And then, when all is said and done… the cake mix tastes better!

Why? Because huge amounts of time, effort and money went into producing a cake mix in a box that would work well—every time.

What does all this have to do with e-commerce?

There's a new phenomenon out there that's sweeping the hallowed halls of the Internet: “Plug-In Profit Sites,” or PIPs for short. These sites use different methods in varying degrees of automation to market products or services. Some are simple affiliate marketing sites, others are complicated prefab marketing systems that let you buy into a ready-made online business. You get, as they say, what you pay for.

What is affiliate marketing?

In the olden days, they used to simply call it “referrals.” A merchant would reward someone for referring a client, and reward them even more if that client bought the product or service.

Today, they've got it down to a real science. The affiliate creates a website and puts up links to a merchant. When a customer “clicks through,” the merchant rewards the affiliate. And if the customer buys, the affiliate gets a bigger reward.

The catch is always marketing, and in the case of working online, marketing looks large indeed. Find a good automated system that works for you, and that's at least half the battle.

You'll even have extra time to spend in the kitchen. There may be those in your family who will really consider that extra time well-spent and that would be good for everyone!