Wallet Relief Blog

Affiliate programs are a great way to increase traffic to and sales for your web site. There are several affiliate tracking software solutions that keep track of sales, clicks, and commissions.

Affiliate tracking software solutions come in a variety of packages.  Software for a click-based program allows you to pay affiliates a set rate for each visitor to your web site.  Look for click-based software with helpful features including click-through tracking, link code generation (keep banners current and linked correctly), referral tracking, and detailed stats.

Other software lets you set up a commission or flat rate pay for each potential customer sent via your affiliate member.  You can also customize the commission schedule for individual affiliates.  Commission-based programs can be more economical because you only pay affiliates when their referrals generate sales.  

You don’t have to choose between click-based or commission affiliate tracking software.  Programs are available that let you use both pay arrangements.

Many affiliate tracking software solutions now have private affiliate network capability.  This feature is helpful for those with multiple web sites.  It lets you run one affiliate program for all your web sites on your own private network as opposed to setting up affiliate programs for each site.

How does it work?

The basic premise of affiliate programs is the same for all affiliate tracking software solutions.  An affiliate joins your program by logging into the member area on your web page.  There the affiliate can get the tools needed for linking to your site such as banner codes, text links, and product images. 

When a visitor clicks from the affiliate’s web page to yours, the tracking software places a cookie on the visitor’s computer to track him as he browses your web site.  If the visitor buys a product or service from your web site, the tracking software notes the affiliate responsible for said visitor and records the sale in a database.  The Administrator and the affiliate are both notified of the sale via email.

Affiliate software makes its easy to monitor the success of your affiliate programs by tracking the number of times banners or links are displayed, number of visitors who linked to your web site, and how many of these visits resulted in a sale.  In addition, the software keeps account of commissions earned by and payouts to affiliates.

Helpful Features

Software packages are easy to install and manage.  However, software companies will gladly lend a hand to technically challenged web entrepreneurs. Look for affiliate software tracking solutions that provide reliable tech support and don’t charge setup fees or monthly charges.  The software should be easy to customize for your specific needs.

Other helpful features include:

Unlimited affiliates categories
Automated fraud protection
Performance rewards for your best affiliates
Lifetime upgrades
Multi-level marketing (affiliate program promotes itself and your web site).

Sources

Cosmicperl (cosmicperl.com)
Affiliate Wiz (affiliatewiz.com)
Quality Unit (qualityunit.com)

There’s money to be made on eBay

Garage sales and flea markets are so 20th century.  Today, if you have stuff to peddle, sell it on eBay.  You’ll be joining thousands of other like-minded citizens who seek to make money selling their wares on the popular web site.  Since everyone is hip to the online selling gravy train, you’ll need to make your items stand out in order to make more money on eBay.

Size up the Competition

Before listing your items for auction, check out eBay’s Completed Items listings.  Here, you’ll see what products are up for sale, their prices, and how they are presented.  You might also get a better idea on how to title your product to produce a higher price.

Don’t overload the auction site with items.  You will make more money on eBay auctions if you sell a few items at the same time rather than overload the auction site. 

Describe Your Wares

You have limited space for product information so make your words count. In the auction title, avoid words such as “Look,” or “Wow.”  No one types in these words to do a search; use words that potential buyers will likely use do search for your product.

Be generous with information in the auction description.  Include any product details that buyers will find helpful.  Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words (or maybe  a thousand dollars!). A good, color picture is essential to catch the eye of a buyer.

Shipping News

Don’t tack on too high shipping/handling costs for your auctions.  While your aim is to make more money on eBay, sky high shipping fees may turn off buyers.  There’s always another seller who will give them a better deal.

Promote Your Wares

To help make more money on eBay, it helps to advertise your auctions on a personal web page.  Or, run an online store with links to your eBay auctions.  Send emails to subscribers notifying them of upcoming auctions. 

eBay Auction Support

eBay provides sellers with several tools to help them navigate the auction process.  Automated listing tools allows sellers to post additional listings without going through the “Sell Your Item” process every time.  With eBay’s Turbo Lister, you can sell your wares without having to visit the web site - and it’s free. 

If you are selling a very expensive item, it may be beneficial to purchase an auction upgrade from eBay.  These upgrades generate more potential buyers.  However, the cost of auction upgrades will eat up the profit on lower priced items.

