What to Sell in Online Store? Everything but the Kitchen Sink!

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Do you know what the first question is when you just want to start an online business? It’s easy – what to sell in online store? Well, if you have an online store and don’t know what products you can sell over there or if you have budget and want to invest in an online store but faced this question, read this post to make it clear for yourself.

There’re almost no limitations in selling products or services online. Anything from downloadable products (music, films, software, etc.) to refrigerator and laptop is sold via the Internet. But let me tell you something before answering the question above; the fact is that it’s not very important WHAT you sell, it’s important HOW you want to sell it!

First, I’m going to give you an overview of types of products that can be sold online, then give you some examples of online stores that can be run successfully and finally, I`ll answer this important question: How to sell online successfully? Continue reading!

Identify the Need


Identify a needsJust think of people`s needs which you can satisfy via the Internet. For example, until some years ago newspaper advertising was the best option for people who wanted to sell or buy a car. Although everything can be advertised there, cars were always a popular ad in newspapers. As you know, the world changed when technology came to our life. Lots of websites and online stores have been created to sell wide range of products to people in the easiest possible way. Websites like Ebay Motors or cars.com started with a simple idea which had been used by newspapers for a long time; those websites just turned it into an online model and guess what happened? BOOM! Their sites became famous all around the world and grew with incredible speed!
It was just an example for an online service to show how simple and tested ideas can work amazingly well in the Internet. Now, let’s get back to topic and see what to sell in online store.

What to Sell in Online Store?

Online Store

Before starting an online store, we need to know the requirements and all relevant issues very well. Well, assume that we know all them well, now, what to sell? The answer is one word: Everything!

In fact, you can sell anything through the Internet. I guess, you thought that I’m going to write a long post about this part here, but the answer is as simple as that and now I’ll just divide it into categories;

1.Physical Products

Products that are used in real world are called physical products. What do physical products include? Kitchenware, tools, auto parts are some examples of physical products. But the easiest kind of products in this section as well as the fastest way to achieve revenue are books, learning and entertainment CD/DVDs and electronic devices such as smartphones and accessories.

2.Visual Products

Well, you know them better than me! Anything that exists in the virtual world and can be sold online is called a visual product. Web traffic, ads, clicks, downloaded files are some types of visual products. For example, you can create a paid download website (or paid membership website) and sell your digital content to your website’s members.

3.Physical Services

Let me explain it using an example. Imagine that you’re a building maintenance plumber, then, you can even create an online store for your services. People, who’re looking for a building maintenance plumber, will visit your website and get your contact info from there or enter their contact info and reserve your time. Then you can contact them fast and easily.

4.Online Services

If you a professional at translation, SEO, programming, web design, etc., this option is perfect for you. You can create a website and introduce your online services, upload your portfolio and contact info so that a visitor who’s looking for services similar to what you’re providing, can see your sample works through your website and hire you for his needs. For example, a person needs a text in English translated into French. He comes to your website and sees your skills in translation as well as your past similar works, then decides to hire you for his project. He sends the text and you accept it for a specific amount of money.

That’s it – 4 simple categories! Now you can choose one of the options above according to your interest and skills and start your online business right now. Remember that you shouldn’t expect much success in your first experience and keep in mind that the first step of each victory is failure.


Now let’s take a look at type of products that you can sell online. Here’re some examples:

1.Handmade Online Store

Handmade Online StoreThat would be a great idea if you make handmade products and can sell different types of handmade products. You can setup an online store and just sell handmade products (which have become extremely popular among people during the recent years).

I recommend you to focus only on one type of products at the beginning instead of several types of things. If you get familiar and become an expert in selling one type of products (handmade products for example), you’ll definitely succeed in your online business. Creativity plays an important role in running an online store for handmade products, so if you’re a creative person, this is something that you should go for. Decorative objects can be another good option for your online store. Some products that are sold in this category are shown in the images below.

