As I have often stated in my previous articles that for me the best home based business opportunity is affiliate marketing . I mean no disrespect to business opportunities like ebay and direct selling. Those are genuine opportunities but for me affiliate marketing wins hands down and below I explain why. 1. Flexibility – I can work at six in the morning or ten at night for ten minutes or for two hours. There is nothing about the business that compels me to work at any particular time of the day if I do not wish to. This flexibility is extrememly vital for people with busy schedules like working mothers and college students. 2. No Inventory : Businesses like direct selling and ebay require the holding of a certain amount of inventory. This can tie down valuable funds and quite often people have to sell slow moving inventory at a loss to improve their cashflow 3. No postage: You do not have to worry about posting items and whether they will reach the recipient or not. This can be a big problem with ebay and direct selling for people who do not have easy access to postal facilities. 4. People Contact : There is no direct people contact. This in itself is not a bad thing but if you are shy person then this can be a huge advantage. 5. Low investment : Investment levels are very low for affiliate marketing as compared to Direct Selling and Ebay. You can start with Beating Adwords or the Super Affiliate Handbook, both of which cost around $50. Advertising on Google and Yahoo is essential for long term success but in the short term, there are plenty of free advertising options around. 6. No Credit Card Costs : In direct selling, setting up a credit card facility is almost a must. This can prove to be quite expensive and in your first year you can expect to pay around $1000 in set up costs and fees. There is no requirement for this in affiliate marketing. 7. No Seminars: Attending long and boring seminars is a must with direct selling in order to keep up to speed with products and organizational issues. Although there are seminars for affiliate marketing, these are not compulsory as a lot of the material can be found on the internet particularly if you are signed up with a good resource. So, there you have it, 7 features that clearly distinguish affiliate marketing from other home based business opportunities and give you some things to think about if you are still in search of your ideal home based business opportunity. Richard Anderson reviews different home based business opportunities. His reviews are based mostly around his own personal experiences and can be found at http://www.thehomebusinesscafe.com/ |
