Cafe Press Is Another Income Stream!

As everyone knows I sell online. I sell whatever I can find to sell. A few months back, I discovered on one of my blogging friends' blog a link to "My Shop" on her blog. I clicked it and found that she had a Cafe Press store with her blog name on all types of merchandise. What a fantastic idea! Her blog is The Redhead Riter and if you look at the index at the top of her blog, you will see My Shop. She also has a community on The Blogfrog and her merchandise would be of great interest in the members of The Redhead Riter Community. They may not know she has this little shop. Check out her great coffee mugs!

So I created my own cafe press store! It is another income stream. I am adding its link to all my blogs and on some of my forum signatures. It is not done yet and I will be adding more and more items to it over time. Using photos of my own to create some unique items is my goal.

If you have a Cafe Press store, please leave your link in the comments. I will add to this blog so others may check your store out too. Tell me what you sell in it. That way we can help each other.

Check out My Homesteading On The Internet Store on Cafe Press!

Copyright © 2012 Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2012  Kathleen G. Lupole

Craigslist Is Disappointing

College building in Binghamton, NY

As everyone knows who comes to this blog, I am always working on my "multiple streams of income." It seems every time I start getting that extra bit of money to come in, it has to be used for some kind of major repair or problem. I had plans to start saving that money or paying down my loan or credit card. Nope. Every single time I get a payment from one of my income streams, I don't see that money in my account or on my debt.

Selling this bike trailer on craigslist!

One of my income streams (I was hoping!), was going to be craigslist. I see many people saying they bought or sold something on there. It made me think I could do it too! How silly of me! Instead I have been receiving porn pictures in my inbox from young pretty women. They all start the same: "Are you Kathleen G. Lupole? I know you are selling an item (or she names what it is) but I see you are in my area and thought we could get together and be friends." Now what is that all about? What does my selling of a child's trailer that hooks onto a bicycle have to do with these women? What makes them think I'd be interested in them? For heavens sake, I am a married women, and not into that kinky stuff at my age! So much for craigslist!

Copyright © 2012 Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2012  Kathleen G. Lupole

Don't Give Up!

Selling books is not as easy as it looks!

I may have told you before that I have stopped selling books online. Only certain books that are rare and hard to find are worth selling, for me at least. One book I sold on Amazon for about seventy dollars. It was a book on a business and I paid a lot for it myself. But not as much as I sold it for! The secret to that book was that it was not available anywhere anymore. Not even at the site I bought it from. I think the trouble is that you can buy books for a very low price everywhere. So it is hard to make a dime on it.

That does not mean I have given up selling online though. Nope! Not by a longshot! It is my only way to have an income. I sell guitar strings on two of my websites. The other site, LupeShop was a puzzle to me. I wasn't quite sure which way to go with it. Now I have found my direction, due to a very good friend of mine, Paula. I am making it into a site for selling eBooks. I like eBooks myself and that makes it fun for me doing the listings and all.

The other stream of income is selling on eBay. Now I am not selling books, though I may occasionally stick one  on there. I am mainly running auctions of vintage items, collectibles and other items I come across. Now I am actually making sales! So must be it was meant to be.

Times are hard, but there have been harder times in the past. I think it is everyone's survival instinct that will prevail. If you have a don't give up attitude, then you will find your path. We may not be getting rich selling online, but we are able to pay bills and buy food. If I can do that............then I am content.

Copyright © 2011 Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2011  Kathleen G. Lupole

Change Of Plans

I have stopped selling my books on eBay and Bonanza. Right now I only have my eBooks for sale there. I am using the time to create more of my own eBooks. My books would sell a few at a time, and not fast enough for me. I wanted them out of my house. So I offered them on Freecycle and when I boxed them up, I had 10 big boxes! Luckily my husband was able to pack them into the lady's van who came to pick them up. She seemed very happy with her bounty!

This has given me the time and space to make an organized area to put our inventory of guitar strings. Plus, I have a table up there that I am going to fix for packaging up the purchases. We have needed an area like that and now with no books on the shelves, we can keep the strings there for easy access.

I think maybe too many streams of income is not a good thing. Too many products to try to sell means that you are not giving any of them 100 percent. So I am going to be concentrating on my blogs, my eBooks and my homestead life. Maybe someday, I can get the guitar strings store producing a good income so I can sell it. It is not something I want to be doing for the rest of my life.

Copyright © 2011 Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2011  Kathleen G. Lupole

Choosing A Product To Sell

I have three awesome websites. The only trouble is that selling guitar strings on two is much more difficult than I planned on. For one thing, the first thing I thought of when considering selling them was the fact that there are millions of guitar players world wide. I mean how many guitar players do think live in your city or town? Or how many do you think live in New York City or Houston, Texas? Or in Rome, Italy? More than a few.

