Adventures of a Work-from-Home Roselady Mom

Merry Christmas!!

2009-12-22T18:58:00.000-08:00

Wow! Last thing was about summer rose selling. Long time, no writing. Well as far as rose selling goes, I like the winter much better. It's easier to keep the roses cool and you've got all sorts of holidays where people are festive and buy flowers. Around here there are also more people in the area this time of year.
One of our online businesses that my husband started is doing well right now and we've been busy with it.

Have a Happy Holiday!!,
Claire

Some Hot Tips For Summer Rose Selling!

2009-06-30T23:10:00.000-07:00

There's a few pros and cons to selling roses in the summer. There are more pros in actuality. While there aren't any flowery holidays that I can think of in the summer, that only serves to drive the price of wholesale roses down.
If you're out selling roses in night clubs on the weekends, so what if there's no rosey holiday--those are only good for a few nights a year anyway and people go out on dates all year. In the summer if you sell anywhere near a beach, in fact it will be your busiest season.
Now one thing is it gets hot. I always keep my roses in the back inside a big cooler with ice packs in it and some up front in my basket with the AC blowing on it.
This cooler is a very handy, dandy thing to have if you're gonna be a rose seller, because if you don't have room in the bottom of your fridge and you're not ready to invest in a second fridge(but you can pick one up for 75 bucks at a thrift store or garage sale) a nice big ice chest type cooler is also a great place to store your roses in the house, you'll just have to remember to switch out the ice packs. Now I've got a really good tip for you on the cooler. Normally a nice large cooler can be over $100, right now they have a real long cooler for $80 that is just perfect and what you'll eventually want to get. But if you're a newbie and are just trying this out that could be a big investment for you. So what is cool right now about coolers is that at WalMart I have seen they now have some very large as big as the large ice chest cooler I mentioned styrofoam coolers for only $20 and another one that's shorter than this one but still pretty big for just $8!! This is even good news for you experienced sellers as we often need something extra. Anyway I had never seen any styrofoam ones on sale that were that large so...
As I said wholesale rose prices are down as well. If you looked around online for wholesale roses during the spring and god forbid around Valentine's Day you'll see the big difference.
I'm excited because I got to actually make a new page on my wholesale site where you can probably get the best deal online as this even includes the shipping : http://roseladywholesale.com/bulkoffers.html

Wooden Roses and other stuff I've been doing...

2009-05-21T22:56:00.000-07:00

Well it's been a long time and no posting. I just have a really busy life. Can anyone relate?
My husband got interested in selling on Ebay, so I helped and got into it to. It pulled me off the affiliate marketing for awhile---but I figured I'd start concentrating on my own products you know.
Now I've found a way to combine the two a little bit. I'll get into that on a later post.(Famous last words, but I will.) Some of the really cheap ebooks I have on Ebay may give you an idea how I'm doing that. They really will only cost you a few cents.
Just wanted to catch up a little. Here's a link that will show you all the stuff we're selling on Ebay currently: store.auctiva.com/roselady4.
It's a good way to snag a deal on wooden roses. You can get some wooden roses on the Roselady Wholesale site as well of course. If you take a look you'll see how inexpensive they are wholesale so I'm really into selling them now. I do it on my rose route and car dealerships and as you can see Ebay. Remember that roselady beat me to it on Valentine's day with the wooden roses!!
Anyway I thought it was a good thing to add to my sales items--another item to have with me that doesn't ever die as a back-up for the real roses(just like I do with the lighted roses).
I like the large buds better, they're the size of real roses. The smaller ones are great for cute arrangements though. Those are the small ones in the above picture. I'll post some more and I often have some pictures of them on Ebay.

We have some MP3 Players on sale, that's my husband's baby. We are soon going to have some upgraded ones up there that talk and can get up to 32gb of memory because of the upgrades and it will be a steal deal.
Anyway that's a bit about what I've been doing and I'll try to catch up more soon.

