From CNNMONEY
As the tax deadline draws near, the IRS wants you to beware of fraudulent tax preparers, hidden offshore bank accounts and offers that seem too good to be true.
In its “dirty dozen” list, released Tuesday, the IRS urged taxpayers to avoid falling prey to — or carrying out — a number of common tax schemes that will result in copious fines or put an offender in prison for years.
Taxpayers should be wary of anyone peddling scams that seem too good to be true,” said IRS commissioner Doug Shulman. “The IRS fights fraud by pursuing taxpayers who hide income abroad and by ensuring taxpayers get competent, ethical service from qualified professionals at home in the U.S.”
Among the scams to watch out for this year are preparers who offer refunds that don’t exist, promoters who encourage you to argue with the IRS about taxes you owe, and IRS impersonators who may even use Twitter to obtain your personal information.
The IRS will also be keeping a close eye on misbehaving tax filers, so think twice before filing a phony salary, lying about charitable donations or trying to claim a tax credit for the gas costs you incurred during that road trip you took last year.
Hiring a sketchy preparer: It’s easy for an accountant or tax preparer to take advantage of you, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the tax code or paperwork involved with filing a return.
There are many preparers out there who — to make an extra buck — will skim a portion of a client’s refunds, charge more than they should for services and lure taxpayers to their office by promising unattainable refunds.
It’s up to the taxpayer to be careful when selecting a preparer, but the IRS is also taking steps to help decrease the chances that a taxpayer will end up receiving “help” from a fraud.
In future filing seasons, all paid preparers will be required to register with IRS in order to receive a preparer tax identification number. Preparers must also take competency tests and participate in continuing professional education, unless they are attorneys, certified public accountants or enrolled agents.
Hiding your money offshore: The IRS is cracking down on hidden offshore accounts, and as part of its enforcement, the agency is targeting offenders and seeking out anyone else who helped to enable the scheme.
If you have an offshore bank account, brokerage account, credit card or even an offshore insurance plan, the IRS urges you to come forward now and admit to your crime voluntarily in order to limit the possibility of criminal prosecution.
Phishing for personal information: Be careful before replying to that e-mail from the IRS notifying you of the thousand dollar refund you’re eligible for this year.
“IRS impersonation schemes flourish during the filing season,” the agency said. “Criminals use the information they get to steal the victim’s identity, access bank accounts, run up credit card charges or apply for loans in the victim’s name.”
These scams can come in the form of e-mails, phone calls, faxes or even tweets. If you receive an e-mail from someone claiming to be from the IRS, don’t open any attachments or click on links included in the e-mail. Instead, forward the message to the IRS at phishing@irs.gov.
Filing false or misleading forms: Scam artists are claiming refunds they don’t deserve by filing “false or misleading” returns, said the IRS.
Taxpayers are fabricating information returns and claiming made-up withholding credits in an attempt to make a little extra money from the IRS by way of a tax refund.
Some taxpayers carry out this scheme because they are under the belief that the federal government holds secret accounts for each of its citizens, said the IRS. These individuals believe that the funds in these hidden accounts can be accessed simply by issuing a Form 1099-Original Issue Discount, which is a phony information return.
Overvaluing your charitable donations: While giving to charity is a noble act, don’t reverse it by lying about the amount you donated.
It can be tempting to overvalue items you give away when reporting them on your return — especially for non-cash donations such as furniture or artwork — but the IRS is keeping an eye out for suspiciously high-valued donations this year.
Arguing with the IRS: Have a bone to pick with the IRS? Be careful.
Taxpayers are being convinced by scam artists to argue with the IRS in order to get back some of the taxes they owe to the agency.
“Promoters of frivolous schemes encourage people to make unreasonable and outlandish claims to avoid paying the taxes they owe,” the IRS said. “While taxpayers have the right to contest their tax liabilities in court, no one has the right to disobey the law or IRS guidance.”
The agency has a list of “frivolous” legal positions that have been “thrown out of court” and cannot be used against the IRS, so pick your fights carefully this tax season.
