eBay Home Business Success Secrets
21 Reasons why Internet Auctions are the Easiest and Safest Home Business
By Sydney Johnston
Author of
Make Your Net Auction Sell!
Calling internet auctions an “Entrepreneur’s Dream” isn’t poetic license or part of the get-rich-quick rhetoric. Net auctions are the simplest, easiest way on this planet for the little guy to make money.
1. Isn’t this how most home businesses go?
First, the would-be entrepreneur decides on a product or service. He begs, borrows or steals the money to bring his dream into reality.
Then, he faces "The Great Uncertainty"
- “Where are my customers going to come from?”
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With an Internet auction, your customers |
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Not only that, but they have very obligingly
arranged themselves into appropriate categories just for us! Talk about
targeted marketing!
We don’t have to go looking for musicians
to buy our guitars, doll collectors for our Barbies or collectors to buy
our cars. They will come to us!
2. Start up costs? None. Zero. Zip. Nada.
Can you name any other business that has
no start up costs?
Entrepreneur magazine claims that the average
franchise costs $70,000! Whoa! And when you buy your franchise,
what do you get with it? Oh, employees, rent, government regulations,
incredible paperwork, the constant threat of lawsuits, grinding responsibility
and twelve hour days.
Auction sellers have no overhead, no utilities,
no employees, no employee taxes and no rent.
3. Risk? What risk?
It is smart to begin with merchandise that
you already own (or go rob Mom or Grandma’s attic). Therefore, you have
no merchandise costs.
By beginning in this simple way, you can
try it out before any kind of serious commitment.
4. It is simple to learn!
You can start your new business in five minutes and a few minutes later your
first item will be up for sale.
Even better, you can go about your life
while you wait – no need to be available, like a regular retail
business, or even a garage sale. You may be like me and check your first
item every 3 minutes, but that time is optional.
Of course, if you get Auction Fever and
want to make real profits, there is much more to learn. But, testing
the waters couldn’t be any simpler.
5. If you have a business, you have to
somehow let people know you are around…
Otherwise, your business isn’t
going to last very long. This makes advertising - of some sort - absolutely
critical.
Recently, a mail order guru was advising
novices on how they should begin. He recommended buying a mailing list
of 100,000 (hundreds, perhaps a couple of thousand dollars in cost)
- but - the novice should start with “only” 5,000 people.
This same guru recommended a 12 page letter,
plus an order blank, for a total of 13 pages. In my neighborhood, unless
I am copying massive quantities, it costs me five cents per page, so
my letter would cost 65 cents. Throw in a stamp, and the cost of the
large, manilla envelope and it’s at least $1/person.
So, we are looking at an expense of $5,000!
And this doesn’t include the numerous hours it would take to create
such a mailing.
And, what if my mailing fails miserably?
I don’t know about you, but losing $5,000 is not insignificant to me!
And if we think about advertising our product or service on TV or radio,
our costs escalate dramatically.
Contrast this with the price of an internet
connection of $15 - $25 a month. And the best part is that you
can market to 5,000 or 5,000,000 and it doesn’t cost one extra cent.
6. The internet is the only place in the
world where a small business can be open open 24 hours a day, seven
days a week.
What kind of retail establishment can maintain those
kinds of hours, unless it is a giant company?
Your buyer has the privilege and opportunity
of buying at any hour of the day or night.
Those who assume that there is no one awake
and interested in buying at 3:00 a.m. are mistaken. Do you want to be
awake at this hour to sell? Highly unlikely. But with an auction site,
customers can shop at their leisure, on their own schedule and pay you
money while you sleep. The first time I woke up and realized that I
had made money while I was asleep, it was an incredible thrill!
7. If I am selling in my home town my buyers
are limited to those people in my geographical area.
With the Internet,
the entire world is my customer. eBay, for example, has customers in
90 countries.
A merchant can expose his wares to more
customers on an internet auction than would see his products in decades
in his home town.
8. In common with many other internet businesses,
geography has become irrelevant.
For centuries, humans have had
to live in big cities if they wanted to engage in commerce.
With auctions, you can live anywhere you
please, as long as you have electricity. In fact, with laptops, we don’t
even need to be home.
Want to run your auction business in a
Winnebago, on safari, or cruising the Mediterranean? No problem.
9. We never have to leave our homes
to make as much money as we want.
This has to improve family life in
a significant way.
Want to go to the kids Little League games?
Have lunch with your spouse several times a week? Work at 3:00 AM because
you are a dedicated night owl?
I don’t know about your traffic, but in
my town it is a total nightmare! Occasionally, I have to travel in rush
hour traffic and it makes me realize how fortunate I am not to be a
charter member of the Road Rage club.
10. You can look like one of the big guys!
Internet auctions make business a level
playing field. Let the big companies worry about payroll, employee theft,
absenteeism, product margins and the like.
No one knows - - or cares - - how “big”
you or your company is.
There is no reason for large companies
to ever participate in auction sites, because there isn’t enough profit
in it for them to bother.
I recently saw an article in the paper
commenting that one of the giants had made "only miniscule"
growth the past year … $38 million! I would be very appreciate of
that kind of “tiny” profit, myself.
11. Sometimes, it seems that my computer
is alive, has a definite mind of its own - and that mind can be very
devious and troublesome.
Nevertheless, the computer gives us tremendous
power and freedom.
Unlike the giant companies, our employee
doesn’t need a vacation, it takes no sick leave, and has no family emergencies.
In other words, we have a 24 hour, seven day a week slave.