Lighted Roses

2009-03-11T22:20:00.000-07:00

Do any of you guys or girls sell lighted roses? I love them. They don't need de-thorning or any other preparation. You can keep them in your trunk and they don't die.
Some people who don't think it's cool to buy roses think it's cool to buy lighted roses. It also works the other way around--that's why it's good to have both.
I also like the way they flash and help draw attention to your basket of roses.
What I like the most is that it gives me some predictability when it comes to how many roses I need to purchase for the weekend. I always like to make sure I have enough. I'd rather make more money and have some left over than sell out but make less money because I didn't buy enough.
Well with the lighted roses, I can buy a lower amount of real ones and if I start selling them by the basket--I can start putting more lighted roses in the basket, putting them with teddy bears etc..
People start buying more of them and my real ones go further. I also can get a pretty good price for lighted roses, like around $8. A guy who used to sell roses for me would charge $10. and get it no problem.
I think rose guys are better at the asking price, at least in my experience.
At one point I needed more time and wanted cut down on the real rose preparation and I just started making sure I had plenty of light roses as in the picture and it worked out fine. I still had my real ones just a bit less and the light roses were selling well--so "no problem."
These flashy silk ones rotate in color changes and they sell really well. I have some on my site where you don't have to buy in large quantity.

Catch you later,
Claire

Starting an Online Business

2009-02-26T18:23:00.000-08:00

I wanted to let you know I have been posting more on my other blog "Build a Business Now", lots of tips on creating a website business. This blog is partially about that as well and most posts on that subject started here, but seems kind of silly to post the same thing in both places, when with a click you can read it there.
So go check it out and get some good information on domain names, getting cheap traffic to your website. Also a new post on another way of earning some extra income "Adsense," with ideas on creating a website using it as well as affiliate and retail sites.
If you are actually interested in starting a website business and even if you are only thinking about it, I have a free newsletter that has some really good information and ideas on how to start a business online. It's free and your welcome to it. You sign up here.
Or you can go to http://easysitespro.com, email is all that is needed.

Later,
Claire

How Was Your Valentine's Day?

2009-02-16T20:35:00.000-08:00

This was the most crazy, hectic Valentine's Day ever. I was just trying to do it all and it all came in at me at once on Friday the 13th. I'm wasn't superstitious, but I think I am now.
I was running wholesale and retail floral sites, involving shipping and direct driving deliveries, also an affiliate floral site(which was the easiest but I was really making sure the specials were updated) and I was doing my night club sales. I had a new girl want to come work with me and I thought, great idea for Valentine's weekend, NOT!!! I already had enough new things going on so I should have cooled it but I think by that time I couldn't think.
I was about to go selling on Friday around 7 and that's when I found out about a mistake that actually could have been discovered days before but I and the customer involved had been too busy to realize it. I think he was having a Friday the 13th as well.
Between fixing that problem and preparing roses and a map for a girl whose car broke down right away anyway---I didn't get to sell until 11 bleeping 45, on the night before Valentine's Day(when I normally would have been out there by 8) and when I arrived at my first place a girl had just been in there selling these cute novelty wooden roses. I was getting really superstitious by this time and looked at the clock every time I went by hoping it would turn 12 and be the 14th.
It wasn't bad for such a short night--which means it could have been great, if I had gotten out on time. But oh well, I definitely learned some business lessons and I do learn from my mistakes. I do keep going back to taking more than I can chew though.
It is good to be productive though, that's the only way to get anywhere but it's good to be smart about it.
My actual Valentine's Day was great though. I got out on time, I still couldn't make it everywhere because I was so busy dealing with sales--that's a good thing. It was a mad rush but it was fun and that night was just like I said, where you can just enjoy it as it's last thing you are going to do to make the most of Valentine's Day.
If you are any kind of rose seller, florist or wholesaler, you know the stress and the joy of the occasion.
I have a You Tube video here that I think is inspirational for all sales people by a motivational speaker, Grant Cardone, who I have seen live and that's why I thought to look for this. I may put another video bar in with his videos as they help you with sales in your job and life.

