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Old 12 April 2005, 11:22 AM
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paulr
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Lightbulb Anyone got an extra source of income/small business?

.........that you run from home and is internet based.
I'm looking for something legit,approx 10 hours/week/earning £100 ish per week.Something to do in my spare time.

Any ideas.
I like selling,but it must be legal.
Old 12 April 2005, 12:22 PM
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+Doc+
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e-bay
Buy at boot fairs sell to the stupid.
Old 12 April 2005, 12:25 PM
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Originally Posted by +Doc+
e-bay
Buy at boot fairs sell to the stupid.
I don't do things like that
Old 12 April 2005, 12:29 PM
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Spoon
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Undoubtedly eBay.
Old 12 April 2005, 01:00 PM
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paulr
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Dont like boot fairs,too much competition,everyone is at it,also not my scene.
Want to sell something no-one else is selling,specialist item/service.........but i guess thats for me to find.
Old 12 April 2005, 01:23 PM
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The Chief
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I've thought about buying a small van and doing some self employed courier work at nights and weekends - does anyone else do this?? what do you reckon???
Old 12 April 2005, 02:01 PM
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Originally Posted by The Chief
I've thought about buying a small van and doing some self employed courier work at nights and weekends - does anyone else do this?? what do you reckon???
Pizza's or Kebabs?

I do house plans & extensions for a living - luckily in this line of work there's plenty of sidelines available - only the last thing you want to do after being chained to a computer all day is come home and do more of it...
Old 12 April 2005, 02:39 PM
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GaryK
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Chief,

Evening courier work would be a good idea, I thought about this years ago when it struck me that the *only* time that most courier companies deliver to residential households in the UK is the one time that most people are at work, where is the sense in that? Only now are they coming round to the idea and customer focused organisations like Tesco (no coincidence theyve made £2Billion profit) did evening deliveries from the start.

ebay is an option but I wouldnt say there was easy money to be made, money yes easy no but £100 profit for 10 hours work, hmmm realistic.

Gary
Old 12 April 2005, 03:00 PM
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Originally Posted by paulr
Dont like boot fairs,too much competition,everyone is at it,also not my scene.
Want to sell something no-one else is selling,specialist item/service.........but i guess thats for me to find.
Dont we all?
Old 12 April 2005, 03:02 PM
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There are ways to make money, for example, its quite easy to set up sms competitions and such. Costs about 75quid to set one up and the sms provider takes his cut from every entry.

So if you advertise in the local paper etc, and you get 300 entries, subract a hundred quid or so for setup,prize etc and your left with a nice £130ish profit.
Old 12 April 2005, 03:27 PM
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paulr
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Originally Posted by The Chief
I've thought about buying a small van and doing some self employed courier work at nights and weekends - does anyone else do this?? what do you reckon???
I thought about setting up a website where people could deliver each others parcels.Say someone is going from London to Edinburgh they post this on the site and someone who wants a parcel going the same route gets in touch.
Big problem is trust/insurance.

Also thought about a site where people gave each other lifts,problem there is safety.

Thought about making cd envelopes from old cardboard,instead of jiffy bags.There must be a huge market for small jiffy bag type stuff.How much are jiffy bags anyway?
Old 12 April 2005, 03:30 PM
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do a market stall somewhere, sellings sweets , drinks and confectionary or even a 99 p stall or shop in a market
Old 12 April 2005, 03:33 PM
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ebay is good but when selling a lot of items can take a lot of time..... if u need packaging etc best to get off ebay as u can find the stuff well cheap....

eg of what i sold recently.. i sold a pair of old welly boots for £17 with mud and everything!!!!!!!!!!!!!

tend to sell a lot of junk and old stuff on there to clear space...
Old 12 April 2005, 03:33 PM
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The Chief
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Jiffy bags are quite cheap (like less than 20p each )as we buy them!

As for couriers i have thought of using the courier exchange i've been told they are quite good.
Old 12 April 2005, 03:40 PM
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Originally Posted by GaryK
Chief,
ebay is an option but I wouldnt say there was easy money to be made, money yes easy no but £100 profit for 10 hours work, hmmm realistic.

Gary
Gary - I started something from nothing on eBay in November last year, obviously I'm not prepared to divulge what but I became a Powerseller in the minimum amount of time permitted by eBay and have risen to Platinum on GMV alone (not number of sales). Realistically this is as high as I can get as the last level (GMV) is a little unobtainable.

I wouldn't call it work either, I'm always out and about with my mobile answering emails and despatching my goods when required.

It can be done it's just finding with what and securing good suppliers which I did cold calling via email having never met any of them and still haven't to this day.
Old 12 April 2005, 04:11 PM
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Originally Posted by paulr
Thought about making cd envelopes from old cardboard,instead of jiffy bags.There must be a huge market for small jiffy bag type stuff.How much are jiffy bags anyway?
Not worth your time IMHO. CD size jiffy bag 6 pence....
Old 12 April 2005, 04:16 PM
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paulr
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Originally Posted by Buckrogers
Not worth your time IMHO. CD size jiffy bag 6 pence....
Sure,it was just an idea.
Old 12 April 2005, 04:23 PM
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The Chief
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Originally Posted by Spoon
Gary - I started something from nothing on eBay in November last year, obviously I'm not prepared to divulge what but I became a Powerseller in the minimum amount of time permitted by eBay and have risen to Platinum on GMV alone (not number of sales). Realistically this is as high as I can get as the last level (GMV) is a little unobtainable.