The Right Stuff

Having unique, high quality items is another way to make more money on eBay.  Estate sales are great places to find specialty items such as antiques, vintage clothing, and jewelry.  You may also find a few nuggets from liquidators who purchase discontinued or last season’s merchandise from manufacturers and retailers. 

Sources

“Tips for Ebay Sellers:  How to Make More Money Off of Your Auctions,” (associatedcontent.com)

“How to Make Money on eBay,” (submityourarticle.com)

“How to Make More Money With Ebay’s Affiliate Program,” (bharatbhasha.com)

Can you get rich selling e-books?  While Bill Gates’ type of income isn’t guaranteed, you can earn you a very nice income selling e-books online.

E-books are electronic versions of printed material that can contain text, sound, and images.  The profit potential from selling them is high because start-up and operating expenses are very low.  The biggest expense is purchasing books for sale. 

You can earn even more money if you write some of your own e-books. Your writing skills don’t have to be stellar.  There are online sources that will take your research and craft an  e-book for you.  Some of these companies even take care of marketing, payments, and shipping.

Buying  e-books for Sale

You can purchase e-books from authors online.  eBay is another source for e-book buying.   Purchase e-books with resell rights.  This allows customers to sell the e-books they buy from you themselves thus providing an incentive for them to do business with you. 

Make sure the e-books you buy (or write yourself) are full of useful information and resources.  Some e-books are nothing more than ads and sales pitches for the writer’s products.  These “ad books” will turn off customers and decrease repeat business.

Do your research to determine what types of information people are seeking.  Getting rich selling e-books will depend on the topics covered, customer base, and marketing campaign. 

Before buying an e-book for resale, do an online search for the title.  If lots of web sites are selling the book, it’s probably a popular title and will be a good seller.  It also helps to sell e-books that cater to a specific market niche.  Search online forums and other group sites to locate potential target markets for niche titles.  Contact these groups with a short email inviting them to visit your site.  Offer an incentive such as 20% off first purchase to increase site traffic.

E-books about current trends or hot topics will generate more income.  Your income will really get a boost if you can spot the “next big topic” and write or purchase e-books to sell before the competition saturates the market. 

Marketing Extras

You can use a common template for your e-books’ web site or sell them on an existing site you already have. However, to stand out from the competition, create you own web site to sell e-books.  Always add new titles to your stock to keep old customers coming back and to attract new ones.  Use email to notify customers of new titles and special sales.  Offer discounts on slow moving titles.

Affiliate programs are another way to get rich selling e-books.  The affiliate pays you a commission for his or her e-books you sell.  To earn extra cash from e-books you write, start your own affiliate program.

There are plenty of online and print books that will help you learn how to get in on the e-book sales bandwagon.  A good place to begin reading is “Make Your Knowledge Sell,” by Ken Evoy and Monique Harris.

Sources

“About Making Money with E-Books,” (about-the-web.com)

“Make Money Selling Ebooks,” (christianet.com)

“Make Money Selling Ebooks,” (homebusinessmag.com)

“Is Your Dog Selling eBooks Too?,” (marketingsource.com)

When you have a small or home-based business, or are basically just starting, there are several ways to start growing the business quickly. One of these great methods is to sell online merchandise. An online store can be set up relatively easily and e-commerce options exist that have been proven to be quite successful. There are many sites online these days that make e-commerce an excellent decision for your business.

Microsoft now offers a great service known as Bcentral, and is offering great deals on server and hosting packages that run on a monthly scale, or basis. This is a great tool for the individual that is looking to delve into the e-commerce field. If you have an idea for a catalog, and need tools to get it up and running such as templates and logo creators, this could be the solution you have been waiting for. Not only will you receive the templates and the graphic creators, but also you will receive the quaint shopping cart in the top right hand side of the page. Having the opportunity to track and control orders and sales is made very easy as you will receive automated confirmation through e-mail. Being able to become a member in the PayPal system is also a good idea, as you can never have enough payment options attached to your site. This just increases your chances of sales. You will also be given the opportunity to keep track of customer traffic to your site as well. This makes for a very handy service indeed.

