Archive for June, 2009



Starting an Ebay Business — An Online Business Model that Works

Thursday 25 June 2009 @ 5:06 am

by Jaswin singh
THE REALITIES OF AN INTERNET BUSINESS

Millions of people are still coming online each year, and many of those people come to the Internet with dreams of making their financial dreams come true.

The truth is that building a website to sell products and services is not the easiest way to make a living online. A lot of specific knowledge or money will be required to be successful with a standard website.

You must acquire skills — or pay someone who already possesses those skills — in the following areas:

Graphic design
Copywriting
HTML design
Perl or PHP programming
Database programming
Marketing research
Promotions

When this is understood, most people throw their hands up in frustration and walk away from their entrepreneurial desires.

Maybe cash is the problem; maybe the desire is just lacking.

If you have reached this point yourself let me offer one piece of advice…

DON’T THROW AWAY YOUR DREAMS JUST YET

More people than I can count are making a successful living online, and none of them own their own website or send a single commercial email to anyone.

How is this possible?

Two words, “Ebay auctions.”

EBAY MAKES IT EASY

Ebay covers all of the difficult technical issues. And more importantly, Ebay already has floods of visitors eager to purchase your wares.

Ebay has provided everything you need to operate a successful business online with three exceptions:

1. Products to sell
2. Time to list the products in the Ebay database
3. Cash to acquire the products

CHOOSING THE KINDS OF PRODUCTS

Before choosing your products, you should ask yourself what you enjoy the most. You may enjoy cats, NASCAR or even antiques. You should select products consistent with what you enjoy for two reasons.

First, you bring to your presentation a real appreciation for the products your are offering.

Secondly, a job you hate is one you will quit. A job you enjoy doing will be one that you will want to keep forever. If you are starting your own business, the hope is that you will be doing it for a very long time.

I personally know people who have generated a nice living on Ebay selling cat-related items, NASCAR memorabilia and antiques.

FINDING THE ACTUAL PRODUCTS TO SELL

I recommend against diving in and spending thousands of dollars buying products that you may or may not be able to sell.

A drop-shipper is a middleman who is willing to permit you to buy an individual product, and then they will put your business name on the return address of the product package and handle the actual delivery for you.

By utilizing a drop-shipper, you can speed product delivery to the client without risking your own cash to keep a product in inventory.

If you are lost as to how to find a drop-shipper, consider subscribing to the drop-shippers directory:

http://thePhantomWriters.com/drop_shippers_directory.html

Through this site, you can get all of the information you need to find drop-shippers from which you can order over 500,000 products from over 1,000 brand names.

LEARNING TO LIST YOUR PRODUCTS AT EBAY

Learning to use Ebay is pretty easy and straightforward. Ebay has put forward a lot of effort to help people to become successful. For example, Ebay has an entire area of their site devoted to the online entrepreneur.

To get an overview of all of the services and tools that Ebay provides to sellers, you may visit:

http://pages.ebay.com/services/index.html

Ebay also delivers courses and strategies to help you to be more successful:

http://pages.ebay.com/sellercentral/index.html

THE IMPORTANCE OF CASH FLOW TO YOUR SUCCESS

Ebay provides tools for both buyers and sellers to rate one another. The speed of delivery is one of the most important factors that sellers are rated on. By providing quick delivery, your buyers will give you a good rating — and more shoppers will bid on your products.

Ebay recently purchased PayPal.com to help facilitate purchases for their buyers and sellers, and they have integrated the two systems together.

Unfortunately, getting the money from your PayPal account to your personal account generally takes four days. Even with a merchant account, the time gap is nearly the same. This time gap expands the turn-around between the transaction and delivery of the product unless you take action to speed the process.

If you were doing high volume, you would want to minimize the handling of a transaction to reduce the chance for a foul-up and to increase your ratings within the Ebay system.

But how can this are accomplished?

MANAGING CASH FLOW

While you could rely upon credit cards to get the job done, it is not something I would recommend. Paying credit card interest rates to process your customer’s purchase, is an unnecessary burden.

Instead, put a sum of money into a dedicated bank account with a debit card attached to it. When you verify a transaction has been credited to your PayPal account, then use your debit card to immediately process the order with your drop-shipper.

But, how can you do it this way on a tight budget?

THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO THE RESCUE

Let me ask you this. Do you have a 401(k) account?

Experts advise that you not touch your retirement savings for anything other than retirement income. That is good advice. Fortunately, it is possible under special circumstances to acquire loans against your 401(k) accounts.

Beginning in 2002, even the self-employed small business owner with no employees could open his or her own 401(k), called a solo-owner 401(k), and borrow from it just as employees with big companies can.

Weigh this option against the others available to you. It only makes sense to take out a loan rather than to take a hit in heavy taxes and penalties for drawing your retirement money early. Seriously, consider taking advantage of our historically low interest rates to meet your cash flow needs.

