You'll need to choose a product or products that people will want, and that you can get a decent markup. Don't forget that while a higher price would provide a larger markup, it will make your visitors less like to make a purchase.

You can also decide to provide a service. You'll want a service that you can do from home with a minimum of fuss and a minimum of personal contact with clients and customers. Here is a list of possible services you can offer...

Web design and coding

Copy writing (as in writing advertising copy for other new internet businesses)

Consulting

Web research

Website management

Automated reminder service

The problem with offering services is that you don't make any money if you're not working. By that I mean that you can't go away on vacation and continue to make money. In essence, you've traded the security of a regular paycheck and just one boss for the risk of no guaranteed money and a number of short term bosses. To me, selling a service is no better than working a 9 to 5 job.

Selling a product has a similar drawback. Assuming you're selling a pre-made product, at least you're not having to spend time assembling what you're selling. However, unless you use some sort of "order fulfillment" company to pack and ship your products, you'll still be spending time doing that work and you'll have the expense of carrying an inventory.

The whole point of starting your business is to make money, not spend it.

Now, there are companies that will take orders for you and pack and ship them themselves. We're still in the process of drawing up a list of these companies.

There are two related problems that you'll face if you choose to sell a product yourself. Up to 90% of all customers who wish to purchase (our motivated customers) want to order immediately and to receive the product as soon as possible. If they're forced to write a letter, cut a check and snailmail it in, they might decide that it's not worth the bother. If you provide the credit card payment option, you get your customer to commit to purchase while he's eager to do so.

There are two ways of being able to accept credit cards for payment. The first is by obtaining a merchant card account that will allow you to accept credit cards for payment. Merchant accounts can be expensive -- at least many of them have significant (around $1000) upfront costs, and have minimum monthly fees of $30-$90 whether you make a sale or not. Again, not very good for brand new small home-based businesses.

Lately, however, several companies have sprung up that will allow you to accept credit cards for payment without needing a merchant account. The largest of these is PayPal. Signing up with PayPal is free, and they'll do the billing for a small percentage (about 2-5%). Much better than paying out a lot of money and hoping to generate enough business to cover the costs. You can sign up with PayPal (again with no cost) by clicking here. If it mentions who your referrer is, it should say that your referrer is Mirroreyes Internet Services Corporation (that's me!).