What is it:  This convenient and personalized service means clients need not leave the comforts of their home to get pampered. Even entire families can enjoy spa and salon treatments at home whenever and wherever. Offer anything from foot spas to haircuts.

What you may be up against:  People may feel uncomfortable about letting strangers — your masseuses — into their own homes.

Things to consider:  Training, shuttle service, equipment, uniforms, maybe portable cassette players (to add ambiance), and mobile phones for your staff. Safety of your girls, should clients make advances on them.

How you can be different from others: 

• Expand your services. Look into other services you can offer like  providing healthy meals, body products, and even exercise and diet programs.
• Consider hiring masseurs, as some individuals prefer a man’s heavier touch. 
• Invest in training. Travel to spa destinations like Thailand, or get a spa consultant to teach you in massage techniques. 
• Develop special occasion packages. Spread the word and offer your services to include group rates for special occasions like birthdays, bridal showers, pre-wedding treats, or reunions. These offer higher potential income both through numbers and the networks you can establish. 
• Distribute flyers. Penetrate offices, subdivisions, and schools in your area of service.

BAG-MAKING

What is it:  Feeding the female addiction for bags, bags, and more bags.

What you may be up against: Creativity stagnation, and the overwhelming competition.

What to consider:  Investment in equipment (sewing machines), space (should you hire people to make your products), and new material (fabric, pattern, construction, metal work and accessories). When you’re ready, why not export?

How you can be different from the others: 

• Prepare capital investment to pour into machinery for mass-production. It could be a hi-speed sewing machine for fabric or an imported unit for leather bag material. 
• Innovate or specialize in designs. You can diversify into other products like diaries, planners, card cases, and other holding paraphernalia. 
• Showcase your products via local and international trade fairs. You get to sell, and to check out the competition as well. You may find some critical detail or manufacturing strategy that will make your business more profitable.

SALAD DRESSING

What is it:  riding on the incessant trend of going back to basics and eating healthy, and exploring your own creative culinary skills.

What you’re up against:  sub-standard ingredients, food poisoning

What to consider:  food safety, especially since salad dressings have one of the shortest shelf lives among previously prepared and pre-packed food items.

How you can be different from the others: 

• Address product promotion and distribution. Open a small place in the business district strictly for delivery operations or orders-to-go. This way, you keep the overhead to a minimum while getting a more realistic feel of the market.
• Include in your label clear and proper serving and storage instructions as well as the ingredients used to avoid food-related problems.
• Tap your friends and relatives for contacts or referrals to canteens and other dining establishments where you can offer your salad dressing. There’s always a market for customized products.
• Diversify by tying up with bazaar sellers of organic produce and other salad staples or direct-market your product to major food establishments like restaurants and food concessionaires.
• Look for recipes that may be tried and tested by something you’re sure you can improve on to better suit popular taste. Keep with the traditional if you have not gotten modest success yet with your innovations. Later on, as taste buds evolve some more, indulge your gourmet tendencies and come up with your own original, never-before tasted salad dressing concoctions.
• Use snazzy labels and bottles and offer your products to supermarkets. Be upbeat and don’t get discouraged if you receive small orders in the beginning. Continue to upgrade.

More on: 

Hot Extra Income Ideas for Working Moms (Part 2)

Hot Extra Income Ideas for Working Moms (Part 3)

Consider the category your item will be listed under for a trouble-free search. Descriptions are best when straightforward and simple indicating brand, condition, size, style, or model (if applicable). There’s no better way to paint a true picture of the item’s quality than to take a snapshot for potential buyers to see.

2.  Make your listing stand out

Gain more attention to your listing with additional options — for a fee. Achieve a more attractive background and layout, grab great graphics, or add eye-catching captions! Make sure to preview your listing before submitting it to eBay.

3.  Check out similar items on sale

Get an idea of how saleable your item is by searching under the same category. Compare condition, style, brand, and so on to guide you n marking down a competitive price.

4.  Include postage costs and transit times

You can access Web sites (with links found in eBay) to check shipping costs of different couriers. Compare rates and transit times to find out the most cost-effective delivery rate. Include this in your listing to let potential buyers know the total cost and time it will take for them to receive their purchase. This will save time by decreasing the inquiries about shipping.

