When I first read about Ms. Gibran in The New York Times and saw how successful she had become with her Etsy store I was like most of you, I was stunned.  I was envious.  I was all set to go and launch my own store on Etsy.  And then reality set in.  Success stories like Ms. Gibran are due to a lot of hard work and a little luck and if you don’t believe me then go and read the article yourself.  When you are done then I think that you’ll be able to see just why you would fail at trying to replicate her success.  Or I could just tell you.  You’re lazy.

Come on, you already knew the answer.  Do you really think that someone could make $140,000 that easy?  Anywho, I’m done here.

A lot more difficult than you think.  In addition to composing the shot and getting the lighting just right, have you considered post editing?  No?  The process of editing the photos after they’ve been shot is one of the more difficult apsects of photography, especially product photography.  Take a look at the product photos used by the major online retailers.  It’s pretty obvious that they didn’t just take that watch, candle or widget and prop it up on the counter and shoot it with light coming through the window.  And they certainly did use the pop-up flash on the camera.  Of course they hired a professional.

On the internet, content is king.  If you are selling online then you definitely want to present your items in the best light possible.  It won’t be your friends and family looking at the photographs of your items, it will be the public and you’ll want to impress them.  There is a lot to be said about DIY (do it yourself) and the joy of learning to build and maintain your own website but photography is both art and technology and not everyone has the knack nor do they have the time to sit around perfecting technique.

If you find yourself in this situation do not fret.  The web is filled with many talented and affordable product photographers.  It’s definitely a small luxury that you should consider especially if you want your website or online store to really stand out from the crowd.

There are many schools of thought and plenty of advice floating around the web on what to sell to make it big online.  But what works for one person does not always lead to success for another.  Some say that if you sell what everyone else is selling then you are competing in a saturated marketplace and the only way to make a profit is to carry a huge inventory because many suppliers will not deal in small quantities.  This puts you in the position of investing a sizable amount of capital which can result in huge losses if you fail to move your inventory quickly.

Others say, don’t get involved selling a product related to an activity that you love.  They say that this may stick you into a niche market that may offer limited sales opportunities and again you will be stuck with inventory that you cannot move.

Quite a dilemma.  You can’t sell what is popular and you can’t sell what you enjoy.  My advice, either path can lead to success but it begins with a plan.  Sure, everywhere you turn on the internet there is a website offering to set you up with an online store.  Quick and easy.  And to a point they are telling you the truth.  It is quite possible to create an online store using any number of services that offer tools to help you design a store, setup a shopping cart and accept credit card payments online.  They offer services to help market your online store and drive traffic to your site and they offer support when something breaks.  But the one thing they do not offer is a guarantee that you will make sales with your online store.  Why?  The simple reality is that whether you run an online store or a traditional brick-and-mortar store the fact remains that starting a business takes time and hard work.

The title of this post is What To Sell Online but really it all begins with a business plan.  It doesn’t matter what you choose to sell online if you don’t lay out the basic foundation of your business.  Selling iPods?  Computers, vitamin supplements or designer clothes?  Let me ask you this, do you know how to acquire these items?  Are you going to deal with the first supplier you find when doing a search online or are you going to take the time to look around and find a supplier who can meet your needs?

What about credit card transaction fees and monthly costs to host your online store?  Have you calculated how much you will need to spend on these recurring costs?  They aren’t services that are typically provided for free.

Shipping costs.  Again, not only do you have to think about where your buyers are located but you need to have some idea of how much it will cost to ship a typical order based on weight.  And on top of the actual shipping charges you need to think about how much you will be spending on shipping materials.  Boxes, tape, labels, invoices and packing material all add up.

Marketing is another major part of doing business, online and offline.  Will you pay for sponsored search or bid on keywords or take the organic approach and design your online store so that it will be optimized for the major search engines?  Depending on what you decide to sell it might also be prudent to look into other outlets for getting your name out to the public.  Print advertising or direct mail are often overlooked by online merchants.

This is just an example of the many things it takes to open a business, any business.  The most successful merchants are the ones who thought about the details before they even considered opening their stores to the public.  It’s not just the major retailers who develop a plan, many small online merchants are successful, not just based on what they sell but because they have taken the time to research what it means to run a business.  It is easy to see dollar signs and imagine your bank account growing daily as the sales pour in but as they say, it takes money to make money.  It also takes time and commitment on your part.

So when you ask yourself what should you sell online the answer is easy.  Practically anything you want as long as you’ve taken the time to develop a plan.

Granted, it is understandable that you get comfortable with the fact that you typically see X number of visitors or make X number of sales on a regular basis but that is not to say there are not periods throughout the year where traffic fluctuates for any number of reasons.

I spoke to a gentleman recently who was quite upset because he makes at least 20 sales a day on his online store and on one particular day he made only one sale.  He was certain that something on his site was broken and that visitors were unable to add items to the shopping cart and complete the checkout process.  After thoroughly reviewing his site and testing it, I could find absolutely nothing wrong with the technical operation of either the front end of the store or the shopping cart.  Still, he insisted that his service had gone down on the day in question and it had cost him in sales.

I then had him bring up his visitor and sales reports which contained historical data about traffic on his site.  After explaining how to filter the results for various periods of time I was able to show him that even though he thought he was always making at least 20 sales a day there were in fact periods throughout the previous 365 days in which there were one or two sales and even days when no sales were made.  He was not entirely happy to have had such a slow sales day but it did give me the opportunity to educate him on how to analyze the pertinent data that could affect his operation in the long run.

It takes getting into a certain mindset that having an off day here and there is not a major concern.  What is important is to look for trends.  Recurring patterns both positive and negative which will give you insight as to the behavior taking place on your site.  Going back to the gentleman above, had we seen recurring patterns showing a consistent drop in sales instead of a single day here and a single day there then we may have had a reason to be concerned.  Such trends may have pointed to a problem on his online store such as an item page that did not load or an add to cart button that was broken.  Or perhaps it may have let us know that the content on his site was not relevant to the items he was selling.  The likely cause of this slow sales day may have been due to the fact that the economy is shaky and many people are not in the mood to spend money.  Or the items that he is selling may not be in demand at the moment.

Whatever the cause, unless it continues over the span of several days or a week then it is not something to dwell on.  Any website or online store is going to see peaks and valleys during it’s lifetime.  When you get in the habit of analyzing your reports on a daily or weekly basis it helps you to learn the pulse of your site.  You get a more accurate “big picture” of the actual day to day behaviors so that when an unexpected change does occur you will hopefully be able to take it in stride and not panic but instead reflect back on the site’s history to determine if this is something that should concern you.