Payments for May 2007

eBay	$111.03
PecoMail	$0.05
Total:	$111.08
Year-to-Date:	$860.60

A lower total this month, but only because I didn't have any income other than eBay sales. But the eBay money was fairly reasonable this month -- $111 in profit from $435 in sales. I can live with that.



And of course I shouldn't overlook the nickel I received from PecoMail, which was an unexpected payment after the owner of the site blew a gasket and deleted my account because I made critical comments about some changes she'd made to the PecoMail Terms of Service. And also because I'd pointed out that she'd broken those Terms herself. Some PTR owners really don't like it when people do that sort of thing. Oops! LOL! To be fair, at least she paid me my nickel before she deleted my account. A lot of PTR owners like to keep those nickels for themselves.



I think payments for June will be higher than they were in May. eBay sales have started off well (as a comparison, we've had six sales so far this month compared with 1 at the same point last month), and I should get some payments from PayPerPost and a couple of survey companies as well.



Technorati Tags: get paid, PTR, paid to read, eBay, make money online, PecoMail

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Payments for April 2007

eBay	$78.32
ReviewMe	$20.00
Blogitive	$5.00
PayPerPost	$20.00
ePoll	$30.00
Esearch surveys	$1.00
Lightspeed Panel surveys	$10.00
KRI Panel surveys	$15.00
Total:	$239.32
Year-to-Date:	$749.52

When I sat down to start this post, I was thinking it wasn't going to be a very good month. I knew the profits from eBay sales was going to be a lot lower than last month, and lower our average. But total income for the month turned out to be right about average, and came from a higher number of sources, which I'm happy about. After all, part of what I'm trying to do with this blog is show that there are lots of different ways to make money online. So I'm happy not to have all my eggs in one basket.

One reason for lower ebay profits this month is because we've just increased our prices, which was necessary due to increased import/shipping costs. Another is because we've launched some new advertising campaigns, which has resulted in quite a few new customers trying out our products. New customers usually make smaller purchases, especially the "trial pack" we offer, which only costs them a few dollars, and from which we make almost no profit. But we know that those low-cost trial packs are great for us in the longer term, so hopefully sales will pick up in the coming months. In any case, I'm definitely not complaining. Over $75 profit on around $275 in sales, and all I do is put up a few auction listings each week, answer a few inquiries, and a few trips a week to the Post Office or the nearest mailbox.

I'm also happy with the money I made from sponsored posts last month. $45 in total, with $20 from PayPerPost, $20 from ReviewMe, and $5 from Blogitive. I think that's probably about as much as I'll ever make in a month, unless I add sponsored posts to some other blogs. I really don't want to just start throwing up a bunch of sponsored posts that have nothing to do with the topics I normally blog about here at FCS, but I've been thinking that it might be a good idea to start a new blog, or re-purpose an old one, that's better suited to sponsored posts, affiliate sales, etc.

And the third way I made money in April was from online survey companies. $56 in total, with most of it paid in the form of Amazon gift certificates, which is just as good as cash in my particular case. I loooooove shopping at Amazon! That's more than I've earned from paid survey companies in a long time. What's changed? For one thing, I think many of the companies are sending out more surveys, so that helps. The only change I've made is that I've got all my survey invitations going to a single email address, and I'm trying to check that email account several times a day, and do the surveys ASAP. Some days I do the "screeners" and don't qualify for the full surveys, other days I do one or two surveys, so it probably averages out to be about 20 minutes of "work" a day.

So as it turns out, I'm quite happy with my earnings this month. Not only did I make over $200 that I wouldn't have otherwise made, but I did it doing stuff I enjoy anyway. Blogging, selling stuff on eBay, and sharing my opinions. Sweet!

Technorati Tags: make money online, PayPerPost, Blogitive, ReviewMe, eBay, paid surveys, ePoll, KRI Panel, LightSpeed Panel

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Keywords and Categories for eBay Sellers

I was looking at our eBay Store traffic reports last night to see which search keywords our visitors were using to find our products, and got a little side-tracked. But not necessarily in a bad way. I ended up looking at some of eBay's keyword tools, and thought I'd share just in case some sellers don't know about them.



