Lifetime eBay Income and eBay Money Matters

Ask any successful entrepreneur and they will each tell you something different as ‘the’ secret to creating a lifetime income and making it rich: multiple revenue streams; cash flow management; repeat customers. And they are all right – the problem is that for every person creating their own “lifetime” income in their own specialized field is unique. Fortunately for us we’re using eBay as our marketplace so there are some rules and best practices that apply more or less universally and can be shared.

Common Sense Rules

First and foremost if you want to earn a living off eBay sales, especially an ongoing lifetime income which even having a career can no longer assure you in our day and age you need to follow some good common sense rules of business that apply whether or not your company is in online sales ala eBay or not. Some of the better know of these include:

1. Know what it is you want to get out of a business before you start it.

2. Create a business plan and keep it updated.

3. Sell the best products or services available at a fair price.

4. Specialize in one area per business and run multiple businesses if you need to branch out.

5. Train both yourself and your employees in all aspects of running your business and customer service.

6. Outsource both the manufacturing and materials handling / shipping if possible.

7. Keep a minimum inventory on hand, using a just-in-time delivery and ordering system whenever possible.

8. Have enough financing in place with excess available for emergencies.

9. Keep a list of all current and potential customers.

10. Get vendors to supply written purchase orders outlining all terms before placing orders with them.

11. Test market any new products before you invest.

12. Be sure to present a professional image on all packaging, correspondence and listings / advertisements.

Secrets of online sales

The tools and reach of eBay is enormous – but don’t limit yourself to just auctions and eBay sales. Having a website and the ability to fill orders directly not only provides you additional sales outlets but also gives you an air of legitimacy as a company in your own right and not just another eBay seller reselling the same goods that others have available.

Creating your own website

Even for the largest of corporations one of the more important assets that they have available to them is their web sites and the ability to quickly showcase their company and products and update that image that the public perceives on a moments notice. As with any other aspect of business you can delegate this task to professionals or educate yourself as needed and possibly even become a professional yourself but having a website is vital to being perceived as being ‘really’ in ecommerce.

How to get started

The first step in setting up a website is to register a domain name. The Internet is just a series of servers with IP (Internet Protocol) addresses that have associated friendly names. Reserving a ‘friendly’ name and getting one of the limited IP addresses associated with that name is administered by the WWW consortium. Rather then handle this all by themselves however; they farm the actual registration to third party companies such as www.register.com; www.networksolutions.com and others. These registrar companies will then charge you a fee on a yearly basis to reserve that name for you, and have tools that can help you find any names that are still available and who owns those that are taken.

Once you ‘own’ a domain name you still need to host your site, which means you need to have an internet server that will hold the bits that make up your site and be listed with the registrar as being associated with your friendly name and IP address so that when that entry hits and Internet name server your website is where they are directed. There are many different websites that host business pages although a few such as http://www.gowebserver.com simply charge a flat rate based on the throughput (the number of hits accessing your page) and leave the page administration up to you.

When you buy a domain name it is often a good idea to purchase as many of the ‘surrounding’ names as you can afford as well - for example if you buy www.a-motorcycle-acc.biz and find someone has put a porn site up on www. a-motorcycle-acc.com you may get irate customers who think that it is your site that their child has seen not that they mistyped the URL in question!

Building a website

A few questions you need answers to before starting the actual construction include:

• How many hits (users) you expect monthly

• The amount of information you will keep on the site

• Whether you want live ordering

  • With live ordering what types of payments are acceptable and how will you handle the secure payment process?

Online Credit Transactions

One wonderful thing about having your own website rather then just relying on eBay is that you can take e-commerce directly at any time of the day or night. This is a wonderful is a bit scary concept to many small business owners, the thought that they can have a 24-hour a day revenue generating engine sitting out there taking funds and placing orders to be filled the next time you get to your computer to check it. Of course you have to be able to program and maintain a secure order entry system to accept those payments! Don’t be afraid though – when it comes to ‘shopping cart’ solutions there are more then enough out there already to go around. In fact eBay’s own PayPal offers an easy to implement system that can be incorporated into your page quickly and easily. The PayPal code is not only secure and run from their server, but placing the html into your page is about as ‘plug and play’ as it can get.