Affiliate Site Demo

2009-02-03T21:20:00.000-08:00

I hope you went to my other blog to look at the demo on how you can use Site Builder and Paypal to create a website in minutes. I now have a video bar here so you can see it on the right.
I made another demo that shows you how you can create an even easier business online. You just use affiliate links from Linkshare or Commission Junction or others which are all free to join and get the great templates and Site Builder they have at Homestead to quickly create some webpages. Watch the demo for now. In later entries I'll be getting into more information on which companies to affiliate with to make the best commissions and the strategies you can use to get visitors.
There's also one showing how to put a lead capture form on the page and it is literally only 2 minutes long because that is all the time that it takes.

Cool Site builder demo

2009-02-03T16:48:00.001-08:00

See the Site Builder demo I made www.buildabusinessnow.blogspot.com.

Claire

Gearing up for Valentine's Day Nightclub Rose selling

2009-02-02T20:21:00.000-08:00

Make sure you've got roses for Valentine's Day, it's going to be a good one as it falls on a Saturday so lots of people will be out that night celebrating. Not only that it will be a great Friday night as well, because by Saturday night, many guys will have already bought their girl their Valentine roses. Even so don't worry, most will still buy a rose or bouquet on Valentine's Day anyway, plus friends buy friends roses---it's your best rose selling day. But as I was saying on Friday you'll have a good chance that they will buy the big gift from you, so it would be good to have some bouquets. Either way, you'll do great. You may sell your whole basket a few times too. You experienced rose sellers know I'm not kidding.
I'm already getting more sales because V-day is coming. I'm planning on going out more on the weeknights now up until Valentine's Day. It's also a good time to try some of those car dealerships in the day, I talk about in my newsletter.
It does make me a bit stressed and nervous this time of year. I've had some rose seller friends say the same, mainly the ones that plan a lot of extra things, like me, around Valentine's Day for selling roses.
But when the night finally comes and all I've got to think about is selling roses for the night(even though it's still quite a panic getting from place to place fast enough), it's just like my favorite holiday. It's almost better than Christmas to me now. But it reminds me more of Halloween. I don't know why, I guess it's like trick or treating for money.
Anyway good luck and make sure you'll have roses to sell. See my post on this. I still have roses
on my site but you should reserve some if you want long stem red as I believe my Valentine's shipment will go fast, I've already got much of it pre-sold, but I do have the medium stem as well.

Happy Valentine's Day in advance,
Claire Mesa

I've been making a Site builder demo

2009-01-29T20:17:00.000-08:00

I really like this site builder I've been telling you about so I making a little demo so you can see how easy it is to use and how quickly you can get something up and running that you only had time to think about. I'm having fun with my new Camstasia software too.
I thought about my oldest son. I asked him to send me some snake pictures, he didn't know why.
I know he could totally make his own website using something like Dreamweaver but maybe doesn't have the time to get it done too quickly.
He is in the snake business. I don't know a thing about them but I thought I'd use that as my theme this time.
So this is a demo on how you might use Site Builder to create a website where you sell your own product, including how easily you can put paypal buttons on your site.
Next time I'll make a demo on how you can create a profitable affiliate marketing site with Site Builder. I'm going to be talking a lot more about this on my other blog, so stay tuned to that if your interested in this.
Anyway they have a whole month free trial, this is the only web hosting I found with that and if your only going to be having one website, it's only $4.99 for three months then goes up to $9.99. I've been using it and I definitely think it's worth it, just for the fact it has that free awesome site builder. But it does all kinds of things, keeps track of the stats of your site ie you can see how many people visited, from what website or search engine they came from. You can sign up for a free trial from this link directly or go to my website buildyourownbusiness.homestead.com and there's a sign-up link there and more information about paypal and other resources you can use in conjunction with it, plus some good information on some good businesses you can get into.

The demo will be ready shortly.