Fishy retirement plans: The IRS is on the hunt for taxpayers who abuse their retirement plan arrangements, including individual retirement accounts (IRAs).
Taxpayers who enter transactions that allow them to exceed the contribution limit of an IRA are wanted by the IRS, as are those people who fail to properly report early distributions.
Claiming gas costs: Trying to claim the money you spend on your hour-long commute to work each day? This could cost you a $5,000 fine from the IRS.
While taxpayers such as farmers who use fuel off highways as a means of carrying on their trade or business may qualify for the fuel tax credit, you can only claim the credit if it meets specific IRS requirements.
Disguising your company: It’s time to fess up to that business you own. The IRS is currently working with state authorities to identify corporations and other entities that disguise the ownership of a business.
These entities are often disguised through using a third party to request an employer identification number, and the businesses or financial services can be used for the underreporting of income, fictitious deductions, money laundering, financial crimes and even terrorist financing.
Giving yourself a pay cut: In an attempt to lower the amount of taxes owed, some taxpayers are filing phony wage-related information returns instead of the required returns.
“Taxpayers should resist any temptation to participate in any of the variations of this scheme,” said the IRS, adding that false filings could result in a $5,000 fine.
Abusing trusts: An increasing number of people are misusing private annuity trusts and foreign trusts to transfer income and deduct personal expenses.
“Some promoted transactions promise reduction of income subject to tax, deductions for personal expenses and reduced estate or gift taxes,” said the IRS. “Such trusts rarely deliver the tax benefits promised and are used primarily as a means to avoid income tax liability and to hide assets from creditors, including the IRS.”
Inflating your withholding credit: You could be fined $5,000 this year if you exaggerate your withholding when reporting nontaxable Social Security benefits, which would result in your falsely report zero income to the IRS.
Tell the IRS: If you notice anything fishy, report suspected tax fraud to the IRS using Form 3949-A.
By Melvin Perry Enzine
RSS feeds have been the talk of the Internet community for the past ten years. Many web editors and online marketers are using this application to rapidly syndicate news around the world. RSS feeds not only allows you to quickly browse through current news on the internet, but it can also give you enough flexibility in reading what you want online in a short period of time. As a result of this unique application, many web entrepreneurs are discovering ways to make money with rss feeds and content.
Before you can ever get started with knowing how to make money with RSS feeds, you have to first know what RSS is. The term RSS means “really simple syndication”. In simpler terms, you can describe an RSS document or “feed” as a snippet or snapshot of content on a particular web page or blog. This content is then syndicated throughout the World Wide Web as an RSS and visitors can subscribe to these feeds and place it as a bookmark on their personal pages. This is a good way for subscribers to know if there is fresh content on some of their favorite sites. However, some marketers use this application to generate changing content on their pages to make money with rss feeds as an affiliate marketer.
The most effective way to make money with rss feeds is by creating a blog. Any blog service you use should already be set up with a working RSS feed application. If you currently maintain a blog of your own, you can utilize the power of blogs to create and syndicate content across the internet for the sole purpose making profits. Many web marketers do this is by writing frequent blog post about various affiliate products or services of their own. The next step is to submit your blog to an RSS feed submitter site or directory to increase the chances that people subscribe to your RSS feed. Making money with rss feeds can be easily done when using blogs.
There is another method some internet marketers use to make money with rss feeds. Some individuals use rss feeds to convert their website pages from being dynamic to becoming static pages. Static pages are the web pages that are frequently updated with new and fresh content. Search engines, like Google and Yahoo, love to spider these changing sites and rank them well in the search engines. Blogs are an example of static pages. However, some marketers add rss feeds to dynamic pages to trick the search engines into thinking the particular site is being constantly updated with fresh content but in actually, it is borrowed content. On these sites, in particular, the owner uses adsense ads or affiliate links to make money with rss feeds.
