Friday, January 18, 2008

Day Jobs Suck

Yesterday, I dragged myself into another crappy day of doing nothing at work. I was there for about 1/2 an hour when I was asked into the boss's office and handed a severance package. I'd like to say how upset I was about the whole thing, but oddly, I haven't felt too badly about it. I hated that fucking job, and the people who worked there. I would like to try an say something nice, but it's tough. I liked the two big bosses, and 2 or 3 employees, but mostly my life was like grinding teeth all day long.

Sorry, but I have to say this: On the off chance that someone from my old company is going through my stuff, Fuck you Mat. Take your pompus arrogant attitude and shove it up your ass. You are NOT god's gift to everything. You only LOOKED like you knew everything, because you never told anyone SHIT once you found out about it. I did NOT need to come into work and get verbally abused because I wasn't a fucking mind reader. I am a strong, independent, well educated person. You did you best to put me down, and get me under your control. I know it must have pissed you off to no end, when I would never let you belittle me, or let your snide comments get to me. I used to have another boss just like you. I let him destroy my ego and make me think I was worthless. I vowed never again to be controlled like that. If you weren't there, I could have done your job. I never needed you. At some point, I just gave up caring. Maybe that pissed you off most of all. I don't know. And I genuinely don't care. If you had the balls to be there when I was fired, I would have told you this stuff to your face.

Sorry about that. I needed to vent. And it just goes back to my point about how I would rather work for myself. I don't like the idea of someone else being in control of my life. Which is why next time, I will take a 30 year fixed rate mortgage. At the time, I just wanted the lowest rate, but now I have to justify myself and my income to someone else behind a desk. I am quite happy to not want any credit cards. Credit is over rated.

Anyway, over the past few months I had listened to those self-help start your own business type of audio seminars (free for download, where all bootleg stuff is found). And one of the best lessons I had learned was "If you have one source of income, and one stops, you have no income. If you have ten sources of income, and you loose one, you still have nine ways of getting paid." So, to that end, I spent quite a bit of my time building on those ten sources of income, waiting on the day I would get booted out the door, which was only a matter of time.

I have a house that I rent out to tenants, I make about $550/mo profit. I also have my iPod business which is doing quite well. I think I am averaging about $900/mo. However, that is limited by funds available to purchase merchandise. I need to find more funding. So, If anyone wants to invest, shoot me an email. I also have this Game Store and e-store thing I've been trying to work on, but I just haven't had the proper amount of time. Guess I have the time now, huh? There is also the unemployment check as well.

So, I have several sources of income that bring money in daily. I feel much better about that. I had also put extra money into savings every week, just waiting for the day I would need it. It's only a matter of time, it always is.

My wife asked me if I was going to sell iPods full time now. I said I still needed a day job.... for now. I haven't built up the passive revenue yet. I've been trying, but it's only been 3 months that I have been serious about all this.

However, I asked the obvious question (to us anyway) "Now that neither of us have a job, should we rent this house out to tenants as well, and finally move far away from here?" Last night we talked about where we wanted to live, and how feasible it was to do it. Other than the fear of it, there isn't any reason we can't. After all, all my sources of income will come with me, no matter where I live. And that's a beauty I have been working hard to achieve.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Amazon

Referencing: http://www.ripoffreport.com and http://www.my3cents.com

I am afraid of Amazon now. I didn't like waiting for my money to be released to me. Now, I don't like the idea of them closing the account for no reason AND holding my funds for 1-3 months. What bullshit. I will continue looking. Gotta be somewhere good to sell on.

Random Thoughts

I removed those garbage AdWords. As I figured, no one bothered to click but me, and I didn't get paid for any of them. Not that I had many visitors. It said I had several displays a day, but who knows if it counted GoogleBots or not. I didn't think it would work. Whatever.

Yahoo Ads brought in visitors at .15 cents a click, but I only got two orders this week, both had items out of stock. No fun at all, running an e-Store. I still think Getting on Amazon would help draw customers at an affordable price.