5.  Establish rapport

Reply within 24 hours of receiving an inquiry about your item and answer questions clearly and adequately. Fulfill any agreement made with the buyer for a smooth and hassle-free transaction. A pleased customer earns you the positive feedback you need to build a competent reputation as a seller.

However, contrary to reports on the internet that say Paypal has offered no excuse, or justification, they have attempted an explanation. They have said that they are trying to prevent personal accounts being used for business purposes in an attempt to avoid paying Paypal fees.

There seems to be something underlying this though because I am sure that many people in US and Europe do the same thing but have not been penalised for it. However, despite all the comments, tweets and facebook comments flying around the internet I am certain Paypal does not intend to cheat anyone of their money. This is a huge company with a reputation for honesty and security over the internet, not some tin pot here today, gone tomorrow outfit.

While I do appreciate that those in Indian who need their money are suffering because of the situation, I’m sure it will be resolved quickly.  Word has it that Paypal was allowing business payments but has now stopped those as well.

There are many Indian IT coders who work for companies all over the world and get paid exclusively by Paypal and they have been left helpless by the situation. Money may be sent to them but it is being sent back.

Moneylife put forward the idea that this could have something to do with FEMA, the foreign exchange maintenance act in India, or to do with the RBI money laundering legislation brought into being in India during November 2009. So, it may be that Paypal is not the one at fault. It could be that so much money is being moved into India via Paypal and headed ‘gift’ that the government has been missing out on large amounts of tax and they want the loophole plugged.

The only sure way round this until it is sorted out, no matter what the reasons are, is to find an alternative way of getting payment. As for the money held by Paypal, I am sure that it will be released shortly, along with a whole list of new rules, regulations and charges.

Image via Wikipedia

Google’s search ads represent the largest share of advertisers in the world. It has acquired so much power that the Department of Justice is examining possible antitrust in a plan Google has with authors to sell millions of books online. Microsoft is spurring regulators to rein Google in. Two thirds of all Internet searches take place on Google. Yahoo and Microsoft have 20 percent and 8 percent respectively. Is it possible that Google has a monopoly on Internet Advertising?

If Google has abused its power, nobody actually knows it. Google’s business is so complex it will be incredibly hard to investigate. The value of key words change daily and the system is managed by the most powerful computer system in the world, programmed by an army of the most brilliant programmers. A case against Google could drag on for years on top of years.

Google is known as the “Do no evil” company, and promises it is operating in good faith. “We understand as we get larger and more successful, there’s going to be scrutiny and more questions” said Adam Kovacevich, a Google spokesman. But again, a few pennies here and there could be worth millions to Google.

Image via Wikipedia

Historically, great success has been the surest way for tech companies to attract trouble. IBM suffered through a 13 year antitrust case during the 1970s, In the 90s it was Microsoft turn. Last year, European regulators fined Intel $1.45 billion over allegations it abused its power to keep AMD from gaining market share. It seems likely that Google will be next if the past is any indicator of the present.

If you would like to publish on triond and earn money, click the link below.

http://www.triond.com/rw/6239

http://newsflavor.com/alternative/web-logs-for-veterans/

http://bizcovering.com/major-companies/our-old-friend-wal-mart/

http://socyberty.com/people/top-12-millionaires/

http://socyberty.com/crime/elders-bilked-of-savings-2/

http://socyberty.com/activism/how-to-recycle-and-reduce-waste/

Inflation? Maybe. Bailout? I Doubt it.

Factoidz is a online publishing site that strives to publish accurate, factual content. They actively promote the articles submitted and it seems easy to get viewership without much promotion by way of the writer. Factoidz has undergone some radical changes in the last month or so and are still working to resolve some data point errors. Obviously, the earnings as shown here and upon the Dashboard stats of other Factoidz writers is in err.

I just thought I should share this amusing anomaly.

Get Paid to Write Unique, Interesting Fact-based Content

If you would like to join Factoidz to earn money for your fact-based and how-to content, you may join as an affiliate with this address: Join Factoidz.com.

Benefits of joining via a referrer is that you can beginning earning with your very first article. Joining without a referrer one needs to publish three articles. Payment is made by PayPal, and payment of each month is for the previous month’s earnings. Minimum payout is low, and rolls-over to the next month if you do not reach the required payout amount.

