The Online Actos Blog

With so many out of work, laid off or staying in dead end jobs to make the ends meet, we need creative ways of generating extra income. Here are a few simple, innovative ideas to get the cash you need quickly.

1) Your personal gold mine, can be staring you right in the face. Many of us save momentos for years for nostalgia or for that one time that we might need them. That time never seems to come though. Why not allow someone else to enjoy them as much as you have. These nick nacks may seem inconsequential or even like junk to you and may seem like buried treasure to some one else.

Go through your closets. Clear off your bookshelves. Unload those dresser drawers and create streams of income. Turn that old typewriter into a writer’s dream and earn extra pocket money. Take that nineteen fifties dress out of the closet and make a retro chick happy, while filling your bank account.

With the invention of online auctions, like ebay and ubid, you can turn trash to cash. Or you can go to flea markets and offer your treasure up to vendors for half the profits. Books can be redeemed for a partial profit through sites like half.com or even amazon.com.

Once you have emptied your own closets, you can scour the malls for sales and resell those items online. Or better yet find a deal on one online auction and resell it on another. The only lmitation lies within your own imagination.

2) Have a brilliant idea or hobby? Turn it into an ebook. Write it using word or wordperfect and convert it into a pdf file using adobe 5.0. Then sell it on digibuy.com for 80% of the profits over and over again!

3) Recently sell your home through owner financing? If you are holding a note, there are companies that will purchase it from you for upfront cash. You may have to take a bit of a discount and you will have a large portion of your cash today instead of thirty years from now.

4) Won a lawsuit and recieving payments? You can do the same thing. Companies will actually pay you a large portion of what you won for the right to your payments. It’s like taking the lump sum in a lottery winning!

5) Don’t have a business of your own and need extra cash? There are plenty of affiliate programs out there that would be delighted to give you a percentage of their profits, for the privalege of having you market their products. Choose programs that you have personally used, so you can attest to the quality. Also choose programs that are at least two tiered. This means that you get paid wether you make a sale or someone you referred to the program makes a sale. Just one good referal can bring you a steady stream of montly income.

About The Author

Caterina Christakos is a published author and independent investor. For more information on how to turn notes, annuities and settlements into fast cash go to: http://www.webpagedesignerforrealestate.com/cash_for_notes.html;
stockoptions101@yahoo.com

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Once someone’s bought something from you on eBay, you suddenly have all sorts of details on them. In marketing terms, this information is gold dust. If someone’s bought from you once before, then the chances are that at some point in the future they’ll want to buy a similar item, and you can take advantage of this to market to them directly.

The simplest form of direct marketing is the email newsletter - and it’s one that is still oddly underused on eBay. Simply ask people who buy from you if they’d like to be added to your mailing list, and then send them a monthly update on your new items. You should also include some information you think might be useful to them, to give the email more value.

For example, here’s a newsletter you might write if you were selling DVDs.

“Here are the dates for this month’s new DVD releases:

[list of release dates]. If you want to pre-order anything on this list, just click here [your website/email] and let us know.

Meanwhile, we’ve got some great deals for you this month! [links to your best ebay auctions]

You are receiving this email because you signed up for my newsletter when you bought an item from me on eBay. To unsubscribe, hit reply and type ‘remove’.”

Isn’t that simple? As long as you can remember to do it once a month, people will come to like your information, and perhaps take a look at some of the things you’re offering.

It’s all about building up a customer relationship, and making the customer feel like you are providing them with some information they wouldn’t otherwise have. Make your email a useful service to them, whether they buy anything from it or not.

Remember that it’s not a newsletter without the news, and send out the best things you can think of: you might even try writing an article or two. Think of it as a free gift for your customers: the gift of useful information. Apart from anything else, it’s quite fun to have your own newsletter.

If you sell items that a seller is likely to need more than one of, like auto parts for example, then you can even try highly targeted emails like this.

