Research has shown that in recent time, more and more people are turning to the Internet to buy things. This is mainly because shopping online enables the buyers to get lower prices, more product or services variety, easier to compare products or services. However, the main reason why people buy online is the convenience of shopping anytime of the day or night and from any part of the world. Purchasers are not restricted to physically going to the retail outlet or service outlet at the opening hours. The increasing numbers of Internet shoppers are driving Internet Marketers to find more convenient methods of delivery.

Growing trend of online shoppers means Internet Marketing is becoming a main stream profession.

You can profit from the internet by following various business models. You can be involve in all of them or just specialize in one model. The business model that you adopt depends on your own interests, personal marketing style and working habits.

The 5 business models of Internet marketing are:-

1.Brick and Mortar Online Store - These are online shops set up by existing retail outlets, companies as well as multinational corporations. The online version of the outlet is managed along with the physical store. More often than not, both online and brick and mortar shops have similar functions which markets the products to buyers both online and offline.

2.Online-based Services ? These are similar to brick and mortar online store but applies to service providers instead retail outlets. Examples are online banking, travel agency, dating agency and online education too. Certain personal development programs are delivered online too. Such course materials or seminars are disseminated through webinars.

3.Internet-based products by Internet Experts - These are products or services that are developed by successful Internet Marketers. These products in general are related to Internet Marketing. Example is educating newbies on how to start their own home based internet business. Usually these experts had started out from their home too, so they would know the difficulties faced by newbies and how to solve their problems.

4.Online promotion and advertising - These are pay-per-click advertising such as Google AdSense. Google AdSense pays you advertising fee on each visitors? click on their advertisements placed in your website.

5.Affiliate marketing - These are affiliate programs which you join for free. In the program, you market the affiliate's products or services and earn commission on each successful sale that is referred by you. A good affiliate program will supply you with various marketing tools to enable you to start marketing the product or services almost immediately. All you have to do is use the marketing tools provided or if you wish, your own techniques to drive traffic to the affiliate's sales page. To identify the sale is referred by you, a unique link or hoplink is assigned only to you. Any sales through that unique link or hoplink will be credited to you. Each program has its own terms and conditions and commission can range between 2% to 60%.

Among all the business models, Affiliate Marketing remains the most sort after means of starting a home based business. However, that being said, many successful Internet Marketers just specialize in Affiliate Marketing and make millions of Dollars selling their affiliate's products.

So, which model is suitable for you?