Multiple Income Streams

Today I want to talk why we need Multiple Income Streams coming into our businesses. If you look at any type of business either online or offline then 99.9% will have multiple income streams or some kind of multiple income built into it.

Now for that 00.1% that only has one product (product means service as well) they have a very special niche and for me, although they can charge top price etc, their business is not built on a solid platform, all you need is something to happen to that niche and the business is gone.

So what are Multiple Income Streams ?

Let us look at a few niches to find out -

GiftShop – This is the main niche, Now you can have loads of income streams coming into your giftshop. 1) You have the main Holidays – Easter, Christmas, Other Faiths Holidays where gifts and cards are given, now these are broken down into adult, children, old and young male and female.

Next you have things like Mother’s day, fathers day etc, etc,

Now each of those main niche’s have many different income streams – cards, gifts, paper, flowers, so if suddenly everyone stopped giving flowers on mother’s day the shop would still carry on because they had cards and other gifts, and hey after mother’s day there are hundred’s more days where flowers are given.

Another example of Multiple Income Streams.

This idea is more for the Information provider.

You start off with a blog post like this – this then moves into a report- now you sell them an ebook- which leads into a hardcopy of the book – which leads into a CD – which leads into DVD – which leads into teleseminar – which leads into seminar – which leads into private  coaching – which leads us back into an eBook part two and we then move through the system again.
And once you have done this one niche let us say Tattoo designs for girls between 18 -25, you move onto girls 26 – 3o , then men, then sufer girls etc etc, .

The above is just one small example of Multiple Income Streams with one idea.

Another point you can have your own products, Clickbank Products, affiliate Products, Joint Ventures all giving you different income streams in case one dries up on you.

Hope this helps you, any questions on Multiple Income Streams please leave a comment and I will help you all I can.

Andrew Milburn and My Auction Empires

Are Charity Shops Charging Too Much

Well I had an interesting chat on  Saturday when I went into Lichfield.  I visited one of the bargain book shops (they sell new books at a large discount), and one of the girls who works in there also has her own eBay business and as it was quiet we started chatting.

Emma made a very interesting comment  that  over the past  18 months she  had stopped buying almost 100%  at Charity shops as they were charging over the top prices. This got me thinking Are Charity Shops Charging Too Much ? . When I got home I looked at my stock buying and also discovered that my buying from these shops had also gone down.

So are charity shops charging too much, or have they just put prices up, or is it that as sellers we are looking for a bargain?

So I asked a few eBayer’s the question “Are Charity Shops Charging too much” one or two said no, but when questioned further I found these sellers never bought much from these shops. Some more said they had never thought about it (this did worry me as they did not keep a check on prices) and a large number (well asked 12 in total – so 7) said yes now they think about it Charity shops are charging too much.

So is the reason Charity shops are charging too much for books and DVD’s etc their stock items have gone up – well no as all the items are given.  Is it that the internet has shown them the value of the items – well maybe. Or is it they are trying to get the most out of items given to them – again that is a maybe.

Can anything be done about Charity shops charging too much, well no of course not they can charge what they like for a book or DVD, as sellers we do too.

And a thought here I am not getting at Charity Shops charging too much as one person pointed out to me, all I am doing is making a point. To put it better it might be better to give you some facts.

December 2007 – Paperback books were around 10p each -      December 2008  Paperback books 50p – £1.00

DVD 20p                                                                                                            DVD  £2.50

Or I was spending around £50.00 a week in the shops, today it is around half that.

So yes charity shops are charging too much and no they are not charging too much, people are still buying from and I will continue to do so, as long as I can make some money.

In the old days they had £200 a month from me, they were happy, I was happy, and my buyers were happy.

Today they get well under half of that. But again we are all happy.

So please leave comments good or bad whether you think Charity shops are charging too much

Another resource bought by Andrew Milburn and My Auction Empires

If I was given a £1 or a $1 each time I was asked the question how do  I make money on eBay I could retire to my own private island somewhere.

