Many mothers look for home based businesses for women. There are plenty of things that you can do from childcare to telemarketing. Many women overlook the great opportunities that they could have in internet marketing. Women know about a lot of different products. It is an ideal home based business for women because they make purchases for themselves and their children all the time. They know what to recommend to other people. Their kids let them know what is selling in the toy arena. Internet marketing is a convenient and affordable home based business for women. You can get started with very little money.Maybe you are looking for a home based business and you don’t have kids. There are still lots of opportunities. Internet marketing as a home based business for women doesn’t just revolve around kids products. They can give you an advantage in children’s niches, but there are plenty of things that are selling online.A great place to get started right now is in the seasonal marketing. If you set up a website for Halloween costumes and start creating backlinks for it, by the time the season rolls around, you will easily cash out with a nice sum of money. The trick is to learn a couple basic internet marketing techniques. You should do this by joining a forum or purchasing some training. Be careful, some of the products online are a little out of date already. If it is more than a couple years old, then the information is not current enough to be competitive on the internet.First you will want to create a website or a lens on Squidoo. You need a platform to group your products. You will want to optimize your page by looking for a high search volume/low competition keyword. Then, you will get search engine traffic. You can start your home based business for women today! It is free to sign up for Hubpages or Squidoo.Internet marketing is a great home based business for women for a variety of reasons. It is flexible enough to do at any time. Your kids can take priority and you can feel good about it because you are helping someone find something that they need or want.
How to Make Money Online Without Any Money With a Home-Based Business
Want to make money online without any money? Of course you do. Most of us starting out with a home-base business do so because we need money, not because we have a lot of it. The great news is that there are some free marketing techniques out there. Sure, they take work on your part, but they do not take any money. So, if you’re willing to do some work, read on.You can start by offering a free product to your current customers for referrals as incentive. The catch is that this product should not be of cost to you. For example, you could write a five-ten page report on a topic that is relevant to your home-base business and offer that as a bonus for referrals. This free marketing technique does not cost you any money, but provides your customers with something extra. You could also structure it as a raffle: if they refer a customer, they are in the raffle for this bonus product. Customers often respond well to contests.One great way to get the word out about your home-base business is to write articles about it and post them online. There are several websites where you can get your article published for free. Alternatively, you could also start a blog about your business. Lots of people do this in order to promote their business or product online.If you are very uncomfortable with writing, you may want to hire someone to do the writing for you. This usually costs money, but you may be able to barter with this person, especially if they also have a home-base business or a product that you can promote for them in exchange for the writing. This person is called a ghostwriter. However, if you’re just starting out, try to write your own articles at least at first for a couple of reasons: One, there could be a fee involved, and two, writing your own material will give you an idea of how well you write as well as you know your product.Another free marketing technique is search engine optimization. This means getting your website to the top of the search engine result lists. This is done by using the right keywords when writing about your home-base business. There are websites that can help you learn about the most researched keywords for your business. Learning about search engine optimization will definitely help you in your online marketing.Finally, video marketing is the newest and hottest free marketing technique. Nothing beats a personal connection when you are trying to build your home-base business. With video marketing, you can finally make that connection online. There are several websites where you can post a short clip advertising your business.Follow these tips about free marketing techniques to help your home-base business. You need to be willing to do the work, but the resources are out there. Don’t waste any more time. Go out there and build that business!