Handmade Online Shop

2.Toys Online Store

Toys Online StoreThat would be another great idea if you can sell toys online, especially if there’re no toys online stores in your area. Before writing this section, I’ve done some research and found out that there’re many areas (depending on your country and city) where there are no toys online store. Of course, people can buy toys from world-famous websites such as Amazon or Ebay, but without a doubt, if they find your online store in their city, they will prefer to purchase toys from you instead of getting them paying additional costs for shipping. So think about it seriously if you’re interested and familiar with this category.

3.Home Exercise Equipment Online StoreSport Online Store

Once again, identify the need first. I’ve seen that many manufacturers encourage people to exercise at home in some specific cities, so there’s a great potential for home exercise equipment online stores. If you live in one of these cities or areas, don’t waste time and start to build your own home exercise equipment online store.

How to Sell


In fact, many people ask what to sell online and I’ve seen this question many times recently. I’ve tried to help you out by giving an overview about what type of products can be sold online and also explained some categories that you can start with. Actually, it’s impossible to give you more examples about online stores because each type of products has a potential for creating an online store.

What matters is that you should choose a specific category, then focus to give your customers the best service with the highest quality. Imagine those people who had bad experience of buying online or got a poor quality product; now, if you focus on quality instead of sales, you’ll get their attention and when they try your service, they will definitely come back to you.

Visiting forums is a good way to identify the need as it’s a place where people talk about their needs what gives you an opportunity to get ideas for your online store according to their needs. Online stores are growing very fast, and if you have a physical business, you probably won’t be able to continue it without bringing it into online world, so don’t waste time and start your online business as soon as possible.

Are you worried about making a mistake in this new industry?

Don’t worry! Your today’s mistake makes your tomorrow’s success. The fact is that damage from a mistake in the Internet is much less than in the real world; your today’s mistakes and experiences will turn you into an expert in the future.

Why Damage from a Mistake in the Internet is Much Less Than in the Real World?

Imagine that you’ve designed and printed catalogs for your products and spread them in the city. Now imagine that you’ve made mistakes in your catalog and your attractive sentences couldn’t get people’s attention. Guess what happens. You lose all the money you’ve spent for your catalog. Now imagine that you have a website and spend that money on online ads to attract visitors, then you see that people don`t buy when they see your product offer.

The only thing you need to do to attract visitors and increase sales is to change your advertising text what takes minutes in the Internet. Do you see the difference? Could you change your catalog’s text and continue advertising without any additional costs? No! But you can do it in your online store!

As I’ve mentioned before, HOW to sell is more important than WHAT to sell. How to sell means creativity in sales. There’re many methods to make successful sales and when people trust you, they’ll come back to you for more. So try to get peoples’ trust by providing quality products.

Last Word

Online business success depends on many factors. Many businesses failed because they didn’t have a simple plan, differentiation and creativity. So you shouldn’t repeat their mistakes; identify the needs which don’t have good solutions around the web and then consider differentiation and run your online business.

There’re many available online stores these days but Amazon is the best and most famous online store. It has million of products and you can definitely consider it as a good opportunity if you want to start your own online store. If you haven’t buy anything from Amazon yet and are interested to know how you can do it, I recommend you take a look at this article.

Hope this post could help you and gave you an overview of what and how to sell in the Internet. What do you think about selling online? What products sell very well and how can we use differentiation and creativity in our online store? Feel free to share your opinions in comments below, be sure they will definitely be useful for others too.

5 comments

  1. Hi Al
    I hope everything with the Marketing Digital World is treating you fair…
    I am sending you this email today however, with every intention of your best interest in helping me
    Categorize | Main Category | Sub Categories….. Considering the Niche that i chose it’s really making
    it difficult to come up with my categories…. Although, I am more than sure that I am over thinking this
    whole thing. It’s good to hear insight from such a Idle as yourself Ali.
    Thanks, Barbara
    P.S Can’t wait to hear your Ideas!

    1. Hi Barbara, you don’t need to create all those categorize, etc. on your website. According to your niche, you can only have a page on your home page and publish your content there. It’s important to take action and after that, you can progress step by step.

  2. What great Article! This is actually something I have thought about doing but did not no where to start. With your great tips I feel more confident starting my own online story! Thank you!!

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