Michael,

Online sales work for a lot a people, and not just the usual eBay selling.

I remember reading about a online entrepreneur who set up a website selling only black socks. He went on the proposition that some people will buy online to avoid going to a store to buy something as everyday as socks.

Only after he had established his "black socks only" sales, did he expand and offer online sales of "white socks only".

There are at least 2 major groups buying online - individuals and business/industry buyers. Instead of purchases of one of these and a half dozen of those ($10 to $1000 purchases), the business buyer offers the possibility of online customers ordering 100 to 10,000 items as a time or literally ($100 to $100K) per purchase.

I don't know about you, but given a choice, I'd rather make a small percentage of the business orders, rather than a mountain of the small orders.

KAESER & BLAIR, INC.

I've been selling for them for over 13 years, but I have sufficient market to do well in my local and regional area. But others with limited markets, as well as some who have no desire to do face-to-face selling are capturing part of the online market for promotional advertising products. Since the US market for promotional items is $18 Billion annually, a person getting a reason niche of the online orders can easily MAL selling to the online buyers.

Kaeser & Blair has several dealers who are selling 90 to 100% of their volume via the internet, including a handful who are in the "Top 30" of K & Bs approximate 4000 dealers. These are individuals achieving sales volumes of $300K and up from the comfort of their home, and definitely reaching the MAL zone.

Because I established my 23-year old business offline well before the internet was a possibility, I focus on serving those offline customers I have established, but have added online sales to boost my total volume and income.

One of the great thing about selling promotional products online, is that a buyer can expect to build a residual income from those customers who will order both the same item as well as different products on a regular basis. I have some online clients who have been ordering from me for 4 to 5 years, including one university in California and a health insurance support internet support company in Virginia who started ordering 6 years ago when they were based in Florida.

My online order average is considerably larger than my local order ($1000 compared to $400), but the bigger difference has been in the bigger orders. I've had single orders from online buyers between $1000 to $38,000 several times in the past 6 years, including one that was for Panasonic.

Although the K & B dealership is restricted to US residents, there's no reason why an online entrepreneur in Canada, Europe, or even Down Under couldn't find a promotional products distributor in their country who would be interested in having an online salesforce bringing them orders off the internet.

As long as the US resident has regular access to the internet (not 2 hours per day 6 days a week at the library), I don't see why anyone is the states couldn't expect to MAL online if they can drive targeted buyers to their website.

And, since the K & B dealership is free, with no products or inventory or buy and resell, this opportunity meets the second criteria for your online opportunity.

Dennis Bevers
BASSCO, Inc.
www.CuttingEdgeAdvertising.com