4 Ways to Make Extra Money Online
The following post about extra ways to make money online was submitted by Marsello Oentoro.
During tough financial times, like the recession we currently find ourselves in, many of people try to find creative ways to make some extra income. Some take part time jobs bagging groceries or working at Target, but is that the most efficient way to make extra money?
I’ve been guilty of such short sightedness myself, committing my time to a mundane translating job at a law firm. Even though the money was pretty good, the gruesome hours I put into that job finally took its toll in the form of sleep depravation, which ultimately affected my full time job.
Don’t get me wrong, a part time job will cause an almost instant boost to your cash flow, and depending on your situation, such a boost may be badly needed. The online alternatives provided below will most likely take longer before you see a return. The advantage are an increased potential for future profit as well as the flexibility to choose your own hours. So for the full time workers out there who are looking for ideas to make some extra cash, here are 4 simple ideas:
1. Drop shipping – Many wholesaler offer the option of drop shipping. Such an arrangement would allow you to sell products without having to invest in any inventory. Under this type of arrangement you would first take payment from the customer and then pay the drop shipper their fee for the product and shipping. The difference between the price the customer paid you and what the drop shipper charges would be your gross profit on the sale.
2. Affiliate Marketing – Allows you to earn a commission by promoting other people’s products online. When you join an affiliate program you usually get a unique link to use in order to send traffic back to the companies website, the idea is that every time someone uses your link and then makes a purchase on that site, you get earn a commission.
3. Pay Per-Click Income – With programs such as Google AdSense and Yahoo SEM you can make money every time one of your website visitors clicks one of the ads placed on your site. This strategy works best if you have a high traffic generating website such as a popular blog.
4. Sell products – In addition to the above mentioned methods you can develop your own products (e.g.an e-book, hand made crafts, etc.) and sell them through your website or other commercial sites such as eBay or Amazon.
Many people who decide to start out in online business, start out by purchasing items to sell from a wholesaler. I don’t suggest that you start with this strategy for two reasons.
First, anytime your make an investment in inventory, especially in the early days of your business, you take a risk of not being able to move your inventory. If this should happen to you, it will most likely mean having to liquidate your inventory at a price less than whatever you originally paid. The second reason to be careful is that most wholesalers will have no problems in supplying your competitors. Such a situation represents the lack of a major, barrier to entry, and barriers to entry are essential to the success of your online business.
You may have heard it said that ”it takes money to make money”. Well it is also said that the sign of a good entrepreneur is that they can make money without money. When you are starting out I would advise you invest more of your time, and less cash into your online business. Once you figure out how to make money without spending it, you will be in a much better position to make money with money.
May 24th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Another great post ~ glad I signed up for this newsletter. It stands out as having information that’s useful to me in every issue. Great job!