Stay tuned,
Claire

Information on the best and cheapest resources for Valentine roses

2009-01-26T13:22:00.000-08:00

It's been so long since I've posted anything!! I have been quite busy with my websites and roses, preparing for Valentines Day etc...
Some of you may be consumers of roses and since I definitely know where the best deals on that are I can't neglect to let you in on it.
Firstly, I've created an information page on one of my websites which gives you the actual prices from the top internet floral sites on their premium long stem roses and the delivery costs, so that you don't have to surf all over the place and then go through their checkout before you find the total cost: http://www.easygiftsandflowers.com/bestprices.html
I also have some options where regular consumers who want to give gifts can buy from my wholesale website on a new page created for the public: http://roseladywholesale.com/public.html. You can get a dozen actual high quality premium long stem red roses for only $29.99 and you can deals on 25, 50 or 75 roses. Why so cheap? Only because there are less middlemen and I'm being a little crazy right now as this is a new internet business. I have no problem selling these same roses for $5 a piece.
Anyway wholesale is definitely the way to go as the flowers are fresher and cost less. In fact I will soon do a price comparison on my blog on wholesale florists.
I also have a page on my retail site dedicated to my own roses: http://www.easygiftsandflowers.com/Claires.html or simply use beautifuldiscountflowers.com which will get you to the same web page, which has been there for some time but has more options now as far as where they can be delivered. I can say my prices are the lowest available for high quality long stem roses and I have some free delivery specials going on, on both sites.
The above page is for my roses and I thought some people might want to know how get some even if they are not selling roses but my site Easy Gifts and Flowers has roses, flowers, chocolates and all best internet floral and gift sites to give you plenty of variety and don't forget to check out that price comparison page, it's invaluable and will save you a lot of time.
If your fine with short stem roses here is a really good deal I've found on those :

Valentine's Day and Wholesale Rose Prices

2009-01-13T14:53:00.000-08:00

I've had some comments on my blog and email asking questions about this and this is a good thing to discuss right now. See my earlier post as well on Valentine's Day.
I had mentioned that if you are a regular predictable customer of a wholesale florist you can usually get your prices locked in for Valentine's Day so you keep the prices you've had all year.
That does go for my wholesale florist business as well. Most wholesale florists require a set in stone standing order to keep the prices down all year. I personally just need it fairly predictable because I have to keep a standing order with the importer to get one for you.
Usually standing orders with the wholesaler are done by December to lock in those prices.
As of right now I can still sell long stem red roses, which is the most expensive thing you can get from a wholesaler, now through Valentine's Day at my regular prices which are on my website.
A new rose seller mentioned paying $1.40 per stem for long stem red roses. This is quite high but you can expect to pay that and more this time of year.
My long stem red, which is Night Fever, read the post on these, is $1.13 per stem for 75 and $1.06 for a box of 150 which includes a Free Shipping special, so that's the price delivered right to the door.
I also have a newbie special running, where you can just buy 25 roses, they will be already stripped, come with all the tubes, sleeves and baby's breath you need with that, plus an instruction book on rose selling and preparation, a sample prepared rose, with free shipping for
$34.99 and the same package with 50 roses for $59.99. The cost of the roses themselves(which are the long stem red roses) is less than .75 per rose if you subtract the cost of all that comes with it. So my roses are on sale with a special on free shipping at a time of year roses are sky high.
Roses do go into very high demand from florists and the public very soon, if you are experienced you know this is true. So regarding the question on my prices, they stand for right now. As of this week you can lock in prices and be sure to keep it for Valentine's Day but it really is on a first come first serve basis as I have only a certain size order I'm allowed to get from the importer at my normal price than my costs will go up quite high if I want more. If you let me know now than you've got it.

