What you need to know about Doba

Doba.com, an ebay certified service provider, connects drop ship wholesalers with people like you and me that want to do business online. I'm really impressed with the profit potential apparent here in Doba's plan.

Let me outline here just how it works:

1. List the Product (Choose items to sell from their catalog.)
2. Get Paid (The buyer pays you for the item.)
3. Order Item (Order the product from Doba.)
4. Doba Ships (Doba ships the product to your customer.)

And you can set the price on these items to whatever you want. How much you can make is in your own control. Doba really makes it simple for new players in the online market to jump right in and compete. They also offer a wealth of information to new online entrepreneur's that is very good reading in itself.

One thing that has made me kind of hesitant is that Doba requires a monthly fee, however they do provide a free 7 day trial, so you can take it for a test drive and see if Doba is right for you.

Amazon Product Link Building

After having reviewed Amazons A-store, I'd like to touch bases on another service Amazon offers for it's affiliates, the ability to build individual product links. I like this idea because it puts you in control. So you can build the store you want in exactly the way you want it, provided you have the know-how to do so.

Today while I am showcasing Amazons link system, I want to kill two birds with one stone so to speak and tell you about a real handy book for anyone that's interested in working with web pages online.



While I'm no web design guru, I still use the knowledge I've got from this book on a daily basis. It's an excellent resource for beginners and pros alike when it comes to making or customizing web pages.

That said, I want to explain a bit about the link above now. Using Amazons Product Link feature from the associates webpanel I was able to search for and find the particular item I wanted to sell on my blog. Once you've found the item you're given some choices as to customization, and then it's just a matter of copying and pasting the html code to your site.

The great thing about this is it lets you take control and build a store product by product. Offering complete control in how and where you want to position it on your page. For those of you that find Amazons a-store too limiting this is another great option.

Amazons A-Store

Another free e-store comes to us from the trusted Amazon.com, but can they live up to expectations? Well, in my opinion they're fairly good but still lack some of the features we really want and need in an e-store. So lets get down to the good and the bad.

The Good:

1. It's A free service, no risk involved.
2. Easy to jump right in and use.
3. Choose from any of Amazon's wide selection of products.
4. Bonus commissions on some items.
   
5. Ability to add categories, subcategories, about page, and a link back to your main site.
6. Last but certainly not least, Amazon is a big name that people can trust and feel secure shopping with.
   

The Bad:

1. Not very customizable.
2. No option to edit meta tags etc, for search engine optimization.
3. Using the product search engine to add products to your store can be a hassle. Often showing unrelated items in your search.

View an example home business a-store


Overall I like it a lot. I'm certain Amazon could do better however, but e-stores are not their main focus, so we'll just have to wait and see about that. It's still a nice service, free, and easy to use. So give it a shot and come back and tell me about it.

You can sign up for an a-store here

Zlio.com Online E-stores.

One of the first opportunities I learned about was Zlio, Zlio gives you an e-store and allows you to add products of your choosing to it. Any sales you make in your e-store earn you a commission based on a percentage of what their affiliate pays Zlio. With commissions ranging from a meager 1% up to 20% depending on the merchant you make a sale for.

The Good:

1. It's free, you cant beat free.
2. Fairly easy to understand and jump right in.
   
3. There's a lot of products to chose from, from many different retailers.
4. They are continually working to improve the Zlio shops and they offer little tips and help for your site.

The Bad:

1. Zlio's product search engine is absolutely horrible, finding the type of products you want to have in your store is a real chore as you'll be wading through lots of items you don't want.
2. As you're wading you'll probably notice Zlio seems to lag, more often than not.
   
3. Limited customization options.
   
4. Big ugly "ZlioShop Powered by Zlio" banner on all your pages. Which I feel makes the site look unprofessional.
   
5. For whatever reason once I signed up they've been sending me newsletters in French, really annoying.

Overall they are on the right track, but still have a long way to go. Like I said though it's free so give it a shot if you want. You can sign up here (referral link) or go to Zlio.com

To view an example visit the Online Business Shop

Who doesn't want to be a millionaire?

Yes I've been bitten too. The online business bug, the lure of "easy" cash right from your own home computer. Who wouldn't want to work for themselves, be there own boss, and most of all be proud of their job?

The problem is it's not "easy cash". It's a business and a business takes work, but the process of even finding out the how's of online business can be very daunting, with wild tales of 6 figure incomes in under a month in fantastic work at home opportunities ...bleh.

If it's too good to be true, it probably is. However that doesn't mean there isn't legitimate opportunites for average joe or jane. Just remember that anything worthwhile is going to require effort.

I hope you'll join me as I research what opportunities are available, and maybe we can learn from each other.