Yes, You Can Make Money Online!

Thrifting/Flipping - Drop Shipping - Retail Arbitrage

Introduction

Yes, I know, there are hundreds or even thousands of "Make Money Online" scams running on the Internet these days. My spam mailbox is full of them everyday because I work online and my contact information is very visible. It's like a magnet for spam. No problem, that's just part of the game and you set up mechanisms to deal with that.

Currently, I am retired after over 35 years in the construction and mechanical trades. One might think that I'm not the ideal candidate for such "techie things" as working online. Don't make that assumption, about yourself or anyone else. Although many might consider me a "hand skills", blue-collar kind of guy, I'm also a Techie. I have been on the Internet since 1999, writing and blogging, mostly for fun.  At the same time, I was reading a lot and honing my skills. Around 2000 – 2001, I actually launched a computer sales and repair business. I had a great source that would custom build computers for me which I would then sell to my clients with very little markup and then provide after the sales service, program installation and training on an hourly basis. As a side job, it did quite well until the bottom fell out of the computer sales market. Even with my great source, I couldn't compete with the prices that people were able to get from offshore manufacturers. I close down the retail sales portion but continued to maintain the service and training side of the business to this day.

In 2012 I actually took the plunge and got my feet wet in the online business world of referral marketing. After a bit of a slow start, I was able to parlay this business opportunity into a $1000 a week proposition. I kept this up for many months and introduced hundreds of other people to the opportunity and train them how to do what I was doing. A lot of money was made by a lot of people. After about six months of working this business, I got bored. One might say I suffered from "Adult Onset ADD" LOL! 

It's sort of been my history to get involved in various enterprises, learn everything I could from the process and then move on to something new. Shiny object syndrome for sure! Not to say this wasn't beneficial or profitable, it was both. I've made a lot of mistakes and failed just like many others. I also made a lot of money along the way. The main difference is I learned from the mistakes and failures and did not repeat them. I also got back up and tried again if I failed. I knew it was doable and possible so I kept at it. I also carefully analyzed the various issues and problems that I had experienced. Ultimately, what eventually came to light was that I was just tired of constantly having to re-create it every day, all over again. When one is involved in an online business, one often finds that success is predicated on being able to "Sponsor" or recruit somebody else into the business and teach them how to do what you are doing.

This is workable but tiring as well as emotionally draining. It gets very old after a while, needing to drag the unwilling and frequently unqualified down the path to success. Frequently, it is not even possible. 
I needed to find something that I could do profitably that didn't require a huge upfront investment, sponsoring, product Auto-Ship programs (MLM's) and the resulting garage full of unusable and unsellable products. I needed a way that I could sell products to somebody that wanted them and then use the money they paid me to then purchase the product and send it to them. No inventory, no stock, no capital investment. Truly a "Shoestring Start up" business.

Recently, I found just such a program, it's called "Drop Shipping" and much to my surprise, it is a fairly common practice. I had just never come across it before. 

Drop Shipping...What is it?

Drop shipping is actually a pretty simple process. Typically when you purchase a product, you either go into the brick-and-mortar store, buy it and take it home with you or you order it online and have it shipped to you. These days, many people are extremely busy with all the various pursuits in their lives including their jobs, their families and other interests. They often find their schedule so full that it is inefficient or in some cases impossible to physically drive to a brick and mortar store to make purchases that they could just as easily make from the comfort of their own home on the computer or from just about anywhere on today's mobile smart devices. Mobile shopping is making huge inroads into the traditional shopping experience.

Platforms like eBay, Amazon, Etsy and dozens, if not hundreds of others have capitalized on this trend.  In the case of Amazon, they are striving for the goal of same-day delivery throughout the continental United States. They are getting very close to achieving this goal by constantly expanding their network of Fulfillment Centers throughout the United States and around the world. With the advent of Amazon Prime, Amazon has locked in a huge customer base of very loyal Amazon Prime shoppers that want what they want and want it quickly. Amazon Prime members qualify for free two-day shipping and that is a huge draw. It is been amply shown that Prime members are willing to pay more, sometimes much more for that fast, two-day shipping and the convenience of having just about anything they desire show up on their doorstep in a day or two.  It may sound counter intuitive to pay more for something but the statistics bear out this trend. Prime members are willing to pay the premium in exchange for the convenience.

