E-Bay Profits Made Easy

2006.01.06

How NOT to make money on eBay

Posted in eBay at 11:53 am by admin

We all know about eBay, we’ve all shopped on eBay and we’ve all probably already sold something on eBay as well. So how can we create a steady income stream from eBay?

There are LOTS of websites out there which claim will make you rich overnight on eBay. “Start a home business, $10k/month” they all claim.

Lesson 1: Stay away from these schemes. I just can’t believe how many people fall for these kinds of things. 99% of these “home business” ideas involve registering with a dropshipper and selling worthless no-name novelty items. Nothing happens overnight and nothing is for free. I think I’m a pretty smart guy, yet I’ve been burnt by this simple fact enough times to learn my lesson.

Lesson 2: Stay away from dropshippers. In case you haven’t heard this term before, a dropshipper is a business which offers items for sale which you can purchase and have shipped directly to your customer without the dropshipper’s label on the box.

Sounds like a good idea, right? I thought so too, and fell for it for a while. Many dropshippers are scam artists. Plain and simple. They will take your money, and not deliver the product to your customer, leaving you in the middle with an angry customer on one end, and money lost on a product not delivered on another.

Now, I’m not saying that all dropshippers are scam artists. In fact, I have dealt with a number of very reputable ones. The problem is this: There are actually many great dropshippers out there, which offer huge discounts on products and will ship directly to your client with your label on the box. The problem is that they charge very high monthly fees (in the hundreds, to thousands) and have very high initiation fees. If you already have the volume, go for it! You will benefit from their services.

But if you’re an everyday guy like me just trying to make a couple bucks on the side, this is not the way to go. Dropshippers which claim to have no hidden fees, or no monthly or initiation fees are not dropshippers. They are only retail sites, and their prices are not very competitive. Watch out, and remember that no one will buy that jet lighter shaped as a tiger you can get for $0.47 from your dropshipper, even if it is a good deal.

Lesson 3: Only sell to Verified users. If you’re going to sell items online to strangers (ie. you don’t have a previous relation with your buyer, and you’re not going to deliver it in person) then only accept payment through PayPal, and only sell to Verified users. I really can’t stress this enough.

The problem is that even though you might think it doesn’t happen, there is credit card fraud on eBay and on PayPal. I personally have lost money because of this and I hope you learn from my lesson. If you sell an item to a user who is not PayPal Verified, and they used a stolen card to make the purchase, PayPal will not reimburse you for your loss.

However, if the user is verified, and if anything goes wrong, you are protected and PayPal will fight for you. Just remeber that next time when your auction closes. You can always decide to sell to someone else. Is it really worth the risk?

All of these lessons, I have learned the hard way over many years. Hopefully it takes you less time to learn them than it did for me…

Introduction to eBay

Posted in eBay at 11:16 am by admin

Throughout my university days, when I wasn’t studying or hanging out with my girlfriend, I usually spent my time thinking how I could make a bit of extra cash on the side. Not much, just a bit to keep me going.

One of the first thoughts that came to mind was eBay. Buy low, sell high, right? Well, it’s not quite that simple.

It took quite a few attempts, and a few years, but I finally figured it out and I’ll share the lessons learned with you here.

2006.01.05

Autosurfs - Ponzi Scheme or Investment?

Posted in Auto Surfs at 1:58 pm by admin

Okay, so we all know that Autosurfs aren’t real investments, however that doesn’t mean that you can’t make some quick cash from them.

About seven weeks back, a buddy of mine sent me a link to 12dailypro.com and told me to sign up, saying he already got paid. I just ignored it and tried to explain to him that it was a scam. There’s no free lunch, right?

Well a couple weeks went by, and then he called me and said he’d been paid again. Obviously he wasn’t lying to me, so I started to wonder if I could make anything from this site. So cautiously I put $78 in (13 upgrade units at $6 each. yeah, I already know it sounds like a scam), thinking “whatever, it’s just the same as a night at the casino”.

So 19 days later, I received a payment to my StormPay account of $102.96, or about a 32% return on my initial $78 “investment”. After the high transfer fees StormPay charges (they’re the only money transfer service 12DailyPro takes) my $78 investment ended up costing me $80.34 and out of my $102.96 payment, I only received $95.17.

Even still, this is a little over an 18% return in 19 days, which is far better than my Ameritrade account is doing. It’s a scam, I know, but I just put another $300 into it. Hopefully I can beat the game before they go under.

And so it begins..

Posted in General at 8:27 am by admin

Let me introduce myself; I’m a fairly new Computer Engineer, just graduated a little less than a year ago. Since graduation, I’ve been working in downtown Toronto full time as a software developer in the IT department of a large corporation doing maily .NET web applications in C#.

And I want out.

Not because I’m lazy, nor because I do not like my job — quite the opposite infact. I love my job, and enjoy working. The reason is that I want to go back to school to study for my masters in computer engineering (specializing in computer architecture - FPGA design, CMOS, and VHDL programming) and eventually obtain my PhD in computer architecture and become a professor.

So, I need to find a way to make a steady stream of income, without working a 9 to 5 job to support myself to pay off my undergrad student loans, pay tuition fees and basic living expenses.

This website will be a documentation of these efforts. I’ve done it all already and I’m going to do it again. When I was a kid when the Internet was still willd, between AllAdvantage, GiantRewards, banner clicks, and a few other things I had going, I was making a good monthly income… mostly while I was sleeping or at school.

And so it begins.. my quest for financial freedom and a higher education.. hopefully some of my experiences help others as well..

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