Tangibles are shunned by many Internet marketers who don’t want to deal with physical goods. It can be a nightmare if you factor in the nuisance of packaging and shipping, stocking of inventory, and suppliers.
There are three ways you can deal in tangibles if you want to focus solely on those or supplement them with your digital download links. The first is to become a seller of tangible yourself.
This will most likely mean selling on eBay, but sometimes a marketer goes off on their own and launches a website to sell the goods from. You’ll be plagued with making sure you have enough inventory on hand, and if an order comes through, it will be your job to box it up, take it to the post office, and ship it out.
If the customer doesn’t receive the goods, you should be able to verify proof of delivery. In some instances, you’ll have to accept returns on the products, and won’t always be able to resell it depending on what the product is.
Another option is to become a seller of tangibles by using a dropshipper. With a dropship account, you’ll usually have to pay a fee to get set up with your own website – for instance, wedding accessories.
The customer will find your site online and place an order, paying you for the items they purchase. You’ll then turn around and pay the dropship company a portion of those earnings and they’ll ship the inventory to your customer direct.
You don’t have to deal with any of the inventory, but you do have to deal with customer relations. The customer won’t realize they’ve ordered from a dropshipping arrangement, so even though you’re just a middleman, you’ll be acting as the frontman.
Your third option for selling tangibles is to become an affiliate of tangibles. Millions of people shop online, and around the holidays, an affiliate can rank in a lot of Christmas cash.
But holidays aren’t the only time when tangible promotions will work. You can use an Amazon associates account to sell anything on Amazon.com. Likewise, you can get an ID from Linkshare and promote tangible items from flower boutiques, Wal-Mart, and even travel companies (like luggage)!