So… Back to “What is Drop Shipping?”  Drop Shipping is simply the process of ordering something from an online vendor and having it shipped. But… not necessarily shipped directly to you but shipped instead directly to your customer!  Companies that participate in drop shipping programs will send your purchases anywhere you wish.  Amazon is one of them.  This is the key to one of my businesses. Another key is called "Arbitrage".
  
Definition: 
Arbitrage: Noun, In finance, the simultaneous purchase and sale of the same securities, commodities, or foreign exchange in different markets to profit from unequal prices.

In layman's terms, this means buying a product in one place at a lower price and selling that same product someplace else at a higher price. It's the purest form of "buy low – sell high". In today's vernacular, it is also called "Flipping".
  
One can "flip" almost anything if the pricing conditions are favorable. If I can find a product that is in demand (important aspect) at a favorable price that when sold, after all costs of the transaction are subtracted, I can still make an acceptable return on investment (ROI) I have a potential deal that will generate income for me.

Although simple in concept, there is potential risk in the purest form of arbitrage. If you do arbitrage correctly, per the definition above, you simultaneously by and sell. This means you already have a committed customer at a specified price before you actually buy the product. This is a pretty safe bet but still has some potential risk should the deal fall apart for some reason. 

There is also a variant of this process called "Retail Arbitrage" in which you search for and "source" various products that are on clearance or are significantly marked down at retail. If, after sufficient research to determine that there is actually an untapped market for this product at a favorable price you would purchase a large quantity of this product and then market it yourself to your own customer base. This customer base can be your own website store, or a platform like eBay or Amazon. This variant does require some investment, sometimes a substantial investment, which equals risk. The risk part comes in if your research is faulty or lacking. This is where experience enters the game and only seasoned Arbitrageurs should play. There are many reasons that this particular activity can fail, especially for those inexperienced in this market. 

Here's a real world example; I know a young guy that "discovered" this process/opportunity and decided to go all in without sufficient research. He happened to be a reseller on Amazon and that's where he thought he would sell this product he purchased. Unfortunately, being new to Amazon, he failed to realize that the products he purchased in bulk were restricted on Amazon or part of a category on Amazon that is "gated" and that one must be pre-qualified to list products in. Amazon is funny that way. They can be difficult to deal with and it's their game and you must play by their rules, no exceptions. Fortunately, he was able to offload his inventory on the wild West that is eBay. eBay is much less restrictive although it does still have certain restricted areas. Lesson learned.

The program I'm involved with eliminates even this risk. Your customer purchases the product from you, pays you for it and then, and only then do you actually a go out and purchase that product and have it Drop Shipped directly to them. Your personal money is not at risk. Sweet Deal!

Thrifting & Flipping

Are you a garage sale junkie like me? Do you haunt thrift shops in your area? If you do, "there is gold in them thar hills". 

I'm sure most of you have heard the stories about people finding immensely valuable items at a thrift store, tag sales, library book sales, rummage sales or garage sales for next to nothing. Although rare, it does happen. More commonly you will find arbitrage opportunities. The chance to find that someone's junk that they are happy to get rid of actually has value and a market. I make a lot of money doing exactly this. Saturday mornings are my "sourcing" days for stuff to flip. "Garage Sales for fun and profit".

Sometimes junk is just junk. Doing your research and knowing the junk from the gold is where the flipping opportunities come from.  If you have a careful eye and know your market there is much money to be made.

As a simple example, I came across 4 bankers boxes full of Mikasa China in three discontinued patterns. I bought it all for $25 and have been selling it off, one piece at a time on eBay for a significant markup. As of the time of this writing, I have made back four times my original purchase price and I've only sold about one quarter of the collection. Ultimately, I expect to achieve an ROI of at least 500% on this one garage sale find. 
I track everything I sell on both Amazon and eBay and my average ROI is 85% or better. For my flipping business, I tap into all the sources mentioned in the first paragraph. I love to dig through this old junk just for the fun of it. Now I do it for the fun and the PROFIT!

