Posts filed under 'Blog Archive'
Have you ever thought about selling name brand clothes, but don’t have enough to buy the inventory? Here’s an idea: buy cheap, sell at discounts. Here is what you have to do:
- Find the merchandise. You won’t believe the sheer amount of name brand clothes you can find cheap. Many of the major retail outlets such as Target, Macy’s, Nordstrom (just to name a few) periodically liquidate their inventory so they can buy up new stuff. Much of these products are bought by liquidation companies in bulk, who then sell it off to anyone who is interested. It’s not unusual to see shirts that you would usually see in stores for $40, being sold by liquidation companies for $5. Usually these items come in large mixed pallets, so be sure to know whats included in them. Another great place to find overstock and liquidation clothing is Liquidation.com. This is an auction site that caters to B2B, so you can find a wide range of products here from clothing to computers. Just make sure you get the shipping quotes as most of the packages are usually very heavy.
- Find a store. Normally, a discount store would be great in an urban area or shopping center with a decent amount of traffic going back and forth. Find a place you can lease at a reasonable price, and remember to negotiate it as much as you can. The lower the price for space, the more profits in your pocket. Make sure it has good display space in the front, so you can showcase your products and the store to the people outside.
- Marketing. Hold periodic sales store-wide. This is a great way to liquidate your own merchandise (at a reasonable profit), plus pull in more customers who will love to get discounts on already discounted items.
Start up can vary, ranging from $2000-$10,000, depending on how much inventory you wish to initially carry, plus the rent, fixtures, Point-of-Sales equipment etc. Make sure you create a business and budget plan prior to getting started.
July 25th, 2007
If you are looking for a book that teaches you the ins and outs of starting a real eBay business, look no further. eBay Powerseller Secrets gives you the full details on whats necessary to start and succeed in eBay. It gives you tons of ideas from how to choose your inventory, where to get inventory, optimizing and automating your eBay business, setting up shipping options and much more. Quite a few successful Powersellers are profiled in this book, all of whom give invaluable advice for your eBay business.
You can get the book at our Amazon.com Bookstore.
July 25th, 2007
Okay, so basically I was thinking of some ways people could make money with their cars. Some of these are known, while others are my own ideas. Feel free to add in your ideas as well.
- Courier service. You probably see quite a few of these around. Basically shipping urgent mail/packages for your clients same day, probably within a few hours. There are also quite a few specialty ones that cater to hospitals and law offices.
- Food delivery service. How about delivering food from local restaurants who don’t want to hire a full-time delivery person. You can probably charge by job, or have a fixed monthly fee.
- Become a race car driver. Now who doesn’t want to do this?
- Paid advertisements. Ask businesses if they want to rent space on your car to put their ads on. You can probably charge by month for this, heck do it for other cars too by paying off commissions to drivers. Probably good for the college student crowd.
- Notary service on wheels. Become a mobile notary agent and offer your services to people who need documents notarized. You might have to work at uneven hours for this.
Thats pretty much of what I can come up with for now. If you have a creative idea too, tell us!
July 24th, 2007
I know many of you must have noticed those ads that sell you information on ebooks, normally with the claim that you can generate tons of income. But did you know thats how a lot of people make money? Yes, by selling Ebooks quite a few of these individuals make an awesome amount of income, just check out this neat article I found in Yaro Starak’s blog (these people made $250,000 in a year!). Are you interested? Then here is what you have to do:
- Get the Ebook. You can either write one from scratch about a topic you really know about (provided its a marketable idea), or you can buy one. Yes, many ebook authors actually allow people to resell their ebooks, and this can be a wise choice for you if you wish to sell multiple ones. You can find them all over the web, and even buy them in bulk from individuals (you can find a few on the Digitalpoint Forums).
- Make a Pitch Page. You will have to get a domain name for your product, and when you do, you will also have to get a web page made that will act as your sales pitch. You can either do this yourself, or have someone else do it for you. It should be able to grab a persons attention when they first see it, so its very important to have a good pitch. This is a nice example of a pitch page: The Truth About Six-Pack Abs.