Turn Your Internet Business Into a Profitable Home Based Business
There are periods with our internet business that it seems to be impossible to turn it into profitable home based business. This kind of feeling usually occurs during the first few months while working with our online business, it is just natural for any business, whether offline or online, to pass through with this kind of situation. There are a lots of people that lose hope on creating a profitable home based business. The success of internet home based business will always depend on the quantity as well as the quality of traffic that we will able to generate. So the key for a successful home based business is traffic. This is the main reason why a lots of people opted to give up working online as they are unable to create a highly targeted traffic to their websites. Here is some basic technique to gather highly quality traffic to your website.Search Engine Optimization Marketing: This marketing strategy is consider to be as the most effective marketing strategy in promoting any product in the internet as it was cost effective, produces a high quality visitor to your website, and offers a continuous flow of visitor to your site that will surely turn your internet business into profitable home based business. There are several method of optimizing your website to search engine.A.) On page optimization- It involves any optimization activity within your website, it includes optimization through a certain keyword that are highly related to your product, adding meta description
and posting a rich in keyword high quality content.B) Off page optimization- It is any optimization activity created outside the web page itself. It includes creating backlink, submitting of websites url to search engine and directories.Article Marketing: Article marketing is also consider as one of the proven method on creating high quality traffic to your website that will surely turn your business into profitable home based business. With article marketing, you were be given a chance to promote or presell your product by submitting a keyword enriched with a high quality content article to various reputable article directories. Articles will not only serve as a promotional writing as well as a backlink that will help increased your website page ranking that will surely help to create a profitable home based business.Video Marketing: Video marketing has emerged to be as one of the most effective method of giving information to individual through internet. It becomes so popular that it makes YouTube as one of the most visited website in the internet. It become so effective as it gave you an opportunity to promote a product with a audio-video capabilities that makes your promotion much productive and entertaining.Blog Marketing: Blogging is a vital aspect in creating a profitable home based business, everybody knows main requirement for search engine to award good ranking to a certain website is through a high quality rich in keyword content. So the main point, it is more likely impossible for our squeeze page or affiliate website to rank on search engine. We have to used a highly optimized blog as a conduit going to our sales page or squeeze page.The method given above is just a partial list of proven promotional technique to create an internet profitable home based business as there still a lots of method that are available for free that will surely boost your online business. At first, those technique might look so complicated but through a constant research and practice you will be use and acquainted using those method.The most important thing is to keep our mind focus when starting an online business. Develop a positive mental attitude whatever trials or challenges that might come or obstruct us in reaching our goals in building a profitable home based business.
Dreaming of Becoming Your Own Boss? Start a Home Based Business
If you are dreaming of becoming your own boss, then you should take advantage of the many different home based business opportunities that are available nowadays. You can start living your life according to your own agenda rather than continuing the everyday routine and financing somebody else’s lifestyle. Starting your own home based business will give you more benefits than you can imagine. You can spend more time with your family, avoid the need to commute, you can start working your very own hours and all this will give you in return a more enjoyable, fulfilling and free life.What are the Different Ideas for a Home Based Business?Believe it or not but there are a lot of business ideas that you will find when starting your research. At some point the list becomes too long and that’s why people tend to have a hard time starting a business because they can’t decide what to do. Everyone leads their own unique live but you have to remember, that in order for you to make the right decision, you have to understand the basic fundamentals when it comes to starting your own business from home.Why is this Important to You and Your Family?Perhaps the biggest mistake those up-and-coming business owners make every time they evaluate different ideas for a home based business is that they focus too much on the potential financial returns the business can generate. This is a very important factor to research when setting up a possible new enterprise, but it is not the only aspect. You have to keep in mind that there are many other important matters to investigate such as advertising, start-up cost, just to name a few. The income you generate comes as a result of all your input and daily efforts. You have to commit to this for the long-term. It is the lifestyle, a home base business offers that should be one of the most attractive prospects to you when it comes to venturing into this kind of business.How to Pick the Best Home Based Business?Some experts will advise you to determine your passions and hobbies so that you can use these as a starting point when venturing into a successful home business. You should put this into consideration and whilst brainstorming all your ideas, you will end up with a thriving home business concept.For example, if you are an excellent writer then you should consider Freelance Writing as a good choice for you to earn money. Nowadays the internet offers a lot of opportunities for people who can create quality articles and blogs regardless of the topic.Another good example is for people who are skilled in cooking and crafting to start something up in this niche. A few years back, no one would have expected that such passion for baking, canning, cooking, sewing and painting could turn into a profitable business opportunity. If you think selling locally is not a good plan, then find the best online marketplace that would cater for all of your crafts and baked goods.Is a Home Based Business the Right Path for You?A lot of people think that working from home is a lovely idea. But believe it or not it can be a tough and a challenging task. That’s why you have to assess yourself first. To help you with this check out the summary below to see if all this applies to you:· Setting Your Own Hours· Tune Out Distractions (Including Your Children)· Believe in Yourself· Be Teachable as well as Open-Minded· Never Give Up ImmediatelyAnyone can pursue their own ideas for a home business. As long as you have the right amount of desire, start-up capital and attainable goals, you are already half way there. All you have to do is to perform your research and get the necessary knowledge by getting advice from reputable people so that you can succeed in your own business-ownership.