Pro Tip: Never pass over something just because YOU think it is junk. Do your research and you might be surprised. I certainly was!  Did you know that there is a healthy market for old VHS tapes? Neither did I until I looked. Now, I make a few bucks on every VHS tape that I buy for $.50. Sometimes a lot more than a few bucks. Sometimes it's $20-$50. It's a weird market but why not capitalize on it? One of my favorite finds (and one that confirms that cat people are crazy) was a VHS videotape that was produced strictly to entertain cats while their owners are away from home. Like most, that tape cost me $.50. What almost floored me was that the market price was almost $50!
As mentioned, if you actually want to do well at this game, you need some training.

As the saying goes "Wisdom is learning from OTHER people's mistakes." 

If you really want to know how well any training program is doing, just check out their retention numbers. How many new people remain with the program past the first month? You will find that the attrition rate is ridiculously high on 99% of the programs you will be exposed to. Something on the order of 3% to 4% are actually successful (depending on your definition of Success). A large percentage are just hanging in there and keep paying for the training in the hopes that it will somehow magically work for them but it never does because they are not putting the training into action often as not. The rest just give up and wander away, usually poisoned about ever making any money online. That is the truly unfortunate result of many programs. It's sad.

This is called the EOF / FOF syndrome; Experience of Failure – Fear of Failure.
If you talk to any successful entrepreneur, they will often tell you that when they get involved in something, if they are going to fail, they want to "fail fast", learn from the experience and move on to the next game. They do not, I repeat NOT let a failure knock them down for any length of time. They simply pull up their socks and get back in the game, having learned from the experience.


Dana

Making money online, an update.

My last post a few months ago suggested that one could "Quit their Job".  Of course, that begs the question "What am I going to do for money if I quit my job?"

• Unless you have retired with a nice fat bank account and a pension (something that is extremely rare these days), you will either have to find another job, start your own business or turn to working online from home.
    
• Maybe you're not retired and the current job you have just isn't paying the bills. It is rare to have a paycheck that actually keeps up with rising costs of living.
• Maybe you don't even have a job or lost the one you had. This can put one in some pretty dire financial circumstances. If you have a family to support, rent or a mortgage to pay along with other normal day-to-day bills, you may be in some serious financial difficulties. You need to do something NOW to get some money coming in the door!
• Are you a stay-at-home mom or stay-at-home dad so that you can tend to your children while your spouse works all day? The successful "single-income" family is pretty rare.
• Are you an "Empty Nester" whose children have moved out and you are bored to tears with nothing to do all day?

I know, for many of you, this is a unfamiliar concepts. For us older folks that were taught the way to be successful in life was to "get an education, get a good job, work 30 years and retire".  Nice fantasy my friends but "that dog don't hunt anymore". Companies, even big companies, are closing their doors and laying people off right and left these days. Is a very sad but not uncommon story to hear that someone got laid off just short of their vesting period in the retirement plan and ended up with No retirement money and no health plan. One day, you're getting along just fine and the next day you find yourself jobless, broke and with a very dim future.  It ain't pretty but also not that uncommon these days. 

What are your options? There are a few;

• Freak out and scramble around like crazy trying to find another job that will likely only pay you half of what your were making. (Been there, Done that.) 
• Try to start your own business. Do you know how to run a business? Do you have the resources to even start your own business?
• Look to the online world of Internet Marketing and take the plunge. Without a "Mentor" this is very much a hit or miss proposition. There are plenty of shysters out there with huge promises of instant wealth for no work. Please?… Have you lost your mind?  Without a proper Mentor to guide you, success in this field can take a minimum of 6 to 8 months and very likely quite a bit longer. It can be done if you find the right vehicle and have the fortitude (and funds) to stick with it and make it work.

There is a solution!

The solution is to involve yourself in some type of Network Marketing, Affiliate Marketing or some other aspect of online work.  There are a million different "opportunities" out there, some you may have already tried with little or no success. I know I have with varying results.  

Some were a total bust, others made a little bit of money but took way too much effort for the return. Even if it was a moneymaking operation, like most, the opportunity eventually saturates out and dries up and the money becomes harder and harder to generate. 