- Get registered at ClickBank. This is a checkout service specifically designed for digital products (like Ebooks and software). The best part about it is it’s huge network of affiliates. Basically, all you would have to do is it set the amount of commission you are willing to share with an affiliate, and let them promote the products for you. You would be surprised to see how big the share of affiliate sales are for many ebook sites, with some of them receiving more than 80% of all their sales from affiliates.
- Market your Ebook. Aside from ClickBanks affiliates, you can also use Google Adwords to market you products, which would display in Adsense’s Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads. You can also drive traffic through a paid traffic service, but be careful; some paid traffic services drive traffic through bots and pop-ups/pop-unders. Make sure you do your research before using them.
July 23rd, 2007
From Wikipedia:
The General Motors Ultralite was a 1992 low emission vehicle concept car intended to demonstrate the benefits of advanced materials and low fuel consumption. The carbon fiber shell was fabricated by Scaled Composites and it amounted to only 420 pounds. The total weight was 1,400 pounds (635 kg). Its 3 cylinder 1.5 L two stroke engine could produce 111 hp (83 kW), which made a speed of 135 mph (217 km/h) possible. The goal was to make a four passenger show car capable of 100 mpg (2.4 L/100 km). It was rated at 88 mpg (2.7 L/100 km) by the EPA.
The shape was reminiscent of the Ford Probe concept, and the Ultralite presaged the production General Motors EV1 electric vehicle and other production models.
This vehicle was also featured in the 1993 film, Demolition Man as squad cars used by the fictional SAPD (San Angeles Police Department). Another appearance was in a 1999 movie Bicentennial Man.
Why the hell wasn’t this car mass produced?!?!
July 22nd, 2007
With the substantial growth of the Internet and the popularity of Internet Marketing newer ways have been developed as to earn income from your own web’s traffic. Affiliate programs also referred to, as associate program is a reliable technique of earning income online. Most of the affiliate programs aim to help you set up a technique through which you begin earning commissions on visitor sales as referred by you. The quality of programs and results however vary immensely from one program to another thus making it imperative to choose which goes best with you and your website. Thus this article should be able to give you a clearer picture of what to look for before joining an online affiliate program.
1) The degree of stability of the company as well as the program
It is of immense importance that you should understand how stable is the affiliate company and its program if you are to survive in the long run. You should also consider if the company is financially sound and if they offer assistance while promoting any opportunity you may have. Another point to notice is if whether they make payments in a timely fashion. If not then this may give an indication that something is wrong with them on the money front and you could lose on potential income.
2) Synergy with your site
This is another vital factor that you must consider if you with to get yourself affiliated with another online company. It is often observed that many sites sign up for every affiliate program they can, just to make a few bucks on each and be profitable. For some this may work out however for most others it will not as it will turn off your targeted audience just because of over commercialization. If you are seriously considering various affiliate programs then be sure what your online audience might be interested in which in turn results in online buying.
For example if your site caters to a general audience then perhaps general affiliate programs such as Amazon will be beneficial. Another example could be if your site caters to car enthusiasts then a leading car website would be an effective program.
3) Commission Tracking
Another important aspect that you may want to look into is whether the affiliate program offers some way for you to track sales and the number of visitors you refer. There are many ways this can be done. Ways like real time or online reporting system shows you the exact number of sales as well as your commission. You can also track sales through a simple email system. You should also test the accuracy of the system if you want to avoid any biased ness.
4) Look for Repeat Business Opportunity
A business cannot survive simply on a one-time purchase. You will have to seek ways for repeat online sales. This holds its relevance with affiliate programs. One of the biggest complaints many webmasters have is that if they are affiliated with sites like Amazon and if they refer a customer then they get the one time commission of say $ 1 or $2 but in the process the customer bookmarks the Amazon Home Page. The next time the customer visits the site they automatically return to the homepage through the bookmark and the Webmaster never gets another cent. Several online programs have tried to ease out this problem and they have been successful to do so. So you must also look into this aspect if you are seriously looking to join an online affiliate program to earn the extra income.