Have The Policies Of the Obama Administration Killed Our Small Business Growth Engine?
Perhaps you are a small business person, and you are like me; when you hear a politician tell us they are for us little guys, you just cringe. It appears to me after decades of watching their lips move that they could care less about us, and would rather continue to get their campaign war chests filled by their large corporate lobbyist piggy banks. Okay, let’s talk.You see, there was an interesting article in Reuters on February 1, 2016 titled; “U.S. small business borrowing sank in 2015: PayNet,” by Ann Saphir. The article stated:”What started as a full gallop in 2015 is barely trotting along now, said Bill Phelan, President of PayNet; “We are barely replacing worn-out assets here.” Small Company borrowing is a key barometer of growth because it is the little firms that tend to do much of the hiring that fuels economic growth. Lending slowed sharply to small businesses in mining and agriculture, as well as in wholesale trade, transportation and construction, the figures showed. Texas was particularly hard hit.”So, what’s the Obama Administration’s answer to this vexing problem, oh something typical of the way they run things and adjust their economic data (like employment figures) just change the definition of “Small Business” for instance there was an article in Government Executive online news on January 29, 2016 titled; “SBA Finalizes New Business Size Standards,” written by Charles S. Clark which stated:”The new size standards will enable nearly 1,650 more businesses in those industries to obtain or retain small company status; will give federal agencies a larger pool of smaller companies from which to choose for their procurement programs; and will make more small businesses eligible for SBA’s loan programs,” SBA said in a release.”Okay but, smaller companies do not want to borrow money, why? They don’t trust the system, the future, the economy, this administration, or future regulations due to a socialist population base mindset and evil-one percent hatred motif, nor would I as a former franchisor. This new size standard change would include businesses over 150 employees and the “SBA estimates that more than 8,400 additional businesses will gain small business status under the adjusted size standards and become eligible for SBA’s financial and federal government procurement programs,” the agency said. “These changes can possibly lead to $150 million to $200 million in additional federal contracts and 80 additional loans, totaling about $30 million, to small businesses.”Great news right, well not so fast. You see, these larger firms will get Federal Contracts that small businesses, real ones cannot get, meaning fewer mom and pop businesses getting money from the Federal Government in our ever increasing government-run economy, not free-market run economy. This is no solution, this is just stupidity worsening the real problem is search of political expediency. Please consider all this and think on it.
Buying Customers and Not Leads, and Other Home-Based Business Tips That Are Guaranteed To Work
What do most people lack, becoming the number one reason many home-based businesses fail? Customers.
My rule number one? Never buy leads, and only buy customers.
This is only one of five topics discussed here so that your home-based business can achieve optimal success.
First, I would like to list the top five reasons most home-based businesses fail:
1. Lack of a business plan.
Just because it is a home-based business does not mean you do not need a business plan. You should be taking your home-based business just as seriously as if you were heading into any other type of business, so you need to make sure that the business plan you have is sound and that it has already worked for someone else who has used it.
2. Lack of motivation.
It is easy to become distracted. A home business should be run in the same manner as an office-based business. You need to motivate yourself to go to work in the morning and maintain that motivation during the course of the day in order to succeed. Discipline is a must. I have witnessed many smart people who are totally capable of being successful in their own home-based business, but failed because they didn’t have the discipline and motivation to answer to themselves. Some personalities require direction and management from others in order to be successful, so it is important to know if you properly motivated before starting your own home-based business.