I wouldn't call it work either, I'm always out and about with my mobile answering emails and despatching my goods when required.

It can be done it's just finding with what and securing good suppliers which I did cold calling via email having never met any of them and still haven't to this day.
Do you do this full time mate?
Old 12 April 2005, 05:05 PM
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GaryK
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Spoon,

Good on ya mate, I think yes you are fortunate to have something that there is a demand for that you can obviously source and sell at a good margin. My point was really that alot of people think it is easy and that they can just do a bit here and there and the cash is gonna come rolling in. I live near a real auction house and can often pick stuff up there and sell on ebay for a profit but to do that I normally have to attend viewing on a friday, do some research on the web on the friday night to get an idea of what items will sell for how much and then go back on the saturday to bid and hopefully win. Then I have to pack and post so while the margins can be good and the time spent is not exactly hard work it is still *time* no matter how you look at it.


Gary

Originally Posted by Spoon
Gary - I started something from nothing on eBay in November last year, obviously I'm not prepared to divulge what but I became a Powerseller in the minimum amount of time permitted by eBay and have risen to Platinum on GMV alone (not number of sales). Realistically this is as high as I can get as the last level (GMV) is a little unobtainable.

I wouldn't call it work either, I'm always out and about with my mobile answering emails and despatching my goods when required.

It can be done it's just finding with what and securing good suppliers which I did cold calling via email having never met any of them and still haven't to this day.
Old 12 April 2005, 08:06 PM
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Gary, thanks. Fortunately there is no packing for me at all, in fact nothing except listing the adverts and passing the delivery details on to the supplier who despatches. Oh there is the odd email to answer but it nearly always ends in a sale.

I'd call your example real graft, going to auctions, buying then listing, selling then packing and taking to the Post office or wherever for despatch.

I respect anybody who does that for their money, in contrast my way is a breeze because it can be and with decent margins everytime regardless of fads.

The Chief - I guess you'd have to call it full-time now but I start and finish when I please and like I said above, I can do it when I'm out using a Smartphone, so I'm playing while earning thanks to eBay.
Old 12 April 2005, 08:23 PM
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Originally Posted by +Doc+
e-bay
Buy at boot fairs sell to the stupid.
Close


Buy at car auctions and sell to the stupid
Old 12 April 2005, 10:06 PM
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The Chief
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Spoon

as a pro would you say it is worth having a link on e-bay to a mail-order website and if so how much does it cost???
Old 12 April 2005, 10:24 PM
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Originally Posted by The Chief
Spoon

as a pro would you say it is worth having a link on e-bay to a mail-order website and if so how much does it cost???
If you mean you have a mail-order website at your disposal then you can only link to a private web address if you had an eBay shop and then it's only allowed from the "ABOUT ME" page once you have made one up.

Plenty of people still do advertise their own websites on their listings but it is against eBays policies and stands a chance of being pulled.
Old 12 April 2005, 10:25 PM
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Originally Posted by paulr
.........that you run from home and is internet based.
I'm looking for something legit,approx 10 hours/week/earning £100 ish per week.Something to do in my spare time.

Any ideas.
I like selling,but it must be legal.
You could easily earn that much by running a specialist website with lots of good quality content. Time spent setting it up can take quite a bit of time at first but then after a while it's easy, sit back and have the money come in, just spending several hours a week updating while earning decent money from ad's.

My site pays for my Scoob
Old 12 April 2005, 10:34 PM
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The Chief
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Thanks Spoon

Bit of an E-bay novice y'see and a bit p***d off with it as i've sold bugger all yet.

One item did not sell despite having it on 3 times and a non payment on another item that sold!!!!
Old 12 April 2005, 10:36 PM
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saw the post title and thought " I bet they're talking about f***ing ebay"
Old 12 April 2005, 10:43 PM
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Originally Posted by Echo
You could easily earn that much by running a specialist website with lots of good quality content. Time spent setting it up can take quite a bit of time at first but then after a while it's easy, sit back and have the money come in, just spending several hours a week updating while earning decent money from ad's.

My site pays for my Scoob
and the web site is.....?
Old 12 April 2005, 10:45 PM
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Sorry, don't want to breach the advertising code of conduct blah, will pm you to prove I'm being honest!
Old 12 April 2005, 11:42 PM
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have been tring to think of ideas myself just to earn a couple of quid not nesaseraly new job but just can't think of that nech market. supposse it'll come eventually. the ones i've thought about for ebay, i've found too many people selling the same stuff.
spoon did you have to make any investment in your product? or are just the middle man?

mike
Old 13 April 2005, 12:14 PM
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Originally Posted by FASTER MIKE!!
spoon did you have to make any investment in your product? or are just the middle man?

mike
Mike - No investment whatsoever, that's inviting hassle. It's kept very simple.

Customer buys, I order, supplier despatches.


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