You find yourself scrambling every day to keep the whole thing afloat.  I have been involved in online businesses that literally made me thousands of dollars for a few months and then just faded away. Pretty disheartening I know.

One of the things I learned along the way was that one needs to develop multiple streams of income and constantly be creating to keep the money coming in.

If you have a single stream of income (like a regular job for instance) and that stream suddenly dries up you're going to have a rough time of it. The trick is to set up and maintain multiple streams running simultaneously so that if one dies you can ramp up your efforts in another area to increase the income from that one while you look for a new one to add to your stable.

So what do I do now?

After much "testing of the waters" and fumbling around with several programs on my own, unsuccessfully I might add, I came across a person that had substantially demonstrated success in this area that was willing to take me under their wing and show me the ropes.  Along the way I learned this maxim... 

You do not need to reinvent the wheel.  The best way to get ahead in business and in life is to find someone that has what you want and is where you would like to be and then find out exactly how they did it and do the same thing. It is a simple concept although sometimes not necessarily easy, it is still simple. It is simple because you have an exact pattern to follow and thereby avoid taking the lumps of trial and error along the way. Your mentor has already done that so you don't have to.

If you are interested in such a program, simply click on the link at the upper right of this blog (Favorite Links) and proceed. I myself am deeply involved in this particular program because...

• It has an extremely low threshold of entry, 
• Requires no recruiting, (but you can if you wish. It's nice to share the wealth)
• No selling, 
• No websites or capture pages,
• No phone calls-in or out,
• No bugging my friends and family to buy products they don't want, 
• No AutoShip programs that leaves you with a ton of products filling your garage that you can't use or sell. (been there, done that)

It is very simple to do, the training is provided online 24/7 so you can work it at your own schedule and you can make from $200-$2000 or more a month in your spare time, only working a couple of hours a day.

It's working very well for me and I make money from it every day. You can too!

Is Now a Good Time to Start a Business Online?

Is Now a Good Time to Start a Business Online?

Actually, almost anytime is a "good" time to start. Some are better than others.

The OMB, in its Mid-Session Review to Congress released Friday, projects unemployment will drop gradually, to 7.7 percent in 2013, 7.3 percent in 2014, 6.7 percent in 2015, 6.2 percent in 2016, 5.7 percent in 2017 and remaining at 5.4 percent from 2018 to 2022. The national unemployment rate was last at 5.4 percent in May 2008, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. 

 Given this news and the somewhat "wild and woolly" political climate these days, the attractions of an online business are compelling.

• There are millions of people looking for an opportunity to supplement their income somehow.  Many are turning to the online arena as a solution.
• A downturn in the economy always puts extra pressure on everyone's finances. They need to generate more cash outside their normal work situation.
• Retirement funds and equity in a home have been severely impacted by the poor economy. Many people have been counting on their retirement funds to support themselves when they stopped working and now those funds are gone or significantly reduced.  Equity in houses has tanked with the real estate market crash.  Many are actually "upside down" and now owe more money than house is worth. What was once an asset has now become a liability.
• Uncertainty in the future due to political issues.  Economies historically stagnate during an election year as everyone waits with baited breath to see who gets elected and what economic policies with be put in place. 
• High speed, broadband Internet connections are becoming ubiquitous. Wireless Internet connections are everywhere. Social, shopping and entertainment is now centered around a computer and/or a mobile device. Having a "presence" online is almost mandatory for a successful business.
• Size does not matter!  With today's technology, a small, one person business with a properly designed website can hardly be distinguished from a mega-corporation .  A package including a "shopping cart" and the ability to accept credit cards makes fulfillment easy.  Many times a "drop ship" system eliminates the need to have a inventory on hand, thus eliminating a expense of the conventional brick-and-mortar establishment.
• Access to a much larger customer base is possible. The limitations (and expense) of a physical walk-in location naturally restricts your customer base to those that can come to your establishment to do business.  Anybody can shop online and never have to even leave the comfort of their home.

This list can be quite extensive and goes on and on.  I will not bore you with all of that now.  Suffice it to say that now is a good time and almost anybody can be involved in an online business program.