The Mission Statement of Factoidz is as follows:

Our mission is to provide accurate, up-to-date, and useful information to those who need it. We recruit top-notch Writers to author and publish concisely-written knowledge articles across a range of subjects for our audience of dedicated readers and Web searchers.

Be sure to visit the embedded link above to view the wide range of material you can write about. There is a ready market that wants to read your factual and informational content. The requirements are simple. Fact-based and useful information, 400+ words minimum, good spelling and grammar are always a plus to any article. They also want first publication rights (previously-published work used to be permitted, but is no longer.) After your original work is published by them if you want to add the article to your blog or another site that accepts previously-published (by you) works, you are free to do so. You own and retain the copyright to your published articles. There is a respectful community of fellow writers on the User Forum that are willing to answer questions and help get you started.

Sign-up and start writing today!

Don’t let the current & short-lived error of data points dissuade you from joining Factoidz. All online writing sites have their problems and minor errors such as this do occur, especially during maintenance cycles. Like I said, I merely found this amusing and  it was just too good to not share it. Happy Writing!

Many big companies use market research as an essential tool for improving their business, therefore making market research an industry on it’s own. With the advent of the internet, surveys targetting products new and old, customer preferences and satisfaction, and comparison with competitor’s products or services, has become easier to impliment in getting much needed data quicker. This information is essential to their bottom line profits, due to the enourmous competition for customers, and big companies will pay cash incentives for this information. This is where online surveys come in.

Having information about consumer preferences and satisfaction, is essential for any business. Online surveys help business to avoid large financial outlays in product development, by offering alternatives to products directly to their potential customers. Much easier to change the colours, or packaging of a product online and ask people’s opinions, than to spend and  possibly waste millions of dollars actually creating the product – and then hoping it will sell.

Using professional marketing agencies specializing in collecting and analysing the opinions of potential customers, does not come cheap. Online surveys take care of all the leg-work of finding the information by having a captured audience.

Some online survey programs require a joining fee, however, due to the rapid growth and competition within the industry, more often these days the programs are free to join. As the industry comes to realise there is more money to be made on back-end sales from advertising, rather than deterring potential survey takers with fees, most survey programs are free to join without risk or obligation.

What do you have to do to make money?

After signing up to an online survey program that you find suits you, there will be a relatively short series of questions regarding your lifestyle, health, employment, etc, for you to fill out online. This is an essential filtering process so that it can be determined what type of surveys you are more likely to complete. For instance, there is no point in sending you surveys about feminine products if you are male.

You will be sent emails with an invitation to complete online surveys on particular subjects, these can be about anything from toiletry products , motor vehicles, mortgage and finance, through to personal opinions about society, the environment, sport,etc. If the subject does not interest you, there is no obligation to complete the survey, as other invites on different subjects will be sent. All that is required of you is to have a current email address and to agree to and complete the surveys online.

Are the surveys difficult to complete?

In a word – NO. There are no wrong answers here, this is all about your opinions and your preferences. Some surveys only require you to watch a few quick videos comparing different styles of the same advertisement. Some only ask you about what you watch on television, and if you are watching the tele at the time, this is pretty much a no-brainer. There are no involved mathematical equations, or anything like that. These surveys are not about how intelligent you may or may not be.

How much do you get paid for doing online surveys?

This can differ between the many survey sites. Some offer entry tickets in competitions or lotteries, and these prizes can be quite substantial ( there is an Australian one that offers $10,000 in prize money). Usually at the end of the month, the survey company pays you the compensation in the form of check or into an account of your choice. With some survey companies, once you reach a designated total, usually $50, you are entitled to claim the reward. In some cases you build up credits which entitle you to choose rewards such as physical products to be sent to you, gift vouchers, or the ability to donate your proceeds to a charity of your choice.

Some companies are ready to pay $25 for answering one single survey. Dosen’t sound like much, but with a number of surveys this can build up within a short period. Keep in mind, too, you are getting paid to do a survey which you can complete sitting in front of the television, or waiting at the bus-stop, or airport. And, there are NO wrong answers.

Note: Higher rates of compensation may be determined by which country you live in.

Taking online surveys is a great method of earning extra money from home.

