Auction Profits Unleashed

Ebay is one of the most visited websites on the Internet and is thought by many to be an easy way to make money. It isn’t of course as its just like running any other web business you have to put the work in to get any return.

I have mixed feelings about it as I only know personally one guy who regularly makes money from it. He is addicted to car boot sales and flea markets and will happily spend all weekend sorting through junk to put on Ebay and make a small amount of profit. When you take his time into consideration he technically makes a loss at even the lowest hourly rate. BUT at the end of the day he has cash in hand and to him that is “profit”.

Another Ebay product I always found confusing was the dime store selling 99 cent ebooks. After you take all the costs off for listing fees etc you are making peanuts. You have to sell an awful lot of items to make any decent profit.

Ebay is also very competitive, so as a seller prices and profits are very tight. I regard Ebay as a wholesaler and you will never be able to sell your products at the “normal” retail price. You have to rely on low prices and volume to make up the difference. Unless of course you have a unique product which has got high demand.

Auction Profits Unleashed tells the story of a part-timer using the 99 cent technique before realising the ultimate profit stream was from “funnelling” and utilising Ebay as a means of building a large mailing list.

The ebook is well written and provides a step by step blueprint. You can read the Summary Review <Here>

A very good crop

As I look out of the window the combines are just finishing harvesting the wheat crop. I’ve also got my own crop of goodies on my desk which have appeared over the last few weeks. These are all blueprint plans which I’m trying to work my way through before the end of the holidays.

There are blueprints from really well known authors and a couple from some new writers. I’ve also got some really excellent $7 blueprints which I’ll also review and post next week.

Age No Limit

If you are thinking about setting up your own business you usually start with a lot of ideas and enthusiasm. After a few weeks or even days that little voice inside your head kicks in and starts questioning your motives and gives you reasons for not doing it.

Some time ago one of my old school friends was made redundant and went down this route full of enthusiasm and then after about a month decided he was too old to change his ways and start his own business. He was 27 years old!

What reminded me of this story was reviewing “Short Report Profits” by James Penn. It is a well written easy to understand ebook about profiting from the mini report phenomenon which has been very active on the Internet over the last year or so. I really liked the ebook, which is another step by step blueprint, and a review is now listed on the right.

I was even more impressed when I found out that James is just 17! I’ve also recently acquired two more web business blueprints from Lee McIntyre who is 27!

You may now be thinking that making money on the Internet is just a young persons game. It isn’t! If you look at the photographs or videos of seminars that are held on “Internet Business” you will see a lot of grey hair or even no hair in the audience.

I attended an Andrew Reynolds seminar in Wembley last year with over 2000 delegates and most were over 40 with a significant proportion over 50. The minority group were in the 20 to 30 age range.

The reason for this is simple. There are more “old” people, with time and money, who want to run a home based business than ever before. The Internet offers the easiest and lowest cost route.

If you think you are too old think again! I once received a phone call regarding a computer upgrade from someone who wrote his own books and designed Tarot cards. He was concerned about his computer going out of date and wanted a memory upgrade.

As he lived about 30 miles away he sent me some detailed directions and even put the gradients on the hills near his home. Now that’s detail!

When I met him he turned out to be a real character and was a retired graphic design lecturer. He was very articulate and up to date with all the latest computer technology. So what was so special about him? He was 81 years old and looking at setting up a business to sell his books and Tarot card designs.

So if you are older than 17 and younger than 81 you have no excuses not to start your own Internet business.

Controversy – does it work?

After my Site Swiper posting I had a lively discussion at the advanced research centre, the local pub, discussing the use of controversy for promoting your business. Does it work? Of course it does. Getting something banned is bound to get a lot of publicity and on the Internet this will result in a lot of public discussion and ultimately sales.

There are a lot of controversial items that have been banned over the years usually with sex or violence in them but probably all of them became much more succesful with the notoriety. A good example is the low budget film “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” which got nowhere when it was first released and made millions after it was banned. The same happened to the classic novel “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” which had been around for years in academic circles but when it was published and made available to the general public it was banned. The result was they couldn’t keep up with the printing to meet the demand.

Controversy is however a double edged sword. You are going to upset some people, maybe a lot of people and it is impossible to know how many and who they are. If you stir up a hornets nest then it can backfire on you and turn into a nightmare. Is it worth it? That’s the hardest call to make. The only thing you can say is that controversy is only used sparingly but when it works to your benefit it can make you a lot of money.

Another difficult subject to judge is humour. What I think is funny you may find offensive and again it is difficult to judge.