How to make Money with GOOGLE ADSENSE
If you have a website or a blog, you should definitely sign up for Google Adsense. It’s one of the few programs you can truly ‘set and forget’ – once it’s there you don’t really need to do much else with it except making money and making it fast.
But there are ways and means to maximize your income from Google Adsense and make easy cash, and as you get to know more about it you can start to generate a decent income from it that will keep rolling in month after month. It’s a true passive income, which is why so many people are using it.
Most people have heard of Google Adsense, but not everyone understands exactly how to use it to its best advantage. So we’ll start with how to use it in its most basic sense and then progress to the more advanced benefits you can get from the program.
Basically if you have a website or blog you can sign up for a free account at Google Adsense and start putting contextual ads on your website. What do I mean by contextual? It means quite simply that the ads which appear on your site will be relevant to your content. So let’s say for example that your website is about tropical fish. The Google ads will then be related to tropical fish in some way. And because of the information that you give to Google, they will also display adverts that are relevant to your area. So if you are based in the UK the ads that appear will be relevant to UK buyers; if your site or business is based in Australia the ads will appeal to Australian buyers.
All of this is carefully worked out for you in order to attract the maximum click through possible for your website and your ads. Every time someone clicks on an ad you will get a few cents into your Adsense account, so it makes sense that the more attractive and relevant your ads are to your visitors, the more money you will make and the quick cash will begin.
Let’s have a look at the appearance of your ads now, since this can affect the amount of click throughs you get. You can choose the color and borders of your ads to fit right in with the color scheme on your site if you wish, but it’s worth experimenting with having no borders at all around your adverts since this makes them blend in with your content more seamlessly and may encourage more click throughs in a subtle but effective manner.
However well you integrate Google Adsense into your current blog or website though, there is obviously a limit to the amount of money you can make from one site. If you get thousands of people visiting your site every day then you can expect to get a good income from it but many people don’t get this number of visitors and that’s where you need a separate strategy to try and up your numbers.
In this case you can go to the advanced level of Adsense income and think about starting several sites, all based around a different yet popular subject. You should think of these essentially as being content sites, since they are often chock full of articles and useful content which is carefully keyworded to attract plenty of search engine traffic on that particular subject. The Adsense ads are then placed in the optimum positions to achieve the best click through (the Adsense pages will give you ideas on where to position them but it’s worth experimenting to see what works best for you), and the site goes live for people to find and read through.
You can also insert affiliate links for products into these sites in order to gain even more income if you wish, but they are often known as Adsense sites simply because they are set up to attract visitors and click throughs on a specific subject.
Some people end up with dozens of sites like this, and the beauty of them is that once they are built and you have bought your domain name and hosting plan you don’t really need to do too much with them except for promote them. Updating them fairly regularly is good if you want to get to a higher position in the search engine results though, which will gain you more visitors as a result.
You can also keep your site updated more regularly (and encourage repeat visitors) by inserting RSS feeds of news stories related to the subject of your website. Anything that will get people returning to read more – and possibly click on more ads as a result – is worth a try.
One final note here – choose the subjects of your Google Adsense sites wisely. It’s tempting to go for whatever is in the news at the moment, but once the stories die down so will your traffic. You want something that people will always want to know about – saving money, getting a better job, earning more, and various other more personal subjects such as skin care and successful dating for example. There are plenty of options to choose from; you just need to get your thinking cap on to find them.
In short the best place to start making money from Google Adsense is to integrate it into your existing website or blog. As you gain experience and discover the best ways to use it you can start thinking about adding extra sites into the mix. You might end up being an Adsense guru and raking in plenty of money for very little work indeed. That’s the best thing about it – the ‘set and forget’ benefit that keeps on working even when you’re not.
If you enjoyed this article or have any questions or comments about it, please leave them by using the form below. Once you’ve done that it will be time to visit Google’s Adsense site to get started! Good luck.