The other factor is that my husband is a musician and plays the guitar. Now he is VERY critical of his strings. But since selling strings and learning about them, I have found that not all guitar players are like him. In fact, a family member who plays his guitar all the time, didn't even know about the different gauges or materials they are made with. Then I found out that many guitar players who buy a new guitar just use that set of strings that came on their guitar. They will replace them with the same brand and gauge instead of trying something else. Or they NEVER change them!

Plus, one of the best reasons I liked guitar strings was that they are small and easy to package up and ship. Shipping costs for most items is very high and eats into any profit you can make. Buyers don't understand why they have to pay for shipping. or especially why they should have to cover our cost of the bubble mailers, the labels, the ink and the transaction fees. But if the sale from them doesn't cover that and allow us to make some sort of profit.........what is the sense of selling to them? Just for the fun of it? Hardly!

So when you pick a product to sell on your site, eBay, Bonanza, etsy, or Amazon, what are the factors that help you decide what to sell? And how do you figure the shipping into your product? Then how do you price it? These are all questions I am pondering these days. Leave me a comment and tell me what you think.

Copyright © 2011 Kathleen G. Lupole
All Photographs Copyright © 2011  Kathleen G. Lupole

Selling On Various Sites

I have been away from this blog most of the summer. My work of gardening and canning has had to be my priority most of the time. That is not to say that I have been lax on trying to improve my many streams of income. That is also an area taking up much of my time. In between my garden harvests, I have been trying to sell various products online.

The last few months I have gone back to selling on eBay. Plus Amazon. Selling books on Amazon is very easy since you don't have to do a listing or photos. Just fill in some blanks and you are all set. As soon as I listed some, I got sales. Quite a few and pretty close together. That is surprising to me since nobody ever leaves me feedback on there. I have 2, compared to other sellers who have over 100,000 and some even more than that! I did get some sales though, so maybe everyone doesn't pay that much attention to how much feedback you have.

I must spend hours scouting eBay trying to figure out why some things sell and some don't. What makes everyone bid on one item and the others don't even get a view? I study the listings, the pictures, the payment and shipping information. I work and work at it, but doesn't seem to help. Sometimes I get the sale. Sometimes not. Luck? Who knows?

Copyright © 2011 Kathleen G. Lupole
All Photographs Copyright © 2011  Kathleen G. Lupole

Selling On Bonanza

 Don't have to drive to work!

Working at home on the internet has many perks. I love working at my own pace and working whenever I choose. It is a very slow time for on line sellers. We have no choice if this is the way we make living, but to keep working at it. I know it is not like a job and having a regular paycheck. Sometimes sales can be good and other times very bad. Right now it is very bad.

I sell books on bonanza!

I have tested the waters once again on eBay and on half.com, but I really don't feel comfortable on either one. The thing about eBay, is that if you frequent their forums, you will come across the posts of the buyers also. They just can't wait to give negative feedbacks to sellers. They will post asking if this seller should get a bad feedback. I always look at the seller's feedback before I purchase off ebay. Many times the negatives don't seem as if they deserved them. Many times it comes from a new buyer, with few feedbacks.

On Bonanza you don't have to worry about that too much. For the most part, unless my sale is from a seller, I don't get any feedback. That is okay with me. They come from Google searching for a particular book, and choose one of mine. That is feedback enough for me!

 Just one of the many books I sell!

I keep adding more products. Now I am adding some other items, as well, as more books. I keep busy doing that, and hopefully, the buyers will come. If you have time, please go to my booth and "fave" me. I would appreciate it very much!

 

Copyright © 2011 Kathleen G. Lupole
All Photographs Copyright © 2011 Kathleen G. Lupole
 

Improve Your Listings To Sell Online

I have been running some auctions on eBay and of course, I sell on Bonanza also. I have two booths there. There is more to selling on these sites than just listing it. I found a site that I can use for free to make templates for my listings. I love doing that and it has made the process of listing more fun.

Another thing that is handy is using the search engines to research information about whatever you are selling. Sometimes you can find a niche market for a certain item being used in a different way. So when you are checking prices, be sure to check why people would want to buy your item. What can they do with it? Or learn from it (if it is a book)?

Make your listings jump out so the buyers will click on your item rather than someone else's. Be sure to put extra keywords in the title for that purpose. I try to make it sound different than everyone else's listing of the same item. It is VERY competitive out there and you can claim the buyers if you work at it.

