Starting an Online Business For Dummies®, 6th Edition

Chapter 12. Selling on Craigslist, Amazon.com, and CafePress

In This Chapter

• Selling big items on Craigslist the smart way

• Selling your items through Amazon.com's marketplace

• Becoming an Amazon.com marketing affiliate

• Exploring Amazon.com's other business options for entrepreneurs

• Merchandising your creative work with CafePress

When it comes to making money online, the conventional notion is to think about creating a Web site or opening a storefront where you list many items for sale. You don't have to take such a structured approach, however. It's a lot of work to create a home page, set up a shopping cart, and establish a way to collect payments all by yourself. By listing individual items for sale on a well-established and well-known e-commerce venue, you can rack up sales without spending the big bucks on marketing and infrastructure. You can take advantage of the marketing tools the site gives you and the traffic the e-commerce venue already generates.

Even if you have a commercial site, you might still want to sell specialty items on venues that are set up to handle them — such as Craigslist for big items that are difficult to ship, Amazon.com for used books, and CafePress or other sites for artwork. In fact, the more places you "pop up" as a Web merchant, the better. Your stores can sell different products and link to one another, which boosts your business overall. This chapter examines some of the best-known alternatives for making money with hosting services.

Selling the Smart ...