BOOSTING YOUR ONLINE SALES WITH DIGITAL DOWNLOADS

You have a website with an online store, and you're selling tangible goods — products you ship to customers. Or, you're thinking of starting such an online business. If your site is up and running, you may not be satisfied with the amount of money your small business is making. If your business is only in the planning stage, you might be concerned that your online store won't bring in enough money. Whether you already have a business or are just getting ready to start one, your thoughts have probably turned to trying to determine how you can get the most profit from a website.

Unless you've found one unique, well-priced item, you no doubt offer, or will offer, a few or several products for sale. No matter how few or how many products you have, the effort you spend trying to think of additional related products to sell will be time well spent. For ideas, enter keywords related to your business in a search engine and find out what products other similar sites are selling. If you find any new products you can obtain and suitably mark-up in price (consider buying in bulk to get a good price), of course you'll want to add those products to your online store.

Upping the number of products you sell is a good step. But to make more money you might want to consider doing more — and doing something that differentiates you from the other web businesses you're likely to be competing with. That "something different" might be offering your customers intangible products — digital downloads. By selling both shippable products and downloadable files, your business will really stand out from the crowd.

What files should you sell? The most obvious candidates are e-books. If a customer is interested in a product you sell, that same customer may very well be interested in an e-book that discusses that product. You have two routes to take to obtain e-books: buy them or write them yourself.

Authors have already written e-books on hundreds of topics, including crafts and hobbies, beauty and fashion, entertainment, health and fitness, pets and pet care, and religion and spirituality. Search for existing e-books that are related to products you sell, and also make sure the e-books you find include "resell rights." Having resell (or resale) rights means you can buy the e-book once, and then sell it as many times as you want.

You don't have to be a professional author in order to write your own e-book. If you have a passion for the products you sell, then you probably possess an in-depth knowledge of the subject of your products. Consider typing up a "How To" guide, saving it as a PDF (Adobe Acrobat) file, and selling it from your website.

Regardless of what digital downloads you decide to sell, you'll need a means of allowing customers to purchase and download those files. If your website business is already up and running you'll want to find a service that allows you to upload a file to sell as a digital download. Such services charge either a monthly fee for this service, or keep some percentage of each sale. If you haven't yet created your online business, or are considering revamping an existing business, consider hosting your site with MadBeeTech, where we provide a website builder that includes a shopping cart and online store that allows for selling both shippable products and downloadable files.

Don't miss out on the potential for some high markup sales, and easy, extra income. If your website is selling products, but isn't also selling digital downloads, consider selling downloadable files along with the shippable products you already sell.