Work From Home Business - Drop Shipping

One of the most unique ways to get started in your own work
from home business is using an often misunderstood marketing
process called Drop Shipping.

Drop Shipping does not need to be complicated, however, many
would be work from home business entrepreneurs either do not
understand how it works or waste their money and time on
cheap $5, $10 or $15 reports that turn out to be worthless.

Drop shipping basically works like this: Your work from home
business does the marketing and sales for a product. The
customers you generate from those sales and marketing efforts
send their money or buy from you at the retail price you
advertise and you in turn pay the drop shipping vendor the
'wholesale' cost of the product plus the shipping and
handling cost (which was paid to you by your customer) to
have them ship that product direct to 'your' customer.

A drop shipping business can be operated in many different
ways. In today's Internet based work from home business,
most people use drop shipping to sell products via online
auctions. This is a great way to find out what sells and
what doesn't and is a very useful marketing tool but there
are still many other ways to capitalize on drop shipping.

Once you have used online auctions to learn what products
sell best and earn the best profit margins, it is now time
to look to other marketing venues.

Establishing your own web site is one of the fastest and
most inexpensive online marketing methods you can use to
expand your drop shipping work from home business.

There are many free online web site development and hosting
services you can use, but if you are really serious about
expanding your drop shipping business, then you should
invest some of the profits you have made from your online
auctions sales into a good paid hosting web development
service.

Beyond building a web site to display your drop shipped
products 24/7, you can also develop a mailing list of your
customers or web site visitors and begin mailing product
brochures or catalogs to them on a regular basis.

Once you have a proven mail order brochure or catalog that
produces results, you can begin buying targeted mailing
lists of buyers and expand your work from home business
even more.

There is literally no limit to the types and numbers of
products that may be drop shipped. There are many of the
so called drop ship directories offered both online and
off, however, after almost 10 years of being online and
18 years of being involved with mail order, my husband
and I found an online service that has proven to be the
best drop ship directory we have ever encountered in our
18 years in business.

Rather than go into details here, you should take a look
yourself and be sure to take advantage of all their great
(and free) ebooks about online auction sales and getting
the maximum results from the drop shipping work from home
business.

You can also take a free tour of their drop ship directory
and actually view nearly all the information - just look
for their 'Free Preview' to review the millions of brand
name products that are available to your drop shipping
business.

Here is their web site: Drop Ship Directory

So there you have it, drop shipping offers you a low
cost (almost no cost) way of getting into your own work
from home business and ability to earn profits within a
very short period of time.

Party Planner

Did you know that there are thousands of searches on the Internet each month for party planners? If you were ever considering a work at home idea that there is already a proven market for, being a party planner could be for you.

To succeed as a party planner or orgnizer, you need excellent
organizational skills. If you are considering being a children's party planner and you already have children of your own, then you most likely have first
hand experience for this particular type of work from home business.

Being a wedding planner is far more profitable, however, along with those
extra profits come much more problems and difficulties. So for the ease of
getting started and becoming profitable, planning and organizing childrens
parties offers you a much better success opportunity.

With the marjority of parents working today, the need for this type of
business is growing daily. Helping time stretched, stressed out working
parents put on a great birthday party for their children can be a business
that could keep you as busy as you want from word of mouth referrals.

Most parents will be eager to have someone take over to someone they
have been told has done a great job for one of their friends or relatives.
And, if you do not think this is a growing trend, look no further than
local restaurants to see how many offer party deals. These are nice, but
the parents are still normally responsibel for getting the invitations
out, hiring the entertainment, keeping track of who gave what, etc..

So the bottom line is, in today's time stressed society, there is an
ever growing need for party planning/organizaing services and you could
easily find yourself in a very profitable home based business if you
have the skills and knowledge mentioned above.

Work From Home Ideas - A New Beginning

This Work From Home Ideas blog will be devoted to providing you with ideas on what work from home business ideas work and what does not work.

Working from home is probably one of the greatest dreams that most people have at one or more times in their lives. Unfortunately, most people never take the first step towards bringing their dreams into reality.

One of the biggest problems people allow to prevent them from working at home is being overcome with details. Yes, details are important, but they can quickly become a ball and chain that ends keeping you from moving forward.

This blog is not meant to provide legal advice, but hopefully provide you with some work from business ideas and help you overcome some of the mental obstacles preventing you from starting your own home based business.

There is no way one book (or blog) can provide you with all the "what is legal, what is not" requirements for every municipality in the USA or the world.

Many, if not most, home based businesses in the USA and in other countries, operate under the radar of the local overlords who, if you ask, will surely find some way of extracting a new or little known fee from your pocketbook.

If you are not disturbing your neighbors with a flow of customers to and from your house, but are only receiving or shipping stuff via UPS or the post office. In most instances, this is none of the local overlords business.

You do have to be careful though of the local busybodies or the self appointed kings and queens of your neighborhood. An example we have in our own neighborhood is a young lady who applied for a permit to provide daycare for children before and after school.

It seems the self appointed queen and king of our development took 14 pictures of the young entrepreneurs lawn and took it to the township zoning board. This young entrepreneur had allowed her grass to grow to high according to the self appointed king and queens rulers and they attempted to use this as evidence that the young lady would also not follow the 'rules' when taking care of the children.

Thankfully the zoning board voted unanimously to 'ignore' the king and queen and gave the young entrepreneur her permit.

Another misconception by most people is that they have to file for a fictitious name for their business. This is almost always 'true' IF you are using a fictitious name.

My husband and I have operated numerous businesses over the last 20 years and have done so using our last name as part of the name, examples: YourLastName Catering or YourLastName International, etc..

In most municipalities and states, if you operate a business using your real name as part of it, you do not have to file for a fictitious name. Every little governing kingdom has its own rules though, so be sure to check it out by calling your county seat.

Something to keep in mind when you are dealing with the local overlords, never take the first answer you get if it isn't the one you want. If someone tells you that a fictitious name filing is required if you are using your own name in the business title, ask to speak to their supervisor and keep going up the line if you have to until you get the answer you want. Then be sure to get that persons name, extension and write down the date and time you talked with them and be sure to file it away for safe keeping.

One requirement you will most often be required to obtain will be a sales tax license (depending upon which state you live in). Contact your states department of revenue for an application which in most cases is available on their web site.

Another perceived requirement to start a business is developing a business plan. Yes, you should sit down and plan what and how you are going to proceed with your business, but taking the time to prepare a formal business plan is usually a waste of time.

If you think that you will need financing for your business, then you may need a plan when going to the bank or other financial institution. You should strive, however, to start your work from home business using your own funds or a little financing as possible.

Of all the businesses my husband and I have operated, we have never once taken out a loan and we have always had our business purchases be self financed.

Self financing the growth of your business is very important. You should always keep a portion of your revenue in reserve to spend on new equipment, supplies, advertising, etc.. Investing in your business can and will most often provide you with a much better return than investing in the stock market or savings account.

Still another expenditure that can be avoided when first starting a work from home business is the services of a CPA. Yes, I know CPA's will disagree with that but for a small home based business, there are plenty of computer programs out there to help you keep track of your income and expenses.

Then when tax season comes along, there are several programs that you can get which will walk you through the completion of your business tax return. In the 20+ years my husband and I have owned several different businesses, we have only once hired a CPA and that was to help us with our taxes regarding an investment not related to our business.

Last, but not least, try to start a business doing something you like or have an interest in. This is not a requirement for success but it can certainly help you achieve it more quickly.

That's it for this first post, I hope you have found it interesting and useful. Keep checking back for updates and feel free to leave your comments.

Maw Maw Debbie "The Consummate Entrepreneur's Wife"