If your business is not using eBay and other Internet auctions, you could be missing out. Here are just a few ways of generating additional income, profits and cashflow from online auctions.
1. Convert Excess Assets to Cash
Sell personal or business items that you no longer use. For example, are there slow moving inventory items in your store? A major camera store chain sells their slow movers, quite successfully, through eBay.
2. Buy and Sell Anything
Sometimes people put things out in the garbage because they don’t need them anymore and don’t know anyone who could use them. You can successfully sell some of these items by Internet auction.
As well, if you pick up bargains from garage sales, flea markets, importers, wholesalers, closeout dealers or other sources, these items can also be sold through online auctions.
3. Drop Shipping
There are suppliers who will ship one item at a time for you. You don’t have to stock any inventory. You simply pay your dropship supplier out of the money you receive from your auction sale. They will ship the product directly to your customer.
4. Self-Publishing
Do you have expertise in a specialized area of interest to people? Then, you could publish your own information product.
A very popular format for self-publishing information products is the electronic book (or e-book). E-book compilers, some of which are free, are readily available on the Internet. When people buy your e-book, they can download it from your website or receive it by e-mail.
You could sell such self-published information products on eBay and other Internet auction sites. Incidentally, online auctions are an inexpensive method of testing the market for your information (or other) products.
Despite eBay’s policy change forbidding the sale of electronic downloads, it is still possible to sell these nonphysical products on eBay through their classified ads. Alternatively, you could put the information on a CD (compact disk) and ship it to the customer.
5. Reprint and Resale Rights
You may not want to produce your own information products presently. Or, perhaps, you may already have an information product, but would like to supplement your income with additional, related product offerings. This is where reprint and resale rights come in.
You can buy the rights to reprint or resell excellent information products created by other people. Some of these rights are inexpensive.
In addition to selling these products from your own website, you can use Internet auctions to create extra sales. Another advantage of online auctions is that they can create additional traffic for your website.
6. Sell Your Services
Do you design logos or websites? Do you sell consulting or other services? These, also, can be successfully sold through eBay and other auction sites.
7. Run an eBay Consignment Shop
There are still people who don’t have a computer or who don’t use eBay. You could sell on a consignment basis for them, taking a commission on the successful sale. You would need to charge for advertising expenses incurred, such as eBay listing and selling fees.
8. Promote Affiliate Programs through Auctions
Some affiliate programs have brandable e-books that contain your affiliate link. When people order from the e-book that they bought from your online auction, you get credit for the sale. As well, some of those purchasers may sign up as affiliates, earning you additional commissions.
Some of these e-books have valuable information that is worth the nominal value you would sell it for on eBay. In other cases, such an e-book is readily available for free. In this latter case, you might consider selling another related product and offer the e-book as a free bonus.
9. Supply Fellow Online Auctioneers
During the gold rush days, it is said that those who sold picks and shovels were more likely to make money than those panning for gold. Similarly, since there is such a big market for online auctions, you can make money supplying eBayers with information and auction tools to help them start and grow their own online auction business.
10. Internet Auction Consulting
As you gain experience and expertise in online auctions, you might consider charging for your knowledge.
Consulting services, seminars, information products and other ways of packaging your knowledge can earn you additional income streams.
These are just a few of the ways you can profit from Internet auctions.