To learn more about creating and borrowing from a solo-owner 401(k), please visit:

http://www.investsafe.com

IN CONCLUSION

It is wise to choose your new business venture based on a model that has proven itself over the long-term. Ebay has been proving its concept since 1995; helping thousands of people build a successful and very profitable business.

The time to act is now. Choose the product line that will give you the most satisfaction and then get busy. Your success awaits you.

For more useful tips & hints, please browse for more information at our website :- http://www.adsence-dollar-factory.com http://www.100earningtips.com

Article Source: Article Wagon




Six Steps Towards Successful Buying at e-Bay Auctions

Thursday 25 June 2009 @ 5:06 am

by Rishabh Bathla
Buying on eBay can be very rewarding, either in terms of being able to pick up items cheaply or for hunting for hard to find items. Although generally the experience is good, there are instances where things can go badly wrong. These tips, based on experience over the last seven years, should help to avoid some of the potential pitfalls.

1. Make use of the various tools provided on eBay to ascertain the target price of items you are interested in. A simple way to do this is to ’search’ for completed items.

2. Always check that there are no hidden costs associated with your potential bargain. These may include unspecified postage costs, or PayPal fees chargeable to the buyers. If in doubt e-mail the buyer and if you don’t get a response then don’t bid. Remember that when buying from overseas postage costs can be significant compared to the price of the item and also for more expensive items you may be liable to customs fees.

3. Check out the seller’s feedback. You should be aiming to buy from sellers with feedback of at least 98 per cent - if it is less and you are interested in an item read the feedback comments to satisfy yourself that the buyer provides a good service. In particular, read the neutral and negative feedback posts to try to work out what may have gone wrong with previous transactions.

4. Don’t get carried away and end up bidding more than need or want to. Some items appear very frequently on eBay and it may be worth setting yourself a limit and waiting for the next one to come along.

5. If you find you are often being outbid at the last moment, consider using sniping software which you can use to automatically submit a bid in the last few seconds of the auctions.

6. Where possible, use PayPal to pay for items on eBay. The sellers get their payment quickly, and there is a degree of protection for buyers if things go wrong. eBay (via My eBay) provides a number of tools for monitoring progress on your transaction.

For more useful tips & hints, please browse for more information at our website http://www.adsence-dollar-factory.com http://www.100earningtips.com

Article Source: Article Wagon




My website needed more targeted traffic.Guess where I found it?

Thursday 25 June 2009 @ 4:06 am

by virenderyadav
There’s nothing new about using joint ventures (JV’s) to get traffic to websites. And good information is freely available from many internet marketing sites on how to set up JVs.

This article is for the 97% of webmasters who aren’t aware of a particularly powerful JV partner who already exists, and is willing to work with you.

Before I reveal all, let me just check…

Like me, I would image you’d be happy if:

* Your JV partner’s site gets huge traffic.
* The vast majority of page views are by targeted traffic.
* You can create links wherever YOU like from their site.
* You can start now. There’s no delay in setting up the JV.
* The JV continues as long as you want.
* It costs you pennies to set up and run.

Does that sound like it’s what you’re looking for in a JV?

If so, welcome to eBay. You’re new joint venture partner.

But I Thought…

“eBay?” I hear you ask, “Isn’t eBay just an auction site?”

Well, it certainly started as an auction site. Today, eBay is an ecommerce phenomenon.

* eBay’s 1.5 billion page views put it in sixth place on Alexa traffic rankings. Ahead of Amazon, AOL and CNN.
* eBay members make 79 million targeted searches for items each day.
* There are 35,000 categories within which to place items for sale.
* There are eBay auction sites in 27 countries.
* eBay has 125 million registered users.
* 40,000 new members join eBay each day.

What we have here is a hugely successful internet business with massive traffic. And, thanks to eBay’s sophisticated categorization and searching mechanisms, the traffic is totally targeted.

More importantly, there are several smart ways to drive eBay’s targeted traffic to your own website. All of these clever methods add up to what I call the eBay Traffic Funnel.

Does it work? Well, I sell a communications product from my website. I run 5 simple auctions in the appropriate categories using the principles of the eBay Traffic Funnel. Each auction costs me 30 cents and runs for a week. I get around 300 targeted leads from these auctions to my website every week. Not bad for one dollar fifty!

Let me show you just one of the ways to get hold of that targeted traffic…

Sell, Sell, Sell

First of all, you make eBay part of your marketing mix. You start selling your products on eBay.

Why do I say this? Well, eBay isn’t just for mom and pop businesses anymore. IBM, Disney, Motorola, Xerox and Dell, are just a few of the major corporate that now use eBay as an additional sales and lead generation channel.

Creating eBay auctions is easy. Anyone can do it - literally. But if you don’t want to learn, you can use a Trading Assistant. These are eBay experts who will create, run and manage auctions on behalf of others for a percentage of sales or a small fee.

When you set up your auction one of the decisions you make is in which category to place your item. This is important. Visitors to your auction page - just by being there - have self qualified themselves as being in the market to buy products in that category. This is targeting in real time.