Bing and Yahoo search engine
Although it has not been widely publicized, after a recent partnership agreement in 2009, Microsoft now owns both Bing and Yahoo. However, when it comes to search engines, both have features which users like and dislike. For some, prefer Yahoo, especially when performing research. While others, more focused on accurate and up to date information regarding current trends, prefer Bing. In addition, Bing, unlike Yahoo has far superior graphic capabilities. Therefore to understand where both Microsoft and search engines may go in the future, one must ask the question: “Bing And Yahoo Search Engines. Who Will Be The Bigger Play And Why?”
So, how many people in the world use Bing and Yahoo? It is impossible for anyone to measure the number of people using any one search engine. However, the searches made can be monitored and are to acquire such statistics. Today, most all search engines monitor their search so as to know their current ranking in the industry.
Today, statistics show that although shy of the percentage of Yahoo, Bing is rapidly gaining ground on the search engine front. Yahoo however is still holding its own. This is true because as of today, they remain ahead when it comes to percentage totals with seventeen point five percent of the market share compared to Bing who currently maintains ten point seven percent of worldwide usage, but if Bing is seeing four to eight percent growth each month, then for how long?
So, is Bing or Yahoo more efficient in retrieving information over the other? Bing wins out on this front, as information has been updated more recently even if only with the initial design, development and release of Bing and its massive database. In addition, Yahoo has been in existence for over ten years whereas Bing has only just made its debut in the last few. Therefore, Yahoo unlike Bing may return both current and outdated information compared to Bing in which results are almost always current and up to date.
Unlike Yahoo, Bing also has the capability to return information in an answer format when one types in a question. In addition, it has been developed with newer features and technologies, such as that of allowing individuals to provide feedback to Microsoft with regards to missing or wrong information. So, although both are both excellent in their own right, each one may be better for some tasks than the other.
However, both are still helpful in obtaining information. How helpful each one may be depends in large part on the user and their needs. This is true because, for tasks relating to research and development one may find the outdated information in Yahoo quite useful; Whereas if one is looking to obtain current specific detailed information, then Bing may be a better option. It is clear however, when it comes to Bing that it may be the one that leads the way into the search engine optimization process into the future.
While Bing is more efficient than Yahoo, it is only due in part to the newer technology and the fact that the database has more recently been loaded with data than Yahoo. Therefore, if one knows exactly what one is looking for, current and accurate results are displayed rapidly in Bing. Whereas with Yahoo, information returned may often be cached or outdated. However, if using a search engine for a research project then Yahoo may be quite useful in locating both current and background information.
Given the recent push into the search engine market by both engines, experts can agree that Google will still hold the majority of market share for years to come, probably forever.
One must understand both statistics and ways in which each Bing and Yahoo are used in order to answer the question, “Yahoo And Bing Search Engines. Whose Going To Be The Bigger Player And Why?” However, once one understands same, then it is clearly easy to see that according to recent statistics Bing is moving into the twenty first century, right along with Yahoo and Microsoft. However, in just a few short years, Bing may very well pass Yahoo in overall usage thus proving even more beneficial to Microsoft than it has today.
Yahoo Revenue Dips in Q4, But Shows Signs of Life
Embattled Web firm posts sequential advertising increases as recession woes fade.
By Kenneth Corbin: from internetnews
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Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) today reported financial results for the fourth quarter of 2009, posting an overall decline in revenue from the comparable period in 2008, but still meeting Wall Street’s expectations and showing signs that the company’s slumping advertising business is on the upswing.
Yahoo posted earnings of $119 million, or 11 cents per share, in line with analysts’ expectations and reversing a $278 million loss, or 22 cents per share, in the fourth quarter of 2008.
Fourth-quarter net revenue dipped to $1.26 billion from $1.38 billion, but that was slightly ahead of analysts’ expectation of $1.23 billion, according to polling by Thomson Reuters. That figure that excludes the commissions paid to Yahoo’s advertising partners.
In the meantime, Yahoo posted overall revenue for the quarter of $1.73 billion, down 4 percent from the same period in 2008, but still an improvement over the 12 percent annual decline Yahoo has posted over the first three quarters of 2009.