“I’m sending you this email because you bought a [item name] from me a while ago - I hope you were happy with it. This is just to let you know that if you ever need another [item], I’m currently doing special offers on them. [link]”.

You would probably want to automate this, though, as it could quickly get tedious to do it manually.

Of course, that brings us on to our next subject: eBay stores. eBay stores offer you an easier way to sell your items than having to list them every time on eBay, and they have built-in facilities for targeted direct marketing. You can read all about it in the next email.

Kirsten Hawkins is an Ebay and internet auction enthusiast from Nashville, TN. Visit www.auctionseller411.com/ for more great tips on how to make the most from Ebay and other online auctions.

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eBay sees Keyword spamming as a minor violation. However repeated warnings over this policy will eventually have your account suspended or even terminated.

So, what exactly is Keyword spamming?

Firstly you need to release how eBay users works. The majority of users on eBay search for keywords - they do not browse though the relevant categories.

For example if I was looking for a new car, I would type “HONDA” into the search box rather than browse to the Honda category of the vehicle section.

Secondly you need to be aware that eBay’s system only searches for these keywords in the title - It will not scan the description for the keywords I specify.

eBay would then present me with a list of items with the keyword “honda” in the title. Any item such as Honda CRX or Honda keyring will be shown to me as the search results.

So, some sellers will fill their item title with keywords that they expect will be searched for more. If the keywords are relevant to the item they’re listing then it’s within eBay policy.

If the keywords they use are not relevant to what they’re listing, it is known as Keyword spamming.

One example of Keyword spamming would be “Honda CRX for sale - not nissan or toyota” Anyone searching for the keyword “nissan” will be shown this item and it’s fairly obvious the words are not relevant.

Apart from being against eBay policy, using techniques like this is likely to irritate most users as they’re presented with unexpected results.

Mark Kenny runs an eBay forum where you get rewarded for contributing your point of view.

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It seems no matter how much publicity is given to fraud on bay there are still plenty of unwitting victims

I think eBay is wonderful and I use it all the time, but it is a haven for thieves. I’m an experienced buyer, considered a “Hard Case” but early on I personally was a victim of an unscrupulous seller but also of Identity Theft due to a forged notification from eBay.

All of this fraud can be avoided by following a few very simple, common sense rules.

1. NEVER use Western Union

2. NEVER use a debit card.

3. NEVER give anyone your PIN number

4. ALWAYS use a PROTECTED credit card

5.On high value items NEVER deal with an unknown entity. Make sure you have a bona-fide name address and telephone number.

I know of one person in the UK who actually visits the sellers. This isn’t too practical in the USA. But you should take adequate precautions. Checking with the BBB isn’t a bad idea, but is far from fool proof.

eBay has plenty of good rules to follow that can help. Can they do more? I think so.

But ” God helps those that help themselves.”

Here’s one of the latest examples of what not to do.

This young man is one of the many victims of a bay fraud. He wanted to buy a used car for around 4 thousand dollars. He found one and bid on it. He didn’t win. The car went to a higher bidder. But, wait!

He got an e-mail from the seller of the car, saying he had a second chance to buy the car, because the winner had backed out. He jumped at the chance and before he knew it, he was scammed.

The so-called second chance was a fake. It had been copied from bay’s own website, and made to look like it was official. It wasn’t, and the victim lost more than four thousand dollars.

This is the way it worked. The “seller” told the victim to make the financial arrangements through Western Union. As soon as the money was wired, it was too late, it was gone.

The experts have simple advice for novice eBayer’s like this. Never, ever
use Western Union for any eBay transaction.

Rosalinda Baldwin of the Auction Guild in upstate New York patrols the Internet for frauds. She says almost always when Western Union is involved, fraud is occurring.

Western Union agrees with that, saying that its service is only for people who know where they are sending the money. The company also says Western Union is not for anonymous commerce, like that on eBay.

Written by: George W. Cannata

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