But merely creating the auction isn’t the trick. Here’s the key tip. In your auction page, make sure you tell your viewers that if they’ve any questions about your auction, your products or your policies, they should email you. And encourage them to do this by having a live email link in your auction, like this one brian@more-auction-sales.com

As soon as they make contact with you, you’ve acquired a targeted lead you wouldn’t have got any other way. You can start building a relationship. You can get them on your list, direct them to your website and start selling to them.

Pieces of Eight

I’ve only the space to show you one way in which you can direct your share of eBay’s targeted traffic to your website. There are eight ways in total. If you want to know the other seven, you’ll find them in my free eBook ‘The eBay Traffic Funnel’. You can get this here: http://www.more-auction-sales.com/websites

Setting up a JV with eBay can produce significant results. There isn’t another business on the web that gives you access to the targeted traffic eBay supplies for the price of a few pennies. Best of all, 97% of webmasters have yet to realize the power of this. The opportunity for you and your website is there for the taking.

For more useful tips & hints, please browse for more information at our website :- http://www.adsence-dollar-factory.com http://www.100earningtips.com

Article Source: Article Wagon




Product Marketing for Home Based Businesses

Thursday 25 June 2009 @ 2:06 am

by Satish1
If you are like most internet based home business entrepreneurs then marketing your product and driving increasing traffic to your web page is essential to increasing sales. The challenge is to market your products and increase your traffic and to do it affordably or even for free.

Fortunately, this is an option for home based businesses, and all it takes is a little creativity combined with dedication. And for those home based businesses with advertising budgets, there are even more advertising options available. Here are some suggestions that should help your product marketing plan significantly.

One of the best ways to get your web page noticed is by writing and publishing articles. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of ezines and newsletters that are constantly looking for new content. First, you need to find some ezines and newsletters that target your niche market. You can search for them on your favorite search engine by searching for “ezine directories” or “newsletter directories”. Then, write an article that can be submitted to a variety of these ezines and online newsletters, just make sure you retain the copyright. You may not think that you have the ability or creativity to write articles, but it can easily be done with a couple hours of effort and some commitment. The key part of marketing your home business is by creating a resource box at the end of your article that contains your URL and some brief information about you and your company. Doing this will get your web page out in the public quickly and will result in many hits and free product marketing.

Another way to market your products is to create a forum on your web page. By doing this, you are getting individuals to talk about products and services offered by your company as well as competitors and other relevant topics. This alone will help your product assuming you are offering top notch quality and customer service. If not, then a forum might not be the best idea for you. In addition, a forum will require a commitment of your time in reviewing the posts to make sure the discussions are kept within the rules. However, for those that are committed to their customers, forums generally create repeat traffic which is important to making sales. This is important because it has been proven that more than 70% of sales are made after the third, fourth or fifth contact. A forum keeps individuals coming back for more and more contact, which means you will sell more products.

Additionally, you should use banners on your own web page as well as others by exchanging links. You should also list your web page with search engines. All of these will help your web page get noticed which means your products and services will get noticed and your home based business will prosper. Remember that the most important factor in product marketing online is URL marketing. You might have the best product for the best price on earth, but if nobody knows how to get to your web site it doesn’t matter. Therefore, be diligent about getting your URL out there.

Finally, market your product and URL offline. This will reach a different sector of individuals and will also increase web page traffic. Make sure your URL is printed on any correspondence from your company including checks, faxes, web pages, emails, and letters, envelopes, and any promotional items like key chains, mouse pads and the like. The more people that know your URL means more traffic to your site. This in itself is the best product marketing you can re

For more useful tips & hints, please browse for more information at our website :- http://www.adsence-dollar-factory.com http://www.100earningtips.com

Article Source: Article Wagon




10 Tips for Successful Ezine Advertising

Saturday 20 June 2009 @ 2:06 am

by heena
When it comes to advertising, I’ve tried just about everything. I tried free classified ad sites, I tried FFA sites, I tried banner exchange programs.
The results? Not much.
I was tired of hearing that the Internet is the largest market in human history. Maybe so, but how could I reach those millions of people?
The answer, I discovered, is ezine advertising.
Ezines are sometimes called ‘opt-in’ lists because everyone who receives an ezine has chosen to do so.
And that’s why ezine advertising gets results. People read ezines and they’ll read your ad. And if you’ve matched the ezine to the product you’re selling, you’ve reached your target audience.
There are currently around 90,000 ezines being published every month. So whatever you’re selling, there’s more than likely an ezine that will take your ad straight to the audience you want to reach.
Ezine advertising is not only effective, it’s cheap as well. A 5 line ad in an ezine that goes to 3000 people will cost you between $5 and $20 per issue.
As a general rule, you’ll always get back at least the cost of the ad, and usually much more. So there’s very little risk.
But there are some tips for successful ezine advertising. Here they are:
1. The first and most important rule is: “Track your Ads!” Say you place an ad in 5 different ezines and get a hundred responses. If you don’t track your ads, you won’t know which ezines were pulling responses and which weren’t.
But how do you track your ads?
Then, when you get a reply with ‘ezineA’ in the subject field, you’ll know which ezine it came from.
For a URL, it’s the same principle:
However, if you’re going to code your URLs, you’ll need a good webstats program to track the coded URLs. Here’s another way to code your URLs: for every ezine ad, create a duplicate of your homepage and name the page after the ezine that your ad will appear in. So, if the ad is appearing in EzineA