3. Lack of space or proper environment.
If you are fortunate and your home-based business is successful, you may need to expand, so it is important while setting up a home business environment to anticipate growth. Not all businesses can realistically succeed in a home-based location because they need room for equipment, work space, storage, inventory, and employees, so it is important to determine if it is simply too difficult to run your business from your home. Many people learn the hard way by not being realistic upfront.
4. Ignoring a budget.
Too many home-based business owners justify spending money on all sorts of equipment, advertising, leads, and promotional tools because they are not paying overhead. This can result in dangerous overspending which will strip your business of capital needed to succeed and thrive. It is important to spend money wisely on only what is necessary to see growth and success, and not get caught up in unnecessary spending.
5. Lack of customers.
This is quite obvious, of course. Without customers purchasing your products or services, you have no home business. This is the number one reason many home businesses fail because this is what most people lack when starting a business. Of course, there are companies that offer leads or you can go to a third-party source to purchase them, but if you talk to people who have used leads, they are usually a far cry from a constant stream of actual buying customers who could be supplying your home-based business with what it takes to thrive, grow, and become successful: sales.
So, what is a home-based business owner to do to avoid these pitfalls?
1. First, align yourself with a company that will provide you with a steady stream of buying customers to whom you have permanent rights, instead of mere leads.
With customers who are already purchasing being continually generated by the company itself, success will be attained and will continually grow and thrive because you will have all the customers you will ever need. With this, the front-end work of your business is already achieved. However, I know of only one company that does this.
2. Next, make sure this company is debt-free, reputable, and has a proven business model.
This company should have no start-up costs, no hidden fees, and be free to join. You want to avoid a business that starts strong and disappoints later, and instead opt for one that provides ongoing residual income for life. Talk to someone who is already working this business and see how it has worked for him or her.
3. Then, make sure you have the proper environment to work your business from home.
Align yourself with a company that will simply require an internet connection and a phone, and will allow you to be mobile, so you can take your home-based business anywhere you want to go. This company should do all of the back-end work for you as well by supplying you with your own free website and an easy to use back office on your laptop. They should be shipping the product to each customer, and supplying them with catalogs, e-mail alerts, monthly magazines and catalogs, and toll-free telephone customer support, all at no cost to you or the customer. Align yourself with a company that is willing to do all of this heavy lifting for you at no charge that normally weighs others down in their home-based businesses.
4. Next, stick to a budget by duplicating what someone else has already done to become successful in this business.
Resist temptation to reinvent the wheel which could result in needless spending. A great company has affiliates who have already figured out how to bring your business to the next level without spending needlessly, so just follow their lead.
5. Finally, make sure you are motivated to be in business for yourself in a home-based business.
Expect guidance from others, and duplicate what they have already done to be successful, but realize that the bottom line is YOU. If you treat a home-based business like a hobby, it will pay you like a hobby; and if you treat it like a business, it will pay you like a business. Treat it with the commitment and dedication it deserves and it will pay you back many times over.
How do I know this works? I have proven to myself that it does.
The successful interior design business I owned and operated for eleven years took a hard hit when our economy started to fail a few years ago because people no longer had the disposable income they once had. Let’s face it, custom design is neither inexpensive nor a necessity, so I have seen a lot of interior design studios go out of business during this tough economy. I had the choice of either reinventing myself in a home-based business, or go to work for someone else. Being my own boss has rather spoiled me, so I did not want to change that by working for someone else. Why make someone else successful when I could build something for myself?
So, almost three years ago, I aligned myself with a company to start another stream of income. This business is exactly what I described in the five detailed points above as what you should look for in a home-based business. I duplicated what someone else was already doing with the company, so naturally, it worked for me as well. I want to reach out to others to help them to build a successful home-based business of their own, by avoiding the common mistakes people often make. People who are already aligned with this company include individuals with corporate jobs, business owners, parents raising children at home, wellness professionals and students, retired persons, and individuals who simply desire an extra stream of income. There is no better time than in today’s tough economy to start your own proven home-based business by acquiring buying customers, and do it in a way where you will find optimal success.
What Are the Best CPM Advertising Networks?