Display revenues on Yahoo properties increased 26 percent over the third quarter, while search revenues were up 4 percent, giving the embattled company hope that the recession is abating and its turnaround strategy is beginning to bear fruit.
“The fourth quarter marked a strong finish to 2009, which was a transformative year for Yahoo,” CEO Carol Bartz said in a statement. “We beat the high end of our revenue guidance, saw demand for premium display advertising improve significantly, and grew owned and operated search advertising revenue sequentially for the first time since the third quarter of 2008.”
Yahoo reported overall revenues for 2009 of $6.46 billion, a decline of 10 percent from 2008 driven in large part by the recession.
But for some analysts, Yahoo was in line to bounce back the strongest as the recession appears to ebb.
“We continue to like Yahoo shares and it remains our top pick for 2010,” Doug Anmuth, an analyst who tracks Internet companies for Barclays Capital, wrote in a research note earlier this week.
“Yahoo is well leveraged to an ad rebound in both display and search, and we believe that display in particular will show stronger trends in 4Q and into 2010.”
In the meantime, Yahoo’s ad mix is in a bit of a limbo as it continues to await approval from the Justice Department, which is conducting an antitrust review of its search-advertising pact with Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), a deal the companies brokered in an attempt to better compete with search leader Google (NASDAQ: GOOG).
Yahoo executives have said they expect the deal to close in the first quarter of this year.
Speaking on a conference call with financial analysts, Bartz said that Yahoo does not expect to begin netting money from the revenue share through the Microsoft deal until 2011, after the companies’ advertising and engineering operations have been integrated.
She reiterated the company’s commitment to continue to compete in search irrespective of the deal, both in terms of growing query volume and improving the monetization rates per search.
But Yahoo may be even more bullish on its fortunes in display.
“While many of you didn’t believe me, I kept saying through 2009 that brand advertising would come back. It always has,” Bartz said on today’s conference call. “You can’t position a brand with keywords.”
She added, “We have some of the best, if not the best, premium inventory on the Internet.”
Over the past year under Bartz’s tenure, Yahoo has redesigned some of its major properties, including its home page, which she said has sold out of inventory on several occasions, and its search and e-mail services.
Last year, Yahoo launched a major global ad campaign that was in large part aimed at advertisers in an effort to remind them that after all the turmoil the company has been through in recent years, it remains one of the most popular destinations on the Web.
Bartz said that the domestic portion of that campaign is now shifting gears to focus more on individual products that the company offers, with less emphasis on re-energizing the Yahoo brand.
As much effort as Yahoo has spent building out its content portfolio, Bartz said the company continues to grapple with the challenge of targeting ads based on users’ interests and preferences.
“Truth be told, no one has uncovered the holy grail of making advertising as relevant as content is 100 percent of the time,” she said. “If we can do this, we can create a better experience for both the advertiser and the user.”
Looking ahead to 2010, she said Yahoo is on a path of investment and growth, seeking to tamp down speculation that she plans to jettison numerous properties that don’t fit with the company’s vision.
Earlier this month, Yahoo unloaded the open source e-mail provider Zimbra to VMware, and Bartz acknowledged that there could be a few more such deals over the coming year, but that Yahoo is not headed for a firesale.
“2010 is not about divestitures for Yahoo,” she said. “For us, 2010 is about acquisition and investments,” she added, though she was quick to caution that Yahoo is not planning any large-scale purchases, but rather smaller, more targeted properties that could fill a niche.
Profitable Internet Business Ideas – How to Start Your Own Internet Business
Earning money from a profitable internet business is something that a lot of people want to achieve but very small amount of people actually do. Making a business work, whether it is a online business or an off-line business, is always difficult and success is never guaranteed. One of the first choices you have to make, is finding the right method to make money.
