Does anyone want to buy what you are selling?

This is where the research starts.  You can sell fur coats to put on your car in the winter, and you’ll have no competition, but will anyone buy one?  You can also sell iPod accessories, which people want, but Google returns just over 5 million results for buying iPod accessories. Do you want to compete with them?

Here are some ideas to help you decide what to sell.  If you’re going to be, or already are a reseller, search the internet and see who else is selling what you plan to.  Study your competition. 

When people think of buying books online, they usually think Amazon.  Is there one place that comes to mind when people think of what you would like to sell?  If the answer is no, that’s great!  That means no one has cornered the market on that product...yet!  Even if someone has cornered the market, if you do it right, you can still get enough of that market to make a lot of money.

You also have to look into how easy it is for you to get what you are going to resell.  Will you stock your inventory?  Get it from your distributor as you sell it?  Drop ship from the manufacturer?  Affiliate sell?

Can you safely ship The Product?  Whether or not it can be easily shipped, and will it survive being shipped, is a key factor in selling online.  If The Product is a book, they’re pretty easy to ship anywhere.  If The Product is glass china cabinets, it could be very difficult.  If The Product is fireworks, then that has its own difficulties.  Think about everything that could go wrong when shipping The Product, because eventually all of them will happen.

Is The Product something that will be a big target for internet fraud?  Electronics, computers, jewelry, and video games are big targets for fraudulent purchase.

If you’re making your own items for The Product, check with family and friends to gauge interest in it.  Sell some on a site like eBay and see if people bid on your auctions.  If you find that some people do want to buy The Product, can you supply enough if everyone wants it?

It’s also useful to know about what you are planning to sell.  If you’re selling something you’re interested and knowledgeable about, that goes a long way in selling it and helping out people who are interested in buying it, but have questions.

When you decide on what you are going to sell, learn all you can about it/them.  Customers will have questions, and you want to be able to help them decide what to purchase and make the sale.