July 22nd, 2007
Business2 Magazine reports that Google is facing a backlash after their stock went down more than 7% yesterday. With the proposed acquisition of DoubleClick for which they’re offering $3.1 billion (already being scrutinized by the FTC) and a German conglomerate recently receiving a $166 million from the German government to build a search engine, it seems like there’s trouble from every corner.
It also seems that Google is trying to monetize Youtube as part of the solution, though with those intrusive Flash ads. My solution though would be such: Allow video bloggers on Youtube to insert Adsense in their videos and profiles. Considering the shear amount of Youtubers, I think it would be in Google’s best interest to make this another source of revenue.
July 20th, 2007
Recently I read an article on Forbes.com regarding Sumner Redstone’s (the guy who owns Viacom and CBS) ongoing feud with his daughter, Shari Redstone. Sumner claims that she “ignores the cardinal rule of good governance” in regards to the two companies, and that they should be able to pick out a successor for him. The full article can be found here:
Redstone Blasts Daughter
So is it wise to get the family involved in business? My personal opinion has always been no; money, family, and friends don’t mix. Personally I have see quite a few “business families” spiral into feuds between each other, sometimes with ugly results. Whenever money is involved, greed is usually there to rear it’s ugly head. Family/friends are supposed to be a source of comfort. Business is stressful, and sometimes even devious. Why bother mixing the two?
July 20th, 2007
Taken from “Adams Businesses You Can Start Almanac”
Startup cost: $500-$1000
Potential earnings: $15,000-$100,000
Typical fees: 10 to 25 percent of a gig
Advertising: Industry trades, local paper, direct mail, nightclubs, bulletin boards, musicians’ associations, Web site
Qualifications: An ear for what will sell, management and negotiation skills
Equipment needed: Computer, laser printer, cell phone
Home business potential: Yes
Staff required: no
Hidden costs: Band could fire you without notice; it’s a good idea to represent several
Lowdown:
You’re into the club scene; you know instinctively what’s hot and what’s not. You see a few up-and-coming bands that need representation (because truthfully, most musicians lack business skills). If you’ve got the ability to convince musicians that you can really sell them and make their jobs easier by handling all of the business details they’d probably rather not think about anyway, you can make a decent – and if you go national or garner a recording contract, maybe even a darn good – living. You’ll need to be well connected in the club scene, and if you are clued in on where to plug you band(s), you could successfully book them for regular gigs and earn a steady flow of income for yourself in the process. Of course, you need to really believe in your bands, because if you don’t you won’t be able to develop and promote them properly and it will show in your presentation. Good negotiation skills are a must.
Startup:
You’ll need some initial capital ($500-$1000) to help get your first band off the ground and to lay the groundwork for some publicity. The ability to negotiate good contracts is important not only to the band, but to you because you get roughly 10 to 25 percent of whatever the band makes. With percentages like that, you could make $15,000-$100,000 (depending on how many bands you represent and how popular they become).
Bottom Line Advice:
Expect to spend long hours on the phone trying to get bookings. At the start you’ll probably still have a day job, so expect you evenings and weekends to be tied up. Start out at small clubs and work your way to bigger ones as your band(s) get more confident.
July 16th, 2007
Want to become a networking giant? You can’t afford to miss these tips:
- Develop as many contacts as you can. If you add one new contact each day, that will be 20-30 contacts in a month.
- Tell people about one thing you personally feel you do best. Don’t tell them about all the things that you do, it would only serve to confuse them (not to mention it would make the conversation seem one-sided). Be clear and concise about what you do, and let the other person speak.
- Be a leader, show initiative, and introduce yourself. Don’t start handing out business cards unless you have at least established a verbal connection with you potential contact.
- Cultivate your contacts. Don’t use the situation to get immediate business, instead ask to meet privately later on. No one likes to feel pressured, and it only makes you look desperate.
- Keep in touch. Email or fax articles that might be of interest to your contact; it would show that you listen to what they have to say, and would establish good rapport in between.
July 15th, 2007
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