Screw ebay and their charges for listing your items. You don’t have to eat that start up cost on amazon.If you really want to make some extra dough with almost no up front cost, sell your stuff on amazon with these easy instructions.

Instructions

1) Raid your bookshelf or dvd collection and pick out some stuff you wouldn’t mind getting rid of.

2) Create a seller account on amazon by clicking on the sell your stuff here and following the prompts

3) Check what other people are selling theirs for. If you want to sell as quickly as possible, then you need to beat out the competition by listing your item for 10 cents cheaper than the lowest price.

4) When your product sells, amazon emails you saying “item sold ship now” in the subject. Grab a manilla envelope, some old newspaper/computer paper or other packing material to wrap around your item.

5) Go to your seller account, click view orders, and click “Print packing slip”.

6) Write the customer’s address on the front of the envelope and your address in the top left hand corner. Put the packing slip inside the envelope, seal it up and head over to the post office.

7) After scrounging up  about three dollars in change, tell them to ship the item “meda mail”.

How much you will make/Gimmie the loot:

Even though amazon will give you $3.99 for shipping, they only pay you a week after you send the item. Usually their fees are about 3 dollars as well, so to figure out how much your making, take the price you charged, add $3.99 then subtract amazon’s fees and the amount you paid to ship it.

Example:

You sell a used book for $5.00:

$5.00 (Your Price) +$3.99 (Amazon’s shipping credit) = $8.99

- $3.03 (Amazon’s fees)

- $3.00 (What you paid to ship it)

Your Profit /loot

= $2.96

There have been a number of terms attached to learning online like e.g. eLearning, eTutoring, Distance Learning, TeleLearning, etc. , some of them have been around for quite a while, but still there are many questions both by teachers and students as to what exactly elearning means and how far it can complement or even substitute traditional modes of learning.

In order to establish a common base, in this article eLearning, eTutoring, etc. refers to real time interaction with a teacher or other class members, using audio, video and chat in order to learn or acquire a language, skill or participate in discussion.

Now, there are a lot of really qualitative sites out there, but there are even more which are dead, discontinued or otherwise non-effective. But generally all of those can be grouped into two categories: Either they are free marketplaces in which tutors or teachers can advertise their services or they are online schools, which offer curriculums and subjects similar to an offline school or university.

Online Learning Market Places

1. eduFire is well-designed, easy to use and offers lessons in all subjects and price-ranges.

2. Myngle is very similar to eduFire but with the great plus that the currency is in Euros and the site language can be switched.

Online Schools

1. Learnoutlive is an online school put together by freelance teachers offering language lessons in Arabic, German, English, French, Spanish and Hebrew at maximum quality affordable prices, big discounts and compared to market place sites is really easy to use.

2. eTeacherGroup is a more business-oriented model which offers a set of sub-sites on which their languages (Chinese, English, Hebrew, etc.) are being offered.

Image via CrunchBase

If you’ve recently been laid off from a position within a company, and you’ve been pounding the pavement with little or no success at landing an interview, let alone a new job, then listen up. There is hope.

If you have the drive and determination to succeed and work out of your own home, there is an alternative work arrangement that you might want to consider. Besides the flexibility of setting your own hours, there are many more benefits of becoming a virtual assistant, with the ultimate goal of being able to bring in extra money for the bills and to put food on the table, without paying out a lot in the way of equipment.

Now you may be wondering what kind of things a person could possibly do from home – especially if you are used to working in an office. And, just what is this freelancing that I mentioned in the title? You also might be wondering how to get into freelancing. Well, let’s take a look briefly at each question.

What is freelancing?

According to Wikipedia, “A freelancer, freelance worker, or freelance is a self-employed person who pursues a profession without a long-term commitment to any particular employer. The term was first used by Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) in Ivanhoe to describe a “medieval mercenary warrior” or “free-lance”. Some additional synonyms you might hear tossed around are contractor and independent contractor.

How can you get into freelancing?

The easiest way to get into freelancing is through one of the multiple freelance marketplaces that abound on the Internet. The one that I use, in particular, is Elance. Elance has been around since 1998 when it was founded. Privately held and headquartered in Mountain View, California, this company is insistent that it be the most widely used application for Services and Contractor Management. According to their website, more than 200,000 employees are using Elance in all facets of finding, buying, managing and paying external services and contractors from more than 2,000 suppliers across 50+ services categories. You will register with them in the specific niche that you want to pursue. When you are paid, Elance, of course, will take their cut; but they are the one site that I feel has the highest quality standards.