Before I get into the meat of this posting on How Do I Make Money on eBay I want to make something clear, eBay is just a platform (or a means) of making money, and when you have learnt the ropes on there, there are many more places where you can sell products or earn an income.

So lets get started on How I make Money on eBay. (The I that is used here does mean me, but is also the question that I am asked by other people)

1) Look around your home and sell anytime you have not used for a few months or no longer need or want. This will bring in money from a small amount to a large amount.

2) Once you have emptyed your home, ask family members if they have items that you can sell for them. Once this has happened, move onto friends, then onto strangers you can do this by placing adverts. Now you can do this on your own or you can become an eBay Trading Assistant. When you become an eBay Trading Assistant you earn a commission between 10% – 30 % of the final selling price (some TA charge even more). So an eBay Trading Assistant is another way of How I Make Money on eBay.

3) I guess by now you are in love with eBay and are often giving family members and friends tips and ideas on how to sell or buy on eBay, well here comes the 3rd way of How I Make Money on eBay. You can become an eBay Education Specialist, this allows you to use eBay Training books, Powerpoints, logos and teaching aids. Yes it does cost you to go on the online course, but you can get your money back once you have passed and start teaching people on a one -on- one basis or small groups.
Now as a sidenote you can start to teach people other classes and charge them, but you are not allowed to use the eBay materials or logos. You can only do this when you run eBay classes that you are trained for. And each country has different levels.

4) The fourth area on How Do I Make Money on eBay is through their affiliate program. If you have your own blog or websites you can apply to join this program. Once you are excepted onto the program you will be able to use text links to home pages of ebay sites, logo’s and if you have a blog that deals with let us say dog beds, you can even have shops and auctions appear live on your blog, and if people click on the link or picture in your blog or website then you get a % of the Final fees that eBay get.

Well I hope those 4 steps show you some of the many ways there are to How Do I Make Money on eBay.

Of Course there are many more :

Taking Pictures For People
Writing Up Listings
Designing Templates
Taking items to the Post Office for people
Product sourcing 
etc, etc, etc 

Hope you have enjoyed reading this post How do I make money on eBay.

Another resource bought to you by Andrew Milburn and My Auction Empires

How to sell on Gumtree

Today I want to get away from auction sites, and want to tell you about sites such as Gumtree, Craigslist or the many other online classified sites out there.

What is an online classified site?  Well in simple  terms  you know those free papers you get filled with adverts at the back that people are  selling?  Or those newspapers  that are filled with small classified from start to finish ? Well you are on the right lines.

Today I want to talk about Gumtree, and how to sell on Gumtree. Gumtree is like those newspapers, but it is all done online and instead of it being in just your local paper and thus your small local advert. Your advert could and will appear worldwide, and in 9 cases out of 10 your advert will be free.

1) Although this is online you need to have your normal offline classified advert head on.  Include both  an email address  and also a phone number in each each of your Gumtree adverts. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to contact you.

2) As with eBay’s Best Offer, (This is one of the best products eBay has), be ready to accept an offer on an item you are selling. Before you list have a clear picture in your mind as to what you will accept as the base price.

3) The next thing you need to look at when you want to sell on Gumtree is your description. You need to write it  with  enough information to make people want it. Write the description clearly. Also write it as if you were talking to a friend over a cup of coffee and telling them about this cool item you want to sell.

4) Again as with eBay and Amazon be honest with people. If there are any faults with the item, tell your buyers on Gumtree.

5) Now this may sound silly, but believe me the times I have forgotten and also the people I know who sell a lot on Gumtree and other sites, as soon as your item sells, remove the item from your listings. This saves you loads of hassle and grief when a few hours later you get another call for the item, you have just sold.

