To Start a Home Based Business does not mean that a person cannot have the official work environment and the fancy paper work, and that it is not a legal business. A home business is an easy way to start making money. The best thing about the home business is that the investment it demands is typically small and easy to handle, also it can be easily managed through simple ways. Anything involving the exchange of goods and money is business, start a home business if you think you can provide something people will buy.There are a few things that can help the business flounder from the start. First things first, the person starting the home business must have a clear idea of what the people want to buy and what he/she can offer, only then can a business prosper. Analyzing the market before jumping right in the middle of it can prove very useful and can save lots of time and money.Advertising is very important in business. Internet is the best platform to advertise, it is free, easy, and everyone uses it. One of the basic needs is to create a website or an online account where people can look at the products available from the creator. Promoting a website is not an easy job, one starts from telling their friends and family and goes as far as paying successful bloggers to promote their websites and other SEO methods. Once out in the open market,quality control and an active mind is necessary to keep the business afloat. Using one’s hobbies to help in the business might be a good idea.Online home business is not always about physical (hardware) goods.There are a lot of people providing tips and advices to people in their respective fields of life. Suppose if someone can play a musical instrument really well, they can teach stuff online and charge their visitors with membership fee etc. if someone is good at giving people psychological advice then they can start a home business about that,the things that matter are being professional, skilled, authentic and legitimate. People do not pay for copied stuff and even the slightest mistakes may turn down a whole business. In this type of work, the person may also need an assistant or an advisor who can share the work load or provide answers to what the publisher him/herself cannot answer. This can be a very healthy practice.If the person wishes to start a home business selling physical goods then hiring the services of a drop shipper becomes almost necessary. A drop shipper may store your products in their inventory and provide them to customers at the designated time. A customer logs on to the website and places their order. The attendant at the website would then have to inform the drop shipper of the customer’s details(address, contact etc.) and the drop shipper would transport the product, very simple. A home business may be one of the easiest ways to start making money also establishes a firm understanding and work experience of the market.
The Finer Points of Internet Auctions
WHAT IS A PENNY AUCTION?
Penny auctions have exploded in popularity with the massive growth of the internet. However, few people know the true origins of penny auctions.Beginnings actually stretch back to the Great Depression. Those were hard times for everyone, but even harder for farmers. Farmers struggled to bring in steady income because of droughts and crops not selling as well as they had previously. As a result, the banks would foreclose on the farmers who couldn’t keep up with their mortgage payments.
The banks weren’t satisfied with just repossessing the house, they wanted to raise as much capital as possible, so they resorted to selling off the possessions of the owners of the repossessed houses. There was not much the farmers could do about it so they began bidding ridiculously low prices, pennies, on the items while threatening others who dared to bid higher than a few pennies.
The auctions of today hardly resemble their tremulous beginnings. Being part of a penny auction today is exhilarating, fun, and addictive. It combines the selling format of auctioning with a little bit of chance factored in.Auctions are a game of strategy but also a game of luck.
The premise behind penny auctions is giving people the chance to win an item at a drastically reduced price.Auctions make that possible by spreading out the cost of the product among multiple bidders. In order for a person to take part in an auction, they must pay a set price for each bid. For example, if a person wanted to bid on a fifty dollar Amazon gift card then he would spend a dollar for each time a bid placed. If he ended up winning the gift card, then he would only have spent a few dollars for a fifty dollar gift card. Usually penny auctions sell bids in packages.
HOW PENNY AUCTIONS WORK!
The main foundation of penny auctions is the pay-per-bid format. It is the key that allows bidders to win items at the fraction of their retail value and allows the auction owners to keep their site profitable. Most y auction sites run on the same premise: people pay a set amount for each bid, whenever a person places a bid within the closing seconds of the auction time will be added, the last person left with a unique bid after the clocks runs out will win the item. There are a large variety of items that can be won, but they tend to be popular electronics or gift cards to popular stores.
