The mortgage crisis hit us hard last year, and my friend Ted lost his job. Now he sits at home all day in his pajamas – making tons of money! The tools of his trade are a computer and Internet connection.

Once you have decided to make a bit of cash online, e-commerce can be the biggest boon you have ever received. Anyone with basic intelligence and a decent product to sell can make a bit of money online to supplement their main income.

The beauty of e-commerce is that you don’t have to manufacture your own product. You can sell what other people are making and still make money. Or if you do make your own products you don’t need to mass produce. You can make them as and when you get fresh orders.

The following five steps are part of a fail-proof system for starting out in e-commerce:

* Decide what you want to sell online

The beauty of e-commerce is that you can sell anything from a pen to a house online. You need to decide what you feel comfortable selling. Also it needs to be something that is available to you constantly. If you are selling products online on a regular basis, you should have a regular supply of the product.

* Create a website to market your products, or have one built for you.

Your site must include a shopping cart if you want your site to produce a positive cash flow. Find a cart that will make the shopping experience easy for both you and your customer.

You will also need to get an online merchant account in order to accept credit card payments from your customers.

* Put a system in place for delivering orders.

Another important aspect is the actual delivery of the product. While e-commerce is mainly completed online the physical delivery of the product is an important determinant of client satisfaction. So make sure that you get a good order delivery system in place.

* Advertise and actively promote your website.

Just as with selling from a regular shop, even in e-commerce you need to indulge in advertising and website promotion. This is to draw your potential client’s attention to your site. This is to ensure that people know about your site and the product it sells. So the next time they want to buy it online they think of you.

* Enjoy your money as it starts to roll in.

Once you optimize your website with good design and premium content, and you advertise it properly, the next logical step is sitting back and waiting for profits. Now you too can sit at home in your pajamas, monitoring your sales and thinking of more and more ways to make money online.