Profitable Internet Business Ideas
If you are an average person with average talents, then starting with affiliate marketing may be right direction for you. As an affiliate marketer your job is to sell other people`s products for a commission for every sale you make. This is profitable for both sides and a successful affiliate marketer can make as much as $1000 a day.
Achieving this success is very hard of course and it will take a long time, even if you make the right choices and are really hard working. I suspect that you want your internet business to become profitable as quickly as possible. The faster you want results the more work you need to do and joining a program that teaches about affiliate marketing and gives you the blueprint to succeed is essential.
The second option is to create your own product, whether it is an e-book, a video course or something else. People are very much interested in informative content on the internet and if you are an expert in something, then you can earn excellent profits.
A lot of people start with affiliate marketing first and then create a product of their own, while others create their own product right away. So if you have can find a profitable niche and if you can create a good product that people are looking for then you can make it.
Then again it is really helpful if you learn to create your own product from experts. For example if you decide to write an e-book, then you have to know what niche is profitable, how to write a e-book that sells, how to market your product etc. This is not a straight forward process and you can make a lot of mistakes.
Fortunately there are some really helpful guides that will show you every step of the process, from picking a niche to creating a website. A profitable business is not something you put together in a few days and then sit back and watch the money coming to your bank account.
There are of course other ways to make money online as well, like taking surveys. But affiliate marketing and creating your own product and the main ones, that are the most profitable. Hopefully you have the patience and desire to succeed, because it may take you a long time to earn money or you may not make anything. One thing is for sure, you can`t do it alone and the more help you get the better your chances are. I believe investing a small amount of money to your business will pay off.
4 things to watch when starting a online buisness
To anyone who wants to build and establish an online business, there has always been consideration whether to get online business systems or not. After all, they are supposed to help you facilitate better services and get you more revenue with less effort right? However, recently, there have been some serious talks about the validity of these systems. There have been questions whether they really work or not. Some people have claimed them to be useless investments and waste of time.
While it is true that there are prevalent scams in the Internet today, there are still online business systems that work. You would just have to know which system to select and trust. The question now is, how are you supposed to know if they work?
The following characteristics/factors will help you select a good system that will work for your business.
1. Avoid companies that offer systems and then let you do the guesswork after. As much as possible, try to look for someone who will customize the system for you, provide you training how to use it and be there for you during the launch.
2. Look for a company that provides online support 24/7. This is one thing that you should be particular of because most often Internet based services also run 24/7. As such, it will be wise for you to get someone who can help you with system bugs and downtimes whenever you need it.
3. Check the profile of the company and see their feedbacks based on their client’s point of view. The only way for you to this is to do thorough research. But remember, your research should not be limited to their website alone. It is best to further your quest for information by visiting online business forums and see what your fellow entrepreneurs have to say about a certain company.
Just be prepared because almost all companies are tainted. Meaning, at one point or another, they have received a negative feedback from their clients. So do not expect a company with a squeaky clean image. What you should aim to find is “the” company with the most raves than rants.
4. Stay away from systems that are priced dirt cheap. Why? This is because somehow, the price of the system is reflective of the services they offer. More often, the companies that give their services at a low rate are those that have the most problems. So perhaps it is better for you to look for a system that is pegged at a slightly higher price but has been guaranteed to work.
Those are four things that you have to look ate when you are checking out online business systems that will work for you. If you notice, everything just boils down to two things: doing your assignment by researching and trusting your gut feeling. If you feel that a company is overpromising just to hook you, then back off and move on to the next company that will give you more realistic facts and figures.
Succes online Buisness
Businesses do not have a secret, no-fail formula for success. But basic requirements apply such as industry and well-maintained business promotion. Businesses are now going online to exploit this newfound medium; setting up an online business is hotter than ever. But the question is – are business owners prepared to do business online?
Why such concern? If business owners do know how to do business in the physical world, why should it be any different in the virtual realm? Sadly, there really is big discrepancy in these two media. Online businesses utilize the services of a website most of the time. Instead of the business owner being there to meet customers while smiling warmly, radiating a positive feel to potential clients, online business consists of a flat screen with the business logo, mission and vision and the products and services the company offers. The website speaks for itself, for the company. There are no nonverbal cues to be observed, no time to explain oneself, and ultimately no time to tailor fit responses depending on the personality of the website viewer.
