There are a lot of ways to make money online and my choice — freelance writing — is but one of them. Something that has really increased in popularity in recent years is the buying and selling of items online, particularly through an eBay store. As I’m sure you’re aware, countless “legitimate” stores have an eBay counterpart where they can cater more to an international marketplace, increasing their level of exposure and growing their customer base. There are several advantages to selling your wares (and re-selling items that you purchased in bulk / at wholesale) online versus setting up a brick-and-mortar establishment.

Just like starting any other business — online or otherwise — rookies can have a lot of trouble in the beginning, figuring out all the ins and, er, outs. When I first started this blog, I wasn’t on WordPress. I went with the free tool offered by GoDaddy (QuickBlog) and I wasn’t impressed. It took a while to figure out how to use Google Adsense and even longer to get out of the search engine’s sandbox. Thankfully, I became friends with some people who were a little more dot com savvy (you might even call them moguls), and Beyond the Rhetoric has matured and developed quite nicely. Traffic boosting contests certainly don’t hurt either.

So, getting back on topic, if you want to make money with an eBay store, you need to understand the process and get your hands on the tools of the trade. I haven’t really tried selling anything on eBay other than some used video games, and that was never for profit. It was just so that I could get my hands on some cash to spend on more video games. For the time being, I’m fairly content with working on my freelance writing business and growing this blog, but you’re not much of a writer, fret not, because there is still money to be made online.

Thankfully, for any budding online store owners, there is a free eBay selling kit that will help get you started. It comes with a bunch of useful tips and tricks that will help maximize your profits, minimize your costs, and ultimately help you make money on eBay. With this toolkit, the developers promise that your eBay business will “take off” in just 14 days. PowerSeller status awaits you. Who knows? You may achieve dot com mogul status yet.