First, there's eBay Keywords, a big list of the most popular keywords used by eBay searchers. You can browse (they're organised alphabetically) or search, and eBay will show you the best matching categories and items for your selected keyword, related and alternative keywords, and the top eBay stores associated with your keyword.



eBay's Common Keywords is similar, but is browse-only. You can check common keywords and choose to see everything related to that keyword, or limit the view to only products, categories, or eBay Stores.



Both of these tools can be very handy in helping you make sure you've included the right keywords in your titles and descriptions.



Of course not every eBay shopper finds what they're looking for by searching. A lot of people browse their favorite categories looking for bargains. Which is why it's important to make sure you've got your items listed in the right categories. My advice:

• find similar products and see what categories they're in (and save them as favorite searches, sellers, or categories in MyEbay so you can check back occasionally)
• browse through categories occasionally looking for new ones
• if none of the existing categories really suit your item, suggest a new eBay category

Using the right keywords and product categories can have a serious impact on your sales, so don't just "set it and forget it." It's always good to periodically stop and take a look at what you're doing, look for new opportunities, tweak things a bit, or maybe even take off in a completely new direction.

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BidPay -- A Paypal Alternative

Skip McGrath blogged about BidPay today, asking if it's a real alternative to Paypal for eBay sellers. If you've been around for a while, you might remember BidPay from when they were launched by Western Union way back in 1999. I never thought that Western Union ever really got serious about BidPay, and their business model -- requiring the buyer to pay the fees -- never really worked for online auctions. A lot of buyers didn't like the idea of paying extra fees in addition to the selling price, and sellers didn't like waiting for BidPay to send them a money order for the payment. Western Union, a 150-year-old dinosaur of a company, didn't seem to get the concept of online payments.



But all that's changed now. Western Union shut BidPay down at the end of 1995. At the time, it looked like another one of the many "PayPal alternatives" to crash and burn. But then, about a year ago, BidPay was acquired by CyberSource, a credit card payment service provider. For buyers, that means they can make their payment with their debit card, and BidBay sends the money to the seller's bank account (must be a U.S. bank account), minus their fee -- 2.5% + 50 cents for domestic (U.S.) transactions. And one thing that a lot of sellers will really appreciate is BidPay's Seller Protection. Seller Protection means BidBay, not the seller, accepts the risk associated with chargebacks.



So is the new and very-much-improved BidPay catching on with US-based eBay sellers? Apparently so. According to a survey conducted by AuctionBytes, as of March 2007, BidPay is accepted by 12.6% of sellers, up from 9.7% in Sept. 2006. Of course Paypal is still way out in front, at 94.3%. And now that eBay is requiring new sellers to accept Paypal or another "preferred safe payment form", more sellers may be looking for Paypal alternatives.



And BidPay just might be the alternative they're looking for.



Technorati Tags: eBay, Paypal, BidPay, auctions

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Payments for March 2007

eBay: $210.01

PecoMail: $0.29

PayPerPost: $5.50

Your2Cents: $15.00

NFO MySurvey $20.00

Total: $250.80


Year-to-date: $510.20

March was a good month in terms of eBay sales, and a few other payments came in here and there -- a bit from PayPerPost, the Your2Cents paid surveys, and even a little micro-payment from PecoMail (one of the few Paid to Read programs where I'm still a member).

I'm going to launch a couple of new blogs this month, and hopefully within a few months they'll be adding a bit to the monthly totals as well. Otherwise the plan is to continue to tweak the eBay thing and try to increase sales (we made half our profit in the first 9 days this month, then kinda fizzled out towards the end of the month.

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Updated on 8 April, 2007.

Tags: money, make money online, get paid

eBay Dealfinder

On the off-chance that I'm not the last person on the planet to have discovered this, I thought I'd share. I just came across the eBay Dealfinder. Actually, I came across the Australian eBay Dealfinder, and then checked to make sure there was a US version before I blogged about it. Apparently this was announced back in November 2006, but I must've missed it.

So what is the eBay Dealfinder? It's a way to search or browse for items that meet the following requirements:

• less than 4 hours left to sell
• no bids
• no reserve price
• free or fixed rate shipping so you know the total cost

You browse the popular searches they feature on the page, or do your own search, including limiting the results by category and/or max price. And the results aren't like normal eBay search results, but like this:


The timer counts down until the item has ended, and all-in-all, I think the whole thing is awesome. You can select whether it shows you 16 or 32 items per page, and the only thing I don't like is that there's apparently no requirement that the item listing includes an image, which kinda screws up the whole visual results idea. But then again, you might find some really good bargains on items that don't have an image.