Later,
Claire

A Comment on Work Roses

2009-01-08T20:40:00.000-08:00

If you are an experience rose seller or florist, you know what I'm talking about. For florists I think they have certain uses. For example I knew a florist that used them for funerals because they were going to go in the ground anyway.
If you don't know, they are just older roses that the wholesaler is selling and he is suppose to let you know that's what they are and sell them for a lower price.
When I first sold roses, the person who taught me suggested I buy these because they were cheap and at the place they were selling them they really appeared not so bad. After enough experience with them( I put them in my own vase at home to test them), I learned I really couldn't rely on how long they would last and some were obviously not good from the start. For a few cents more per rose I got much better roses that had a much more impressive lifespan. I've seen other wholesale places call roses in much worse condition than the above, work roses.
Some rose sellers don't mind selling these and I can tell that's what they are selling. I've seen some pretty bad ones. I don't know what they are thinking.
Actually I do know as I've heard this even from wholesalers before. Oh, the customers are drunk and they'll leave it in the bar and they will never see you again.
Never see me again, believe me some of these bars and nightclubs have some really regular customers.
I think that's crazy. Why would you want to rip off your customer? They aren't going to keep buying from you if the rose turns out to be crappy.
How do you stay ahead of competition and get repeat business? Obviously- have a great product. Customers do comment on roses that last and big beautiful roses. They also comment when someone has sold them a bad rose.
I had a friend who was a rose lady and she told me the above about selling old roses--they're drinking etc... I told her my thoughts on it as I've mentioned and she did have competition on her route, so she took my advice and she was very happy with the results.
The rose sellers I sell my wholesale roses to are very particular about their roses being fresh and high quality and I'd be the last person to try to give rose sellers a bad name. But there are different opinions about it so I thought is was something worth commenting on.

Happy sales,
Claire

New Blog

2009-01-06T22:10:00.000-08:00

I started a new blog. It's at www.buildabusinessnow.blogspot.com. It's just for people who are not interested in what I have to say about rose selling but just interested in starting a business online.
I will still talk about that here as well and you'll probably see the same post on my other blog.
I also have a new website www.buildyourownbusiness.homestead.com where you can learn how to create an online business from scratch starting with easy, professional do it yourself websites and including some great cheap ideas on exactly what kind of businesses you can put on there.
I have some step by step Camtasia demos on exactly how to do this. I'll be posting a short demo on this blog soon but if you'd like to see the full set on "How to create your own online work at home business" you can send me your email address here.

Bye,
Claire

Happy New Year! (And Heads Up on Valentine's Day)

2009-01-01T16:50:00.000-08:00

So how was your New Years? I went rose selling of course. It's one of the nights you can be sure to have great sales. Right before and right after the clock strikes 12 there seems to be a rush on rose purchases which continues late into the night.
The next really big holiday is of course Valentine's Day. If you're not a rose seller yet and you've been thinking about doing it, this is the time to get started so by the time V-Day comes you've got it down. Also if the first time you purchase roses to sell is Valentine's week, you are in for paying some high prices from any wholesaler, as the prices from the farms go way up on all their purchases except for those which they have standing orders for. If you become a regular customer fairly soon you will be locked into a significantly better price than if you wait. At this point the prices have already gone up but nothing like it will be closer to Valentine's Day. It will go down for a bit after V-Day and then you should quickly lock in a better price before Mother's Day. But you don't want to miss getting to sell on Valentine's Day especially since this year it falls on a Saturday which will make it an even bigger date night. You won't to miss the week or two prior either.
In fact starting with Christmas time all the way through Father's Day, it is the best time of year to sell.

Happy Selling,
Claire

How to Strip

2008-12-28T23:02:00.000-08:00

Hey, I thought this video was a trip if you haven't yet learned how to strip. Okay there's enough corny stripping jokes in the video.

By the way you can buy your roses pre-stripped from my website.

Great Weekend Selling Roses!

2008-12-24T09:36:00.000-08:00

Just a little more on the working hard thing. I often find at times it feels that I may be working too hard for nothing and then all of the sudden you start getting back in a flood for what you're putting out.
Like for example on the newspaper route I'm doing with my son, we have been getting great tips for Christmas. I opened my mailbox one day and saw a load of cards in the mail and I was like "Whoa, what's this?" Then I realized, it's from our paper route. it was also very encouraging for my son, which is great.
I also had a great weekend rose selling, especially Friday night. I have a lot of Christmas plush in stock that I purchased earlier Christmases that I was determined to make good use of this Christmas. I attached them to my bouquets and made up some double rose sets as described earlier and even attached to singles. Those sold very well this weekend as well as the regular roses and lighted roses.

