Half.Com Plus a Great Idea Equals Lots of Spare Income with Very Little Investment!

Want to some great side cash for little investment? Half.com is the place! Plus, you can write off your car, house, phone, PDA, computer and travel expenses while working from home! Read on to find out how to make 1,000%-10,000% return on your investment!

A Virtual Gold Mine!

I thought up this idea that works with Half.com about 7 years ago and it's been a gold mine since! Even when I haven't worked it like I should, I still net between $500-1,700 for the year. There is no reason why an ambitious individual couldn't make more on Half.com!

Half.com Examined.

Half.com is an Internet-based entity, similar to Ebay in a lot of ways, yet distinct in others. Like Ebay, an individual can sell new or used items for fun or profit, and purchase products at a significant discount. This is usually done through an online auction set-up, but a seller can also set-up a "Buy it Now" price that is set at a certain price. The ways Half.com are different, is the limited merchandise available to buy or sell, merchandise is set at a fixed price and not auction-able, and the fees are substantially lower that Ebay.

As stated above, you can buy or sell; text, fiction, or nonfiction books; DVD or Blue Ray movies; compact disk or CD music; Xbox, Xbox 360, Wii, Playstation I, II, or III, Nintendo DS, et. el., video games. By the time this article is published, some categories may be eliminated or new ones added: such is the way of dealing with an Ebay business. You just have to learn to roll with the punches. The great idea behind this article is for buying and selling books, and I don't see that going by-the-wayside anytime soon, because Half.com started out just selling books and is the biggest seller on the site.

The Idea in a Nutshell:

Seed Money.

You'll need to start with some seed money, $40.00-$100.00 will do, although you could even start out with less-I did. If you have a small PDA (Portable Desk Assistant) device like Palm Pilot, or IPhone etc. something you can get online in wireless mode, it will be a huge advantage. I didn't have this luxury, but you will see why it could dramatically enhance you effectiveness here in a moment.

Tapping the Golden Vein.

Now, with seed money in hand, look up all your local Salvation Army, Goodwill, or mom and pop thrift stores in the Yellow Pages, or Yellowpages.com. Set up a logical route to visit each store, and head out. You'll be looking for recent college text books for the most part, as they will give you the best return on the dollar. I highly recommend recent text books because you can get a lot of duds that will just sit on you shelf and rot. With business, medical and computer related books, you'll want to look for books produced in the last few years only, because they are rapidly changing fields-of-study and devalue very quickly. Now, there are exceptions to every rule, especially here, so it's good to do your homework by seeing just how much books are selling on Half.com. You can search by category like text books, to get a feel for the price range there.

All Hail The PDA!

As hinted at above, this is where a PDA would be invaluable, because you could pull up the book in real time and not have to guess whether a book's current worth. And you can write off the device on your taxes, because you will officially be running a small business. The way I pull up books are through the ISBN number, located along with the published date on the title page. Occasionally you'll have to do a title search because, for whatever reason, it won't come up.

Quick Note.

When listing a book on Half.com, make a note in the comments section if you have a teacher's edition, if it has an accompanying CD, if you're a quick shipper, if you ship with Delivery Confirmation and a detailed description of the books condition.

Advice for the Quick Sell.

I try to sell my books at the lowest market price at that time, for example, when you pull up a particular book, it will list books at varying conditions from New, Like New, Very Good, Good, and Acceptable condition. You'll want to research how Half.com determines the book 's condition, by looking at the help pages there. This is very important, as you don't want customers returning your books because you didn't condition them correctly. Look for the lowest price for the condition your target book and determine then if it's worth buying. I have bought books for $.50-$2.00 and turned around and sold them for $50-$145.00, I think is the highest price sold. Believe me, there is lots of mullah to be made here! But, you can hold out for a dollar amount that is higher than the lowest-price if you provide greater customer service than the competition, for example, being a quick shipper, using Delivery Confirmation, shipping all books in a special book-box (buy these at Uline.com online, or Staples etc.)

Keeping Crooks At-Bay.

Another great tip for minimizing returns is to ship your books with Delivery Confirmation through the Post Office. For only $.65, I think, you get a bright green slip which you attach half to your package and has a tracking number which you can pass on to your customer. Not only does it help you maintain a positive feedback ratio, it also keeps the crooks from saying they never received a particular book, as you can track it online at USPS.COM. You'll also want to let future customers know you ship with Delivery Confirmation by stating it on your accumulated feedback comments. By the way, if you sell through Ebay, the Feedback system is a shared one.

A Happy Customer will Return, and Spread the Word.

Both Ebay and Half.com are Feedback driven sites, meaning, the sellers with the best positive feedback will get the greatest number of returning and new customers, because, who wants to deal with someone who is going to be a hassle to work with? The best way to get positive Feedback, is to be a consistent person-of-your-word. Mean what you say, and say what you mean and treat people the way you want to be treated, and you'll go along way in the online book business. I say 'book business', but these techniques will work for video games, movies, etc. if you can find a source for cheap wares.

Other Sources.

If you have exhausted the thrift store scene, and want to check fresh sources of books, try flea markets, yard sales, garage sales, or estate sales listed the the classifieds. Storage facilities will oftentimes hold auctions for abandoned merchandise and is a good source for books, games, etc. Another great source for used text books, is at the local college book store. Don't buy the books there, but go on a book-buy-back day, and pay attention to when the book store turns down a book for buy-back. The student will often donate it and if you can offer, say $5.00-$10.00, you'll make his/her day and get a great book to add to your inventory.

Conclusion.

I am sure you can come up with other ideas on how you want to run your business, but I hope this will give you a good head start. Before you know it, you'll be running your own online book store for maximum profit! Here's wishing you that very thing!