Online Shopping is Growing
Despite the fear of transferring personal credit card and bank numbers online, internet shopping has been growing steadily since the year 2002. In 2003 about $95.7 billion was spent in online retail sales. It was estimated that that number would increase to $229.9 billion in online sales in 2008. As online shopping increases, so does the amount of money that people spend each year. So what makes online shopping appealing to shoppers? 38% of those surveyed choose to shop on the internet to avoid crowds. Other reasons include lower prices, able to compare products and prices, avoiding the inconvenience of traveling to stores, and a wider selection of products online.If you’ve ever seen eBay, it’s clear that online buying and selling is a thriving market. eBay has about 14 million auction items with 18,000 categories. There are over 160 million U.S. users and over 212 million eBay users worldwide. Over 2 million new items are put up for sale daily. It’s estimated that 160,000 people earn their living from buying and selling on the Internet. How do they do this? With the convenience of drop shippers people are able to work from home and post their products online on an auction or retail site without having a warehouse of products. When the product sells, they order it from the drop shipper and it is shipped to their customer. The mark up on these products is about 25-50%, so the retailer can make money by buying wholesale from the drop shipper and selling it themselves. The key is to find a niche market to make money. It is estimated that gardening and tools will be one niche that will increase in sales in the next year. Other niche markets help consumers find exactly what they want when shopping online, without ever leaving the house.