2. Target your audience. It may seem obvious but some advertisers overlook this. If you’re selling a web-marketing course, don’t advertise in an ezine that deals with stock options; they probably won’t be interested.
Use the ’subject categories’ in any ezine directory to find ezines that relate to the product you’re selling. You can find a list of 56 ezine directories in ‘The Free Directory of Ezines’ at:
3. Once you’ve chosen a number of ezines that target your audience, subscribe to them and examine the ads closely. If you see an ad that keeps repeating issue after issue, you can be pretty sure that it’s getting results. You’ve found a good ezine to advertise in.
4. Check to see how many ads are in the ezine. You probably won’t get much response from an ad in an ezine that has 15 or 20 ads per issue. Readers of those ezines have become hardened to the ads and have learnt to skip them.
5. Check to see if the ezine publisher has a policy of never running ads for two similar products in the same issue - your ad will be much more effective if it’s the only one of its kind in that particular issue.
6. Small ezines Vs. Big ezines: bigger is not always better. The big ezines with 1000’s of subscribers tend to have more ads than the small ezines. Also, small ezines with only a few hundred subscribers often have a much more targeted audience than the big ezines.
7. Repeat your ads. Research shows that off the Web, an ad has to be seen about 21 times before someone acts on it; on the Internet it’s about 9 times. If your budget allows, try and have your ad repeated at least three times in a particular ezine. Most ezines offer discount packages for bulk advertising.
8. Email address Vs. URL. The advantage of giving an email address is that it gives you the opportunity to send a powerful sales letter to the person who responded to your ad. It’s also much easier to track your ads with an email address than a URL.
9. Offer something free in your ad copy. It’ll often tip the balance between a response and no response.
10. Keep your ads short, even if you’re not using the number of words you’re allowed. Short ads are more likely to be read. Keep your sentences short too; they pack much more power. Use the word ‘You’. Don’t describe your product but tell the reader what your product can do for them.

For more useful tips & hints, please browse for more information at our website :- http://www.adsence-dollar-factory.com http://www.100earningtips.com

Article Source: Article Wagon




Many Home work Which You Work at Home

Sunday 14 June 2009 @ 10:06 pm

by Satish25
There are a lot of challenges to working at home. You have a lot to get accomplished in the day and many distractions. It’s easy to have very high expectations of what you will accomplish on a particular day, and it’s not always realistic. Worse, you probably feel guilty at times for focusing on work rather than on keeping a clean house. You’re home and you may feel like it’s a part of your job to keep that house clean. Traditional duty of the stay at home parent (especially moms) and all that. But being at home should not mean that it all falls onto your shoulders. You need to look at what the appropriate divisions are. The struggle often comes from it being unclear how you should divide the work up. If you feel like you aren’t contributing because your home business isn’t bringing in much money yet, you’re going to feel bad if the hours you work keep you away from keeping a perfect house. Yet you can be working long hours trying your best to make it work, and simply not have the time or the energy to do it all yourself. I know I’m good at giving myself a guilt trip every time the house is a mess and I feel that I’m too busy to clean it up. Sometimes I think feeling guilty is simpler than feeling good about what I’ve achieved. After all, I can always compare myself to people who are doing better. Somehow it seems to be easier for most of us to compare ourselves to those who do better than to recognize what we have achieved. There are all the things we dream about accomplishing, after all. Looking at what others have managed to do as we struggle along is just the way things go. One thing all families should do is figure out who will be responsible for what. Working in or out of the home shouldn’t matter as much as the fact that one is working. That’s not always the reality of people’s expectations, but it’s a nice goal. Get your spouse involved. Get the kids involved. Don’t let all the housework fall on one pair of shoulders. Figure out what you will do at which times. Housework that needs to be done can be scheduled just like anything in your home business. How well all of this works can tell you a lot about how supportive your spouse is of your working at home. If you both work a similar number of hours, yet you’re at home and expected to do a significantly larger chunk of the housework, you may need to have a talk to make sure that what you do is being taken seriously. Sometimes it’s not. Other times it will just be that your spouse hasn’t quite realized how much work you’re doing. And if you’re earning enough and feel so inclined, hire a maid service to come once a week or so to do some of the heavy duty cleaning for you. This can be really helpful. If you’re earning enough it will be well worth the money. Sometimes it’s worth it even if you aren’t earning that much but need a break from feeling like you need to get that housework done. There are a lot of stresses that come from working at home that other people don’t always recognize. The part of it related to a clean house can be controlled somewhat with a little effort.