What kind of things can you freelance in?

Elance offers a wide variety of categories that a virtual assistant can mix and match in to complement their abilities and expertise. The two categories that I’m personally signed up for are Admin. Support and Writing & Translation; these will cover a wide array of services that you can specialize in. The December Elance Work Index just recently published substantiated that PHP, HTML, and Article Writing were among the top skills in demand for the month.

I’m not saying you will get rich at freelancing, but I do attest to the fact that you can make money by freelancing. If you work hard, bid reasonably, and maintain high quality standards, you just might enjoy it so much while bringing in an extra income that you’ll want to continue.

For most people using the internet on a daily basis; the thought of actually earning any real money, just by doing the things that they are already doing on the internet is only a pipedream. The truth is, is that making an extra income on the Internet is not really that hard, but it does require some dedication and work on the users’ part and a good opportunity to get started with.

The main reason that most people do not even bother with following up on these and other internet opportunities that pay, is because they have listened to other people who either have never given internet opportunities a try or have never figured out how to make the opportunities work out for them. Sure, not everyone has what it takes to make it big on the internet, but if you never try, then you’ll never know if you will be the one that succeeds.

Triond 

Triond is an online publisher on user generated web content that includes articles, photos, video and audio; that pays the users that create the content fifty-percent of the advertising revenue that their content generates. Triond has made content publishing fast and simple even for beginners and offers all of the tools that advance content producers would require, so to produce solid content that will grab an audience’s attention. Content producers with Triond are paid on the 10th of every month either by check or Paypal and the payment option is selected at user’s choice. Publishing articles pays the best. Publishing photography, video and audio payouts are competitive with the rest of the Internet content markets for these types of content productions.

LinkBee 

LinkBee is an amazingly easy way to start earning your way to success on the internet, especially for those of us who spend a lot of time using social networks and bookmarking networks. Simply join this site and begin creating links to your favorite web content and websites and post the links that you have created at LinkBee to your favorite social networks and share the advertising revenue that your links generate. LinkBee pays 50/50 percent of the ad revenue that your links generate once per month through Paypal. Membership is free.

Bukisa 

In my opinion, Bukisa is the second best internet publishing opportunity on the web; that is similar to that of Triond with good earning potential. Bukisa allows users to publish articles, photography, audio and video, but its user interface takes a bit of time to learn how to use. Content producers are paid according to the Bukisa Index that can be seen on their homepage and users are paid either by check or Paypal usually no later than the 5th of each month.

YouTube Partnership Program 

Most people who have visited YouTube already knows that it’s the number one place on the internet to watch crazy videos and to upload videos that they produce themselves, but what most people don’t know, is that, they can partner with YouTube and share in the ad revenue that their videos generate. It is not clear, just how much users can earn from this program, but joining it to find out, is free. Click the link that I have provided above and see if you have what it takes to start getting paid at the biggest homegrown video movie theater on the web.

Revver 

Here is another excellent opportunity for inspiring video producers wanting to earn more money for their homemade video masterpieces. Revver is much like YouTube, only with many fewer viewers and it pays an equal 50/50 percent split in all advertising revenue that your videos generate this website. Interested users need to read the Revver user agreement carefully before engaging in any business with this company. It is very important that users understand fully what Revver require from its users especially if users desire to turn their videos into cold, hard cash.

MyLot 

MyLot pays its members to post new discussion topics, contributing your two cents in a current discussion, referring friends and much more. This is an excellent opportunity for anyone who has something to say and aren’t timid to post it on MyLot to start earning some money for their thoughts. MyLot pays out once per month once you have earned a minimum of $10.00 in your account.

Moola 

This is potentially an awesome opportunity for anyone who enjoys playing online games. If you are a person who isn’t afraid of risking it all to move up the ladder, then Moola could reward the right person millions of dollars for just being the best-of-the-best at their free online games. Players compete for Moola, which can be turned into real money after a player reaches $10.00 in Moola rewards. This is not a casino site and the games are cheesy, easy and fun to play.