Home-based is one of the most popular words in the home business section, is it not? What else can be home-based? Is it only business? What about kids that are young and need care, what about domestic chores? What about the rest of your family after 6? They are back home after their work, if they are not permanently home-based like you.

Home business is not all about work, rearranging on the furniture and arranging an office, and phone calls and e-mails and what not. It is not about how not to gain another couple of pounds. But when you decide on going all home-biz, then you bring it all in one place. You sleep there, you eat there, you wash and do washing-up there, you toil and relax, it is yours shared with the others dear to you.

But soul wizards say that it is better for you, makes you whole, makes you one. It is true: you have a grip on your plans, your notepad and notebook is here beside you, the sight of your kids will not allow you doing something unreasonable, dear working mommy.

But maybe, it is a good idea to have a partner at home, so that you can go out while phone calls come in ringing with clients wanting to click a deal. You will know that there will be someone in place to respond. There can be sharing of important information and responsibility, and support and knowing that you are not left alone. It can become a family venture, another thread to keep you connected.

It is a curious possibility, because here you can test each other and yourself in the first place. This merger possesses a generating power. You both can apply a brainstorm technique, find new ways and ideas. You can better plan your holiday time and form your clientele. Or you can stumble over mutual bearbugs and you will have to find a solution. Whatever point you are looking at it from, it seems like a fine time to learn.

[tag]home-based business, home-based, home-biz, family venture, brainstorm technique[/tag]

Another proof that dropship business can be profitable. This time we give you a sample of a successful international dropship site. The website was placed for sale in January 2006 at www.sitepoint.com forum. The site was sold within a short period of time.

BeautySteals.com

URL: www.beautysteals.com

Age of site (months): 21

Monthly revenue: $1500 profit

Revenue details:
We have credit card processing receipts and payments sent to the supplier (in Hong Kong) for the months noted. Tracking prior to August 2005 was not done well, but data exists there too.

Monthly page views: 35,608

Traffic details:
Monthly Uniques:
September 2005 - 5770
October 2005 - 5746
November 2005 - 6772
December 2005 - 6635
January (1-18) - 3242

Sources of Traffic:
Search Engines - 62.4%
Type-In/Bookmark - 16.6%
Referral/Unknown - 20.9%

Description:
The site sells a wide variety of cosmetic products, taken by a feed from the distributor’s warehouse in Hong Kong each night. The site could do much better with someone managing it full time and adding content to the descriptions, promoting via link building, etc.

It is a side project we thought we’d have time to manage, but have not. The site made $17,141 in profit in 2005 (17.5% markup on products taken as revenue).

Price (or starting bid): $18,000

Advertising
Currently, we do no paid advertising for this site. We had done PPC when we started in 2004 with success, but the project lost interest to other clients and work. We don’t have any paid ads, paid links, or otherwise for the site.

Detailed Revenue Data
Month-Month (Sales) + Profits
August - ($6,263) $897.24 (we forgot to submit the Froogle feed)
September - ($15,811.50) $2358.16
October - (11,545.00) $1557.39
November - ($9,983.50) $1341.48
December - ($10,657.50) $1515.60

Avg Item Sold - $55-$65

Fees: Credit Card Processing, Chargebacks + Returns (Avg $100/month), Hosting, Checking Acct Fee

17.5% of gross sales taken as profit

More Details
The distributor is a drop-shipment house. They can ship all over the world, and we’ve operated this without hassle from Seattle, WA in the US, so you can undoubtedly run the business from anywhere. When a sale is made, an email is automatically sent to the drop-shipper, who records it and sends out the product (shipping can be a bit slow, as noted on the site). It also sends emails to the site owner (us, soon to be you :p ) and to the buyer, letting them know the order has been placed. It sends a further email when the drop-shipment house sends the site information that it has been shipped (done via a feed from the warehouse).

The drop-shipper works with many other companies, so the products are not entirely unique. It’s like a more advanced and more profitable version of an affiliate program (and you have more control). Of course, with the sale, you will get all the contact info for the drop-shipper, who’s happy to work with new owners.

We will be happy to sign a non-compete, as we have no intention of getting involved in the retail cosmetic/perfume business in the near future.

[tag]international business, dropship, drop ship[/tag]

Now and then we get inquiries from our readers to prove that one can really achieve success with drop ship business model and that it is really working. Here comes a dropship website that was placed for sale in January 2006 at a well-known www.sitepoint.com forum.

CornerHobbyShop.com - Large E-Commerce - RC Cars

URL: CornerHobbyShop.com

Age of site (months): 9

Monthly Average Revenue: $4180.10 (Oct, Nov, Dec)

Monthly Average page views: 23689 (Oct, Nov, Dec)

Traffic details:
Traffic is generated through a combination of PPC ads, natural search engine listings and froogle. The site lists better on Yahoo & MSN then Google, currently. If you do some basic link building you could probably see a big increase in the natural search engine traffic (I don’t have the time). The profit margin on the products is excellent so the PPC has great ROI. I have attached a multi page spreadsheet detailing advertising cost, traffic, and sales.

Description:
Products are all dropshipped from ONE dropship supplier. Having just one supplier makes the site incredibly easy to manage. As many of you know dropship situations often mean minimum profit margin. With this site we have been able to avoid expensive stocking and still maintain some healthy profit margins. The numbers speak for themselves please download the excel sheet.

December Revenue
$7753.96

December Net Profit (After product cost, Shipping, Advertising and Returns)
$2013.89

Price (or starting bid): $5,000

Buy It Now (BIN): $25,000

Indexed pages (Google): 176

You are also buying customer list, vendor information, our promise not to compete, and our advertising campaigns. Overture account can be transferred. Adwords, pricegrabber and froogle we will provide you with all keywords/ feeds to continue doing what we are doing.

[tag]dropship, drop ship, dropship business, drop ship business[/tag]