How I started
November 20, 2008 by Bob
We all get into different kinds of jobs or businesses, often completely unintentionally. How many of us actuallly work in the industry that we were actually educated in? I mean, when we went to college (those of us who did) and studied Engineering, or English, or whatever, very few of us actually work in the field that we were educated for. That just happens over the years.
I never finished college. It bored me, so I quit. Frankly, it is a decision that I have never regretted. I am kind of a free spirit, I like to do what I want to do, and that varies. Sometimes I do a certain type of work, then I get bored with it and move on to something else. It’s just my nature.
Because of my free nature spirit, I have gone through many jobs over the years, and even many niches within the same type of work. I’ve been earning money online for more than 10 years now. I have earned my living exclusively online for about 6 years now. But, how did I get started in earning online? Let’s have a look.
In 1997, a friend e-mailed me and told me about eBay. I had never heard of it before, they were still relatively new, so I went and checked it out. Wow, it intrigued me. I started buying a few things on eBay. I learned the ropes of how eBay worked by buying on the site. I bought quite a few things there, because I found it convenient, and also I was intrigued at being able to actually buy things on the Internet, something that was almost unheard of in those days.
Being the entrepreneur that I am by nature, it didn’t take long and I had the itch to sell on eBay. I had to learn how to do that, but I didn’t consider that a hurdle.
During this time, I didn’t have too much money, I sort of lived paycheck to paycheck, but I was happy. It happened to be May of this particular year, and I had just gotten a very nice tax refund, around $5,000. Feyma and I went to do some shopping at Costco, mostly for groceries. While there I saw a big pile of REX organizers, from Rolodex. I had been wanting one of these things, it was a credit card sized PDA, and I wanted one, but they were too expensive for me at that time. Online, you could buy one for about $150 in those days. At Costco, they had them for $49! I couldn’t believe my eyes, but I didn’t buy one. Too conservative with my money, I guess.
When we got home, Feyma told me that she was surprised that I didn’t buy a REX and try to sell it on eBay, after all it was 1/3 of the normal price! Oh, wow, this was a business opportunity. I went back to Costco to get a REX to sell on eBay. Hmm, I thought… how many should I buy? Two? Three? Well, I remembered that I had that $5,000 tax refund in the bank. When I got to Costco, I bought 100 units. That’s right, I blew my entire tax refund on REX units. What if they didn’t sell? Well, Costco is very liberal about giving refunds on unused products, so no biggie, I would just return them if they didn’t sell.
I got home, and got busy, started listing my new found product on eBay. When I woke up the next morning, I already had bids for higher than I had paid for the units. By the time my auction ended, I had sold the REX for over $100, so I more than doubled my money! I started listing 3 or 4 REX’s on eBay at the same time, with auctions ending at different times, different starting prices, etc. I sold out of the 100 units in a week or so, and went back and bought another hundred. Sold all of them too. I made between $25 to $80 per unit. I made less on the units sold at later dates, because others started finding the deals, and were in competition with me, but still, $25 was a nice profit, and I was happy with it.
I made a nice chunk of change from selling those REX units. It only whetted my appetite too, because from that day forward, I have made money online in one way or another ever since. It was a great way to start!
Do you have a story on how you started earning money online?
What? You are not yet making money online?
What are you waiting for?
Good writeup, Bob,
I hope some people ‘dancing around the edge’ read this and get some ideas. Yur main points in here are well taken. You used money that you could afford to risk, you bought at what you knew was a price well below market, and you didn’t take a year and a day to analyze the situation. If you had nalayzed for a month or two the market would have gone cold.
When I had my ‘brick and mortar’ GPS tracking business in the US a big ticket item in my product mix was a Microsoft software product that listed for about $400. I went through 6 months of “Mother may I’s” with Microsoft untl they finally approved me as a Microsoft Reseller. Their price to me was about $350 … less than that the product typically sold in big boz stores like CompUSA. No room for any markup for me, I was thinking I would have to resell to my clin\ents at a loss.
I went on eBay and found the product regularly selling for as little as $150, brand new, in the sealed box. Wow, why did I waste all that time trying to do it the ‘real’ way>?
I just listed the product on my price list for $250 … way less than my clients could get it anywhere else and whenever I sold one I wnr on eBay, bought a copy or two if there was a goos deal and then reshipped to my clients in my own box with my own invoice.
The guy who sold to me on ebay was happy, I was happy and my end users were happy .. and we all made money … eBay can be a really great tool for buying as well as selling.
@Dave Starr: For sure! When you find a good deal on something, act quickly. Don’t wait around - get down to business and make some money. A lot of people see things that they can make money on, and they talk about it, tell people about it, and generally just blow it off before they ever make any money! What a shame!