Another great service is provided by Ebay. The stores offer a very popular alternative and have a sliding fee scale to fit most businesses’ needs and budget. The basis service is for the smaller of the businesses that have a smaller volume of traffic. This does not mean that you will not have access to some great tools for your site. You will not be able to keep track of the flow of traffic or sales with this service and there is a very limited directory, yet it is still a good service for someone who is just starting out. The next level of eBay service will provide more options for the business that may be needed as time goes on. It places your priorities in relation to the product you are trying to sell; knowing exactly what the consumer is looking for makes it easy for them to adjust the targeted areas. You will get some traffic reports and sales figures, but not many. The third and final level of the eBay store program is exactly where you want your business to be placed. This is the premier spot or the center stage. This is the place where the bulk of the strongest traffic will be located. This will give you a much stronger shot at making those sales.  © 2006 Wallet Relief .com

I don’t usually create blog posts dealing with “special offers,” but I came across one such time-sensitive special offer today that might save my readers some real money, so here it goes. If you’ve ever considered purchasing Derek Gehl’s highly regarded (and recently updated) 2006 “Insider Secrets” course, NOW is the time to do it.

Derek has just put together a special combo package (for the first 500 customers) for the discounted price of $197.00 that throws in at no extra cost his “Blogging for Dollars” course that normally sells for $139.95, as well as other bonuses. Of course, Derek is a great salesman who would probably love to move his great products, but I’ve never seen him throw in the “Blogging for Dollars” package for free, and I don’t think there will ever be a better value combo offer for these courses. Now his courses are probably not going to go away, so there is no great pressure here, but I just wanted to alert you to this deal so you can get the most out of your hard-earned dollars!

If you think you might be ready to make a fairly small investment to get your own copy of one of the most serious Internet marketing courses out there, with all the bonuses, read about all the details here:

The Insiders Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet

P.S. Yes, he does include a guarantee, which you can find through the link above.

Every good businessperson knows that one of the best ways to boost traffic and sales of their product is to allow for multiple payment options. By offering many different methods of payment, you are enabling everyone to purchase the same goods. There are many fashions of payment these days that can accommodate just about everyone.

Anyone who limits the acceptable payment methods to a mere few can easily be losing business and in turn losing money. As word of mouth on the net is a very fast river, that mentality of limited payment options can easily mar your success online. The bottom line is that you must allow for convenient ways for your customers to pay for the product, or you will loose out on business. The method of paying by credit card is by far the most popular payment method going right now, with over 90% of all sales coming this way. It is clearly and by far the most used method of payment, and a company would be ill-advised to eliminate that mode of payment from their options. It is not a difficult chore to set up your site to accept credit card payments; actually it is much easier than you think. There is a new contender in the payment option ring today–this payment method is the Pay Pal account.

This handy account has a completely revamped system that has eliminated all the quirks and bugs of its previous version, and is now very simple to use. This great tool is very safe for the transfer of funds to you, so there is minimal worry by the client. It also has a very good tracking system in place to protect you as well as the clients themselves. Again this is not the only contender in the ring, as the debit card seems to be gaining momentum. It is said that this will be the vehicle of fund transfer for the future; clearly it is here to stay. It would not be advisable for any business owner to exclude these payment methods from their list of options. Toll free numbers and order forms still find their way into this list of payment options, as they have been reliable in the past. This is what is known as an offline transaction.

When it comes down to it, the idea of business is not to merely get by but to succeed. If you limit yourself you are they opening the door for the competition to succeed and in turn shut you down. After all, a sale is still and always will be a sale. © 2006 WalletRelief.com

Much more than an attractive web site is needed to competitively sell products online. The whole e-store marketing arena involves a challenging number of details. A company must be able to set up and run a strategy or marketing campaign, ensure customers get to the site in the first place, make sure that the products can be sold, and tend to all the small details that involve returns, inventory, and the fulfillment of orders. This is not an easy task, especially if you are doing this all by yourself. It is always helpful if you have a partner in this endeavor. This will ensure that you do not become overwhelmed with things that must be done and become exhausted.

You have many options when establishing or developing an e-store. You can go to a place like eBay, but another option is NetSuite. With this service you can rest assured that your e-store can handle all kinds of products, will have a vast and expansive catalog, and can deal with the heavy traffic it can generate. This is also a great option for companies that are anticipating return customers. You can deal with your online transactions and your offline transactions smoothly and efficiently, and get to the data or profiling that you need in a snap. With this data you can ensure that you will be on top of the field when it comes to spotting new and improved marketing strategies and sales opportunities. This will also keep you close to the customers that spend the most in your business, which will keep profits up.