When trying to monetize actively a website or a blog, the administrator has to face a quite difficult choose: which advertising network will he use? In this article, I will only review CPM Advertising networks because they have fixed rated as opposed to PPC’s dynamic rates. So what are the best advertising networks that pay for CPM Publishing? As “best advertising network”, I of course mean: who pays the most?
1. GlobalTakeOff (up to $4 CPM)
GlobalTakeOff is a CPM Advertising company, as you may have guessed. They offer CPM Advertising banners and have very few requirements, if any. Getting accepted is pretty complicated if you have a very small site, but publishers that possess websites that get over 1,000 unique visitors per day can easily become a GlobalTakeOff editor.
2. Tribal Fusion (up to $4 CPM)
Tribal Fusion is another big, I mean huge, CPM Advertising Network. Publishers of Tribal Fusion will win more then the ones of any other advertising network, excluding Google AdSense but they are PPC. The only reason it is not above GlobalTakeOff in my list, because yes Tribal Fusion pays more than GlobalTakeOff, is that the requirements to get accepted by them as a publisher are pretty strict. First of all, you need over 500,000 unique visitors per month! Yes, that is approximately 15,000 unique visitors per day, which is not that common on niche related websites for example. But do the maths – 15,000 * 0.004 = $60 per day, not that bad for just one website. Overall, an advertising network that targets very big and qualified websites exclusively.
3. ValueClick Media (up to $3.5 CPM)
This CPM advertising network pays well, also probably one of the top-paying for non US/CAN traffic, and has fewer site requirements than Tribal Fusion. “Only” 3,000 visitors per month are required. The two other great parts of this company is that you have nice statistics, very precise and exportable as well as numerous advertising formats.
4. Interclick (up to $3 CPM)
A similar network to the notorious AdBrite (which will certainly appear somewhat next on my list), on which you can select individually the campaigns that you wish to run. They have quite some advertising formats, but not nearly as much as AdBrite or ValueClick, so that is one downside of this advertising network. The other inconvenient is that they accept new publishers on contact only, which is interesting for advertisers because those know that not everyone can get in, but it makes it sort of hard to publishers to get accepted. On a more positive side, they pay very well for targeted traffic and international traffic too.
5. RealTechNetwork (up to $2.3 CPM)
Pretty difficult to get into for small websites, this CPM advertising network demands no less than 25,000 impressions per month (with 12,500 unique). This website monetizes especially USA, Canada and UK traffic. They have a large panoply of advertising formats, including traditional ad banners, in-page videos, contextual advertising and expandable banners.
6. AdBrite (up to $2.2 CPM)
AdBrite is a pretty notorious CPM advertising network that usually accepts all publishers, and is seen as a major concurrent of Google AdSense. They usually accept all publishers, as AdSense, but you need to get your own advertisers by listing your website on their marketplace. Don’t worry, if you have over 1,000 or even 500 unique visitors per day, you will most certainly find advertisers. They do propose PPC Publishing, but we will only interest ourselves in the CPM aspect of their website. They have several ad formats, contextual, advertising banners and the well remunerating Full Pages.
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.
How to Find Great Live Auctions for Resale Items
Hi, my name is Walt. I’m an auctioneer with 25 years of experience in the auction business and licensed in the state of MA. I own Quick Auction Service, a company that specializes in building and running custom auctions, I’m also the webmaster of my own site and have been on eBay for 8 years. Besides eBay, the types of auctions I run most frequently are antiques and on-site estate auctions, although I’ve run everything from business overstock auctions to charity & special event auctions.
I enjoy sharing my knowledge and stories of the auction business. My goal for article is to help folks get the absolute most out of their auction experience.
Whether your fresh out of the package or a seasoned dealer I think I can offer something in this article to help you with your auciton adventures.
There may be as many reasons to attend auctions as there are types of auctions to attend. Maybe you want to attend an auction to buy items for re-sale on eBay, or some other market. Maybe you want to furnish your home with wonderful antiques, or you want to furnish your home as inexpensively without sacrificing quality.Some folks are just looking for a fun night out. With a little perseverance all these things are possible.
