“Make money from the comfort of your own home” “Earn thousands in only a few days” “Sell products that you never have to buy” “I made $10,000 in three days! You can too! I’ll show you how!” Have you heard lines like these before? Well, if you’ve been surfing the net for any time at all, you probably have. These ads arrive in your inbox, on the radio, on TV, even in your home mailbox. But are they true? Do they hold any credence at all and how will I know?

In this country, speaking of the USA, there are literally thousands, tens of thousands of home based business opportunities available. Unfortunately, some are scams and will take your money and run. But we want to look at credible home based businesses, don’t we? Yeah. We do.

Multi-level marketing, commonly referred to as MLM, is the most popular type of home based business opportunities. With this type of business, you will market a product or service for another company while earning a percentage of each sale. MLM programs typically provide you with a website, as well as all the sales materials, and usually provide detailed tips for marketing your business. Your MLM website also serves as a tool for recruiting new members and building your downline. Multi-level marketing is more profitable the more ‘levels’ you access, so your downline is of major importance. You will receive commissions for not only your own sales, but also a percentage of the sales for those beneath you. These profits could increase exponentially, especially if your downline members remain active and create their own downlines.

Another common home based business is, as mentioned above, affiliate marketing. Most of the larger online stores and websites offer an entry into their affiliate program. What this means is you will be promoting any product anywhere on the site. You get to choose which products you offer. Example: Amazon.com has over 55,000 items available across diverse categories. You couldn’t offer all of those items yourself, so you pick a couple of categories and key in on them. The difference here from MLM is that you don’t receive the free web page. You will be responsible to send ads, promote and advertise on your own. The host site will give you access to sales materials and editable HTML graphics, but the advertising is up to you.

If these don’t float your boat, then there are other options. I like options, don’t you? EBay now offers their registered clientele the opportunity to open a storefront stocked with products that you cherry pick from a categorized list. For a fee, you get the storefront and a back office to manage it. Now you just pick some items and place them on your store page. Sell a product, receive a commission. Simple and easy to manage as well. Did you notice something there? You can sell a product that you never actually buy yourself! This means no inventory to worry about, no overhead and no separate warehouse to maintain. All you do is move product.

There are many other ways to make money from home. You don’t have to operate an online business, but you can use the power of the internet to advertise and promote your personal products or services. Businesses like lawn care services or cleaning agencies can be operated from your home and promoting your business online is a great way to broaden your clientele.

Really the only thing that holds you back is your creativity. The sky is the limit, so reach for it!