Have a Happy Holiday,
Claire

The Luckiest Woman in Babylon

2008-12-21T21:08:00.000-08:00

Well the book I was going to tell you about was The Richest Man in Babylon. You probably have at least heard of it. If not, I definitely recommend it to those trying to be financially successful.
My favorite chapter was "The Luckiest Man in Babylon." Well it's kind of a funny name the man who tell the story was put up for collateral on a loan that was defaulted so ended up sold into slavery. He meets a man though, named Meggido who gives some great advice about work. He says that work is his friend and he basically greets work happily as he knows that the harder he works and the better job he does will lead him to better fortune and riches. He advises him that masters like slaves who are willing to work and he would be more likely to gain his freedom this way. They are also very smart business men and they apply their work in intelligent directions.
There is much more to this story and I found it very entertaining and very inspiring to an outlook on life that will be sure to improve it.
It very much has to do with last post. So I thought i would share it.
The man is does have pretty bad luck at certain points and is forced into some horrible slavery. I don't believe slave work will much make anyone feel very good and at the point the slavery was that brutal it didn't make him feel that good either.
I think a great point to ensure while working hard is that you're working toward a good purpose and you don't feel like a driven slave about it. I think an important point and one reflected in the story is to make up your mind that you want to do it , take pleasure in your work and what you're accomplishing. I think the feeling of being forced is what has made "work" a dirty word.

Good Luck,
Claire

Something about working hard

2008-12-14T22:59:00.000-08:00

Soon after trying that biphasic sleep experiment and failing miserably, I saw that I was in more like a "Can I handle all this work?"experiment. If you see the earlier blogs, I had gotten myself involved in a paper route because I wanted to help my shy son get a job.
What is involved in the paper route is that anywhere from 2AM to 3 AM typically, you go to the distribution center put inserts into 200 to 300 papers, put them in bags and go out and throw them on lawns or whatever was requested. Once you're familiar with what your doing, you're usually done by 5:30AM on a regular day. Sunday is a very large paper, especially this time of year, and more customers want it, so that day takes longer.
Anyway I'm already a homeschooling mom, have some web businesses and sell roses on the weekends in night clubs.
I sell the roses until 3AM about a half an hour away from where I'm doing the paper route, so I have to rush from doing that to the distribution center-work like a crazy woman, especially on a Sunday morning to get those papers ready with my son and get them all thrown by the deadline.
Then basically go to sleep at 6 or 7 AM, get up get my roses prepared and start the drill all over again.
Not only is it a lot to do but it has to all be done very fast under he circumstances. At first I thought "Wow, this is really going to drive me nuts!"
But you know after a few days of this I started feeling better, thinking clearer and found all this extra work wasn't going to kill me after all.
Now I don't think it's a great idea to fill your life up with too much to do, so you don't do any one thing well and just work for the sake of work and not accomplish much.
But think of all the backlogged things you need to do, think of the business you may be starting. What if you worked as hard as you really could to get those things done and did what it actually took to make that business or that child rearing or whatever your doing a real success.
We tend to resist work, it's all around us, the idea that we shouldn't like it and it's to be avoided and that it's something unpleasant to get over, when I doubt that anyone who has been truly successful ever operated on that idea and hadn't worked very hard to obtain that success.
So I thought it would be kind of an interesting experiment to try to purposely do very much of that thing I'm resisting having too much of: WORK. And see what happens.
Well you know at first there were a lot of ups and downs with this, but I recently added some focus to it. Be practical--work hard in specific directions. I've only recently started with that addition, so I'll be letting you know how it goes.
I have more to say on this subject though, I read an interesting book that relates to this. I'll be telling you about that tomorrow.

Time to go,
Claire

Competition in rose selling

2008-12-10T16:40:00.000-08:00

I have had competition from time to time on my route. I have had some pretty good success and have had a lot of experience having to overcome this sort of thing so can give you some good tips from time to time on this subject.
Here are some general rules you should start with:

First of all it's nice to get exclusive deals with nightclubs, they may ask you to pay them, but it's worth it.(But there are always those places that don't anyone coming in there to sell.)
Also I always make sure I have the highest quality best looking roses being sold, this almost always outweighs poor quality roses being sold at a lower price.
Get there first!
Oh, and did I say--get there first!