There are antiques and estate auctions, auto auctions, overstock auctions, absolute and no reserve auctions, real estate auctions, specialty auctions where only one genre of items are sold, tailgate auctions, live auctions, online auctions, sealed bid auctions, silent auctions, charity and fund raising auctions and many more.
Can you really buy for pennies on the dollar at an auction? You bet! Many times I’ve seen folks buy and re-sell at the same auction on the same night for a good profit, although be advised, this should only be done after the auction is over.
There are a lot of ways to find an auction, but here are some tips on how to find and attend the best ones.
Visit the genre of shops in the area that apply to the type of auction you want to attend. IE: If your looking for a good antique auction to attend, stop in the local antiques shops and ask for what there are for good auctions in the area. Sounds obvious right? But listen to what they don’t say as well as what they do say. Oftentimes when a dealer speaks poorly about an auction he or she attends, it may be likely that they are trying to keep a good thing secret. Think for a moment, why would a dealer keep attending a lousy auction?
Newspaper ads: I personally like to find ads in the classified ad section rather than flashy display ads. Flashy ads are usually indicative of an auction that will be high priced, may have reserves, (a set price on an item), and usually an enormous crowd. While any auction can be profitable to attend, it is usually best to steer clear of the glitzy ones, at least for the beginner.
Here’s the minimum you want to find out before you go. If there is a phone number in the ad, call and ask for the terms of the sale. What forms of payment do they accept? Is it an absolute auction? An absolute auction is one that has no minimum or reserve bids on items. These are the best auctions to attend! Is there a buyers premium? A buyers premium is like a tax that everyone who makes purchases at that auction must pay above the winning bid price. Most auctions these days do charge a buyers premium, 10% is not unreasonable but I feel much more than that is greedy, and the auctioneer that charges over 10% is counting on most bidders not doing the extra math as the bids quicken in pace.
A fair auction will have ample time to inspect the merchandise, usually at least 2 or 3 hours. Find out when inspection starts and make sure to attend! Never attend an auction if you can’t make the inspection, not unless your prepared to gamble. Most auctioneers sell at a rate of about 100 items per hour, which is why they sell “as is”. They simply don’t have the time to give a detailed description of all the items. Since almost all items at auction are sold AS IS, there are sure to be some damaged, refinished, fake and incomplete items at any given auction. Beware of any auctions that offer very little or no inspection time.
Good auctions will usually have 150 to 400 lots. A lot may be one item or a group of items. The exception to this are specialty auctions, auto auctions, real estate auctions etc.
When you attend your first sale, take note of the 1/2 dozen or so dealers that buy the most often. See if you can find out about other area auctions they attend.
When you do find an excellent auction, attend it as often as possible. By frequenting good sales, you help increase the bottom line of that business. It’s difficult for many auctioneers to keep the quality of merchandise consistent, so good attendance certainly helps. And when an auctioneer gets to know you as a buyer, he/she will go out of the way to accommodate you, to keep you coming back.
Hiring An Auction Company
Estimating your assets value:
Typically, one of the first questions a business owner will ask me is, “how much will the assets bring at an auction”. After taking the time to review the assets, the auctioneer should give the client a conservative estimate of the sale based upon his experience and the current market trends. It is important that the company give realistic expectations so the seller can make informed decisions based on their best interest.
Compensation and Expenses:
Is the company you are considering working for you or against you? The agreement you decide may determine this.
A business owner should carefully consider how the auction company is compensated. The most common commission structures include: straight commission, outright purchase of assets, guaranteed base with a split above to both auctioneer and seller, guaranteed base with anything above going to auctioneer or a flat fee structure.
In a straight commission structure, the company is paid an agreed upon percentage of the total sale.
In an outright purchase agreement, the auctioneer simply becomes your end buyer. The company purchases your assets and relocates them. While this can be an option in some unique situations, keep in mind that they will want to purchase your assets at a very reduced price to make a profit at a later date.
