How To Make Money Online: The Merchant Business Model

The Merchant Business Model is a business model where wholesalers and retailers of goods and services sell directly to consumers online.

Merchant Business Models are generally those who have merchandise in house or have services that they can provide, which they sell directly through an e-commerce website. A perfect example of a merchant business model is a person who has collectibles in their garage that they are selling through their own website.

Wholesalers, retailers and re-sellers are generally merchants. The business model is very similar to the manufacturer direct business model, except for the fact that this business model acts as a way for middle men to sell manufacturers' products.

Examples of the merchant business model include Macy's.com, landsend.com, Wal-Mart.com, and other wholesalers and retailers which sell goods that they have purchased. Most websites to not strictly adhere to one business model, rather they have an intricate hybrid of multiple online business models. Amazon.com is commonly cited as a merchant business model, but the fact remains that amazon.com is also utilizes the subscription model, community model, affiliate model and other internet business models.

E-tailer, e-tailing and online retailer are all synonym words. Many direct catalog and mail-order businesses have turned into online e-tailers. These companies buy products in bulk and sell them directly to customers on their online websites. Many traditional brick-and-mortar have not earned their establishment into web storefronts. Barnesandnoble.com has been a great example of companies that turn their traditional brick and mortar stores in to click and mortar stores.

The merchant business model online entails not only the running of an online web-store, but also the acquisition and holding of inventory to sell.

Many online eCommerce operations start as a merchant business model, and evolve into other business models to supplement income once they have secured a niche. The former internet start-up Yardsellr begin by housing inventory in Star Wars novel tees and eventually evolved into a brokerage business model. Soon after they shut down operations as a website and began to sell their software to major corporations dealing with e-commerce. This is just one of many examples online of companies that started as a merchant and evolved into something bigger. This is not to say that you cannot become a giant merchant business model operation, as there are many successful online websites with operate multi-million dollar business is as a merchant.

Those people looking to become an online merchant can do so by simply setting up a store on various options available to them. Web designers and developers can easily set up an online store via WordPress. Newbies in the business have the option to use solutions such as Volusion, Shopify and other turnkey operations provided by their hosting services.

The online merchant has the same responsibilities as the ancient an archaic Direct Mail catalog business. Photos of every product that the company is looking to sell must be taken in addition to developing a script for the description of each product to be sold on the online web-store.

The merchant business model has been written about plenty, here are some other links which you may find interesting to get a better picture of the business model:

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Hope this was helpful,

The PushYourRank Team
Author: Nicholas Coriano

About The Author: Nicholas Coriano is an Entrepreneur, Web Developer, Social Media Marketer, SEO Consultant and the founder of this blog and The NewYorkWebsiteDesignCenter.com.  While developing websites for his own businesses and marketing his entrepreneurial ventures online, he began blogging useful tips and "how-to" articles on PushYourRank.com for reference purposes.  To retain Nicholas for help with your Website, Social Media, SEO or other online/technology needs, email PushYourRank@Gmail.com

About PushYourRank.com: PushYourRank.com (the Blog) is a blog that helps small businesses, start-ups, developers, amateurs website builders, bloggers and entrepreneurs develop their websites, their social media presence, their search engine optimization techniques and more ....online.  The Blog publishes articles about Ecommerce, Email Marketing and How To Make Money Online...as well as any topic that pertains to the Internet or Online.  If you need help developing a website, SEO or Social Media outsourcing, see NewYorkWebsiteDesignCenter.com, if you would like to advertise or have us publish an article on a certain subject, please email us at PushYourRank@Gmail.com