I have recently been having trouble with a new competitor going into one of my best places I sell at. She had been getting there first. So two things I did this week differently. I got there first and I stayed there a very long time. Now I wouldn't do this at a little dinky bar inhabited only by three alcoholics. But in this case while I had some other places on my route, I would have ideally gotten to sooner--this one was the best seller, so staying there was warranted and I got just as many sales or more sales by staying there anyway. I eventually moved on to my other places but then came back there again.
I did see that she went on to some of my other places instead--but overall this payed off. You also can't get too upset by any of it and be persistent in your own efforts. It seldom makes much difference if there is a little competition as long as you have the best roses and if you are the one that has been selling in the area the longest, that also helps quite a bit.

Later,
Claire

Why buy from an affiliate website?-Great deals..

2008-12-09T21:41:00.000-08:00

First of all let me explain what an affiliate is. Click on that link for a more detailed explanation but it's simply someone preselling other people's products.
When asking some people what they thought about shopping on affiliate sites, they said that they would stop as soon as they were directed elsewhere. One reason was they thought that the commission the affiliate made would deter from their savings. This is not the case at all, in fact it's often the opposite. Say a shopper gets transferred to Amazon after being told about a special that they were running or some such thing, the shopper is at the same old Amazon with the same prices. Check my link and compare to when you go directly.
Don't get it mixed up with a Travel Agency type site or an Insurance Agent--they often do mark up the price. An affiliate doesn't even have the power to change the price.
Basically Amazon is paying the affiliate for advertising their website and Amazon is getting a great deal because they don't have to pay for the advertising until something is sold. If you use the link on the affiliate's site it simply tells Amazon where the referral came from.
You will most likely get much better deals and information by going through affiliate websites and here's why:

Affiliate sites often cite the best deals available on the referred websites and the exact page to find them.
They are not biased on any product or company but normally show good price and quality comparisons.
You can find lots of gift ideas or information in one place often with pictures without spending hours searching.
Many affiliate sites have great content and information on various subjects. Here's a good example.
They often have coupons or promotional codes and you get to save money you never would have saved going directly to that merchant.

You probably won't find them by going to a search engine and putting in affiliate sites, but you run into them when searching for gift ideas, solutions to problems, best deals etc...

My other website

2008-12-09T20:31:00.000-08:00

Hi, I'm back I've been working quite heavily on my gift site as the holidays are approaching.
The reason I started this website was originally to sell my roses online. Then I wanted a way to have them delivered anywhere in the country or the world for that matter.
I knew about FTD services. In case you don't know, if you call a florist and in New York and want them delivered to Chicago, that florist doesn't send their roses to Chicago. If they are connected up with FTD network, it's a set up where a florist in Chicago will deliver their roses and vice-versa.
Anyway, I don't have a shop so that doesn't work for the FTD network and I wanted to keep it simple. I'm a roseseller who sells roses in nightclubs and also a rose wholesaler, I just deal in roses and I'm a busy mom, but I wanted an online florist.
First of all I found the perfect templates and a really easy to use website builder with hosting and I could try it all free for a month. Then I found Linkshare which is a great affiliate program, you join them and then have access to a variety companies you can post products of on your website. Take a look at EasyGiftsandFlowers.com real quick just to see an example. When the person clicks on the product or link they get taken to the site where it's sold and they pay for it there. So if they want floral arrangements, weddings, funerals or any of that stuff they i provide full access to that from my site, I get a commission and I don't have to fill those orders unless they buy roses in my city. I think it's a nice arrangement, as I would have to pay someone else to provide all these services anyway. And basically doing the same thing as that florist in NY who has her orders filled in Chicago.
From there I got carried away and thought, you know candy would be nice send and diamonds are a girl's best friend and watches for the guys etc... Then I thought being that it's the holiday season, why not provide a link to Wal Mart and Amazon too.