Starting Your Own Business. Are you the reason it didn't work?

Nothing will change until YOU change.

It has been said many times over; "Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is a workable definition for insanity."

Nothing will change in your life until you make a decision to change yourself and do something differently than what you have been doing. You are where you are in your life because that's where the things you have done and the decisions you have made have put you.  

Are you broke?  Do you have a job but hate it?  Are you unemployed?  Are you driving the car you want to drive or living in the house you want to live in?  Are you saving money for retirement?  Fairly simple questions aren't they?  For most people, the answer is NO!  The real question that needs to be asked is "Why am I in this position?"

 Excuses-Excuses-Excuses

Yes, yes, we have all heard all the excuses.  "I need a better education."  "It's the economy!"  "My boss hates me!"  "It takes too much money to start my own business."  "I've thought about starting my own business but all my friends said that I couldn't do it."  I could fill pages and pages with the excuses I have heard.  When push comes to shove, they are just that, EXCUSES!  

It's only human nature to try to blame something or someone else when things go wrong.  Remember, when you point a finger at something else, there are three fingers pointing back at you!  Majority Rules!  You, my friend, are the real problem.  You can't fix a car with broken tools.  You can't fix your life if you are broken.  So the first place to start fixing your life is fixing yourself.

If you don't fix yourself, nothing will change.

 Self-evaluation is often uncomfortable. People around you, and life in general, do a fine job at beating us down.  Why should we participate by doing it to ourselves?  Because if you don't, nothing will change!  When it comes down to it, YOU are the central figure in your life.  What you do affects every thing else in your life. It's not being selfish or self-centered to focus on yourself and what you are doing.  It's survival!  If you don't survive well, others that are connected to you will not survive well either.  Be it coworkers, your family, your friends or just people in general, if you are doing poorly it impacts everyone else in some way. On the other hand, if you are successful and thriving, it benefits those around you.  

When you are doing well, you are upbeat and excited about life.  The people that you come in contact with can be positively effected by this. If you have money to spend, it benefits the businesses you patronize and the economy in general.  Being upbeat and excited is like a beacon on a dark night.  It draws people to you and lifts their spirits. It provides people with an example that one can win at life.  Wouldn't you like to be that example?  You can be!

Okay I'm ready - How do I start?

 

The first thing you should do is to look at where you really are.  Strip away the social veneer and really look at where you are in your life.  This establishes a starting point so to speak.  Without a starting point to measure against, how would one know if any progress is being made?

The next thing is to decide where you would like to be.  Call it a target or a goal.  Whatever it is, it's something you want to move toward.  Don't be overly concerned at this point about how you're going to achieve that goal or target.  That part will be discussed a little further on.

 

 

Wish - Want - Need - Got

 

Consider this concept: 

Wish; This is something you would "sort of like to have."  It would be nice, but it is unlikely you will put in the effort needed to get it.  As my father used to say "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride."

Want; This is something you would really like to have. This might be attainable but it's going to take some work.

Need;  A "Need" is something you are much more likely to put in the effort to attain.  "I need to eat" or "I need to put gas in my car or I won't make it to work" or "I need to pay my rent or I will be living on the street."  

It's amazing how it works.  Needs some how get accomplished.  Wishes and Wants are less likely to happen.

So what's the message here?  Turning your wishes and wants into needs.  It's a "mental" adjustment, that's all.  It's as simple as that, turn your wishes and wants into needs.  When you turn them into needs, you'll figure out how to get them. 

"Dream Building"

The goals or targets that you set should be real to you.  They should be something that you really need.  

Go-ahead, start dreaming.  But don't just do it in your head.  Make it real, write it down on paper, start collecting pictures of the things you really want.  Make a craft project out of it if you will.  Get yourself a poster board and start cutting pictures out of magazines and sticking them on the board.  Find pictures of the exact car that you would really like to be driving.  Pictures of vacation spots you would like to go to.  Pictures of the house you would like to live in.  Pictures of anything you want.  Be detailed and definite.  If you want a red BMW of a certain model, find that exact picture.  Remember, these are your "wants" that you're going to be turning into needs.  A picture of something "sort of like" the thing you want is not good enough.  It needs to be the exact same thing to work its magic.  

