First a few questions to ponder:

  • Should you have an internet marketing business, an Ebay business, or both?
  • Which one is easier to run?
  • Which makes more money?
  • What boundaries should exist between these businesses?

I’ll try to address these questions in this report.

For several years now, I have had an Ebay account. Though I have sold things on and off on Ebay, I have never had the time (or devoted time) to develop an Ebay-based business.

I always considered Ebay as a “separate, organized business” which would take a lot of extra work and leave me without enough time to run my current businesses.

Boy was I wrong!

My mind-set has been quickly changing because of two guys:

  1. A Complete Novice:
    Towards mid last year a friend of mine used to come to my office to browse the internet coz he didn’t have any internet connection at home. His competence on the internet was laughable, to say the least.

    He was the kind of guy that did not know how to switch on a computer when he came to the office the first time. I mean, the guy still types with one finger (just the mid left-hand finger!).

    Somehow he stumbled on Ebay and started buying toys from a nearby dollar store and selling them on Ebay. He would quietly walk out and walk back in 30 minutes later with paper bags full of toys (he did not have a car then).

    By Christmas time, he could not handle all the orders and constantly had an assistant to help him with his new business. By then he had bought an old van (of course it was always full of toys and boxes). I noticed recently that he has upgraded to a top of the line Mercedes SUV.

    He’s since moved out of my office and set up his own. From what I can tell, he is doing very well…

  2. A Regular Guy:
    Just a few months ago, my brother started buying and selling cars. He mainly specializes on antique cars. He only sells them on Ebay.

    Prior to his car business, he had very limited experience on the internet or computer - just a basic computer user who probably just logs onto Yahoo mail to check his email.

    In 3-4 months, he has built his business from scratch to selling several cars a week just on Ebay. And he works part-time.

After some further research, I have come to realize one thing - Ebay should be part of every marketer’s source of income whether you are selling products or not.

Today, I did a little research trying to identify hot niches that I could make money on. To my surprise, the three Most watched items on Ebay as I write this article are simple reports on how to make money on Ebay

Yes, these are digital reports that you download instantly after payment. One guy claims to have sold over 7000 copies of the report on Ebay - he is also endorsed by Ebay. Internet marketers are constantly selling these kind of reports - but these 3 guys seem to be making a killing on Ebay.

To summarize here are several ways you can plug in an extra profit line on Ebay:

1: As an Ebay Affiliate

This sounds rather old when you mention “affiliate program“. After all affiliate programs seem to be all over the place wherever you look.

I recently developed an interest on earning money as an Ebay Affiliate after getting aquainted with people earning big checks as Ebay affiliates almost automatically as their businesses continue running normally.

  • The top Ebay Affiliate has earned over $1,000,000 a month
  • Ebay’s top 25 affiliates average over $100,000 each month
  • Ebay’s top 100 affiliates earn almost $25,000 each month

There are several ways of earning money as an Ebay Affiliate, provided in more detail in the Affiliate Auctioneer report. The easiest way is by far developing an Ebay Niche Store.

This is a web site that displays Ebay listings and is targeted to certain niches. In summary, this involves the following steps:

  • Research the best selling products
    The product you choose must have enough demand so people will be looking for products displayed in your niche store.

    Terapeak is the best research tool I have come across for this. Among others, it shows you
    * The exact search terms people are using to look for products on Ebay
    * How much they are paying, products are selling for
    * Who the competition is
    * What percentage of listings end up with bids
    etc

    In other words, Terapeak provides all the information you’d need to identify which products people are actively looking for and are buying. Of course, the more the buy and how much they pay for them translates into how much ends up in your pockets.

  • Use super-targeted keywords with pages that are optimized for search engines
    Once you find the search terms people are using to find the products, use these as keywords for your niche store. For example, if you find the most commonly used term people are used to search for Nintendo is “wii” then you’d use wii as the main keyword for that page.

    Of course, it is important to make sure your pages are optimized for search engines (see below).

  • Use Wordpress Blog to manage your store
    Wordpress is one of the most user-friendly content management tools that I know of today. You can use phpBay plugin to display Ebay listings by API so your store is updated in real time as more listings are added.

    Wordpress also has a plugin that notifies Google, Yahoo and MSN as soon as you make a new entry. Your Ebay niche store or any new additions will appear on search engines in 24-48 hours. People looking to buy these things on the search engines will land on your niche store - and you will get commissions from Ebay.

  • Use Ebay API to automatically update your listings as new listings are places and old ones expire. You can build an online store thousands of pages big since it grows automatically. The best tool I have found to do this is BANS. This tool produces search engine optimized pages as it continues building your store.
  • You can monetize those pages with Google Adsense
    Yahoo or MSN have recently developed similar publisher networks that can earn you a lot of extra income from your niche stores.
  • You can start sending visitors by pay per click

Most of this work needs a one-time input and you’ll be getting your checks every month

2: By selling products on Ebay

Most people worry about what products they should sell on Ebay. The following guidelines should point you in the right direction

  • Research the best selling products
    The product you choose must have enough demand so people will buy your products.

    Again, Terapeak is my dream research tool of choice

  • Calculate how much will end up in your pocket
    Ebay charges fees for your listing, how you enhance it (color, bold, etc), the final sale price, etc. It is necessary to calculate how much you need to spend to make your listing stick out, versus how much will end up in Ebay’s pockets.
  • Identify a wholesaler and dropshipper
    Of course, you must have a source of your products at a price below what you will sell them for. In this case I am assuming you are selling tangible products. If you are selling intangible products, then this step will not be necessary.

    The best source I know for wholesalers is Salehoo

    Also, if you are selling tangible products, you may want to get a dropshipper - a company that offers your product at wholesale and ships it directly to your clients on your behalf.

    This is one of the fastest ways to make money on Ebay - you don’t have to build your own inventory or any of the worries associated with shipping your own products. Salehoo provides all this information for you. You just concentrate on marketing and selling as many products as you can.

  • Start selling!
    TESTING is always very important. If you browse through products on Ebay by powersellers, you’ll come to identify with a certain style of listing that sets them apart from the rest. Develop your listings such that they pull the best results for you.

So which business should you have, Ebay or Internet Marketing?

I’ll go back to the guy who has sold 7000 digital how-report on Ebay.

Can this fit in as Internet Marketing?

You bet!

If he’s a savvy marketer (and it looks like he is), he probably has a mailing list of 7000 buyers who are interested in making money from home. These buyers listen to him because he’s already established himself as an authority in his field.

Regardless of whether he sells on Ebay, pay per click or through any other ways of marketing, he has already established a solid base of buyers who can make him lots of money.

Can you supplement what you do today with an Ebay income?

The answer is a resounding “Of course!“. If you already have a product, digital or tangible, or even a service, there’s no better time than give it more exposure on Ebay than now.

If you do not have any of the above, you can still be pulling big checks every month as an Ebay Affiliate.

Does it sound hard to earn money from Ebay?
It obviously takes less computer and internet skill to earn money on Ebay than it is if you run an internet marketing business. You can start as a complete novice, but if you already have some basic skills if you run an online business, this should be easy to do.

How much money you make from Ebay will depend on the effort and time that you put into it. My assumption in this report is that you do not stop what you are doing currently, but you develop a supplemental income on Ebay that runs alongside your current business.

If you do have the knack to develop this into a multi-million dollar business, Ebay has everything you need to do so!

Good luck and I hope have fun making money!

Do you find this report useful? Should I post part 2? Please leave a comment below!