I’m In The Money!
Posted Tuesday July 27th 2010
So the first step in my little experiment went rather quickly – quicker then I expected! After listing the cable modem last night it sold this morning fetching £10 (someone couldn’t wait to get their hands on it and went for the “Buy It Now” option) minus eBay/Paypal fees makes £8.07 profit. Thanks Virgin Media! That’s more than enough start-up cash to get me going, the only problem is the sale came so quickly I haven’t yet scoped out any possible investments. I will send out an update when I decide what my first purchase will be. Check out the stats :
Purchases : 0
Sales : 1
Profit : £8.07
Tags: eBay
My eBay Monkey Project
Posted Monday July 26th 2010
For those who know me, you may remember that whilst at university I traded on eBay in order to support myself instead of getting a job like other people. You will also know that I was completely hooked and talking about eBay when I was in ear shot was probably a mistake! When university was over I stopped eBay-ing and got myself a ‘proper’ job but increasingly I started to miss the thrill or buying and selling and more importantly the thrill of making money.
My boss Faith like me is hooked on buying and selling – thats why she runs her own business and has done for over 11 years. We often talk about our various money making schemes and it is during these chats that I feel the eBay monkey sitting on my shoulder telling me that there is so much money to be made, so much potential. My eBay monkey wants me to get hooked again – to make enless journeys to the post office, to check my auctions constantly … to have nightmares about getting that feared negative feedback!
Stories such as One Red Paperclip and Around The World In 80 Trades got me thinking – maybe there is a way to satisfy my eBay monkey whilst putting my entrepreneurial skills to the test and making some cash. Maybe I could buy and sell my way from nothing to something big, something to silence the monkey once and for all.
So where to start? Obviously I need something to sell and preferably something that won’t cost anything to begin with so I don’t start with minus money. Thats where Virgin Media comes in. People who know me should also know i’m not a fan of Virgin Media, so when I remembered the old cable modem I have had lying around for ages I figured this was a pretty good way of VM making it up to me. I have no idea why I have held on to this thing for so long instead of throwing it out – buy maybe VM could start me off on my journey by giving me some start-up cash. A quick search of eBay’s completed listings tells me that on average these can fetch between nothing and £15 so on eBay the VM cabel modem goes… fingers crossed for nearer £15 then nothing. Otherwise this could take a while!
I know there has been far too many “Maybes” in the above paragraphs, but read this space to see how I get on – there could be ups and downs but I think that is part of the excitement. Maybe I will work my way up to serious money only to blow it on an unlucky investment, maybe I will get enough money together to start that café I have always dreamt of. The beauty is there is nothing to loose but potentially so much to gain (too Cliché?)
Tags: eBay
Add eBay Listings To Your Website In Seconds
Posted Sunday March 21st 2010
If you sell things on eBay then getting your listings seen by as many people as possible can be the difference between selling your item for 99p or £99. Whether you use eBay as an additional outlet for your existing online business or as a way of clearing out your garage – listing your items on your website can be an excellent way of directing visitors of your site to your eBay listings.
Keeping your listings up to date can be a real headache which is why having a listing tool such as Auction Nudge that automatically updates and displays your current eBay listings on your website can be a real time saver.
The listings below are generated by pasting one line of code into the HTML of your web page (Note: I am not affiliated with this eBay member in any way.) :
This is generated by the following code :
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.auctionnudge.com/0.5/build.php?ebayID=soundswholesale&type=user&site=uk&cols=2&limit=4&theme=4"></script><div id="auctionNudge"></div>To get Auction Nudge working on your site you can either copy the above code, changing your eBay ID as necessary and pasting it onto your web page or by visiting Auction Nudge to enter your display settings and get your listing code. There is no registration required and you can view a demo of how your listings will look by just entering your eBay username!
Tags: Web Development • eBay
eBay Ads Gone Mad!
Posted Thursday February 26th 2009
I usually surf the web with my trusty Adblock Plus Firefox extension turned on, but after turning it off recently (I have been working on my works affiliate programme… it actually took me a few seconds to work out why things weren’t appearing that should have been!) I got a bit of a shock when I went on to eBay. My usual eBay experience looks like this:
However to my disgust with adblock plus disabled I was confronted with the following:
I think eBay should be ashamed of themselves. They have completely compromised their site by selling out to ads and lets face it – it’s not exactly like they are short of money! I knew eBay had ads but this is getting silly.