Welcome to Clickincome Tools!

Hello there, and welcome to the Clickincome Tools blog.

In this blog I will be discussing the many useful tools and applications Clickincome customers use everyday to build their online business. I will be show-casing new Clickincome tools and resources as well as discussing old ones, in hopes to give a better understanding on how to use these tools to your advantage in building your Clickincome website. In my first entry I will be answering two of my most asked questions, "What should I sell?" and "Where do I get product suppliers?"

lets start with the hard one first, "What do I sell?". As a technical coach I get asked this almost everyday, and I wish I had a simple answer. My job sure would be easier if I could just say "You should sell Ipods" or "You should sell scented candles". The problem is what might be the best thing for me to sell might not be the best thing for you. The products or services you should be selling are the ones that you are most interested in, not the ones you think are the "hottest products". I have seen it time and time again, someone wants to build a website around whatever product is hot at the time, Nintendo Wii's, Apple Ipods, Beanie babies, Tickle Me Elmo, or whatever else may be in high demand at the time. Its easy to think its a good idea to jump on a trend, but in reality ask yourself "What is going to keep you motivated to continue to build my business, if it is founded on something I know or care very little about?" Have you ever used an Ipod? Are you an expert on Beanie Babies? Do you play video games for hours into the night? If not, then it really is counter productive to dedicate an entire business to that topic.

When you decide to build the business around your interests, your passions, your hobbies, things that you enjoy, then the building of the site, adding new pages, adding new products, maintaining your mailing list, and promoting your site seem much less like a chore, and becomes a much more enjoyable experience. You have a knowledge base already of your product which gives you confidence in selling your items. Your much more likely to continue the business and not give up when you dedicate your business to your likes and interests. if you decide to sell Ipods because you know they are popular, but have never bought an Ipod, never used an Ipod, or don't know what the difference between an Ipod Nano and an Ipod Shuffle are, chances are the time you invest to build that site will be cut short. In my experience the most successful customers are those who build the business around their likes, interests, hobbies, and passions.

OK so you have an idea of how to theme your site, and what to sell, and you are probably asking yourself "Where in the world do I find a supplier for merchandise?" Thankfully Clickincome has made this question a lot easier for me to answer :)

Clickincome's Clickclub has thousands of products including pictures, descriptions, and weights that you can sell on your Clickincome website. With the click of a button you can send an item to your website, and from there display it on a catalog page to sell, or even list the item on an online auction site like Ebay.com. There is a huge selection of products which makes it very useful for web owners who are just starting out, and the products are all dropshipped which makes it even easier. Dropshipping means that you do not pay for the product until you sell the product, you can use the pictures, the descriptions on your site, but until someone buys from you you do not have to order the product. This keeps inventory cost down, which is a nice benefit to a new web owner who has just invested money to get started.

As your business progresses, you may want to seek outside sources for products beyond Clickclub. Clickclub is a great start, but when you want to specialize in a certain type of product you may want to widen your selection. There are thousands of Dropshippers out there for every type of product, from Grandfather Clocks to pet food. Some Dropshippers have a monthly fee, some have a small per item fee, but when you find one that matches your site perfectly, these fees are more than worth paying. Be careful though, many sites out there are just trying to sell you lists of links of Dropshippers that you still might have to pay a fee on, so basically these lists are just middlemen cashing in on people seeking suppliers.

To save you some time, I have compiled a list of over 200 dropshippers that I have found over the years. Keep in mind that the sites on this list are not part of Clickincome's Clickclub, and are not supported by Clickincome. They each have their own separate rules, fees, and policies so make sure to read the policy pages before you decide to do business with any of them.

You can find this list at http://www.dropshipper.clicksitebuilder.com. I have found most of these links by searching on Google, or by getting referrals from other co-workers and customers. I have not used every company on this list, but I do have a few favorites that I use almost everyday. I have heard good things about many of the sites on this list, but the ones I can personally recommend are :

http://www.megagoods.com
http://www.hotbuy4u.com
http://www.ezdropshipper.com
http://www.cwrelectronics.com

Hopefully with Clickclub on your side and a little research and brainstorming you can decide what your Clickincome Business will be about, and find yourself a reliable source to get products consistently.

I would love to get any feedback and comments about your experiences with choosing what to sell and finding products. If you use any dropshipper on this list I invite you to come back and share your experience, or if maybe you find a good dropshipper that is not on this list I would love to hear about them. You can use the comments feature of this blog, or write me directly at michael@clickincome.com.