Most popular ways to make money online, we need to know the most popular ways to make money online. The holy grail of making money online is to have an online business which meets the following criteria:
- puts money in your bank 24/7 365
- Continually grows
- Requires a very small amount of maintenance and support
- Requires either no capital or a small amount of capital to start
- Works from home or anywhere on the planet where there is an internet connection
So is there such a beast? Well.. close…
Firstly so we are on the same page, every single business on the planet sells either a product or a service and to make money online is no different. To make money online we need to sell something i.e. a product or service.
Personally I prefer to sell products as selling services normally requires selling your time. Products can be bought and sold over and over whereas there are only so many hours in a day to sell your time.
Another advantage of products is automation, online businesses selling products can be almost fully automated and they make money literally 24/7 365.
So what do you sell to make money online and where do you sell it?
There are many thoughts on what to sell online, many people like to guess what the next trend or fad is. Sometimes they get it right and made good money, however other times they don’t and lose money.
Years ago I flew from Australia to Omaha Nebraska to attend the Berkshire Hathaway yearly annual meeting for shareholders hosted by Warren Buffet (second richest man in the world) and there I learnt a very valuable lesson, Buffet does not ‘guess’, he only uses history as a gauge.
We use the same strategy to make money online, we only sell products which have a proven history of making at least 50% profit after all expenses and a proven history of selling at least 15 times per month. No guessing.
This strategy is based on how Buffet purchases shares in businesses, Buffet only purchases shares in businesses which have a proven history.
Follow the most popular ways to make money online. Taking the guesswork out of making money by using proven history is critical to building a stable online income with predictable results.
Our criteria for choosing products to sell online is they must meet the following criteria:
- Must be already selling at least 15 times per month over the last 90 days
- Must be able to purchase the item for at least 50% less than the average price it has been selling for over the last 90 days
- Product sells for a minimum of $20 and makes minimum of $10 per sale
- No trends
- No Fads
- Non seasonal
- No brand names
Example. If an item has a proven history of selling 15 times per month for $120, we want to be able to make at least $60 per sale x the amount of times it sells for per month i.e. 15.
That is 15 x $60 profit = $900
Where to sell the item? Why ebay?
Many people think I only sell on ebay, however that is not the case. Here in Australia ebay is the biggest ecommerce platform which attracts the most buyers, however we also list our products on many other platforms. i.e Amazon, Shopping.com, Getprice, our websites etc. etc.
Personally I am not bothered what the name of a platform is, it is the amount of eyeballs on the platform which interests me.
Recently I did a 1 day seminar for the Sydney ebay and ecommerce sellers meetup group and many people ask me which platform should they sell their items on? My answer is always the same. “Why choose?” Every marketplace means more sales. Why not list on all of them?
In saying that, ebay is the simplest platform to start selling online. All you need to do is learn to list an item and millions of eyeballs have the potential of seeing your listing. You do not need to buy advertising, setup a website or do any another marketing, ebay does it all for you. However, to make a lot of money on ebay you need to learn to do 4 things.
- Learn how to source products which meet the above criteria
- Have what we call a “super template” created, that is a listing template which has the attributes which provide trust to potential buyers i.e. trust icons, terms and conditions, logo, shipping information, about us etc etc, This template is best created by a graphic artist and is used for every item you sell. Many ebay sellers start with no template to “test the waters” however this is like opening a Chinese restaurant to see how it goes before you spend money on fitting the restaurant out.
In the scheme of things, templates are cheap, normally ranging from $50 to $350 whereas fitting out a restaurant can cost anywhere from $50,000 to $250,000 +
- Learn how to optimize listings so they appear in the top of ebays search results. Again this is not guesswork; it is simply learning how to do it then following a checklist for each item you list.
Bottom line on how to make money online and with ebay. An ebay business is built 1 product at a time. Each product is in essence, a separate business, as each product is a cash cow and produces a separate revenue / profit per month. The effort comes from learning the procedures for the 1st product and then when mastered, more and more products can easily be added.
Last week one of my new students rolled out his new template with his very first product and within hours had captured his first sale, making a nice $91 profit for just the 1st sale. Now he is hooked and will shortly have his second product listed. This is how we all get hooked and I still clearly remember the first time I made money online.
To your success
Neil Waterhouse
This might also be interesting for you:
Thanks Neil
I’m a complete newbie trying to figure it all out.
I just got a subscription to http://www.tera-peak.com
How many listings and sell through rate would you recommend for a product to try and get selling on Ebay.
Thanks
Neil, Totally on the same page as you are.
1) My Paypal “CaChing
‘ goes on all day and night, holidays or not.
2) We have a year/year growth in the double digits for the past 15 years.
3) We do have a good bit of support, but I can hire people to do that for me.
4) Our capital outlay is near zero!!
5) I’ve managed the business from the mountains in Arizona to the Roman ruins in Italy and a cafe in Paris.
Love your work Rich! Hats off to you for creating a truly brilliant and quite unique methodology.
Cafe in Paris sure sounds great.
Writing this from an airport lounge in Sydney Australia sipping on a coffee which the taste sure does not bring up thoughts of Paris, hmmm, more like thoughts of a bush fire! Ahhh what coffee addicts have to endure for their addiction.
Hi Neil
Your first criteria is that the product should have sales of at least 15 per month. Later you stated ” If an item has a proven history of selling 15 times per month for $120, we want to be able to make at least $60 per sale x the amount of times it sells for per month i.e. 15. ”
Unless I am not understanding this, you seem to be saying that we can now capture the 15 pre existing sales per month. But what happened to the sellers who had sold the 15 + items per month? Did they fall to the wayside ?
Can you clarify this please ?
Thanks
Gerry
Terra Peak seems to keep cutting features to help us eBay sellers stay in front. Is Terra Peak worth anything anymore?