Doing business online is actually a more complicated thing compared to setting up a business in the real world. Here, psychology concepts are employed on top of business principles. The business owner must be a master of foretelling how consumers will react with each online promotion and activity. He must know how to keep his audience constantly checking the website for updates. He must be able to provide good content in the website and make it a reliable source of professional opinion.
Various techniques can be used to promote business online. Social media such as Facebook and Twitter are leading examples of exploitable media for business promotion. Notice how many ads are popping in the right hand corner of your Facebook page? Those are paid advertisements. You can bet that most people are ignoring these ads so why pay for something that gets ignored eventually? If you are a business owner, a Facebook account named after your company or the brand you are selling will most likely find its way to potential customers.
Fan pages are great examples of social media advertising. Creating a fan page for a product or service and inviting people to become part of it will give the business owner a chance to assess how customers online respond to your advertising efforts. This two-way communication, with the business executive going down to the grassroots level, will enable the owner to get fresh feedback from consumers. Winners will most likely make use of these comments, losers tend to ignore it and stick with flawed strategies.
Aside from social media marketing, business owners can also opt to make use of SEO tools in order to become more “searchable” on the internet. Search Engine Optimization can be done by using meta tags, updating website content regularly, promoting the website in other more popular web pages, and by linking to the site a couple of times using other websites. Still, business owners can also avail of SEO experts who can make your page easily detectable to search engine web crawlers.
These strategies are not the sole strategies that can be used in promoting a business online. With increasing familiarity to the medium, business owners will be able to conceptualize their own plan of attack in the internet.
How to make money on EBAY
There is a lot of money to be made as a seller on eBay. Thousands and thousands of sales are made each day, resulting in a lot of income for a lot of sellers. And there is still room for you if you want to get involved – whether you want to earn some part time cash or set up a whole new full time business on the side.
But where do you get your stock from? How do you get started? And how can you build a business that gives you PowerSeller status? Relax – you’re about to find out.
It’s easy work to get started earning money on eBay. Once you’ve signed up for your free account the best way to get a feel for what selling is like is to auction off some of your personal items that you no longer want. If you are going to start buying stock to resell, you’ll do better by getting some basic selling experience first.
While we are on the subject of stock, you’ll need to decide what kind of business you are going to set up on EBAY. Of course you can sell anything you like, but if you want to make a name for yourself it helps to become known for selling a specific type of product.
Now that doesn’t necessarily mean your product area needs to be a small one; on the contrary it could be quite large. You could sell toys for example – there’s plenty there to keep any seller going for months on end without selling the same thing twice. You do need to pick a popular product though, and it’s worth doing some research using eBay’s advanced search feature to find out what is selling and how much it’s selling for.
So let’s say you want to sell computer games, for example. There are hundreds of games you could buy to sell here, but if you don’t know which ones will sell you could lose a lot of money buying the wrong stock. By searching the ended listings you can see which titles consistently sell well, and which ones will produce the best profit for you.
Okay – so you know how to figure out what to buy. Now you need to know where to get it from. It stands to reason that no seller is going to tell you where they get their stock; that would be like giving away the keys to their business. In order to find the best sources for stock you need to do a bit of legwork.
We should mention here that there are two main sources for stock – wholesalers and dropshippers. Both have their pros and cons; it just depends on which method you personally prefer.
Dropshippers hold all the stock for you, so you only actually pay for an item once you’ve received payment from the customer. You may have to pay a fee to join the scheme in the first place though. If you choose to go with one or more wholesalers you will need to have the room to buy the stock, and the money to buy it in advance. This comes with more risk since you could buy stock that doesn’t sell, but with the tactic we’ve already covered for checking completed listings before you order anything, the risk here should be kept to a minimum.
