 |
|
| CURRENT SECTION :: News | UK's most visited IT Contractor Site - 250k unique visitors March 2008 |
|
 |
In part 1, we examined how you can use sites like Rentacoder and Facebook whilst you wait for the next contract. But the internet also offers a wealth of opportunities for selling other people’s goods and services. Analysts reckon there are now at least 600,000 ‘power sellers’ on eBay – vendors who make either a full-time living or a significant second income from the auction site. The most obvious market for the techie is reselling computer equipment. Job lots of rack servers can be bought on the site for a few quid, simply because few people can be bothered to go and pick it up. But for those willing to put in the effort, that investment can be turned into a significant profit simply by selling on the items individually with a nice photo. IT equipment isn’t the only option, though – the Terminal 5 fiasco a few months ago highlighted the burgeoning eBay industry in selling on the contents of lost suitcases that airlines auction off when the owner can’t be traced. If you live in London, Greasby’s of Tooting (www.greasbys.co.uk) holds lost-luggage auctions on a frequent basis, whilst Thomas N Miller (www.millersauctioneers.co.uk) in the north-east has auctioned bags from Newcastle Airport in the past. And if you find the eBay listing process a pain, fear not: a whole industry has built up around the tools and services to take the manual drudgery out of managing the business. If you can’t be bothered walking to the post office every day, how about setting yourself up as a telecoms reseller? Companies such as Just-Dial have spawned armies of agents who make a living by reselling their international calling services. It works like this. Just-Dial own tranches of national and premium rate numbers which act as endpoints to the international phone network. When callers dial these numbers, they can then type in the international number they want to connect to, and they’re billed at the rate it costs to call the UK number rather than the international number, which theoretically makes it cheaper to call overseas. Would-be agents can sign up for their own set of access numbers, which they then publicise. For each minute that a caller is connected to one of their access numbers, the agent receives a cut of the profits from the call. Seems simple enough, and some agents report making four-figure sums every week from the business. But to make a serious amount of money from reselling phone calls, you have to put in a serious amount of effort, and competition from the big broadband providers – some of whom now offer unlimited international calls – is likely to erode the profitability of such schemes over the next few years. “I’ve made a fair bit of money out of it in my spare time,” says software developer Evan Andrews. “I mainly market mine through a website that I advertise using Google AdWords, and when I can be bothered I drop flyers through people’s letterboxes, particularly in areas of town where there are large immigrant populations who want to call home. I don’t make as much from it as I used to, partly because I don’t have the time any more, and partly because there isn’t such a market for that type of service any more.” With all of these things, there’s likely to be a lot of hard work in building up the business if you want to do it fulltime. If that all sounds a bit much, perhaps a more conventional trade is more suited to the fallow times. It’s not uncommon for contractors to fall back on other types of work that can be picked up and dropped when necessary, such as long-distance truck driving, private jet piloting and freelance writing. Sadly, setting yourself up as such a business isn’t likely to earn you as much as contracting in the early days. But the freedom of not having to report to anyone but yourself is something money can’t buy. Graham Taylor Jul 17, 2008 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
|
|
  |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| All content © Contractor UK Limited | http://www.contractoruk.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1[Register for News Letter] | [Privacy Statement] | [Terms of Use] | [Top of Page] |