Shoemoney System Review & Overview

Monday 22nd February, 2010

Wow! This is the end of Week Four of the Shoemoney System and I’m already in front, money wise — and without a huge amount of effort I should add. I have worked at it though. Not as much as I’d like (and as I intend to do over the coming months), but it’s a good start at least.

Like the video that I wrote about the other day, this is a continuation. The last video talked about listing an item on eBay, whereas this one talks about buying an item from eBay.

Once again it’s very straightforward, with not a lot of revelations that I didn’t already know about. It’s just a good step-by-step approach to buying items on eBay, what to look for in regards to seller feedback, understanding the postage costs, how exactly to bid on the item (though, in this case it was a “Buy It Now” item, how to go through the process of paying for it etc. Fairly low-key stuff, but stuff you need to know nonetheless. And, of course, a good resource for someone starting out.

Because the past two videos are about arbitrage on eBay, I will report that Jamie was able to make a little over $100 U.S. profit from just the one transaction. I won’t give details, but if you’re in the U.S. it’s gonna benefit you greatly by following the process set out in these videos. It’s just a shame I’m not based in the U.S. — but I will think up ways of getting around that problem, I’m sure.

Until tomorrow…

Sunday 21st February, 2010

I’ve been having some internet problems of late which has prevented me from updating every day. However I have been writing everything down on paper, so I wouldn’t fall too far behind, and I’ll add them when I’m able to.

The good news is that I’m up on the money so far. Not by a lot, mind you, but I haven’t had much of a chance to promote products and work on articles for the newer sites. I have managed to work out a suitable solution for keeping the money made from the Shoemoney System separate from money made from my pre-existing sites.

How exactly have I made the money, you ask? Well, I’m trying to approach things systematically, using ONLY the methods shown, thus far, in the Shoemoney System. I’ve resisted the temptation to throw in a few of my own sure-fire methods. So far it’s been pretty even, with offers completed through AzoogleAds, products sold through Clickbank and, of course, Google Adsense. To speed things up a bit I have placed a link or two from some of my established sites to the new ones — just for indexing purposes though, really. After a couple more days I will delete the links through as they’re not really that relevant for the new sites.

I should add that I’ve found that it’s always good, wherever possible, to fast-track my new sites this way as it usually just takes a few hours or so for Google to come crawling. Some links I leave up, because they’re relevant, while others I’ll take down again once they’ve done the trick.

Saturday 20th February, 2010

In this video, Jeremy shows Jamie how to list an item on eBay (U.S. eBay to be exact). Already I can see some potential problems in regards to me being able to do exactly the same thing as I’m not based in the U.S., so I don’t have the benefit of being able to play the Canadian market off with the U.S. one. In fact I’m not so sure that I will be able to actually play any market off against another as I’m a little remote where I live.

The problem is basically shipping. I’m so far away from where most of the action is that

a.) Shipping costs quite a bit just to get here
b.) Likewise, shipping costs quite a bit to send elsewhere, and
c.) Shipping takes a lot longer to reach its destination than it does in a more “connected” country.

I’m not saying it’s going to be impossible though. Just harder for me to do than it is for Jeremy and Jamie.

It’s a fairly standard walkthrough on how to list an item on eBay so I won’t go into it. As with many other things, there’s probably some great video tutorials on YouTube that will pretty much explain it all, so just do a search. There were a couple of good tips that Jeremy added but, once again, you could probably get that on other videos as well.

Until next time…

Friday 19th February, 2010

I’ve not done anything much online today so I don’t really have much to report. I did sign up for a new affiliate program — not one that was recommended by Jeremy but one that I found using some of the tips I’ve learned by doing the Shoemoney System. The good thing is that it fits in well with some of my micro-niche sites and I probably wouldn’t have even known about it if I wasn’t doing the course.

Another cool thing is that I’ve been selling products through Clickbank — plus a bit of AdSense — and I’ve managed to pass the $200 mark ($233.64 in fact) which, of course, has paid for the first month’s fees. Just as well as I’ll soon be billed for the second month. Still, so far this course has cost me nothing, and that’s a good thing!

Until tomorrow!

