Auctions For Income

Well, on June 9, 2008, my husband presented me with a surprise. Knowing how much I had wanted to try my hand at selling on EBay, but not knowing how to get started, he had purchased a program that promised to teach me just how to achieve these goals. The program was called Auctions For Income, and the kit consisted of several books, a quick start CD and a web address for assistance and coaching. I was really excited, and began looking over the information right away. The topics of the books ranged on how to get familiar with EBay, selling your personal household items, how and where to purchase items for resale, and even how to find drop-ship companies to buy products from. Oh, one book was devoted to finding items through foreclosure and government seizures. All the possibilities outlined in the books sounded interesting, but before getting into all that, the first thing I wanted to do was get going and sell at least one thing that I already owned!

Having this program was really helpful in that I had something I could look at in the book and follow along with while I was simultaneously seeing the same thing live on the EBay site. Sort of like a "tutor". Within a short time I had a better feeling for how to navigate and do research on EBay, look for past performance on auctions for products I was considering selling, strategy for setting prices and even how to research the "hot" items that were in demand. The tips on writing effective ad copy were helpful, as well as knowing that there are better times of day and days of the week to start and end the auction.

Within 6 days I was ready to post my first auction item! Wanting to make my first auction as likely to be a success as I could, the item I chose was of the type that research had shown had a really high likelihood of selling: Brand new Antivirus software. We had gotten the software with the purchase of another product, but did not need it, so, never opened it. It seems people are always on the lookout for this type of item, at a good price. My first auction was set to open June 15th and run for a week. Of course it was enticing to check out the listing and see how many views it had and how many bids, if any. It really did not surprise me that the bids were slow to start, for most people who have participated in auctions have figured out not to drive the price up with early bidding. When I saw that I had 2 people "watching" the product, I was pleased! On the last day of the auction, about 3 hours before the ending time, bidding began, and by the end there were 5 people bidding. The final sales price was a nice surprise, and setting up to receive payment through Pay Pal made receiving my money effortless. All in all, I felt gratified to have finally made the leap from wanting to sell on EBay to selling on EBay.

Nothing like being successful to get the ball rolling, so I decided on a 2nd item to set for auction and began the preparations. As far as the Auctions For Income program, I spent a little more time reading through the various books. The deeper I read, and the more I thought about what it would entail to really build up sources of products to sell in auction, I began questioning if following this program, beyond just selling some of my household items, was really for me. Having made that first bit of money online convinced me that I really wanted to find a way of creating a business using my computer online, but, I wasn't convinced that either Auctions for Income or EBay would be the main way I would do this.