So..... where are we now?  By doing a sincere and honest self-evaluation, we have established our starting point. (Call it "Point A".)

By doing some dream building and then making those dreams real to you by finding the pictures of those exact things, (call this point B) you have now established the parameters of your journey.  Now you know where you are and where you're going.  Next comes the road map.  

To be continued..........

Good Day!

Unless you have been living on the moon for the past three or four years, you know that the economy has been in the pits.  Unemployment has screamed to an all-time high.  Although the government reports improving conditions, that information is highly suspect basically due to the fact that the figures have been "spun" for political considerations.  On the surface, the numbers appear to be improving.  Those figures are likely highly skewed based on exactly what is being counted. Many workers that are actually unemployed are totally ignored for various reasons.

The unemployment figures reported are inaccurate!  Who'd a thunk it?

Many times the unemployment figures one sees reported are based on the number of workers actually drawing unemployment compensation.  It totally ignores the fact that there is a huge number of workers that have exhausted their unemployment and have fallen off the rolls and are no longer collecting unemployment.  They are still unemployed but have become invisible to the powers that be that make up these reports.

Today, I read a report that the true unemployment numbers are at an all-time high.  When one looks at the overall population and compares it with the number of workers that are actually unemployed, whether they are drawing unemployment compensation or not, the figures reveal that the number of workers with a job is hovering at an all time low of around 58%.  That's a huge drop over the last four years.

Unfortunately, I must count myself as one of the members of the "42% club" of people that are truly unemployed or underemployed.  This has been going on for me since 2008.  In my case, as a self employed business owner, I would never be counted in any of the government studies that generate the unemployment numbers in any case since I am not eligible for unemployment compensation in any form.  So basically I fly under the radar.  People like myself do not get counted and there are millions of us.

Owning one's own business is a two edged sword.  

Given the long-term nature of this crisis, many people are trying to cope by starting their own businesses.  Unfortunately, historically, most start-ups only survive about two years. Many barely last out the first year. If they do survive beyond that, they gradually succumb to the debt load and fail in the second year. 

There are pluses and minuses to going into business for one's self.

On the plus side, 

• One does not have to answer to a  boss.
• No punching a time clock.  
• Your income is more closely associated with your efforts.
• Suffer from age or sex discrimination.  (At least within your own workplace)
• There is no "income cap".  There is a potential to make as much money as you possibly can, with no artificial ceiling based on age, gender or education.  If you have a brilliant idea or concept, market it properly and people actually give you money for it, the sky's the limit.

On the downside;

• There are no guarantees, compensation wise or effort wise. Guarantees come with toasters, not with life (or business).
• In spite of your best efforts, you can still come up at the end of the week with no money in your pocket. Or worse yet, in the hole! You may effectively be moving backwards.
• No punching a time clock.  You don't get to go home when the bell rings.  If you operate your own business, even if it's a brick and mortar operation with posted hours, when the front doors close the work doesn't necessarily stop.
• If you employ others in your business, you carry the burden of supporting not only them but all the people that depend on them for support.  If you make a bad decision. it can have serious consequences for literally dozens or even hundreds of people.
• There can be a serious financial impact on your life and your business due to the additional expenses you now incur for being in business for yourself. If you have a "brick and mortar" operation with a physical location, you have all the expenses that go along with it.  Rent/lease, insurance, security, building maintenance and upkeep, utility costs, physical assets such as equipment, inventory "flooring" expenses if you don't own the inventory.
• No health insurance.  Buying your own health insurance for yourself and your family can be quite expensive since you are not part of a "group". 

 So....what's a person to do?  The only guaranteed failure is to do nothing. Inaction is the true killer. Someone once said "Do Something, even if it's wrong!"  at least you are moving and trying.  Inaction breeds more inaction.  Hopelessness is contagious and will bring down the ones closest to you. It's a downward spiral.
Get up every day, shower, shave and dress. Be ready to do something.  It's a mind set, an attitude you assume.  You will be surprised the opportunities that suddenly appear when you are ready to take advantage of them.  Success is when preparedness and opportunity come together.  Be ready for it.