Click to View

The animation shown above popped up last year and caused a flurry of activity and comments on the Internet. It obviously generated a lot of visits to the creators website but also caused some controversy from the real spiderman afficionados who didn’t like it because it was poking fun at their hero. Was it worth it? Well it must have created thousands of visitors to the home page, so in that respect yes.

One question that came up a lot in discussions was unresolved. Who had created it, how had they done it and why? I think that still remains unanswered.

Sal’s reply on Site Swiper

I’ve received a comment from Harris Fellman ( aka Sal ), the author of Site Swiper, firstly pointing out that Paydotcom is owned by Mike Filsaime not by Paypal, which is what I was told, and secondly agreeing with my comment that he had pushed the limit with the Site Swiper project.

I have spent a lot of time in the past as a researcher and reviewer and some of the comments made me think. One of the fudamentals of doing research is that you make sure you have all the facts and that they are correct before you write a review, make comments or put forward a theory. Even if somebody else confirms the details you should always double check it!

If you are in any sort of business you should also never sit back and let things ride. On the Internet, which changes so fast, you constantly need to be testing your copy, website and everything else related to your web business.

One of the first books I bought on copywriting was by Ted Nicholas and one of the basic rules was Test, Test and Test again. You also need to develop and build your own style and the hardest part is to decide when to stop. Harris has obviously applied the testing philosophy, really pushed his idea and has had some flack in return. But at least he did it and there is a yardstick to work to in future.

Now hype is a way of life on the Internet but to me, being English, it really grates because at the Internet “hyper hype” level, it is alien to our culture. So my first reaction was to junk Site Swipe. But that is an emotional subjective reaction and if you are doing research you should be completely objective. Of course you can’t be completely objective but you definitely should keep an open mind.

I eventually decided to purchase Site Swipe because of a recommendation and I found that it contained a lot of very useful information starting at beginner level and progressing to the advanced.

There was also a lot in the downloads and bonuses and in the latest upgrade there are 57 links to ebooks, software,videos and special offers. Now that is impressive!

The actual ebook is well written and presented with 75 pages starting with the “make or break” at level 1 and through to the Viral Level 5. It really is a good working blueprint for anyone starting an Internet business.

Under normal circumstances I would have rated it 4 star but because this review site is intended to be as hype free as possible I changed the rating to 3 star. Even so I would recommend it as a very good reference blueprint to have if you are just starting.

Click the link on the right for the full review.

Site Swiper

If you offer something called “Site Stealer” and really hype it up then you are obviously going to create some controversy. Apparently when this product was launched Clickbank refused to list it. The subsequent advertising then stated something like “banned by Clickbank”. It was then loaded into Paydotcom which is owned by Paypal and they didn’t like it either. The product title was then changed from Site Stealer to Site Swiper.

All this hype crap is a shame because the ebook and course has a lot of useful information including project flow charts which is certainly different and useful.

Being controversial is a good way of getting you and your product noticed but this promotion is really pushing the limits.

It is still worth having a look at if you want to get a web business up and running in a short time. Click the link on the right for the full review.

Short Report Profits

If you’ve been on the Internet for any length of time you will undoubtably have come across hundreds of $7 reports. The original concept was from Jonathan Leger and has proved very successful over the last year or so.

I’ve just obtained a copy of an ebook called simply “Short Report Profits” and it is written by James Penn who is based in the UK. It basically expands on the low cost report principle and provides some detailed information about how to do it.

It looks good so I’ll do a review in the next couple of days or so.

Site Stealer!

I’ve received an unusual email from a well known Internet marketer promoting something called “Site Stealer”. If it was from somebody I didn’t know I’d ignore it but I’ve decided to look into it as the marketer in question is well known and wouldn’t be involved in promoting anything dubious.

Work At Home Plan

This was the first blueprint I looked at and it is still one of the best if you are looking to start your own web business. If you are not sure whether working from home on the Internet is for you then work your way through this course and it will show you all the steps that you need to go through to be successful. It is a small investment to find out if its what you want to do. Click the link on the right to read the full review.

Web2 Websites

The Internet changes very quickly and fashions come and go. What is really taking off at the moment? In the last few weeks there has been a constant flow of ready made templates and in particular for dynamic websites based on WordPress. If you are not familiar with WordPress it is probably the best blogging software currently available.

Web2 websites have been around for a few years but the new Web2 portals and WordPress themes are here now and will probably take over from the basic Adsense sites which were heavily promoted in 2005/2006.

If you really want to stay ahead then start learning about WordPress and the dynamic Web 2 era. You will find some articles posted <here> in a few weeks time.