6) Be open with delivery and pick-up of the item. The person has just bought an item from you and spent good money with you, so if they say hey I work until 8pm can I pick it up at 8.30pm be prepared to say yes. Or offer weekends. Again think how you would like to be treated. Offer to deliver it to their work place if that is better.
One thing you need to remember is with Gumtree and sites like craigslist is that they are local sites. So you just list under Birmingham for example (as long as you live in Birmingham) and your buyers should all be local.

7) If you live in an area where you could be covered by more than one area, list in them all that are near to you.

Look for other sites such as Gumtree to sell on, the more the better.

9) Oh yes, rinse and repeat.

10) Add this new platform into your selling plan and soon, you shall be making some extra money from a new source of buyers who are hungry for your products.

I hope this mini class on how to sell on Gumtree has helped you get a foot in the exciting world and the profits that can be made with online classified adverts.

How to sell on Gumtree was bought to you by Andrew Milburn and My Auction Empires

I guess that unless you live in a cave or on a desert island you will have seen or heard about fraud on the eBay sites. Now in this post I am not talking about the type of product fraud that is also very sadly common on eBay – But product fraud can also be found in every high street and in every car boot.

No the type of eBay Fraud I want to try and talk about and prevent happening to you is account fraud. Now if you follow the easy steps below I do hope that it will  help Prevent eBay  Fraud happening to you.
But also it will help prevent fraud on your Amazon Accounts, Bank Accounts etc.

1) Step one in helping to prevent eBay fraud on your account is down to you……
DO NOT reply to email that say they come from eBay or PayPal, and then go onto to ask for user names and passwords ……… eBay, PayPal or banks never ask you for that information, and never ever in an email

If you do ever get an email like that and you look very closly at it, you will often find spelling mistakes, grammer mistakes and also very often it will be to a name you do not call your self on eBay etc.
Another big giveaway check which email it is too, and again you will often find it is to an account you have never used with eBay.

Does that tip alone stop or prevent eBay fraud, I wish I could say yes it, does, but if you just follow that one step you can go along way to keep your account ok.

There are steps you can take as well as the above and one of those is to download the eBay toolbar and this includes the Account Guard, again not full proof but helps you prevent eBay fraud on your account.

If you do get an email you can send a copy of it to spoof@eBay.co.uk when you do this it helps the 2,000 strong trust and safety team at eBay ahead of the game, and of course keeping your firewall and anti-virus software upto date is another must.

Like I said at the start this is just a small bit on how to prevent eBay fraud happening to yours or a freinds account and further details can be found at http://pages.ebay.co.uk/safetycentre/spoof.html .

Stay safe and do not answer emails from people asking for passwords and emails.

Another resource bought to you by Andrew Milburn and My Auction Empires

Well this is the final posting in this mini series called Get Started on eBay. Through this mini series I have tried to teach you some of the basics of how to get started on eBay, there will be other articles, postings and videos going further in depth, but if you follow this simple bare bones you will know how to get started on eBay.

(Also for those who are interested in further training I have another blog over at http://www.LinfordDirectTraining this is going to be a blog telling you about paid for classes that I shall be running locally and online)

Anyway back to how to Get Started on eBay 003. Today I am going to talk you through how to set up a selling account with eBay.

1) Go to the home page and click on sell.

2) Log into your eBay account and follow the prompts on how to list your item. (Now I have not covered this listing process here and this is on my to do list for you to do so keep a ;ook out).

3) Once you have listed your item, eBay will ask you to add a few more details so that you can pay your listing fees. These will be name, address, and a payment method such as card, paypal or Direct debit. Choose the one you feel happy with.

You are now ready to buy and sell on eBay. Hope this mini Get Started on eBay series has helped you, and over the coming weeks and months I shall be adding to this process with more in depth lessons and teaching.
Now if you need more help straight away I can recomend a great site run by Janelle Elms. Janelle Elms lives on eBay and she teaches from using the sites day in and out. So pop a long and take a look at OSI RockStars.

