A couple of months ago I posted about the toy selling guide I had ordered and my plans to follow it, buying toys just to resell closer to Christmas. So in case anyone happens to be curious about how it turned out, here are the final results after eventually returning quite a few items that I didn't sell. (The numbers are all rounded off to keep it simple.)
Total profit after all eBay, PayPal and shipping expenses was about $70. This was after purchasing about $400 worth of toys. Only $138 worth of them were actually sold, but the remaining $262 or so were returned to the stores I purchased them from for the same price.
So the $70 profit sounds a lot better on an investment of $138 than it does on $400, but that's really the amount I had at risk. (If you want to call it that.) But that was a lot of work I did just for that $70 profit - lots of picture taking, eBay item description writing, packing and shipping...not to mention the time I spent in the stores, both buying and returning the items that didn't get sold.
Plus, when you figure in that I also paid $30 for the ebook that inspired me to do all this, it's more like only a $40 profit. So was it all worth it?
Well...that's $40 that I wouldn't have had if I didn't do it. But considering the amount of work that was involved...I think I'd rather be the one selling the ebooks for $30 each than just doing what the ebook recommends! (Which, time and time again, is usually the case with money making plans that are being sold.) When will I ever learn?!
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Avoiding Get Rich Scams
Happy New Year!
How are your new year's resolutions going so far?
I'm not really very big on actual new year's resolutions myself, but I do always feel like the start of the new year is a great time to re-evaluate your goals and plans. So if you realize you've been drifting away from focusing on what's important, it's a good time to get back on track.
One of my usual goals is to continue to research new ways to make money, and this year is no different in that way. But I also have to be careful not to be TOO open-minded about money making schemes that are being advertised. As negative as it sounds, most of them are either just not worth the money they cost, or worse - even downright ripoffs.
For example...
Just yesterday I spent my whole lunch hour reading one of those little booklets that's really just a big sales pitch for a money making program. In this case, it was titled "The Overnight Millionaire", by Russ Dalbey. I get these from him every so often, and I had seen some derogatory comments about his products before, so I usually just throw them out. But here it is, Happy New Year time, so I thought I'd read this one anyway.
Before long, it sounded so good that I had halfway decided to order the thing. (For about $150.) But when I got back to work I took a quick look on Google to see what I might find about it.
Turns out, this guy was a genuine scam artist and eventually was sued and court ordered to stop all the infomercials that were selling the program.
Needless to say, instantly the temptation to order it was gone! Although, replacing it was the rather depressing realization that the existence of easy, get rich quick plans that you can buy and put into action immediately is probably just a total hoax.
It's almost like, is there no truth being sold out there? Is there really no way to make a lot of money easily, with very little work involved? If there is, whoever is doing it isn't writing any books about how to do it and selling them for $150 - they're too busy quietly doing it themselves and enjoying their success.
Time after time it seems to be the case that if someone is trying very hard to talk me into spending money to find out how to make money their way...it's a waste of my time AND money.
In fairness, I haven't ordered the program by Russ Dalbey myself, so maybe it's not totally fair to say it's a ripoff. But let's face it...there are way more than just a few people out there saying that's the case in so many words. Common sense kind of tells you that it might be best to avoid that one!
Like I've said before...it's always best to see what you can find on the internet about whatever you're thinking of buying - before you buy it. If it's well-known that something's not a good deal - you'll find out before doing so the hard way.
Sorry to be so negative, or to bust your own bubble about the whole get rich quick subject, but that's what I've found to be true so far. So because of this, even though I'm convinced there is plenty of money to be made on the internet, I think I'd like to steer as far away from the field of "money making advice" as humanly possible when choosing a niche to settle on promoting. I'm starting to feel like I don't even want to be part of it - part of the problem, posing as part of the solution. There are so many products and services out there to be promoted...so why not go into a totally different direction?
That's just my own feeling...there's really nothing wrong with selling money making plans - as long as they really work the way they're advertised. But that's the hard part.
How are your new year's resolutions going so far?
I'm not really very big on actual new year's resolutions myself, but I do always feel like the start of the new year is a great time to re-evaluate your goals and plans. So if you realize you've been drifting away from focusing on what's important, it's a good time to get back on track.
One of my usual goals is to continue to research new ways to make money, and this year is no different in that way. But I also have to be careful not to be TOO open-minded about money making schemes that are being advertised. As negative as it sounds, most of them are either just not worth the money they cost, or worse - even downright ripoffs.
For example...
Just yesterday I spent my whole lunch hour reading one of those little booklets that's really just a big sales pitch for a money making program. In this case, it was titled "The Overnight Millionaire", by Russ Dalbey. I get these from him every so often, and I had seen some derogatory comments about his products before, so I usually just throw them out. But here it is, Happy New Year time, so I thought I'd read this one anyway.
Before long, it sounded so good that I had halfway decided to order the thing. (For about $150.) But when I got back to work I took a quick look on Google to see what I might find about it.
Turns out, this guy was a genuine scam artist and eventually was sued and court ordered to stop all the infomercials that were selling the program.
Needless to say, instantly the temptation to order it was gone! Although, replacing it was the rather depressing realization that the existence of easy, get rich quick plans that you can buy and put into action immediately is probably just a total hoax.
It's almost like, is there no truth being sold out there? Is there really no way to make a lot of money easily, with very little work involved? If there is, whoever is doing it isn't writing any books about how to do it and selling them for $150 - they're too busy quietly doing it themselves and enjoying their success.
Time after time it seems to be the case that if someone is trying very hard to talk me into spending money to find out how to make money their way...it's a waste of my time AND money.
In fairness, I haven't ordered the program by Russ Dalbey myself, so maybe it's not totally fair to say it's a ripoff. But let's face it...there are way more than just a few people out there saying that's the case in so many words. Common sense kind of tells you that it might be best to avoid that one!
Like I've said before...it's always best to see what you can find on the internet about whatever you're thinking of buying - before you buy it. If it's well-known that something's not a good deal - you'll find out before doing so the hard way.
Sorry to be so negative, or to bust your own bubble about the whole get rich quick subject, but that's what I've found to be true so far. So because of this, even though I'm convinced there is plenty of money to be made on the internet, I think I'd like to steer as far away from the field of "money making advice" as humanly possible when choosing a niche to settle on promoting. I'm starting to feel like I don't even want to be part of it - part of the problem, posing as part of the solution. There are so many products and services out there to be promoted...so why not go into a totally different direction?
That's just my own feeling...there's really nothing wrong with selling money making plans - as long as they really work the way they're advertised. But that's the hard part.
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