To have an online home business is a dream of thousands of people. I had the same dream myself. And like most of the people who are interested in starting their own online business, I did not know how to get started. But I quickly learned a few things and now have a very successful Internet based business. If you are considering a change in careers or if you are like I was, just looking for information on how to start an Internet business, there are a couple of things you should definitely consider.

Now, despite what you have heard, there is no get-rich-quick business of any kind -- Internet or otherwise. All businesses require work, persistence and time to be dedicated towards the development of the business. With that out of the way, let's get to it!

One of the first things that interested me in having a business online was that it could exist in the virtual world. I did not want to have to rent or lease office space which can eat into profits very rapidly. Employees, medical insurance, worker's compensation insurance and all the other trappings of traditional business I could do without.

I did initially considered selling things directly myself online but I also knew that I didn't want to have to carry a significant amount of inventory. I was willing to commit some space in my home for a small amount of items for sale, but certainly I didn't and couldn't commit the spare bedroom or the garage. Selling thousands of products out of my house didn't seem like the right business model for me. So, I did my research and found that working in an type of program would work for me the ideal solution.

What I found was that some programs provide everything you need - like a business in a box to borrow a cliché. I don't like using that phrase because it conjures up thoughts of a scam, but it is probably the most accurate phrase to describe a complete package. Here are some highlights of what I found.

· The parent company was providing thousands of name brand products that were highly desirable in the worldwide market place.

· I did not need to inventory any products unless I wanted to service the customer

myself, otherwise, everything is being drop shipped directly to the customer.

· Multiple forms of payment processing and collection is done by the parent company. I did not need to worry about setting up a merchant account, which can be very expensive.

· A professional web site was provided for me to use. It was complete with high quality graphics, product information and online sales brochures for customers to research the products they were interested in.

· All I had to do was pay a small start up fee of under $200 and I was in business for myself on the Internet working with name brand products, not trying to pass off trinkets from some third world country.

If you have also researched into programs, you know that they are not all cut from the same cloth. I highly recommend looking into programs that are complete to the point where you don't have to set up a web site, find a graphics person, inventory products and you can have high quality name brand products drop shipped directly to your customer and not even have to collect the money plus get paid on every product sold.

To living your dreams!