On Bonanza, you can put up six photos and they encourage you to do so. So you can write up some beautiful listings there. Of all the selling sites on the internet I feel they are really the easiest to work with and I have fun on their site......whether I am selling or buying!

Copyright © 2011 Kathleen G. Lupole
All Photographs Copyright © 2011 Kathleen G. Lupole

Running A Home-Based Business

Working from home, wherever you are, is an option.

If you are trying to run a business from your computer you need to do a few things. You need to have a good quality product to sell. If you are shipping it from your house and have inventory then you need a safe, clean place to keep it. If heat or cold is a factor you need a room that will suit your products.

Packaging supplies cost money!

No matter what product you decide to sell, if you have the inventory at home, you will need to ship your products to the customer. Packaging supplies such as envelopes or boxes, packaging insulation, labels, etc, as well as the ink cartridges for printing out the labels all add up. I know from selling myself, that buyers resent paying those shipping cost. They seem to expect you to ship for free and not include it in the price. I think they are in shock when they realize you really do need to make a profit somehow!

No traffic if you are working from home!

It can be a way to make money without opening a physical store somewhere and all the expenses that would entail. I like this type of business since I love computer work anyway. Plus working on the computer for your own business is very different than working for someone else. I find I work more than 40 hours a week, but I love it.

Copyright © 2011 Kathleen G. Lupole
All Photographs Copyright © 2011 Kathleen G. Lupole

Now I Have Two - Yes, Two Bonanza Booths!

katlupe's Booth

I am really excited about my Bonanza booths! The last few days I have been so busy listing products there that I can't seem to get anything else done. Everything in my house is definitely in danger of being sold on Bonanza. And now that I have added a second booth, called String Baby for my guitar strings, well that has doubled my work. But I don't care. I love it!

So I figure people like Free Shipping. That is why in my booth for used books and CDs I am selling them with the price included for shipping. Now you don't think people expect me to pay their shipping cost out of the few bucks I make on the book or CD do you? I hope not. My Paypal fee is usually about .50 and the fee for Bonanza is about the same. Then add the $3.00+ for the shipping, the ink and paper for printing and the bubble mailer that I send them in............how much profit does that give me? Not enough to get rich on. Not enough to pay for groceries.

If I can make more sales though, and add up all those little profits, then maybe I will make some bigger profits in the long run. Another thing I am really excited about is that some of my blogging friends have opened booths on Bonanza too! Here are two of my very good friends who have opened booths there:

Teresa's Odds And Ends - Here is an absolutely gorgeous Antique Flue Cover that she is selling.

Deb's Booth - She has a good selection of books. And also has some books about Scrapbooking. The Ultimate Guide To Scrapbooking looks pretty good for anyone learning or already into it. Deb knows about these things!

If you decide to open a booth there, one of the first things you need to do is to write a profile. You need to let people know who you are and that you are a real person. Let them know your shipping rates. Nobody will buy from you unless you are upfront with your shipping fees. That is a fact. Then get to know the other sellers by visiting the message boards. They are the people who are your potential buyers. Good luck! And if you do open a booth, let me know and I will include it in a future post.

Copyright © 2011 Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2011  Kathleen G. Lupole

Some Ways To Generate Cash

Photo Credit: Sam Mugraby

One of the ways you can start generating cash is by selling your own items on one of the well known selling sites. Such as Amazon, eBay, Bonanzle, Etsy and many others. These are ones that I am most familiar with. If you have never sold anything online before, as bad as it's reputation is, I suggest getting your feet wet using eBay. I learned everything I needed to know there, and I sold a lot of stuff. Made very good money on stuff that in a garage sale would have brought in pennies.

Another way is if you have a service you can offer people. This would not be an online business though you could set up a website to get your business out to the public. That is unless it is an online service. Even local people look things up on the internet now. I prefer not to do any kind of business or job that would entail leaving my home, but that is up to you. It would seem that your service could end up being a job. Not a passive type of income for sure.

If you have knowledge of some subjects or skills, you can write about them. Develop a blog like this one, and try to network with other people in your niche. Then when you write an article or preferably, an eBook,  your readers will be interested in it and purchase it. Downloadable products are easy once you have them on your site. Your buyers can purchase them anytime and download them. My eBook, My Homesteading Journey, is one of those type of products. It has been the easiest product I sell. Presently, I am working on updating it.

These are just a few ways you can get started immediately. I will give you other ideas, but don't want to give you too many at first. Think about yourself. Your goals. Your interests. Your immediate needs. And what do you really want to be doing? Now and in the future?

Copyright © 2010  Kathleen G. Lupole