Today I spent some time looking around our local charity shops and around the market to see what items there were that could be bought at one price and sold on at another, higher price. When you buy and sell like this you are not looking for a massive profit (but at times you can make what is known as a Home Run – Where you buy for a few dollars and it ends up selling for a few hundred dollars).

The average profit is normally around the $5.00 dollar mark, now I can hear many of you saying that’s not worth getting out of bed for, well true but if you do this 3 times a day x 7 = an extra 105 a week. Now this is starting to look a bit better. Now lets look at the big picture a bit more say you are wanting to save for a new laptop all you need do is take the price of the laptop and divide it by the $5.00 and that will tell you how many items you need to find and sell.

Yes it is that easy. And if you plan your year out and note down when you will have expenses, say Christmas and a Holiday, if you plan and buy and sell right, you will never need to use a loan or credit card. The Beatles that famous pop group, one time one of their members wanted a new swimming pool, so instead of saying lets get a loan or use some of my money said “I need a pool, so I will write a new song”. Now we as sellers need to think that, we need this item, lets buy low and sell high.

You can start to use this idea for all the things you need in your life and very soon, that credit card will not be used, and you will begin to lead a debt free and stress free life. Yes it will take some time to get into the habit of, but it will be fun and a challenge.

Happy buying and selling.

Once you have got the bug of selling on places like eBay you are always looking for new ways of adding extra money or another income stream to your growing on line business. But sadly all too often things get in your way, and for a new start up or for some one brand new to business, money is often the next stumbling block, that stops you taking the next step. Well what if I told you there was away well what about five differents way (In fact far more than five, but I guess by the time you have read five there will be nothing stopping you.) And even better this part of your business can be started with almost zero money.

The business I am talking about is an eBay Trading Assistant. Once you have mastered the skills of selling your own items and for a few family members, why not sell for other people and get paid for doing it. So lets get started with five good reasons why you should start an eBay Trading Assistant business today.

1) This is one big reason why anyone who has the desire to sell more items by cannot do so because they lack the money to buy more stock. When you become a Trading Assistant you fill your eBay store with other peoples items and make a commission everytime you sell an item. But as you add more items to your store, a strange thing happens more people come and take a look, and with more people taking a look, guess what you sell more.

2) Most Trading Assistants charge a small commission every time they sell an item, and to be honest you can make a very good income just from this one fee. But there is nothing stopping you make other charges for photo’s. storage, extra work. But a word of warning please do not be greedy with the extra fee’s.

3) As a Trading Assistant you get added to the eBay Trading Assistant Directory. This not only brings you leads from people who are looking for a Trading Assistant, but also it can bring other buyers to your store who have money to spend.

4) Number four works in the same way as number three, when you start the buisness you want to submit a Press Release to your local papers, radio and TV stations. Again this will bring you new clients, but will also bring the buyers to your store. You will also want to submit a Press Release, when you get new items that are unique. This will bring massive traffic to your eBay Store.

5) The last reason in this section is to do with all the on line education and resources eBay provide you as Trading Assistants. This online training provides you some fantastic marketing and promotion skiils and will help you in other areas of your buisness and personal life.

As you can see from just these five items how becoming an eBay Trading Assistant not only helps your bank balance grow, but also can benefit you in many other ways.

Are you or do you know someone who raises money for charity ? Have you noticed that your fund raising income is lower than normal ? I guess the answer to those two questions will be a big yes. But did you know that there is help from one of the best known names in the world and has a presence in nealy every country.

The days are gone when you ran a fund raising auction and had just the few people in the room who lived in a nearby town or village. How would you like to place an auction and within a few minutes your item will be seen by millions of people around the world, and with the choice of saying anything between 10% to 100% can go to your chosen charity. Of course I am talking about eBay.

There are many different ways in which you can use eBay as a vichiel to sell items for charity. The best way is to sign up your charity for “Giving Works” if it is not already, as this means everything is kept above board and a record can be kept.

1) The first and easiest way is for someone who knows about eBay and has some spare time is for them to take on the job of doing the research and then listing and shipping the items out for members of the charity, but be warned this will take time, but the rewards for the charity will be well worth it. All that needs to be done is a letter go out to members asking for items that can be sold. These are items that would normally be sold at places like Garage sales, carboots etc.

2) Another way that is almost the same as the above is to collect a large amount of items from members, via newsletters, letters and word of mouth, and once you have a large amount, look for someone who runs a Trading Assistant Business and get them to do the work. The only downside of this is that they will take out a commission for their work. But the upside is that they know what they are doing and how to list to get good prices. Therefore the upside will far outway the downside.

3) Another way is where you can ask your members to donate brand new items and then get these items listed on eBay and you can use either the method of someone from the charity doing the listing or asking a Trading Assistant to do it.

4) Another way is when you stop and think outside the box, why not ask people to donate, write poems, short stories, recipies and get someone to compile them into a book either printed or ebook on cd format and sell that on eBay. Remember you will have people all over the world buying and supporting your charity.

5) The last way I want to tell you about today, is this. You are a charity based in New York, and the charity is basically a New York one, and all the support comes from local people, but you have supporters all over the world, but due to travel etc they cannot send items for auctions. Stop that was then we are now on eBay. Let us say there is someone in Australia who has family in New York who support the charity, they can now log into eBay Australia, list the item, click on the Giving Works button, look for the charity in New York click it, then state how much they want to give between 10 – 100%. Very easy and very simple, but at the same time very powerful.