I found a website called www.ioffer.com that is an anti-ebay.You list items or have a whole store, no fees. I liked that. When you sold, they take about 5%, which is less than ebay. You can accept offers for your items, or accept only full price. It will suck in your ebay feedback and listed items making join the service quite easy. Last thing i liked was that you can setup with Google Base (Froogle) from their system. So, you suck in ebay, then expot to Froogle. Nice.

My 4th batch of IPods arrived tomorrow, so I will be busy with that for the next few days. I even hired someone on to help me prep them. As they need to be formatted, tested, cleaned and photographed, it becomes time consuming. My wife thinks I'm silly for paying someone to help. However, time is money, and the sooner I can get these listed on EBay, the sooner they will be sold, and the sooner I can buy more. With the help, i can get all 30 listed on EBay this weekend, and have them sold in no time.

Getting batch 5 delivered from china sure takes a while. I have no patience for all this waiting, when I dont have inventory to sell.

Hey, i don't have inventory to sell! Well, I have 8 Generic 1gb IPods left. They likely won't sell until I drive traffic in with the new batch of 30 30giggers.

I listed the 4gb Nanos on ebay as a Presale. Surprisingly, I sold one. I don't have them in stock, and I am charging more than anyone else. Yet, I can still sell them. Pretty amazing.

I had listed a chess set on ebay two weeks ago. in 10 days, only 27 people looked at it, and no one bought it. That was a waste, but I tried. Next idea please.

I started work on the lingerie store. Once again, inventory mess that needs to be reindexed in excel and properly linked to images. Been busy at work past two days, so no time to spend on this. With the ipods coming in, guess this will hit the back burner again.

Friday, January 4, 2008

International Sales

I have found that selling in Canada has noticeably increased my orders. This is because the item gets listed on EBay.com and Ebay.ca as well. I sold 3 iPods to Canada within 10 hours. Nice.

The downside, is that shipping there is darn near impossible for someone who has never done it before. USPS wants a special envelope, and cost more than UPS. With USPS, I can use my normal packaging, but I needed an extra Global Commercial Invoice I had to download from the website. I needed to fill it out with all sorts of information that I didn't actually have until i called UPS back and had someone walk me through how to fill it out. Now that I figured it out, I will make an easily edited one on my computer so I can just changed the information of the buyer.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Beyond Liquidation

My first idea was to buy and sell on ebay. Then I asked "If they can sell on EBay for so little money, where did THEY get it from?" and the answer was www.liquidation.com. Then I asked another question: "If they can sell it for cheap on liquidation, where do THEY get it from?". The answer is Returns, Salvage, and China.

Salvage looks dangerous to me, I can't justify the financial risk. Returns have worked out well so far with iPods, but other products scare me because I can see myself stuck with 10 broken PSP's and no way to fix them. China, on the other hand, intrigued the hell out of me.

I've been able to sell these generic iPods fairly well. With a $40 mark-up, I can't complain. So, my biggest question seemed to be "How the hell do I buy directly from china?" followed by "How do I buy directly from china, and not get fucked?"

The answer is www.globalsource.com. This website, is the Holy Grail. Direct from China, thousands of generic brand products, from hundreds of different companies.

You are lucky you found this website. One day, soon, I will collect all my thoughts, and sell this information. In a nice little package, complete with bonuses I've never even mentioned on here. The more I figure out, the more I want to charge. I don't know how much yet, but it will certainly be more than a $9.99 e-book on ebay. If someone is serious, all this information I share could easily change someones life. After all, my wife hasn't worked in over a month, and I haven't even noticed, financially.

A Reply

"It’s easy to come out breathing fire in the fledgling new year, dedicating yourself anew to conquering the world, building empires, and making all that you see your own, but the reality is often far from that."

Today was the first business day of the new year. Today I bought $3,500.00 worth of merchandise to sell on ebay. My inventory will be gone by the end of the month. By then, I will have already purchased another shipment for sales in February. By March, I will be planning Christmas.

Is this some wishful sense of grandeur? No. This is my fifth such order within two months. I have only just begun to hit my stride. It's actually quite easy once you learn to play the game.

The point is this: Set your goals, learn what you need to learn, then get off your ass and do it.
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