Money makers

The internet gold rush is long dead. Stakes to dotcom billions were made and, invariably, lost. These days only a wide-eyed buffoon would believe that the online world harbours untold riches just waiting to be realised via unchecked hype and a hurried stock-market flotation.

But there’s still money to be made in them there URLs – if you know how. We’re not talking about ubiquitous online get-rich-quick schemes that guarantee only to deprive the gullible and the greedy of their cash. What we have in mind is good old-fashioned, honest trading, using the internet as a marketplace. Oh, and perhaps a spot of overly risky speculation just for the contrary fun of it.

Over the following pages we’ll show you how to exploit various internet resources to make money. You don’t need any special computing skills or a qualification from the Arthur Daley School of Flannel to succeed: an internet connection and a keen entrepreneurial nose will suffice.

Boot loot

You’ve doubtless heard it said before that online auction sites are akin to a worldwide car-boot sale. Indeed, these days to even suggest using the likes of eBay – the most popular and well-known of the online-auction outfits – to make money is approaching cliché status.

However, behind such casual commentary is a genuine and vast reserve of ready buyers. You can sell literally anything and everything via an online auction, even if it’s nothing. To prove that point we prepared our very own auction, comprising an irresistible lot that offered potential buyers absolutely nothing at all in return for their money. Seriously. We just asked eBay bidders to give us cash for nothing. Within minutes we had received our first tender of one shiny new penny and by the auction’s close, one week later, our total income for the sale of zilch amounted to, well – that same one-pence piece. Still, who’d complain about being paid a penny for next-to-no work? Sadly, eBay’s fees for the listing of our empty item amounted to 15p, thus gobbling up all our profit.

Okay, so that’s a rather flip approach to making money from online auctions but it highlights the fact that someone, somewhere will pay money for your old stuff. In short, so long as you remember to factor in the cost of post, packing and a little extra for your time, it’s hard not to profit from the use of online-auction sites.

Auction options

So, where best to sell your stuff? We could say that there are dozens of online-auction sites whose services deserve to be explored and exploited for profit but to do so would be verging on disingenuous. We’ll be brutally frank here: while we try to be fair and broad as possible in all our coverage, no matter what the subject area, the fact is that these days online auctioneering invariably means eBay. We endeavour to use all-encompassing terms like ‘online auction sites’ when referring to the process of requesting bids for lots placed for sale on the internet but like Google and searching, the eBay name is now synonymous with public peddling online. And there’s a simple reason for this – it’s popular.

There are alternatives – plenty, in fact and we’ll explore these soon – but if you want to pitch your wares to the largest number of eager buyers, eBay is the place to be. Perhaps five or six years ago, when the UK arm of eBay was but a fledgling, and before online auctions really took off, it would’ve been wise to weigh up the pros and cons of the competition. But now, to do so would see you on a hiding to nothing. The growth of eBay has been exponential, with large numbers of buyers attracting increasing numbers of sellers – and so on.