Did you find this article useful? For more useful tips & hints, Points to ponder and keep in mind, techniques & insights pertaining to Google Ad sense, Do please browse for more information at our website :-http://www.adsence-dollar-factory.com http://www.100earningtips.com

Article Source: Article Wagon




26 Tips on How to be Safe in Your eBay Selling and Buying

Sunday 14 June 2009 @ 8:06 pm

by SaratBDaniel
The irony of eBay is that as it grows to be ever more successful, it draws the unsavory element of the internet towards it. I’m talking about people who make it their business to attempt to defraud you and me in our eBay and PayPal transactions.

Of course, not all dodgy dealings on eBay are fraudulent. Some are just mischievous. Others are by chancres, who perhaps reckon their victims won’t be bothered to pursue them.

Whoever causes it, it’s left to the targeted buyer or seller to try and sort out the problem. All that we as users can do is to be extremely vigilant and cautious in all our eBay and PayPal activities.

Here is a list of practical steps, in no particular order, which buyers and sellers can take to help avoid becoming the next victim.

Hopefully you are already aware of some of these. It doesn’t necessarily follow that if one of these applies the auction or person is fraudulent. But if you use your head, and build up a view of the overall transaction based upon a number of these factors, you will reduce your chances of getting conned.

a) Stock photos and descriptions
Because they don’t have the item they are “selling”, some fraudsters use a stock photograph of the item. And they will probably use the manufacturer’s product description too. So, stock photos and no original description might be a sign. Search for other auctions by the same seller, and see if they are brazen enough to advertise the same item more than once.

b) A price too good to be true often isn’t true
A fraudster wants your money quickly, so you may find they offer to close their auction early with you as the “winner” having bid a price which you know to be somewhat of a bargain. Why would anyone close their auction early if the price hadn’t reached market levels? I’ll give you one guess.

c) High value or high volume, newly registered sellers
Although the vast majority of new sellers are genuine and honest, be cautious of buying from people selling high value items in bulk, very early on in their eBay career. This pattern isn’t quite normal. Think back to your own first sales. You would have been tentative, and probably have tried single, low value items initially. So, a new seller fitting this profile may be someone who has perhaps been previously suspended and has registered another ID.

d) 1 day listings
Although 1 day listing are used by genuine sellers who have more than one item or who want a quick sale, unfortunately this duration is attractive to fraudsters too. They sometimes use 1 day auction duration to gain a quick sale before their actions can be reported and acted upon. So, be extra wary on auctions with 1 day listing.

e) Invitations to trade off-eBay
This is a classic ploy of fraudsters. Having made some kind of contact with you or you with them, they will invite you to purchase or to sell off eBay i.e. without using eBay’s auction services. The attraction here to the fraudster is that they can drive the transaction along the lines they prefer, whether that is escrow, PayPal etc. Another reason why trading off eBay is not a good idea is that you have to keep your own formal records of the transaction, and you forfeit any cover from eBay buyer protection and PayPal buyer protection. Plus, and this might be a minor point, but you will not be able to leave feedback to let others know your experience with this seller/buyer.

f) Payment methods with no recourse
Fraudsters prefer to chose payment methods in which the buyer has no protection, like wire transfers where the buyer has no way of tracing where the money is going. Western Union Money Transfers and BidPay are favorites and should be totally avoided. Postal orders are similar although they are a popular payment method among the genuine sellers as they require no clearance time. Bank transfers and cheques can only provide the possibility of your bank investigating the details of the account the money was transferred into. For the best protection use PayPal and fund with a Credit Card. Note there are limits on eBay and PayPal protection, and you should make yourself aware of what these are.

g) Unusual sales pattern
If your seller’s feedback indicates that they normally deal in collectables, DVDs or other specific items, be suspicious that they are suddenly listing laptops, plasma TVs or other high value items. The change may indicate that this seller’s account has been hijacked.

h) Bad English gives you a pointer
Some fraudsters operate from abroad but pretend to be in UK or USA. As they aren’t particularly adept at the English language they might use a translation tool like Babelfish to create their emails to you. So, watch out for emails that are not good English. In itself, it doesn’t prove anything; there are plenty of genuine eBay sellers for whom English is not their first language. But it might add to further evidence you have.

I) Location Location Location
In the case of lazy fraudsters you might find their locations don’t match up. By that I mean the auction says the goods are in the UK, but the seller’s ID details show their location to be, say, Ukraine. This is not a good sign. Often in these cases if you contact these sellers you will receive an excuse as to why the item is not in the UK, and therefore can’t be collected in person. In short, if an auction says the item is in the UK and the seller says that it is not, I would avoid the auction. And don’t forget to cross check with their PayPal account, and see in which country this resides.

j) Ask questions
Always, always ask your seller a question. Any question. Their response, if you receive one, will help you judge how genuine the seller is. Beware auctions that carry a message asking you to contact the seller via a given email address as opposed to via the ‘Ask seller a question’ link. This could be an account hijacker trying to prevent buyers from ‘Asking the seller a question’. They want to stop this from happening because such questions could be routed to the real account owner.

