We previously discussed how different types of companies are working. Let’s have a closer look at the different business models a company can employ to earn money.

Since I have been involved in the internet industry for years, you will find some models that are quite industry specific. However, I tried to include several ways “traditional” companies can earn money as well. Here’s a quick summary:

Mass customization
This means that you produce a standard article, but you give the customer the possibility to make this mass market item more individual. Good examples include spreadshirt (t-shirts), redbubble (art) and mygall (german redbubble).

Built to order
That’s an easy one. You just produce an item if someone orders it. You simply don’t store finished products. Helps you to cut your fixcosts, enables you to mass customize.

Traditional e-commerce
You probably all know online shops. That’s a great possibility to cut your costs compared to a traditional high street shop.

Premium content
A lot of newspapers struggle to earn money these days, because an increasing share of readers uses the internet instead of buying the paper based newspaper. Some of the worlds biggest newspapers, as well as a lot of niche blogs use a premium content strategy. This mean that parts of a website are only available for premium customers who pay a monthly fee. Obviously, you could also introduce daily fees, yearly fees, pay-per click fees etc.

Auctions
Let’s take ebay. In the past, there have been a lot of auctions. Ebay always got a fee per completed auction. In addition, ebay introduced a lot of additional fees, some for making your auction headline bold etc. Today, there are some more or less innovative auction platforms. However, sometimes its hard to distinguish if its a fair auction or gambling..

Advertisement
A classy one. A lot of online businesses use marketing / advertising to monetarize their websites. Take google Adsense for example: Everytime someone clicks on an Adsense advertisement, the website owner gets a certain payment (0.01 cents to 5€….). Its a wide field, you could also sell banners to earn some money with your website. It all depends on the traffic your page gets.

Enough for today? I guess so. I will continue this list soon. Please email me your thoughts and comments to jonas@believeinvisions.com.

Buzz this!

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