Any devoted webmaster will be able to tell you that running a good website has its costs - whether it costs you money (eg. hosting, domain name registration) or time. There are two simple ways to earn money with your website - sales and advertising. In this part, we look at making money by selling.
You have two options when selling goods or services via the web - direct sales and affiliate sales.
Direct Sales
Direct selling is stocking the goods or providing the services yourself. Puchi Maiko is an example of an online shopfront using the direct sales option. All the goods are stocked by the webmaster, and sold directly to customers. inksplash DESIGNS is another example of direct selling, only the designer is selling her web and graphic design services.
Getting started in direct selling via your website (or someone else’s website!) isn’t easy, but the method itself is very simple. “All you need” to get going are:
1. Goods and services to offer customers.
2. A way to collect money - (eg. Paypal, PayAnyone, etc.)
3. A website - the virtual shopfront to showcase your wares.
Affiliate Sales
Different companies will use different words, but it all means the same thing - establishing a relationship with a distributor of goods or services. This relationship means that you provide the ‘virtual shopfront’, while the distributor handles the delivery of items, eg. JOISTORE Outlet. In exchange for helping them sell their goods, you are paid a commission for every sale you make.
A solid benefit to using the affiliate approach is that you can concentrate on keeping your website funky, while the offline work is handled for you. As well as this, you can pick and choose the things you wish to sell from a variety of distributors. For example, JOISTORE can offer a wide range of plushies because they have the stock of many distributors to pick from.
There are tons of opportunities available to get started in affiliate sales:
CafePress offers a free opportunity to make some extra cash while getting your creative designs out to the world. CafePress handles the orders, billing and delivery of goods, leaving you to focus on the design and promotion of your work.
YesAsia.com runs an associates program, allowing you to earn commission on sales of Cpop, Jpop and Kpop entertainment products.
RightStuf’s affiliate program helps you target your anime and manga visitors. They send you weekly visit and sales reports with an update on your earnings since the last payment.
Opane.com also runs an affiliate program, but pays with store credit. Not ideal for adding to the penny jar, but if you shop for Asian goods anyway, it will help knock off a couple of dollars off the price.
That’s it for now - stay tuned for Part #2, which looks at sponsorship and advertising! If you sign up for any of the programs linked, please support CMW by using us as your referrer. (Clicking on the links supplied in this article is an easy way of doing it!)