In a minimum base guarantee, the auction company guarantees the seller that the auction will generate a minimum amount of sales. Anything above that amount either goes to the auction company or split with the seller. While a seller might feel more comfortable doing an auction knowing that he is guaranteed a minimum amount for his sale, keep in mind that it is the best interest of the auction company to secure a minimum base price as low as possible in order reduce their financial liability to the seller and secure higher compensation for the sale.
In a flat fee structure, the auctioneer agrees to show up for the sale and call the auction. There is no incentive for the auctioneer to get the best prices for your assets. The auction company is compensated regardless of the outcome of your sale.
What is the best option for business owners? In my experience, an agreed upon straight commission structure. This puts the responsibility on the auction company to offer the best outcome for everyone involved. There is an incentive for the auction company to work hard for both parties, set up and run a professional sale, get the highest bid and sell every item on the inventory. Successful auctions translate to a higher bottom line for both the seller and the auction company.
Auction Expenses:
In most auction agreements the expenses to conduct an auction are passed to the seller. If the auction company pays for the expenses, it is simply absorbed in higher commission rates.
All expenses should be agreed upon in advance in a written contract. Typical expenses will include the costs of advertising, labor, legal fees, travel, equipment rentals, security, postage and printing. A reputable auction company will be able to estimate all expenses based upon their experience in previous auctions. An agreement should be actual costs charged as expenses, not an estimated amount.
Advertising is typically the highest cost in conducting an auction. The auction company needs to set up an advertising campaign that will promote the sale to its best advantage and not overspend to simply advertise the auction company.
Once the auction is complete, the auction company should provide a complete breakdown of all expenses to the seller, including copies of receipts within the auction summary report.
Buyer’s Premium:
What is a buyer’s premium? If you attend auctions regularly, you are very familiar with this term. The auction company charges a fee to the buyer when they buy an item at auction.
The buyer’s premium has been around since the 1980′s and is standard auction practice. It was first used by auction houses to help offset costs of running brick and mortar permanent auction facilities. Since then, it has spread to all aspects of the auction industry. It is prominent in online auctions and allows auction companies to cover added expenses incurred from online sales.
It is the responsibility of the auction company to provide clear disclosure of the buyer’s premium to both the buyers and the sellers. Those not familiar with auctions are often taken back by the buyer’s premium. They looked upon it as an under handed way for the auction company to make more money. Reputable auction companies will provide full disclosure within the auction contract, advertisement and bidder registration.
Typically, an auction company will charge online buyers a higher buyer’s premium percentage than those attending an auction in person. Extra fees are incurred with online bidding and are charged accordingly to online buyers. This provides the seller a level playing field for both online buyers and those attending the auction in person. Without the buyer’s premium, there is no way to do this.
Pre-Sales:
We’ve all been there. We’re looking forward to attending an auction only to find that some items were sold prior to the auction date.
As an auctioneer with over thirty-six years of experience, I can honestly state that pre-sales will hurt an auction. When a company decides to liquidate their assets, it is easy to sell off high-end pieces of equipment through online sources, equipment vendors or to other businesses. The seller receives instant cash and avoids paying a commission to an auction company.
Auctioneer’s find themselves appearing to acting in a self-serving capacity when potential clients say they are planning to sell off parts of their inventory prior to an auction. It’s hard not to consider the auctioneer’s commission when they warn you not to pre-sell anything. Yes, the auctioneer wants to earn a commission on those sales but it is more important that the auctioneer protect the sale from potential negative backlash that comes from pre-selling. The buying public knows when an auction has been “cherry picked” prior to the sale and it reflects in their bidding. It becomes a sale of “leftovers” and that impacts prices.
A buyer who purchases prior to the auction usually does not attend the sale. They already bought equipment at a good price with no competition. If they do attend the auction, they tend to let others know of their great pre-sale purchases which again, impacts prices and the overall excitement of the sale.
It is important to understand that auctions work best with a complete inventory. You want competition on your higher end equipment. The easy to sell items make it possible to gain respectable prices for hard to sell items.
When a business owner decides to liquidate their equipment assets, there is only one opportunity to do it right. Hiring a reputable auction company will assist you with a professional, orderly and timely liquidation.