There are two types of auctions: lowest unique bid auction and highest unique bid auction. Lowest unique auction sounds confusing but it is actually quite simple. A unique bid is when only one person has a bid at a certain price. Bids usually start at one penny, a bidder can then place a bid at two pennies. Until another bidder places a higher bid, the most recent bidder will be the lowest unique bid because that was the only bid at two cents and nobody bid higher. However, penny auctions generally don’t stop at one penny. It is not uncommon to find auctions that end up at a couple hundred dollars based on the popularity of the item being auctioned. However, the same principles apply for those auctions. Highest unique bid auctions follow the more traditional auction format such as eBay. The person with the highest bid at the end of the auction wins the item.
Auction site owners turn a profit by selling bids. Say twenty people are bidding on a ten dollar gift card at one dollar per bid, at the end of the auction if there were twenty bids placed in total then the site owner would have made twenty dollars with a ten dollar profit.Auctions do seem like a win-win situation:The site owner makes money while the bidder gets an item for dirt cheap. However, not everyone wins in penny auctions. The people who paid one dollar each bid but left with nothing to show for their investments will not be so happy.
HOW TO WIN!
Penny auction has a lot of chance mixed into it, but one can incorporate strategy that will help raise the chances of winning. Playing smart can make all the difference between gambling and auctioning.
The first crucial tip to winning penny auctions is to know how to manage your bids. Your goal should be to win as much as possible without spending a ton of money buying bids. Managing your bids means that you should already know how much you are willing to risk in order to win an item. The amount of capital you are willing to risk will determine how many bids you can use. Once you know how many bids you have to spend on an item, then you will be better able to manage how and when you place a bid. That will keep you from blowing away all of your bids in the first few seconds of the auction.
The next tip is to practice time management. When fighting in the trenches of penny auctions, you have two enemies: other bidders and time. Knowing when to bid is a must if you want to have success. Placing a bid when there is a lot of time left on the clock is never a good idea. You have to remember that the key to winning a penny auction is being the last one standing when the clock runs out and that each bid increases the amount of time left. It would be a good practice to wait until the last few minutes of the auction before you begin to bid.
The final tip for successful auctioning is to keep your emotions under control.Auctions have a lot of similarities to gambling, and just like gambling, your spending can get out of control. If you keep your emotions level, it will keep you from making rash decisions and blowing loads of cash. Keep your mind clear so that you can gage the behavior of the other bidders and outsmart them.
HOW TO AVOID SCAM SITES!
Penny auctions are a great addition to the web whether you want to win an item that otherwise you wouldn’t be able to afford or if you simply enjoy the thrill that comes with bidding in auctions. Unfortunately, scam sites have tarnished the reputation of the legitimate penny auction sites. However, there are ways that you can protect yourself from scamers and enjoy your auctioning without having to worry about losing your money due to dishonesty.
Checking the reputation of the auction site before you start spending your hard earned money is always a good idea. Chances are other people have tried the site before you and some of them have left reviews. The reviews are your way to gage whether a auction site is trustworthy or not. If a site is getting overwhelmingly negative reviews, then that is a clear indication that you should steer your business elsewhere.
Another tool you can use to protect yourself is checking the Alexia ranks of the auction sites. Alexia rank will give a solid view of how much traffic the auction is getting. If you see a huge difference in the amount of traffic Alexia is projecting and the amount of active bidders on the site, then warning signals should be ringing in your head. Some auction sites have been known to set up robots that automatically bid on projects in order to keep the auction going and inflate the price. That is known as shill bidding. You can sniff out those sites by comparing the traffic the site should be getting to the amount of users using this site.
CONCLUSION!
New legislation may come out later down the road that will officially make penny auctions gambling, but until then, it is a fun, exciting auction that allows one to win the item they’ve always wanted but couldn’t afford.Auctions are also quite lucrative for the site owners because of the pay-per-bid strategy they’ve incorporated. Penny auctions had humble beginnings with farmers who just wanted to get back at the banks who kicked them out of their house. More recently, auctions have enjoyed an explosion in popularity with the rise of the internet.