Merchant Accounts

The other big option which most larger companies go for is to open a merchant account, so that they can take credit cards directly, call them in over the phone etc. whether or not secure online ordering is used. Many of the shopping cart companies in fact require that if you are going to be one of their vendors that you have a merchant account in addition to a payment provider (the online service accepting the card) … a few of the companies in question include: 2CheckOut.com, Authorize.Net, Cybersource.com, and Verisign.com but start out with your local bank since today Bank of America, Washington Mutual, and Wells Fargo all partner with e-commerce providers and may already have a system in place for you.

Customer Support

“Service after the sale” is more then a catchy slogan – it is vital to continuing trust and ongoing sales. If you are truly going to promote a lifelong income from eBay or any other online business you need to assure your customers that when they need you they have only to pick up a phone or a keypad and you will be there.

Live chat vs. phone support

One option that is seeing a boom of late is an online or ‘live’ chat mode support using products like MSN Messenger. At the very least providing a phone number and time zone with times that they can call for help should be the least you should offer. Providing your contact times and solutions even if never needed provide your customers the feeling that they are dealing with someone who cares.

Managing Mailing Lists

Since your customers are your single greatest asset and keeping them coming back is the only way to ensure a lifelong business income you need to treat both them and their contact information with respect. Maintain a secure tracking and accounting system that is protected and encrypted and confirmed on a regular basis. You also should avoid ever selling your customers contact information and should advertise that it is your policy not to do so with them.

minimizing fraud

Odds are that sooner or later you will be defrauded in one way or another. Online frauds are relatively easy to pull off and hard to trace but your first line of defence should be having policies and procedures in place to help minimize the likelihood of your getting hit. These include some form of the following:

• Maintain a stated policy of waiting for checks and money orders to clear prior to shipping goods
  

• Always obtain the three-digit security code from the back of a credit card to assure they have physical access to the card itself
  

• Make certain the shipping and billing address is the same and if not contact the credit card company with your suspicions
  

• Request and verify phone numbers and make sure they are not “pay as you go” cell phones before agreeing to contract terms or pay on delivery items

Unique Issues

Online sales and especially eBay auctions do come with a few problems unique to the business, and if you are going to have a lifelong business income you need to be aware of and prepare for the scams and problems that can occur. You also need to warn your customers that direct contacts supposedly from ‘you’ and second chance offers or sales outside of eBay that they did not initiate are not safe and to contact you directly anytime they receive such a notice. A few of the common scams and problems that you need to brush up on include:

Phishing

This is a common trick in which a scammer sends an email that looks like it is from you or eBay regarding a transaction or your account in an attempt to get information or your password. NEVER log into your eBay account from a link that you receive and warn your customers of this as well. Many Phish emails are easy to spot due to errors in spelling or questionable requests - but some appear legit even to an experienced eye so not logging in ANY time you have clicked a link should be a hard and fast rule.

Auction Payment scams

Payments handled via PayPal or other online payment methods are not immune but typically have some security built-in, however with large items escrow services or bonding services are utilized and in many cases either fake companies or forged money orders are used to bilk sellers. Be wary of any business you have not dealt with personally in the past, and of any cases where you are asked to accept a third-party or ‘oversized’ payment and refund the difference!

The following are good ways to help determine if an escrow service is valid:

• Look for any ‘copycat’ sites
  Escrow.com for instance, a valid escrow site often used in conjunction with eBay has many elements from its’ site listed and placed on other pages to make you think they are associated with escrow.com
  

• Call the customer service and other phone numbers
  

• Read ALL of the fine print
  Many of the scam sites have misspellings or sloppy content – if you see this or other errors such as the wrong companies name in the fine print be very wary.
  

• Check the stated payment methods
  If you are asked to pay a person or an agent instead of a corporate account be very wary
  

• Whenever possible avoid ‘overseas’ escrow companies
  Being outside the US you will have limited legal recourse when you are scammed.

NOTE: It is possible that your bank won’t alert you that a check or money order has been returned right away so it is a good idea to contact the ‘issuer’ of the check and confirm that they authorized it before depositing it. When you do this obtain the issuers contact numbers from a reliable source other then the person sending you the check!

Getting Help

If you have problems some resources you may wish to utilize besides eBay include:

• Your attorney general’s office

• The BBB (Better Business Bureau)
  

• Federal Trade Commission (www.ftc.gov or call toll-free, 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357); TTY: 1-866-653-4261)

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