Before I got started on the internet, I can remember watching those SMC infomercials that came on late at night, wishing to myself that I could try it and make some big money.
Luckily for me, I didn’t have the means to join this opportunity. And I say luckily because with what I know now, I would never had made it at that time.
In this article, not only am I going to show you how to sell SMC products, I’m going to show you a bit of what I’ve learned since becoming successful on the internet.
This knowledge has enabled me to quit my day job and make a full time income from home without having to stock any products and without investing a lot of money upfront.
I’m going to show you:
- how to sell SMC products
- the bigger picture
- alternatives to selling SMC products that pay just as good
- Why you should be selling online
- and lots more.
But first…
An overview of SMC
SMC or Specialty Merchandise Corporation is a business opportunity that has been in existence for over 60 years. You can get a membership for as low as $25/month to resell their merchandise. As a member you buy the merchandise at low prices and sell them for a profit. SMC drop ships the products for you so you don’t need to handle any inventory and shipping.
Sounds easy right?
Well, most businesses do until you’re faced with the task of having to do it.
As I scoured the internet to find out people’s experiences with SMC, the consensus questions the quality of the products, finds that the membership is too expensive and a lot of SMC members seemed not to have made any money.
Like this one I found at a Work at home forum.
I got into SMC, after spending what? I think somewhere close to 400 dollars? And you had to spend a lot more to get that website. Anyhow, look around. The products are everywhere. They are extremely overpriced. When I saw the dollar store junk they sold, I thought they must be kidding, nobody here is paying that, this must be Beverly Hills pricing right? SMC was my first home business
mistake.
Personally, I won’t try SMC because there are better opportunities available. I don’t like their products and I don’t like reselling stuff in a face to face setting.
But that’s just me.
You’re always going to find failure in any business and with failure comes the blame game. So what were these people missing? How could they have made it work?
How to Sell SMC Products and Make SMC Work
The key to selling SMC products is something called niche marketing. I’m not sure what the coaching at SMC says but if you’re trying to sell the whole catalog of products then its not going to work.
Find one type of product and only sell those to people who are interested in buying them. This is called niche marketing and your success rate would be much better than trying to sell to your friends and co workers or random people.
How to Find People to Buy your Niche SMC products
The best way to find people to buy your niche SMC products would be to find a product with a unique appeal and then identify the niche or group of people will most likely be interested in these products.
So lets say you found some cool bird cages through the SMC catalog. You would then sell these bird cages to bird lovers or wholesale them to pet stores.
There are several ways you can go about finding these usually passionate people.
Using our example of bird lovers above, I found 157 meetup groups on Meetup.com – a site dedicated to bringing passionate people together.
You can also buy direct mailing lists of people who bought bird stuff in the past from mail order list brokers.
However, finding people to buy your stuff is a lot tougher than having those people find you and there’s no better place to do business than in the world’s largest marketplace – the internet.
Using the Internet to Sell SMC products
SMC is a bit behind on the technology that they use with their internet marketing packages and websites but I can still give you an idea of how to go about using the internet to niche market SMC products and why it is better than just running a product catalog website.
We’ll continue with our examples of selling bird cages to bird lovers.
Lets look at what kind of opportunity you have on the internet. Do people really buy birdcages on the internet?
The first thing I did to determine whether or not I could sell bird cages on the internet was to use a tool called the Google Keyword Tool.
I put in the term bird cages and here’s what I got.
The above screenshot shows you various terms people typed in to find birdcages online and how many times they were searched for.
Collectively, this is a huge market and if you could get in front of even a small group of these people who want birdcages then you’ll be in business and have even more success selling SMC products than the other SMC members who have no clue what to do.
Now if SMC would let you build a site around just birdcages, all you’d need is a domain name like say decorativebirdcages.com and web hosting service.
Another option would be to list the products on your Ebay niche store about birdcages.
Niche Marketing Know-how is the Key
Now I admit that I’m being a little vague but it isn’t intentional. I couldn’t possibly write all there is to know about niche marketing on this blog page.
The point is if you know niche marketing, then you pretty much can tell your boss to kiss it since a whole new world of opportunity opens up for you.
Not only will you be able to know how to sell SMC products, you’ll also be able to make money online selling whatever you like.
The best place to learn niche marketing without breaking the bank is a site called Wealthy Affiliate. The site is run by Niche Marketing Inc, a company owned by two authority figures on the subject, Kyle and Carson.
This is the site where I learned how to market online and a site that changed my life so I’m very proud to recommend it to you. They’ve helped over 35,000 members (last time I checked) worldwide and the site is growing everyday.
Alternatives to SMC that work even better
Now that I’ve shown you how to sell SMC products, I wish to introduce you to some alternatives to selling SMC products especially if you’re going to use online methods.
We all understand the concept of SMC. You pay a fee to become a distributor or reseller. You get a start up kit. Then you market the products via catalog or you can get one of those websites to sell the catalog of SMC products.
Now what if you could get those products for free?
What if those products were from brand names people know and trust?
What if you the products you choose on your own niche website and collect a commission when your products sell?
Well, people do this everyday online combining niche marketing with e-commerce and affiliate marketing to earn big commissions. You sign up with affiliate programs and take a percentage of the sales you make. The products are showcased on your website using datafeeds provided by the affiliate program.
Start an Amazon Store
One of the more popular affiliate programs you can use to make niche online stores is Amazon.com. Its a trusted name in e-commerce and millions of people go there everyday to shop.
It doesn’t cost anything to set up unless you take the better option of having your own domain name. All you need to do is sign up with Amazon’s Associate program and set up your store.
You would use similar methods to selling SMC products as I described above. Find a niche and sell only those products. For example you could sell “men’s luxury watches” and Amazon will feed your store with brand names like Tag Heuer, 
Casio and Cartier. Some of these watches sell for over $5000
Build an Online Store using Datafeeds
Some affiliate programs that have a variety of products will allow you to use datafeeds to put on your site. These datafeeds allow you to display the products on your site and earn a commission whenever someone buys those products. Some popular brands like Target and Walmart all have datafeeds and can be found in affiliate directories like Commission Junction and LinkShare.
A great way to use datafeeds on your site is to sign up for a service like Datafeedr which aims to simplify the process for you.
As you can see there are many ways to make money online that are simply better than selling SMC products but you also know the key to doing so – learn niche marketing and you will simply have a better chance at success.
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