Thursday 18th February, 2010

In this video, Jeremy explains to Jamie a little bit about eBay and its beginnings. Jamie does know a little bit about eBay so she, at least, knows that it’s an online auction site — even if she’s never actually used it herself.

Now I have to add that I don’t want to necessarily say anything bad about Jamie as she seems like a sweet girl but, sometimes, she’s a little bit “grating” on the ears because she just seems a little too clueless at times. Then again, as I’ve explained in earlier posts, I have done quite a bit of buying and selling on eBay — along with affiliate marketing through their eBay Partner Network — so to have a complete noob such as Jamie would probably be a good thing for the noobs starting out with the Shoemoney System. And, so far, the System is geared towards complete noobies (but I expect it will start to pick up quite dramatically from this time on).

But I digress. Jeremy has had quite a bit to do with eBay over the years, with buying and selling products and affiliate marketing. In fact he even based his own “AuctionAds” affiliate program on the model (but of course it had a few really cool things that eBay never has had), and then sold the network for a tidy little sum.

As with many of the introductory videos, Jeremy takes us through the process of signing up for a normal buying and selling account. Once again it’s step-by-step and very easy for someone who’s just starting out to go through. This video is a little different in that a bit of editing has been done which results in Jeremy talking to us directly through the camera, rather than actually going through it step-by-step with Jamie.

I won’t describe the process here as it’s pretty straightforward. plus there’s probably a TON of similar videos on YouTube and other sites, though I’ve not actually looked.

Once that’s done it’s back to Jeremy and Jamie. Jeremy explains the different aspects of selling on eBay, such as “Buy It Now”, running auctions and setting reserve prices. Apparently Jeremy does a lot of his own buying through “Buy It Now”s because he doesn’t really want to be bothered with waiting around and bidding on stuff — plus he has the money of course. Personally I would like to get to the stage that, if I ever want something on eBay, I can just throw down a huge bid and basically blow everyone else out of the water. I think that would be cool to do, but you need the cash of course!

They guys search through some of the listings on eBay to find the market difference between the exact same items for sale in the U.S. and Canada. Buying from one market and selling in another for a higher price (known as arbitrage) is one way to generate online income — but you really need to do your research and know what you’re doing or else you could wind up in all sorts of trouble.

I also noticed that the next two videos will probably cover just exactly how to do this, but they’re greyed out in my dashboard and “coming soon”, so I don’t know for certain. If that’s the case then I’m not sure if I will say too much more about it here on the blog, as I would consider this as giving away a bit too much information. I can say though that video was a pretty entertaining introduction to using eBay for arbitrage, and to stay tuned for the next report.

Until next time…

Wednesday 17th February, 2010

Even though I spend a lot of time researching, writing articles, programming and designing my micro-niche websites I’m not always able to spend huge amounts of time on the internet. This is both good and bad, of course. Good, because I get to spend time on my REAL life (ie. offline) and interact with friends and family and concentrate on the other things in life. Bad, because it means that my progress might not be as fast as I would like it.

But that’s OK as well. As long as there IS some progress then I don’t mind. I was on the internet for years creating my own websites before I ever made a dollar doing so — and, like many people, I started with AdSense. Once I started making money though I was hooked! My wife didn’t quite understand the possibilities with it though, which I always found disappointing. I tried to explain the benefits of compounding our earnings by building up my sites and adding new ones, but she felt that it was just too much hard work for too little return. She didn’t fully agree with my desire to buy certain eBooks and thought that they were a waste of money. Many were, but then I didn’t spend that much on those ones.

Some eBooks, although useful, just didn’t agree with me once I finally bought and read them (even though they showed promise beforehand), so I never bothered to implement them. There were a few eBooks, however, that were REALLY informative — and I made some good (and fast) money using their tactics. I won’t name them here though — mainly because the methods no longer work well any more.

It sounds a bit strange I suppose, but one of the benefits of my wife leaving me is that I no longer have those negative and regressive influences in my life. I’ve muddled through in the past couple of years and never got around to actually concentrate on making money online because I just felt so depressed, but I still believed that there was good money to be made on the internet and I no longer had someone in my daily life filling me with doubt that it couldn’t be done. My wife told me on a couple of occasions that “Yeah, you can make money online if you already have money to begin with, but we won’t really get anywhere”. I’m glad that I didn’t really believe her on that score.