Hope this has helped you think outside the box when you are looking for ways of using eBay.

Did you know that a good many people earn either a full time or part time business do so by working on line, and out of these people a high percentage do so by selling on that great site eBay. The eBay business is open to anyone no matter what age, what background you come from, or what money you have backing you.

But the one thing you will need to have is good customer service and without this you should stay off eBay or any ecommerce platform, as customer service will make or break you.The eBay business is one of the easiest ways of earning an income on line, and if you just follow a few steps you will be on your way to saying good bye to your boss and hello to that fantastic world of ecommerce selling.

Step One You need to get to know the site, and get a feel of how it works and runs, and there is no better way to do this than to become a customer and buy a few items that you need. by doing this you will get to know what your customers have to go through every time they buy from you. Click around the site, look at the different categories the site has the the sub-categories. You will be amazed to the any different areas there are. At this stage it is also a good idea to look at the different eBay countries there are just to see what these sites look like in case you want to be selling on there in the future.

Step Two You need to do some in depth study as to what you will be wanting to sell on the site. Attend some Trade Shows, read some trade magazines and newsletters, visit suppliers, feel and touch the stock. Also ask the weights of the items so you can work out what the postage charges will be. You can also at this stage look at the different carriers and options you have to send the items to the customer. Make up a file on your computer and keep this up to date.

Step Three Get all the paper work in to place that you will need to start and run your business. If you need to take professional advice do it early rather than later.

Step Four Set aside a place where you will be working. To start with it may be a bed room or the kitchen table, but make sure it is clean and tidy and do not make a mess as you will still be wanting to eat or sleep there. Set aside a set time when you will be working and keep to those times.

Step Five If you get stuck look around on the eBay site as they have a fantastic help section, site maps and a great forum where you can ask questions and soon get answers coming in to help you. The eBay forums are very friendly and very helpful.

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

If you are just starting out or are a seasoned seller on sites such as eBay and Amazon, you are always on the look out of small, light weight items that are always in demand. The one product that always comes to every ones mind is the Dvd. These DVD’s are easy to store, do not take up much room, are light weight to post and once you have sold them, they just pop in a jiffy bag in seconds.

Now when you look at the DVD market it is always in high demand and as long as you get the price point correct then you are almost guaranteed a profit small or big, and if you find one of those hard to get DVDs that a few people want or need then you are on to a
winner. Before you rush off and start on your next fortune I do need to stop you and give you a few tips which I hope will keep you on the straight and narrow. Not a guarantee, but will try.

If you have done any research online you will have seen how profitable the DVD marketplace is, and it is because of this that the DVD market has also seen some of the bad guys enter it to make a quick fortune. But if you do follow these guide lines I hope you will stay safe and sound.

Do Not Trust Middleman

Now not trusting in middlemen applies to most businesses and buying wholesale items. I am not saying never buy from middlemen, but if you do be very careful and only do it if there is nothing else there. One of the reasons why you should stay away is the fact that you are paying higher prices than from a wholesaler. Thus reducing your profit lines.

Source From Trade Directories

You will be able to find a trade source (wholesalers) by subscribing to and reading trade industry magazines. Also pay a visit to your local library and take a look through trade directories, also again check online. But if you check online make sure they are a real company and not just wanting to take your money and run.Finding real and legitimate DVD wholesalers is very hard, spend time researching your market, make phone calls to these people, pay a visit and ask for trade price lists.With markets like this you need to look hard and once you find a supplier treat them well and do not mis-use them, they are like gold dust.

Selling DVD’s online can be a fun and profitable business but you need to do your home work and to take your time. Believe me it is worth it.

How many times have you had an event in your diary or on your calender for many months. An up coming wedding, Holiday or Christmas, as you know you will be paying out quite a bit of money. But when the time comes, you either have to cut corners on the gifts or food and in worst cases not have that holiday you had been planning. Yes you could save money out of your monthly budget, but do we have that kind of money to set aside?

Some people may take out a loan or put it on the a card, while this works in the short time, that money has to be paid back and with interest. So what are the other options we have. Well one could be get another job, or a part-time job, but most people are too tired or have family commitments to look after. So what do we have left? Well one that has worked for people all over the world time and time again is selling on ecommerce sites such as eBay.

Selling on platforms can be worked along side your family and your work, and if done in the correct way can earn you a nice income which if you put some of the profits to one side will go along way to paying for that holiday or present. Remember you will need to re-invest some money each month back into your business to pay for expenses and for new stock. Also some will need to be put on one side for tax, but a large proportion can be put into a savings account for that special time.

A good formula which I have found has worked for me and many others is this.

* Source your items from where you want to
* Then spend a session taking the pictures and adding pictures to a file with names you will remember.
* Next time you will write up the descriptions for all the items in something like word, notepad etc, again make sure you name things that you will remember.
* Next time you will weigh the items and add this information to the descriptions, and make a note of the costings.
* Then you are ready to list like mad, by having done all the hard work in the last few days or evenings all you need to do is a cut and paste job.

It is a good idea to have this information saved on a flash drive and Google Docs, this will let you list where ever you are by a computer you are allowed to use. Also set yourself some listing targets. For some people 3 a day works well, over a week it will give you 21 listings, while others could list 10 a day. You need to set this goal not too high it needs to be reachable by you each time.

Remember the more you list the more items there will be for people to see, and the more items there are to see, will mean more items will sell. Thus bringing you in money each and every day.