In any case, I think it's a cool new way to look for eBay bargains.

eBay Sellers Targeted by Australian Taxation Office

According to an article in The Australian, the Australian Tax Office has issued eBay with a legal notice requiring them to provide the ATO with information on all Australian eBay sellers with more than $50,000 in annual sales.

A thread in the eBay Forums confirms that eBay has complied, and notified the sellers that their info has been given to the ATO.

It doesn't affect me because I don't sell anywhere near that much, so I don't have to worry about GST (good and services tax). But I agree with the sellers who say if the ATO starts enforcing GST compliance should help make a more level playing field. Sellers who are adding 10% GST to their invoices are obviously at a disadvantage when other sellers don't do it. But it still won't help deal with non-Australian sellers who do business on eBay Australia, since they aren't required to charge GST.

According to the article, eBay Australia has over 5 million members now. I doubt all of those are active accounts, but it's still a pretty big number in a country of 20 million people. And of those, over 1000 were sent these notices, which means they've got eBay sales of over $50,000 a year. Impressive. I can tell ya, I sure wouldn't mind joining them.

Shipping Tips for eBay Sellers

I came across an article on the MSNBC website about the "hidden costs of shipping" for eBay sellers written by Marsha Collier. I read her book, Starting an eBay Business for Dummies, as well as Michael Miller's Absolute Beginner's Guide to Launching an eBay Business when we first started thinking about starting up our little eBay business. I thought her tips about eBay shipping were a good reminder about an aspect of the business many of us don't spend much time thinking about.

Most of her tips were about keeping a good supply of shipping materials (envelopes, boxes, labels, tape, bubble wrap, etc.), and to try to buy them in bulk quantities whenever possible.

I think these are all excellent tips, although I admit that we don't buy our boxes and envelopes in bulk yet. We plan to, because the cost savings are signicant, but at this point, our business hasn't grown to the point where we can justify the initial expense. We just don't ship enough items to buy our boxes and envelopes in 100-piece bulk packs. At least not yet!

She also reminds us that eBay sellers in the US can get co-branded flat-rate Priority Mail boxes and envelopes from the US Postal Service free of charge. I sure wish Australia Post had a deal like that for Aussie sellers!

Some other good eBay shipping tips (many are for US-based sellers only -- damn!) include:

• Purchasing and printing shipping labels through your Paypal account. The buyer's address will automatically be filled in, plus you and the buyer can then track the package while it's in transit.


• Including USPS Media Mail as a postage option when selling books, CDs, DVDs, videotapes, etc. I can be slower than First-Class or Priority Mail, but it's a lot cheaper.


• Use the eBay Shipping Calculator in your listings so that your potential buyers can find out the postage costs of a particular item without having to ask you.

Almost every eBay "guru" I've ever read or talked to has said that being organised will help you consistently get your items shipped to you buyers as quickly and as hassle-free as possible. Lately I've been making one, and sometimes two, trips to the post office most days, and I can see why it's important to be organised. And I can attest to the fact that our customers love it when we get their packages to them as fast as we possibly can.

Payments for February 2007

This month, my online earnings were:

eBay: $137.44
PureProfile: $27.15
PayPerPost: $6.00
Total: $165.19

Year-to-date: $259.40

The eBay profits would've been higher, but we've had customers waiting since November for items on back-order, so we shipped their items free. We also had an item arrive damaged, so we sent a free replacement. All these things cut into profits in the short-term, but pays off nicely in the long-term, when happy buyers become repeat buyers.

The PureProfile payment took about a year to accumulate. I've been a member since 2002, and I've made over $100 from them. And I like the fact that they pay directly to my bank account, instead of mailing a check or paying via Paypal.

The PayPerPost payment was for a post about online coupons, sponsored by CouponChief.com. That's a total of $40 from PPP since I joined back in July 2006. They've expanded a lot since then, with an affiliate program (pays $15 when somebody signs up using your affiliate link, and then gets a post accepted), and the new "Review My Post" feature, where people can earn $7.50 from PayPerPost for writing a review of one of my blog posts. And even better, I get paid $7.50 as well!