The alternative to wage work:
Amazon.com
Amazon is the best way to resell used products for a profit. All things with a barcode or ISBN will work. Pros: All the advertising and payment infrastructure is provided by Amazon.com. Cons: Amazon deducts 15-30% from your earnings as their commission Limiting factor: The amount of material stuff that you can get your hands on. Good channels are library used book sales, garage sales and estate sales.
Starting a business in the real world
Leave the web behind and do something in your neighborhood. Detail: This can be very exciting but it requires motivation, persistence and startup capital. This can involve doing anything to take a problem off other people’s hands. You could load a van up with printer cartridges and drive around to local businesses offering to replace their empty cartridges. Pros: Not only can this option free you from relying on other people for your livelihood, but it brings with it a certain degree of respect in the community. Long hours over many years can lead to a thriving business. When successful, businesses can be handed down to partners and family members providing income for generations. Cons: Sometimes the market is just unfavorable and other times people don’t have the energy and long-term commitment required to carve out their niche in the market.
Seasonal jobs
Examples: Selling roses on Valentines Day or selling glow sticks on Independence Day. Just find a crowd of people and start offering what ever meets the occasion. Cons: Only provides supplemental income.
Network Marketing
Network marketing is very similar to a sales position that runs strictly on commission. The more people you recruit and the more items you sell the more successful your business will be. The network marketing group provides you with the product and the marketing scheme, while taking a cut of your profits. Detail: Maybe you’ve had someone invite you to coffee to discuss an exciting new business idea only to find out that she is trying to hook you into some pyramid scheme. Well, in fact, if you work hard at these businesses it is possible to succeed but the obstacles are numerous. The main problem is that you rely on somebody else’s support structure to prop up your business. And naturally the person providing the support structure takes a cut of your profits. Pros: You can jump right into building your business without first mastering tools for marketing and record-keeping. Cons: By relying on the infrastructure of the network marketing group your business will always be paying commissions to other people.
eBay.com
The world’s largest marketplace, bringing buyers and sellers together. eBay is an amazing place where competition runs wild and products are sold at rock-bottom prices. Find your self a steady source of below-market products and you’ll be sure to make a profit selling them on eBay. Pros: Listing products on eBay provides maximum exposure bringing in buyers from all over the world. eBay is also the best choice for selling one-of-a-kind and customized items. Cons: The listing fees that eBay charges may be anywhere from $1-$5 of the typical transaction.
Blog
Blogging is more a way of life than a business. That said, with a knack for journalism, and some skill setting up advertising, this profession can easily substitute your primary income. Cons: Even the most successful blogger typically has a day job to help pay the bills.
Website
Website advertising involves coming up with any idea that will drive visitors to a website and then placing advertising on that website. Detail: You can create anything from a dog lover, community websites to a soup recipe exchange website. The driving factor in this business is how many visitors, one can attract to their given website and then how many advertisements are clicked. For every thousand visitors per day you can expect to earn a few dollars in advertising revenue. Pros: Once the business is established, it requires very little ongoing commitment and can serve as a passive source of income. Cons: Building a website with high traffic can take a brilliant idea, hundreds of hours of development, and many years for grassroots growth.
Flipping houses
Flipping or remodeling houses requires solid financing, hard work and long hours. However, seeing the finished product can be extremely satisfying and financially rewarding.
Investing
Investing money is more of a Zen art that is the business. This art takes temperance and control, but the potential for games is always there, whether the market is good or bad. Detail: With a vast array of financial instruments available to investors today it can be a daunting task to select a single investment. Most beginners however will start with either mutual funds or by trading directly in stocks. While trading individual stocks keep in mind that the more you diversify your portfolio, your risk and your return drop as well. If you’re investing with mutual funds, you should understand the distinction between a managed and an unmanaged fund. Managed funds typically underperform the market due to management fees that come out of the fund’s performance. Unmanaged funds are a great way to diversify and they have returns similar to that of the overall market. Pros: By either selling short or buying long an investor can always make money if the market is moving in some direction. Cons: The complexity of the financial markets can be so daunting that people hire others to manage their money, which is almost guaranteed to give you worse results than the market at large.
Domain parking
Domain parking is the idea of buying domain names that people would commonly type into the browser address bar and then selling advertising on these domain names. Detail: This business was hot in the 90 during the initial gold rush and now has much lower returns.