So – back to where to find these sources. If you have a particular product in mind that you want to sell, the simple act of looking at the packaging can often reveal the name of the supplier. You can then check out their website to see what else they do.
Another method is to search for what you want on Google. This sounds deceptively simple and in fact many people don’t think of doing this. It can be a bit hit or miss, but it’s possible to find some excellent wholesalers through this method. Over time you will go from having one wholesaler to a handful of sources to get your stock from, and you can build up your product range as you start to grow.
Building your feedback is an important part of being a good seller and the higher you can get your score the better. It sets you apart as being a dedicated seller. And the faster your score climbs, the closer you get to attaining PowerSeller status.
The PowerSeller symbol is highly prized among serious eBay sellers, and there are five levels to strive for. The first is Bronze, and it’s a lot easier to reach than you might think. While you might set a goal for yourself to reach PowerSeller, you will find that if you build up your product range and gradually increase your sales, you will reach it in no time. And if you get off to a great start you might just do it in three months – the minimum time you can actually do it in.
Many sellers have their own shop on eBay, but it’s not necessary when you first get started. In fact you are often better off waiting until you have a good range of stock before opening a shop, since it can look rather empty if you only have a handful of items.
The final thing to think about is the price of the items you are selling. It stands to reason that if you sell a hundred different products in the $5 to $10 price range, you won’t make as much cash as you would selling a hundred in the $50 to $100 price range.
But you need to work out what you enjoy selling and what you can sell lots of to experience real success on eBay. Don’t go for expensive products just because they might bring a bigger profit. Go for your calling – that’s where you will experience the biggest success.
Above all, remember that it can take time to build a successful business – but if you’re determined to achieve real success on eBay you should be enjoying the journey.
If you have any questions or comments about making money on eBay, please leave your comments below.
How to make money with CraigList
Just in case you haven’t stumbled across this website yet, Craigslist is the basic looking but extremely popular website that has classified adverts for virtually everything you could think of.
As such it offers a number of ways that you can make money – all you need to do is get your thinking cap on and decide what way would work best for you. The vast majority of adverts are free to post, making this a great way to get in touch with people and offer services and products for sale.
With a little creative thinking you could soon join the band of people who are making a nice income from advertising on Craigslist.
One of the best ways to make money with this website is to think about what services you can offer to other people. The beauty of Craigslist is that there are separate parts of the website for each country and area, so you are sure to find one near you that would be ideal for posting your advert to.
You can often make money quite easily by offering a service related to one of your hobbies. For example, if you love gardening why not hire yourself out to do light gardening jobs for other people? This could be as simple as a lawn mowing service, or as complex as a complete garden makeover. The sky is the limit here, but be sure you have a list of prices and you know exactly what you are offering before you place your advert.
You can also use Craigslist to search for items that other people are looking to get rid of. Once you have something worthwhile you can sell it to someone else using everyone’s favorite website eBay. For some reason there are a lot of people who don’t think of using Craigslist in this way, which means there are a lot of bargains to be had – and a lot of money to be made once you sell them via this or any other auction site.
If you are currently selling items from your own website or via any other means you can also make money by selling them directly through classifieds on Craigslist. So long as you list them in the right section and describe them accurately (including relevant keywords wherever you can) you should get a good response and more sales just from doing this.
If you are thinking of making money via Craigslist in any way, it’s well worth spending some time browsing round the site to get an idea of the sheer scale of what it is all about. This activity alone should give you several ideas for making money that you might not previously have thought of.
Before you post an advert, make sure you read the help pages to ensure you don’t unwittingly break any rules. The help pages can be accessed via the top left hand corner of the home page. They are reasonably straight forward but you will want to use this site for many months to come, so it pays to look through them first to make sure you understand everything.
In short, Craigslist offers plenty of ways to make money from home; all you need to do is figure out the best way for you. But make sure you start with that research first. A search online will also reveal some blogs where other people share their own ways of bringing in an income from this site.
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