Back soon,
Claire

Getting Yourself a Website

2008-11-30T21:44:00.000-08:00

I think the thing that actually held me up the longest in actually really moving toward starting an online business was the lack of a website. One of my sons was taking a course in Web Design and I was going to sort of wait for that or try this or try that. I was always surfing around looking at my options. I looked at templates online but none of them really suited my purpose, plus I would have needed to know something about Web Design to use them.
I found Homestead a few times and I loved their templates, I think I got confused and thought if I wanted to sell anything at all I would have to sign up for the store option. Well that was not really so, it turned out.
Anyway, they have a free trial, so I don't know why I waited. (In fact this is the only web hosting that I found that had a free trial.) I realized that not having the website or the time to figure all that out was what was holding me up, so I got started. It's very easy to use and the tech support is very helpful. I did definitely need them at certain points, but I would just submit a question and the same day it would come back with the answer. But it's basically just drag and click.
As far as the store part, that was really easy too. Probably most of you already have a Paypal Account. Did you know you can upgrade it to a business account for free? You can start a business account free even if you don't already have a regular account. With certain add-ons you have to pay, but to be able to accept Paypal on your website or send email invoices to customers for payment there is no extra charge. You have to pay a small transaction percentage at the time someone actually purchases something, but that is standard with any merchant account. What I like about this is no monthly fees plus they have a simple option where you create your own Paypal "Add to Cart" and "Buy Now" buttons. After you create it, they give you the HTML to put into your site, which is super easy if you use Homestead's Site builder which comes with the hosting for free. You basically drag a box to where you want it on your site, click on the box and something opens up where you simply paste in the code and that's it. There is even something on the Site Builder to create buttons using Paypal is well and you don't have to have pay for a Store to use it. Some time maybe I will take the time to figure out how to build a website with Dreamweaver, but I wanted to get the show on the road so to speak.
I think the above two things are what really made it so I got moving and made it easy for me and it's always good to get moving or else you don't get anything done, obviously.
I have found other great easy resources I'll go into on later posts.

Until next time,
Claire

Thanksgiving and after Thanksgiving Sales etc...

2008-11-27T14:57:00.000-08:00

Hi
I'm going to make this real quick and add more later. I'm cooking dinner for Thanksgiving of course.
I delivered the paper last night for my son and probably you all know but some of you may not (I looked at the ads in the paper), that tomorrow morning if you get up early, I mean super early you are going to get some great bargains at the store for your Christmas gifts. It's the cheapest way to get your presents.
It will be a crowded rush though and they are having huge specials online today and tomorrow as well. I have a gift site I recently created that will show you those specials or links to the stores I'm associated with(only through my web pages) that are having these specials, including Wal Mart and Amazon. See easygiftsandflowers.com to see more places offering deals online.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Great Resources for Starting Online Businesses

2008-11-26T19:29:00.000-08:00

Well I have a really busy night ahead of me helping my son with the paper route. I'll tell you how that's going in next entry. It's Thanksgiving and the paper is going to be huge. They are opening the distribution center early so we can get started putting the large amount of inserts in.
Anyway, I'm going to start sharing with you some of the great resources I found and have tried for creating an online business.
The favorite links on the right side of my page shows a number of the links you should check out.
The things I like are high quality, time saving and low cost and I always shop around. So I believe this will help you.
There is a sea of offers trying to lure you on the internet with get rich quick schemes, but there are things you definitely can do to start a successful web business. The book I recommend you start with is a book by Yanik Silver: Moonlighting on the Internet . It gives 5 different ways to earn income on the internet, each section written by someone who has had a lot of success and gives you a pretty thorough idea of how to do it. Them when you know which of these ideas you would like to pursue, most of these authors have written their own books, which you can read for more information. When you go to the link above you'll also see 4 Hour Work Week which I also recommend you pick up.
I'll be posting some information on website building soon, see the links on this page if you're ready to get started on that now.

Later,
Claire