find a product that meets a need, you can optimize your listing online to be found easily by those searching for it. And since they’re not buying your expertise but rather a physical product they need, the path to purchase is much quicker and easier.

A second advantage is that you can sell common products that people need to order frequently. For example, there is a whole market of pet owners who work all day, love their pets, but who also love a fresh smelling house. When they get home, they don’t want to be stuck smelling dog all night. So, they order pet deodorizer. You can actually work with manufacturers to buy this product white label and sell as your own, maybe with a few tweaks such as different scents that others don’t provide. By meeting this need, the pet owners, if they like your product, will buy it frequently. This is much different than something like an eBook or an online course. Once it’s purchased, the customer is done with that product. They may buy more products you offer, but not the same one generally. With physical products, you can have the same customer for the same product potentially for life. It keeps selling itself.

A final advantage, and one that many people don’t think of often, is that each purchase is contained. An unfortunate reality of digital products is that they are easily copied and shared. As such, you fight two battles. On one hand, you have to be on the lookout for people stealing your ideas and passing them off as their own for profit. On the other hand, many people will simply email your PDFs, passwords, and such to friends, family members, and colleagues without thinking about the fact that they’re robbing you of a sale. With physical products, there are no copies to give away. Either they order it and keep it, causing their acquaintances to want to order too, or they give it away and then make another order.