Another Resource bought to you by Andrew Milburn and My Auction Empires

In the last article I wrote about how to get started on eBay I told you how to sign up with eBay as a buyer. I hope you found this get started on ebay easy and straight forward. eBay has tried to make it easy for you but at the same time keep your online safety at the fore front.

eBay has changed over the years, but it still very easy to get started on eBay. In this article I am going to guide you through the simple process of signing up on PayPal. Paypal is one of the safest ways of buying and selling items not only on eBay but a whole range of other sites. Also you can use PayPal to send and recieve money between friends. Also without PayPal you will struggle to get started on eBay.

So for todays get started on eBay you need to go along to PayPal.

1) You need to Click here. Once you arrive at the above page you need to click on the sign up button.

For our next step in get started on eBay, you need to choose the country where you live and then choose either the premier or the Business account, both these accounts are free.

2) You need to choose PayPal for ebay.

Next you need to fill out a very simple form.

Once you have summited the form to PayPal, you need  to wait a few days and then check your online bank statement or go into your bank and make a note of the date, and the amount two small payments were paid in from paypal and then go to paypal and sign in and follow the instructions.

Here they will ask you either the amounts or the date or a combination of the two.
Once all this is done you are ready to start using PayPal.

Thanks for reading this brief article on how to get started on eBay.

Another resource bought to you by Andrew Milburn and My Auction Empires.

Get Started on eBay 001

I guess that when you have been doing something for a few years you think everyone knows how to do something. For example you are into football then you think everyone knows the rules, the same for golf or cricket.

Well just this last week I was talking with people about eBay and how good it is to make some extra money, and each time they said yes thats ok but how do we “Get started on eBay“. For a few minutes I thought what …….. it is so easy to get started on eBay. Then I took a step back and looked at it from someone who had no internet knowledge and I thought yeah what do you do to get started on eBay.

So I thought lets do a few blog posts and teach the new people and also remind those who have been around eBay a few years the simple steps to get started on ebay.

• Start at the eBay site for your country. For example .com for the USA .co.uk for the Uk and so on.
• When the home page opens up look to the top left hand side and click on sign in.

• Next you will see a screen like below and just click on register.

• Next fill in your user information like name and address. Also you will be asked for an email address please use one that you check on a regular basis as this is the one that you will use to receive information from eBay.

• Also during this form filling you will be asked to choose a user name, please think long and hard about this, as this is the name people will use and see when buying items off you. For example if you choose an name like claires dresses and later you start to sell cars you might have a hard time, so think generic.
• Lastly do not forget to tick the box to show you have read all the legal forms etc.

Well done you have taken the first step on how to Get started on eBay, this simple process allows you to start to buy on the site.

Please keep an eye open for the next step in how to get started on eBay.

Another resource bought to you by Andrew Milburn and My Auction Empires

PayPal Security Key, has been launched with the backing of Verisign. So what is the PayPal Security Key I can hear you ask.

PayPal, Verisign, eBay

In simple terms what the PayPal / Verisign Key (token) does is generate a 6 digit number that you add to your password, and this 6 digit number lasts only for 30 seconds so is very secure.

Now you can use the PayPal / Verisign key also with your eBay account so you can add an extra level of security.
And in fact where ever you use a Verisign account you can add your key to that account and add the extra level of security. Remember the key generates a new number ever 30 seconds.

The PayPal / Verisign key has it’s own unique number and when you 1st register the key with your account the systems knows, and will start to generate these 6 digit numbers for you.

Now there are two ways of getting this extra level of security one way is to by a key and this costs you around £3.00 once off. There are no monthly fee’s and the other way is using your mobile phone. This is free apart from the cost of text messages.

To find out more about the PayPal / Verisign key -

1) Go to PayPal and log in

2) Go to My Profile

3) Down left hand side you will see PayPal Verisign key

4) Click on this link and follow the instructions and choose whether you want a key or use your mobile phone to generate the 6 digit numbers. And soon you be added that extra level of security with the PayPal / Verisign Key

Another resource bought to you by Andrew Milburn and My Auction Empires