We all want that ideal home-based source of supplementary income. EBay, the biggest marketplace for home-based business, is the ticket to finally opening that door.
You need but one of two things in order to profit: a niche and/or creativity.
The beautiful thing about the online market is that you are not limited to tangible goods. This is where your creative sensibilities can really pay off. Just look at the string of off-beat and gimmicky auctions that have been quite successful:
- Last year an average looking lady from CA (not someone famous or anything) listed a month worth of advertising on the space above her large breasts. That sold for $2,200! And I don’t think she was actually walking around bearing it all for a month.
- A Scottish woman did the same thing and made 422 GPB, or about $840 for a 15 day ad.
- Supposedly “haunted” dolls and items. As long as the back-story is interesting and scary enough, these items commonly go for $50-$100+ when they would regularly be $5. All you need is some old, scary looking toys and a talent for creative writing (which, as a blogger, you have!)
- New trends. Someone had come up with the genius idea to use the community aspect of eBay to make a profit. The idea: A game of “pass-it-around Twister”. The first person spins and writes in the spaces where they would have to place their hands/feet. Then it’s sold, the next person does the same and so on. Some of these “passes” actually did as much as $130 + shipping! There are numerous such examples out there, and it can pay of to get on the bandwagon when the price is low enough.
- Use your own website! You can actually sell advertising space on your own blog. Weekly, monthly, whatever – it’s up to you. Especially if you get a decent amount of traffic, that can be a selling point. Once sold you can simply add their ad by pasting it in or with code, depending on the format of your site.
- Provide a service. I haven’t seen to many people listing custom writing services, but it could definitely work. You can list services such as homework help, essay/paper assistance, custom written poems and stories, editing services. The plethora is limited only by your imagination.Get your own ideas – just browse through the Everything else – strange / bizarre items categories and you’ll see what I mean!
As for the niche approach… that’s a bit more tricky. There are plenty of opportunities to make bulk/wholesale purchases and profit from reselling. The thing is, you need to know what you’re doing.Developing a niche requires much more time and commitment, as well as investing in a reference library for whatever the niche is. For example, I primarily deal with coins. The resources and accessories cost nearly $1,500, but it was worth every penny. Each time I find something valuable that might’ve otherwise been discarded, I’m thankful for making the investment.
It beats the heck out of working for someone else and can easily hold you over while searching for that ever so elusive full-time creative job.