12. Starting a business and getting it
going, is a full-time job - and then some.
Unless … you choose to be an auction
player.
Because the Internet will carry on your
business without you, you can keep your full-time job until you are
ready to quit. There are people making $50,000 a month in auctions.
There are others who are content with a few hundred dollars a month.
It all depends on your personal goals.
13. Forget about guessing, hoping and praying,
lying awake at night, staring at the ceiling and wondering if you are
doing the right thing.
It is possible to do your market research
in advance and have a very clear picture of how well your product
will sell before you even put it on the market.
14. Net auctions have a mercifully short
learning curve.
Notice that I didn’t say, "No learning
curve", but it doesn’t take long to begin playing like a champion.
It isn’t brain surgery, law school or quantum physics. It just takes
some observation, attention and time to become a superior auction seller.
The greatest hitters in baseball only hit
about three out of every ten, meaning they fail 70% of the time! You
can do better than that right from the beginning.
15. This is a perfect business for those
folks who are shut-ins, handicapped, senior citizens or anyone who
might have trouble getting a J-O-B.
Everything, everything! about an internet
auction business can be conducted without ever leaving a room, if you
so desire. If you have a computer, that is all the equipment that you
need.
16. Rejection? There are people
who would rather be boiled in oil than try to sell anything - because
they are afraid of rejection.
That will never happen on an internet auction.
The worst result is disappointment that your item didn’t sell, but it
is impersonal and no one will see you, so the element of fear is totally
absent.
17. If you so choose, you can make lots
of new friends.
It is very satisfying to talk with people who
share common interests with you. Have you ever been fascinated with
a subject, so thrilled that you desperately wanted to share it with
someone - and those around you stare in blank incomprehension - or boredom?
You can find fellow fanatics on the auction sites.
18. When you learn your field, you will
automatically, without even trying, become an expert. This is
knowledge which may pay off in other ways.
For example, a friend who sells jewelry
on eBay, recently had the opportunity to buy a large amount of it from
the estate of an elderly woman. She sold the entire amount to a local
jeweler before she could even get in on the auction site. She made $7,000+
in profit and was asked to help out the store in various ways - for
a fee, of course.
19. The future of net auctions is absolutely
guaranteed!
They are just going to grow and grow and grow.
For one thing, the ease of Internet Shopping
makes it more and more popular as each day goes by. What is more convenient
than having your heart’s desire ordered in your home and delivered to
your front door?
For another, security is getting better
and better on the internet and so more and more people are becoming
comfortable with net shopping. Right now the sites do billions of dollars
worth of business and revenues are expected to triple in the next year.
Often shoppers turned their attention toward
Internet auctions because they can find goods that are much cheaper
than they would be in a store or ordering directly from the manufacturer
or producer.
An example: I recently sold a real estate
course to a gentleman be who bought it for $624. At the manufacturer’s
web site, this same course listed for $1,500.
My buyer described his delight, saying
that he desperately wanted this course and didn’t feel like he could
afford the full purchase price. He deliberately looked on it eBay, in
the hopes that someone it would have this course for sale at a reduced
price. He thought that $600 was an incredible bargain.
Buying merchandise off an internet auction
is such a terrific time-saver. You can place your bid on the Hummel-figure-to-die-for,
and go about your business. In fact, your computer will even bid for
you!
So, many buyers are thrilled by the fact
that they don’t have to get in their cars and go anywhere to buy things
that they want. The enormous popularity of QVC and the Home Shopping
Channel are proof that this is a highly desirable benefit to many of
today’s shoppers.
Sitting in traffic, dealing with crowds
and finding a parking place in a crowded mall are very unappealing options
to many people. There are many shoppers who value the privilege of sitting
at the computer in their pajamas ordering those goodies that they want.
Those who analyze modern society always
concur that citizens today are very worried about crime and security.
Most people feel that home is safe and cozy. Online shopping is just
safer than driving all over town.
This isn’t likely to change, either. Since
September 11, we have all realized that we are living in an uneasy world.
20. Whatever you want to sell, (if it’s
legal!) someone wants to buy it!
Right now my book contains a
list of 33 pages of auction sites - with more coming every day.
21. The auction sites are pure entertainment!
This business is just plain FUN!
There are some really incredible items
for sale. Here are some examples …
-
How about cigarettes to
"cure" asthma -
A directory from the 1800’s
listing all the high-class brothels in New Orleans -
Petrified dinosaur dung
-
A (fortunately disarmed)
Nike Ajax surface-to-air missile -
Elvis’ dental records
-
Seeds from a 933 pound
pumpkin! That’s a jack-o-lantern worthy of respect! -
The skull of a Tyrannosaurus
Rex -
And my personal favorite
… a 1898 collection of skulls of prostitutes and murderers!
Of course, the auction sites do have their
limits:
-
In September of ’99,
a live kidney was for sale. The bidding began at $25,000 and reached
$5,750,100 before eBay pulled the sale -
Another weird listing
was from a young man who offered his virginity for sale! The listing
was removed in less than 24 hours, so we don’t have any idea what
that is worth!
Don’t miss out on the greatest money-making
opportunity in history. There absolutely is no easier and safer way
to make money. While you read these words, someone is making money on
auctions. Why aren’t you? Click here to get started with your eBay home business.
About the Author:
Sydney Johnston is the author of Make Your Net Auction Sell. This outstanding eBook as sold thousands of copies at $30.00 each. It is now FREE! Click Here to download your copy today
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