What is an Internet Business?

Essentially, an internet business is any business that offers products or services on the internet. Potential customers visit your Web site and purchase your products online rather than by visiting a physical location. The Internet is also a marketing medium. Almost all the universal business and marketing principles that apply offline are applicable online. The few differences between that exist between an offline and online marketing come down to speed, cost and ease of execution. Internet marketing is typically easier, quicker and more cost-effective for the average person.

            You also require to know that the internet is the highway of information, and this is one of the main reasons why people go online. They want to find information that solves their problems, educates them, or affects them personally. An information-based business is like any other business, except the product focus is primarily on the intangible products such as e-books, software, membership or service-based sites, etc. In other words, we’ll focus more on marketing of the digital goods rather than physical goods. What matters, though, is not so much on what products you are selling, but the main concerns is the medium of your selling – Internet. Whether you want to sell e-books or tennis equipments, the question is irrelevant in the long run. The important thing to understand is that Internet-based marketing is driven by information. Fundamental marketing principles apply, but they are executed in a much different manner.

            There are so many different models for Internet business in the World Wide Web. However, there are two important models in the transaction of online business that should be understood and applied by every single user who wants to make online business. First of all is the direct proprietor, which is also known as the merchant or product owner. According to Dictionary.com, proprietor can be defined as the owner of a business establishment or a person who has the exclusive right or title to something. Then, the second model of Internet business is third-party marketer, also usually known as an affiliate marketer. According to Dictionary.com, the word affiliate can be defined as a branch organization or a business concern owned or controlled in whole or in part by another concern. However, the nearest meaning in our discussion is a subsidiary, the same like a normal company that has a subsidiary to expand the business.

            So, in other words, if you’re selling your own products and handling all of the payment processing and customer service, delivery, etc., then you are the merchant. If you realized that you are the employer of a business, at the same time also an employee for that business, than you is definitely a merchant. On the other hand, if you’re selling other’s products via referral – meaning you pass on customers to the merchant’s sales page but play no role in the overall process of selling the product. You’re not involved in the whole finishing point of payment and product delivery–then you’re the affiliate. The rationale I point out the distinctions between these two models is to illustrate you that there is more than one way of making sales and receiving income online. You do not need to have your own products in order to go into online business. However, you’ll eventually feel like to construct your business based around both models, as this is where your income can be truly high-ceilinged.