k) “EBay can vouch for me” email
A warning about a relatively new tactic used by fraudsters. If you are proving hard to land as a buyer/seller, they may claim they can get eBay to email you proof of their validity so that you can trust them. EBay, of course, will NEVER do this. The email sent out, however authentic looking is fake and is designed to get you to part with your money or your goods. This applies equally to Square Trade and PayPal. They will never email you certifying the genuineness of anyone.

l)A PayPal warning
There are fraudsters who use stolen PayPal accounts to accept payments. To lower the possibility of this, check your seller’s location as shown in eBay, and then see if it is one of PayPal’s permitted countries by clicking here: http://www.workwinners.com/nlr701.htm. If PayPal don’t offer their service in the country that the seller resides, be very wary.

m) Passwords
Never have the same password on your eBay and PayPal accounts. Or indeed on any other financial or personal site. Change your passwords every 30-60 days on both eBay and PayPal.

n) Escrow
If your seller asks you to use escrow, and proposes an escrow company they’ve used before, this is a clear indication they are fraudulent. There are many fake escrow sites which will take your money fraudulently. The only escrow site recommended by eBay is http://www.escrow.com. An alternative in the UK is http://www.auctionpix.co.uk Please don’t be tempted to use any other escrow company, however professional looking their websites might be. It is a fact that 99% of escrow companies on the internet are fraudulent. They are set up solely to defraud money out of unsuspecting buyers, and to get goods without paying for them from unsuspecting sellers.

o) Pointers in feedback
Try to read the positive feedback as well as the negative. Read the way your seller responds to negative feedback as this will often give you an idea of how the seller will react if something goes badly wrong. If the seller is offering high value goods, be wary if their feedback has been built up quickly from low value purchases. Also, if the overall rating is good, but there are a disproportionate number of negatives in recent days/weeks, this might indicate the account has been taken over. Finally, be aware that feedback is not the guarantee it once was. Feedback can easily be manufactured. Also, if the user ID has been hijacked, you’ll be reading the feedback of the original account owner, not the person with whom you’re currently dealing!

p) Credit Card payment
for high value items or for amounts of money you can’t afford to lose, make sure you pay by credit card which has online fraud protection. This will give you some recourse if the seller is fraudulent. In this context, paying via PayPal is not the same. PayPal do have a buyer protection scheme, but there are criteria which the eBay auction has to satisfy in order to qualify. Even if the transaction qualifies, PayPal’s standard protection currently has a maximum value of $1,000. Note that payment by debit card provides zero protection.

q) Address and Telephone check
Use the Ask the seller a question link, and request they email you with their address and telephone number. Any reputable seller will give you their address and telephone number. When you get the number, call it, and see if you get through to the genuine seller.

r) Keystroke capturing virus
This is a computer virus which you inadvertently download onto your PC. Its task is to capture the keystrokes you make, and to send them to the virus placer. The fraudster then uses pattern recognition software to identify and extract personal information, like username, password, credit card numbers etc. To avoid this happening to you, it is wise to have good, up-to-date virus, firewall and spyware checking software on your PC. Here is where you can get free software for each of these functions:

Virus protection - http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/
Firewall - http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/comparison.jsp?lid=ho_za
Spyware checking - http://www.lavasoft.com/support/download/

s) Shill bidding
Shill bidding is where people work in cahoots to inflate the bidding on an item. A seller has a “partner” who makes bids on the seller’s items with a view to bumping up the bid price. They have no intention of buying the item. Fortunately, shill bidders and their associated seller can be stupid. The shill bidder will usually makes bids on other items from the same seller. Here’s how to check to see if shill bidding is a feature of a particular seller. First, look at the seller’s closed auctions over the last 30 days. If most of the closed auctions have no bids, it is unlikely the seller has shill bidders working with them. If all of the closed auctions have bids, take a look at the bid history. See if the same bidder appears in the list of bidders, usually with aggressive bidding and normally at the start of the auction. If so, you may have uncovered a shill operation, so avoid that seller’s auctions.

t) Keep your transaction information
Keep your own record of the transaction when you’re buying. Don’t just rely on eBay. You want a record of the seller’s identification, the item description, and emails sent and received, plus the time, date and price of your bid.

u) “I noticed your bid….”
Never deal with anyone who contacts you after seeing your bid on another auction. They will say something like, “I saw you bidding on that digital camera. I have the same model available for sale. I don’t have time to list it on eBay. It has more accessories than the one you lost out on. You can have it for xyz.” If you bite, they’ll probably take you down the fake escrow route. Also, if you entertain this proposition, you’re operating outside of eBay and therefore have no auction protection whatsoever.

v) Changed eBay ID
Never deal with anyone who has a changed ID icon next to their name. This icon means they’ve changed their ID in the last 30 days. Few legitimate people change their eBay ID. When was the last time you changed yours? There’s a 1% chance that an ID change is genuine, but 99% that it is fraudulent. Why take the risk?

