Making a Part Time Income from home?
Hello
My name is Richard and I have joined this site, along with my wife, to share a website I have built based on the experiences of our own.
My wife and I struggled financially when our first was born over two years ago now, and we vowed things would be different the next time around.
Using her free time (as she is a stay at home mum, as she has a slight disability too) and her tax free yearly allowance, she started a small ebay business a little over 18 months ago. In her first year, the profit was £4800 which i can tell you, came in very handy. this was a simple business of buying and selling at a profit.
I have created a website www.sellingguru.info which will hopefully help people fulfill their spare time (in between nappy changes), whilst creating an informative blog that gives tips and advice on helping others to make a small income selling online.
It is an information site, which will only get bigger and bigger as I work shifts and get 6 off for every 4 shifts i work.
Any feedback is appreciated
As you can see it is a dot-info site, so not selling anything as such, just sharing ideas.
Richard
Replies
I may just add that looking at her overnight sales, 3 out of the 6 products she sold were 'dropshipped' items - meaning that we do not touchg the product ourselves.
Yes you heard us, we advertise the product, make the sale, enter the delivery details on the dropshippers website, and the dropshipper ships directly to the customer.
Yes, profits are minimal, but it IS a profit.
item 1 sold at £94.99 - cost delivered £71.99 after fees of paypal and ebay, the profit is £13.81. 313.81 in her account for simply advertising a product, and inputting the customers address on her dropshippers website!!!!!
Proof that there ARE ways to make a little extra money even in a recession!
313.81 in her account for simply advertising a product
***sorry this should say £13.81, not 313.81***
My laptop battery is dying now but thanks, I am sure I'm going to have a look at your site. I sell a lot of things on ebay and it really does help as a stay at home mum. Thanks for sharing your ideas. I can't wait to have a look.
Once the girls are full time at school I've decided not to go back to work so I'm trying to sort a few ideas for earning a little and keeping my sanity too.
Yes part of the thing with my wife was the fact that she was not contributing to the house - not a problem for me, but more of a mental one for her - having her little ebay shop gives her something to aim for apart from looking after the two little ones, and I think she is much more happier and full of life with her business.
It is actually quite easy to make a little money here and there, we are not talking about anyone becoming millionnaires (yet!) but it gives her a great feeling when she is able to transfer a little money from her Paypal account at the end of the month to buy little treats and days out for the boys - something which we really had to be careful with before she started with the whole ebay idea.
She registered as self employed last year with HMRC last year - it was something she wanted to do to be 'legit' although she pays very little tax because it is a small business and her personal allowance is at its max because she does not work for anybody else - thats another post i will be adding in due course to the blog, because its something that people are scared of - however, we found the tax office MORE than helpful and knowledgeable, and the online returns are so simple a child could do it.
Thanks for the reply Sym
Just got chance to have a look now. That's awesome. It makes a nice change to see advice offered without, add your credit card details here. Well done to you. I've also registered with Pinecone Research. They do surveys and you get paid £3 per survey. it's not a lot but it's better then the ones where you have to collect points that don't really add up to anything. Also, I do mystery shopping for grass Roots Mystery Shopping. They pay various amounts but you get to pick which jobs you take. I didn't know if you was staying specific to online selling but I've found these quite handy. I've saved your site in my favourites and I'll keep having a look.
Good luck and best wishes.
Hi Sym, thanks for your reply.
His site is very much new, and theres lots of advice he wants to give (Im always telling him my ebay stories lol) however this week has been hectic as hes done a few overtimes and hasnt had time to update it.
I have done mystery shopping before, but found it quite hard (especially since we had kids) to actually go and visit locations.
I have just signed up to the new iphone application -Field Agent. This is quite good, and when we went to comet to look for a new TV, I earned £6 for simply watching an instore demo of 3D TV.
He jokes that he is going to put me forward for the apprentice next year!
Thank you in advanced
Good luck!
My best advice is this: Open an ebay shop first. Why? You dont need to do any SEO, as potential customers are already on ebay, and they can see your listings. then once you have custmers include a little leaflet with your site address and 105 off first order sort of thing, to drive people to your site.
I have a friend with a website with a company called BigCommerce, they offer a free 15 day trial with ready made templates meaning your store will look really pro. We have had a little fiddle about with it on a free trial, it really is very simple, but very pro looking - it is something we are BOTh interested in for the future - especially as this week her turnover has reached a whopping £500 - she just hates paying her ebay invoice as they do take a lot.
I talk about websites in the following post, based on a friend who has a site selling pet accessories. I included it as some people do not like ebay
http://sellingguru.info/2011/04/starting-a-website-with-big-commerce/
Copy and paste the link (cant link for some reason)
Thankyou for the replies so far, I am on with the blog, just changed the header to make it more pro looking lol. If anybody could click the facebook 'Like' buttons that would be great also.
Any more question Soph and I would be more than happy to help.
Should say 10% I hate how you cant edit posts on this forum lol.