I received an email a few weeks ago from Sue regarding selling books on eBay and Amazon. You have to hear her story. Sue is quite a resourceful and shrewd business person. I am amazed at what people can do when they decide to do it.
I am a long haul truck driver, just me and my dog Kelly. I stay out from home about 4 weeks at a time. I have my net book computer and I use truck stop wifi to gain access to the internet. I have some books, cds and dvds in my truck cab and list them for sale online. I also have a printer and can print the shipping labels. When something sells, I can package it with my packaging materials that I keep in the cab too, and drop it in a mailbox at some truck stops.
And I also have many amazon affiliate links on my websites, as well as affiliates for other places. So if anyone buys from my sites, I get a commission. I am also going to sign up with e-junkie.com and use their service to process ebooks and other electronic items that I can sell. I am a member of click-bank and they have a wide variety of items that I can sell on my websites or on amazon and eBay.
If I get to a yard sale or thrift store, I can scan bar codes with my i phone app and then determine by the price of the item whether or not to buy for resale in amazon or eBay.
This is a side hobby I do in my free time when I'm not driving. We get a 10hr break after every 14 hr work period. Sometimes we wait all weekend long at a truck stop to deliver on Monday, so we have a lot of time to do internet work.
My websites right now are www.truckersue.com and www.tropicalsue.com and www.bajapoker.com. I use register.com for my sites as they are not too pricey and are very user friendly. I can build a website in a few hours. I then use godaddy.com with discount code "ron" (from harry potter) and get domain names. Then I forward those domain names to my websites.
I am slowly building my sites where I can do a shopping cart with ejunkie and when customer buys, they are taken to download the items they purchase. I don't have to stock anything. It's all automatic. I give the personal touch by sending them a email thanking them for their purchase. And I can and will set up nice coupons and discounts for customers as well. I do all this whenever I have free time.
I also enjoy making videos and have started a video series called "Ride Along with Trucker Sue" on YouTube. I check in from various places in the country & talk about anything exciting. I then always include some links to my sites in the videos. I have done podcasts too. But I don't have too much time for too much stuff!!
I am on facebook at www.facebook.com/myyango I post on there probably more than anywhere else. It's a fun place to keep in touch with friends & family.
Susan Miller and my dog Kelly
Wow, a mobile eBay and Amazon business run from the cab of a truck. Very impressive! This just goes to show that you can do what you want to do and figure out a way to do it if you are persistent and determined to find a way.
What did we ever do without all this technology? Crazy stuff! Great post!
ReplyDeleteHi :)
ReplyDeleteI can really relate to this post and it brought back many memories of my trucking days!
I had some experience driving a commercial vehicle for a local company that offered transportation services for the elderly and handicapped. We would take them to doctor appointments, shopping and so on. At the time I held a class C commercial license and I drove a bus with air brakes, but automatic shifting.
When our two oldest sons decided they wanted to go to college, we needed more income then my part time job provided, there was just no way to pay for two kids in college starting just a year apart. After much discussion, my husband, who is an over the road truck driver, said he'd train me to drive a rig. I did some checking at our local vo-tech school and found that I could qualify for funding to go to truck driving school for 12 weeks.
I felt that this would help to prepare me better as I would be learning how to get around small towns and roads. I must say that I was intimidated at first being the only female in a group of 11 males! They were a great bunch of guys though. :)
I worked extra hard, and with my husbands help with extra time with backing and such, I graduated 1st in my class. We ran team for almost 9 years before I became seriously ill and had to give up the driving, both truck and car. I found eBay shortly there after and started learning how to buy and sell. Auctions have always been a passion for both my husband and I, so this was right up my alley! It's been over 10 years now and although this is a long post, I just had to write to say how much I admire Sue for creating niches for long term income. We only got home once a month too, wish I'd had a laptop back then!
Rita
CB Handle-dblnkl55 (double nickle 55)