PayPal was another stumbling block for me, before my EBay experience. Several years ago I tried to sign up to use PayPal, and for whatever reason, the attempt was not successful and I was not inclined to try their service again. Well, when I was setting up my EBay sellers account, I had to choose the option on how I was to receive my payments. In theory, PayPal seemed to be the most logical option to me, so, I decided to give it another try. And this time, it was successful!
Setting up the account took a few minutes, and required some detailed information, but nothing too complicated. Once I was set up and began using my account to receive payments to, I realized how convenient and useful PayPal was going to be. For anyone who has not used this service before, imagine a "clearinghouse" where merchants can send payment money to a sellers account. The seller receives the payments into their PayPal account, and then, when they choose, have the money direct-deposited into their personal bank account. One benefit is that instead of having a lot of deposits going into your bank account that you would have to reconcile at the end of the month, you decide how many deposits you want, and how often. (Assuming you have payments in your PayPal account to transfer!). In addition to this, there is the added ability to print out a monthly statement from PayPal for your account activity. I'm finding this a useful way to help organize my sales receipts, and having streamlined organization from the beginning of a project is something I really believe in.
Now, not every merchant uses PayPal for payment processing, but, since so many places do, it's great to have it. I couldn't see running an Internet business without it! If you want to know more, have a look around PayPal here.
Showing posts with label Ebay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ebay. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
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.
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.
Monday, August 25, 2008
The Allure of EBay
It was September 1999 when my husband and I had our first experience with EBay, as buyers. At the time we were just getting involved with scuba diving and needing to build up our equipment. Well, how handy was it to just sit in front of the computer screen and discover all that we needed to outfit ourselves from head to toe! On top of the selection and great prices, there was the excitement of timing the push of the enter key at just the right moment to achieve the Winning Bid honor! It was all so easy. As a buyer. For some reason, making the transition from buyer to seller was daunting for us. After a while the phase of our EBay pursuits faded, and though off and on I mentioned that I would love to get rid of some of our "stuff" on EBay, I couldn't get past the "wanting" stage to the "doing" stage. I always said it was because we didn't have a convenient way to take and then post the necessary photos to use for listing online. But it was more than that.
Fast forward to spring 2008. By this time we had moved to the Gulf Coast and had down sized from 3000+/- sq. ft. to 1400 sq. ft. You know how when you move you think you have done a good job culling out your unwanted possessions, but then you realize, like a rough draft, it takes more than one attempt to finish the job completely? Spring cleaning had hit and I started going through some boxes we had put to the side and finding more and more things that we realized we needed less and less. Well, I started telling my husband that I wanted to get rid of this stuff and there was no reason we couldn't list it and sell it on EBay. By now we had a good digital camera. I figured everybody else was making money on EBay, so why not us? Well, time passed and I found myself still "stuck". Why couldn't I just get going and post our things online? Could it be that hard? What's the worst thing that could happen? Everyone else can do this, why can't I? Then I realized, it's because I didn't know how. Being a seller is different. You have to know how to do something before you can do it, and I didn't know to sell on EBay, nor where to learn.
Fast forward to spring 2008. By this time we had moved to the Gulf Coast and had down sized from 3000+/- sq. ft. to 1400 sq. ft. You know how when you move you think you have done a good job culling out your unwanted possessions, but then you realize, like a rough draft, it takes more than one attempt to finish the job completely? Spring cleaning had hit and I started going through some boxes we had put to the side and finding more and more things that we realized we needed less and less. Well, I started telling my husband that I wanted to get rid of this stuff and there was no reason we couldn't list it and sell it on EBay. By now we had a good digital camera. I figured everybody else was making money on EBay, so why not us? Well, time passed and I found myself still "stuck". Why couldn't I just get going and post our things online? Could it be that hard? What's the worst thing that could happen? Everyone else can do this, why can't I? Then I realized, it's because I didn't know how. Being a seller is different. You have to know how to do something before you can do it, and I didn't know to sell on EBay, nor where to learn.
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