w) Changed email address mid-stream
If a seller or buyer changes their email address on you in the middle of a transaction, stop dealing with them. It is likely their previous email account was closed down due to some irregularity - such as a previous victim reported them. If you think about it, why would any genuine buyer or seller change their email address whilst corresponding on a transaction they wish to conclude expeditiously?

x) Complications
Never get involved in any transaction where the seller/buyer tries to introduce a third person into the financial arrangements. They might ask you to pay xyz, who will then pay the seller, and you will receive a discount or commission for your co-operation. Such proposals are always fraudulent. They prey on greed. Don’t be tempted.

y) Time is of the essence
This is a scam which is has more potential for success than traditional phishing attacks, as it is time sensitive. The fraudster searches for high value auctions that have just ended. The bid history for an auction contains hyperlinks to each bidder. The fraudster checks to see if the winning bidder is selling any items of their own. If so, they go to that auction and embed a request for payment from the first auction within a question for seller. This works because winning bidders are expecting request for payment shortly after an auction ends. A variation of this is to offer a bidder a “second chance”. This time the “Ask the seller a question” email pretends that the real winner has backed out, and offers the item at a lower price. The buyer, believing the story, is lured into paying to whom they believe is a genuine seller. Many eBayers have heard of the second chance system, but have no experience of it. This unfamiliarity coupled with the fact that a few weeks might have passed, makes this an effective method for fraudsters. The moral of this story is never get involved in any transaction which arrives in your inbox via the Ask the Seller a Question feature.

z) EBay IDs
Never us your email address as your eBay ID, or part of your eBay ID. Fraudsters have software which monitors internet traffic looking for information such as this. If your eBay ID and email address are the same, it is simple for a fraudster to plausibly communicate with other eBay members in your name.

That’s all in my list. If you have any further ideas on how to prevent fraudulent transactions on eBay, please let me know and I will promote these through future newsletters.

In the meantime, be aware, and be safe in your eBay buying and eBay selling.

For more useful tips & hints, please browse for more information at our website :- http://www.adsence-dollar-factory.com http://www.100earningtips.com

Article Source: Article Wagon




Ideas to Get Your Started Online earning

Friday 12 June 2009 @ 5:06 pm

by sudesh1
Is the same old routine that you have everyday getting you down? Fighting the traffic to go and sit in an office for 8 hours or more and then joining the rush hour home again. Collecting the kids from school, watching their sports practice or helping with homework, this leaves you no time for yourself at all.

Have you ever considered doing business in the comfort of your own home? A home business is now very popular for both men and women worldwide. This is an ideal way to earn if you are a stay-at-home-mom (SAHM) and you want to become a work-at-home-mom (WAHM).

With the help of a home business, you will not have to work from 9 to 5 and earn an average income. You are in control of your own time and you can choose which business you would like to establish.

One of the most common home businesses today is an online business. You will need an excellent Internet connection and a computer if you want to be involved in online business. You can choose affiliate marketing, to sell products online, build your own website, offer online services such as content writing, data encoding, and much more. There are also some who are paid just for answering online surveys.

You will also have a wide range of choices in which online business you want to get involved with because of the wide variety of things that you can do with the Internet.

Should you choose to build your own website, it would take you at least a few months to get the income that you want to have. You will have to invest your time in establishing your website and make it a reputable and high-ranking one.

It is important that you make sure that the subject of your website is something that interests you so that you can continually update the website with content filled with rich information. You may find it hard work at first, but once your own website becomes high-ranking you will earn a high income without exerting so much effort.

However, on the other hand, if you do not have adequate time and are not interested in building your own website, you can offer services online. In this way, you can still earn even if you are not in an office. Also, you will still have time to do the things that you like to do for yourself while you earn from home.

Offering online services would only require you to have the much-needed skills. For example, if someone is looking for a web developer, you should know the latest in web design and developing so that you can create an excellent reputation to your potential clients.

The great advantage of having your own home business is not only the boss freedom but the freedom to work when you want enabling you to schedule your work around your family so that you can spend more quality time with them.

http://www.adsence-dollar-factory.com http://www.100earningtips.com

Article Source: Article Wagon




12 Items You CAN’T Sell On eBay

Friday 12 June 2009 @ 5:06 pm

by Rishabh Bathla
Millions of would-be entrepreneurs want to sell things on eBay. EBay is the #1 home-business opportunity in the world right now, so it’s natural that many are eager to find highly profitable items for re-sale on eBay. However, it’s important to know that there are certain items that can’t be sold. Here are a dozen of them …

Some items are copyright infringement and can actually land a seller in federal prison:

1. Knock offs of music, TV shows or movies. The “bootleg” movies, for example, are often made by guys who sneak a movie camera into a newly-released movie where presumably, they crouch behind a seat and make a crummy copy. There is a large production of these counterfeit items in Asia where US laws have no power.

2. Software and computer games can likewise be copied and their sale is illegal by all US laws.

Naturally, the items above may be sold if you have a copy that you purchased legitimately and no longer want.

3, The so-called “replica” market for handbags, designer sunglasses and clothing is definitely forbidden although these items are often sold in physical stores around the US. Ironically, when attending eBay Live In New Orleans in 2004, we found a store in one of their famous markets selling replica purses that were not allowed on eBay.