Having a very convenient check out service and shopping cart icon allows for easy control of what is being ordered and placed in purchase lists more often. This will in turn allow for better planning and for keeping this product readily stocked for future sales. When it comes to the sales aspect of the whole e-store, this program allows for multiple payment methods. By keeping the options for payment wide open, your chances are much greater for a sale than if you have only a couple of options that may not fit the customer’s preferences. Using Netsuite is a good way to generate foreign sales, as it takes care of the currency conversion, and the different payment options are available for customers abroad as well.

NetSuite allows for immediate and frequent updating and refreshing to keep your catalog as current as possible for your customers. This will also enable you to keep sales at higher levels rather than the customer going elsewhere for the same product. This in all is a great tool to keep you in the upper e-store rankings and ensure profit for years to come.

If you are relatively new to the world of online business, you may be wondering what a shopping cart script is. Scripts are essentially programs that track what a consumer chooses to buy from your online store. The scripts will track the choices of a consumer all the way through to the checkout process. Often online consumers think that the shopping cart is a neat little icon that holds all their purchases until they are ready to checkout, but this is not the case. The shopping cart icon is used as the first part of the financial transaction. Then a gateway will send the information to the area where the customer will pay for the items that they have chosen. This process is completed through a secure connection.

The payment gateway will then send the requests (which have been processed thus far along with various other transfers) throughout the financial networks as necessary. This includes the Internet merchant account that your bank has with the online store. When this is completed, the gateway will then send confirmation or denial to the shopping cart software. How do you know which shopping cart package is appropriate for your business? There are literally hundreds of packages to choose from. Searching through them all can be time consuming as well as confusing, which may make it even more difficult to determine what is best for your online business.

Free or Premium Shopping Carts: Before you begin to examine what is available make sure you have a clear idea of what it is you want the shopping cart to accomplish. Look at your online business and the products you are offering. If you are beginning, you may not need all the fancy extras that come with a high-end shopping cart package. If you are in the early stages of your business, you may want to consider a lower end package. However, remember that nothing is ever truly free. Always read the fine print and acknowledgments before you decide on a particular shopping cart script.

Free e-Commerce Solutions: Paypal is a great e-commerce solution. The services that Paypal offers have become quite popular among Internet businesses. Paypal integrates the necessary shopping cart functions with the payment gateways and includes the merchant account. This is very convenient. The drawback is that your consumers are required to use Paypal and become Paypal account holders. This is not difficult because when they purchase your product they will automatically be taken to a page that will have them set up their Paypal account. The only cost to you is a small percentage that is taken out of each transaction and you pay no monthly fees for this service. © 2006 Wallet Relief.com

Even some of the most cunning web marketers, including the typically hated spammer, will admit that Spam is almost dead. It is being taken over by the use of e-mail marketing. Contrary to popular opinion, it seems that Spam is on the decline. The rate of Spam’s decline is approximately 13% per year. Why? Because knowledgeable marketers now see that e-mail is the marketing choice for the pros. It is predicted that by the year 2010 Spam will in fact be a thing of the past. It is also interesting to note that the spending of the market in this fashion will grow from $885 million to $1.1 billion dollars in the same time as well.

The bulk of e-mailing for businesses in the year 2010 is forecasted to be of the transactional, acquisitioned, and retention methods. It is clear to see why Spam is diminishing at such a rapid rate: the use of e-mail filtering is getting stronger almost monthly. The amount of Spam that the everyday normal user will see will be cut in half from 2005 to 2010. This will set the pace for e-mail marketing to take over. With new technology in place, it is easy for someone to recognize the difference between Spam and an actual e-mail from a company that is doing follow up for business purposes.

Consumers report that people are staying clear from e-mail servers that do not offer top notch Spam filters. This is not to say that there is not a plethora of servers available to the open market. The reason for the big concern right now is the cost of incorrectly blocked e-mails. The cost of this problem is at approximately $107 million dollars right now; it is expected to fall to approximately $88 million by 2010. In turn this will make for a much easier time to reach out to the consumer, by way of e-mail marketing, once Spam is truly eradicated. This vision of a very organized arena for e-mail marketing has business owners in hoots and hollers. They truly know the potential for this wonderful and inexpensive medium.

The improvement of practices in list management will be stronger, and the ISP will have a stranglehold on Spam. With all this technology, and the will to make the marketplace a safer business realm, it is clear that e-mail marketing can easily be allowed into the fold as one of the most productive marketing and business tools for the future. For now we still have to deal with all this junk called Spam.