There are two main formats fora auctions, lowest and highest unique auction, however they both run on the same premise where the last unique bid wins the item. Winning a penny auction will require a certain amount of mental tactic and a bit of luck. However, you can increase your odds of winning by practicing certain techniques such as managing your bids wisely, learning how to work with the time, and keeping a level head and your emotions under control. When you combine those three strategies to your bidding plan, you will find that you win a lot more often.
It is important that you do your due diligence to protect yourself when participating in auctions. Not every auction is run by honest and trustworthy people. There are people out there who just want to take your money. You can protect yourself by ensuring that you only bid on sites that already have a very positive reputation from real users.
Small Business Struggling? Take a Pill, Dude!
Is your small business struggling in this recession economy? No problem. Very soon you will be able to pop a pill and rewire your brain so you think like the most successful entrepreneurs in the world. Imagine popping a pill and suddenly having Robert Kiyosaki or Guy Kawasaki in your brain. You’ll think like a business guru-no joke! Cambridge University scientists have announced that there may someday be an “entrepreneur pill” that will help people replicate the brain chemistry of the most successful small business owners. Would that be better business through chemistry?In the Meantime …Unfortunately the entrepreneur pill isn’t available quite yet. The bad news is that small business owners need it more than ever. Shrinking profits and dwindling customer traffic have many small business owners pulling their hair out. Luckily, they can take steps to gain a fresh perspective on their business, even if they can’t yet directly access the brain chemistry of small business guru.If your small business is struggling, here are five ways you get a fresh perspective on your small business.1. Give Your Business a MakeoverTo give your small business a makeover you need new ideas and help from some experts. While you may not be able to afford the pricey consultants who do makeovers on major corporations, you can benefit from their advice without paying a dime. Check out Small Business Makeover section on the CNNMoney website. There you’ll find makeover case studies on all kinds of small businesses from carpet-sellers to bath-and-body stores. If you’re offering your products or services online, you’ll be delighted with their Website Makeover section.2. Get Your Burning Questions AnsweredIf you want to get a direct answer to the burning questions you have about your small business, you can always submit it to the CNNMoney directly through their “Find Business Answers” form. There is no guarantee that your question will be selected to be answered, but there’s definitely no harm in trying. As a bonus, it still doesn’t cost you’re a dime. CNNMoney usually puts this form at the bottom of its articles. To locate one of these articles just Google for CNNMoney + “find business answers.”3. Access Online Training from the SBAThe Small Business Administration has recently begun offering a number of online courses on “Surviving in a Down Economy.” The new courses include:- Strategic Marketing: How to Win Customers in a Slowing Economy
- Down-Shifting in a Slowing Economy: Business Planning Guide
- Raise new capital / Refinance exisiting debt – How to Prepare a Loan Package
- Diversify with federal contracts – Business Opportunities: A Guide to Winning Federal Contracts4. Look for a Geographic CureIf you run a bricks-and-mortar business maybe you’re not located in the right place. To locate your business at the right place at the right time, check out the top 100 places to live and launch a small business by Fortune Small Business. These include the 7 tax-free havens for business (Wyoming, Nevada, Florida, Texas, Washington, New Hampshire and Tennessee) plus the six best towns where technology thrives (Bellevue, Portland, Boise, Blacksburg, Bethlehem, and Folsom). The list is nearly endless and may help you decide if it’s time to move your small business because the grass is greener on the other side of the state line.5. SCORE BigSCORE is a non-profit group of 11,200 retired executives who mentor small business owners across the country for free. According to their website, “SCORE offers free and confidential advice to small businesses: face-to-face counseling, online counseling, online workshops and more.” You can post your questions to their website and get an answer, usually within 48 hours. Best of all, SCORE is an unlimited resource. You can ask as many questions as you want plus access their huge library of small business resources.So what’s the bottom line for small business owners? While you may occasionally feel hopeless you are definitely not helpless. This list is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the inexpensive resources at your disposable to keep your small business afloat. So until that entrepreneur pill hits the market, get going and get help.Have you been using any other small business resources that have proven very successful for you? I’d love to hear about them!