4. Lazy and less-than-honest sellers often steal copyrighted material from other sellers. This has happened to me many times and eBay has a program called VERO (Verified Rights Owner) that will remove offending auctions, although there seems to be no penalty attached to the seller, which is unfortunate.

5. Alcoholic beverage sales are not allowed although a beverage “container’, especially those of wine, may be sold for its value.

6. Cigarettes, cigars, smokeless tobacco or coupons for such items are not permitted on eBay.com.

The EBay rules for collectible tobacco and alcohol containers are the same:

* The value of the item is in the collectible packaging, not in the wine/tobacco itself.

* The listing description should state that the package has not been opened, but that the twine/tobacco within is not for consumption.

* The collectible tobacco packaging must not be available at any retail outlet, and packaging must have a value that substantially exceeds the current retail price of that wine/tobacco product in the package.

* Sellers must take steps to ensure that the buyer of these collectibles is at least 18 years of age

7. Firearms are strictly regulated by US law and may not be sold on eBay.

8. Satellite and cable TV descramblers are forbidden by the Federal Trade Commission.

9. Animals and wildlife products may not be sold, which includes stuffed birds and pelts from endangered species. There are limited sales of ivory, tortoise shell, marine products and other items relating to animals. This area is quite complex and any would-be seller needs to thoroughly understand the various laws before getting involved in these sales.

10. Event tickets have state-by-state laws that make their sale complex. Some states, for instance, forbid anyone to make more than a few dollars in profit (or no profit at all) on the resale of tickets. For instance, Florida law states that tickets can be resold at no more than face value plus $1. In such states, these regulations apply only to buyers and sellers located in the same state as the actual event, meaning if a seller lives in Florida, he can’t profit from ticket sales to Florida events. However, if he lives in any of the other 39 states, this restriction doesn’t apply.

11. Listing a catalog of items that a seller offers for sale is forbidden. The only catalogs legally sold on eBay are collectible kinds, such as an old Sears Roebuck or Montgomery Ward’s catalog that is memorabilia and doesn’t offer current merchandise for sale.

12. Raffles and prizes are 100% prohibited. According to eBay, such promotions are highly regulated and may be unlawful in many states.

There are other kinds of merchandise that a seller may not sell on eBay, so carefully check eBay rules before listing anything. It’s much better to know the rules in advance of spending money that can’t be recouped.

For more useful tips & hints, please browse for more information at our website http://www.adsence-dollar-factory.com http://www.100earningtips.com

Article Source: Article Wagon




Business Web Directories

Friday 12 June 2009 @ 4:06 pm

by Satish23
What’s the Internet got to do with it? Well, if the “it” we are talking about is business, then the answer is “everything.” Functions necessarily thrive on sponsorships in order to be successful, since operating costs can get quite significant. Since the web costs money, it is customary for sponsors to bear a share of the expense.

The community of the great web is similar to other media. The web is practically a sprawling fair ground for thriving and established businesses, in an effort to stake their share of the user’s attention, and hopefully generate good business in the process. With numerous corporations sprawled all over and across the vast area of open cyberspace, it’s but natural for a user to be hindered by limitations when searching for a particular product or service, unless he knows the particular domain which the company has taken on.

In this sense, business web directories are of indispensable importance.

Business web directories function very much like every other search engine: the user types a query or keyword which is related to a particular topic in mind, and the search engine processes all content within its database which has any relation to the keyword.

This is compiled into a list and presented to the user in order of decreasing relevance. Business web directories differ since they focus mainly on topics of business and financial content. For example a query keyword of ’stock’ may bring results containing the word of varied topics in a general search engine, but with a business web directory, the list would only contain topics which leans to the business context of the word, such as ’stock options’ or ’stock market.’

Business web directories have a database containing numerous business articles which may be of assistance to the user who may be looking for content of specific nature, or for those who are still unsure of what to look, for but may have a vague idea concerning a topic.

When one is talking about business articles, one is talking about a wide range of things — right from setting up a business to naming a brand. Users can also browse business documents of varied content, some are available free of charge while some require a viewing or download fee. Content can be anything from documents of rights acquisition to a copy of a corporation’s in-house policies.

Business web directories generate a substantial part of their income from paid advertisements and sponsorships, as well as paid links which are published on the site. A typical search listing from a user may include paid links which comprises the top results, giving more exposure to the company which posted it.

When a surfer comes across a page on a business web directory, they will quite likely encounter sponsored ads first. Regular advertisements are also a main source for income, since companies pay high premiums in having their company ad posted on the header or sides of a page.

Sponsorships may involve the company paying the business web directory sites with fees for every click a user makes which leads to their site and consequently generates business. Of course when it comes to the Internet, there is more than one way in which you can get advertiser dollars.

For more useful tips & hints, please browse for more information at our website :- http://www.adsence-dollar-factory.com http://www.100earningtips.com

Article Source: Article Wagon







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