I think I was just trying to create enough income to give us more choices and more control with our lives and, in a way, I was doing it to make her happier. When she became sick and left me I no longer cared about making money, so I just kinda stagnated — almost.

I say “almost” because I did change a few things. For a start I changed my main income model. I began to remove the Google AdSense ads from some of my sites and replace them with eBay products. This made a lot of sense because the AdSense ads on these sites were just plain stupid and annoying because they just didn’t show the items relevant to my micro-niches. With a bit of effort I could get VERY relevant results with eBay and this, in turn, increased my earnings quite dramatically. Just by changing a few things here and there! Within a month or two my online income had doubled without even really trying.

However, I think the MAIN reason why I did change my income model from AdSense to eBay was because I had to update my eBay code anyway. Commission Junction no longer had the eBay account because eBay decided to bring everything “in-house” and ditch CJ. The code HAD to be changed and this is what forced my rethink on the situation. And I’m glad of it too, I might add.

I guess, in a way, I’m more open to try out things that I wouldn’t have tried out before. Switch things around a bit. This is, in part, why I’m now doing the Shoemoney System. Even though I still have periods of depression I am working myself out of it and generally feeling good again. I’m excited about what the future holds. I’m eager to try out new things. Take on new challenges!

Anyhow, I think I’ll leave it there for now. Until tomorrow….

Tuesday 16th February, 2010

I realize that these introductory videos are basically an overview of a particular service (in this case PayPal), but sometimes I wish that Jeremy could take things a little further than he does. As many of these initial videos are directed towards newbies and people starting off with internet marketing, I understand that it’s not always possible though — sometimes you’re just gonna know more about a subject than what is being explained in the particular video. This is one of those times (for me anyway).

In the case of this video Jeremy stresses the importance of choosing the best password you can think of, and to be aware of scammers and phishing attempts to grab your info. It’s ABSOLUTELY excellent advice, and Jeremy gives a few anecdotes as to what he has seen in the past, through his experiences with security at Wells Fargo as well as with his own company PayPal account. For example, using the password “password” for your account just isn’t gonna cut it in the real world. It’s surprising just how many people use that word for their own password though. Ridiculous actually.

I also personally know of one guy who uses “1234″ as his password. When I questioned him about it he suggested that he could change his password to “2468″. I just rolled my eyes in amazement and told him he was an idiot! Trouble was he was absolutely serious about using that for his “new improved” password. I understand that he now uses something a little more substantial, thank God!

Now back to the video. When Jeremy is explaining to Jamie about the various phishing scams that are out there he also mentions that you should NEVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE click on a link that is provided to you! For obvious reasons I wholeheartedly agree with him on this matter. Trouble is, though, that these pages often look so good — just like the real page they’re pretending to be — and it’s an easy trap for someone, who isn’t aware that these things can happen, to fall into.

The thing you really need to remember, however, is to ALWAYS, ALWAYS go to your logon page from a bookmark in your own browser or by going to the parent website first (in the case of PayPal you would just go to http://www.paypal.com for instance). It’s paramount to do that. Never, ever click on a link to go to PayPal or a bank or anything like that from a link given to you in an email — PERIOD!

Case in point, I’ve been getting A TON of phishing emails in the past two weeks or so for my Facebook account. If I were to click on the link, or open the attachment that comes with each email, it would be toast. My Facebook account would be out of my control in an instant. Resist the temptation to click on those links and learn to spot a potential phishing scam before you fall victim to it.

Anyhow, back to the video. Jeremy explains how PayPal is a dominant force in the online community, and how most of the sites which deal in sales that involve some sort of money transaction will also deal through PayPal as part of their service. Therefore it’s important to add a PayPal account to your own business so that you can benefit from this service as well. It just makes it easier for people to be able to pay for products that you promote, amongst other things.

Jeremy and Jamie finish up this video by creating a PayPal account for her. Once again it’s a straightforward walkthrough on how to do this, and is perfect for someone who is just starting out. As I’ve been using PayPal for quite a while now there were no surprises or tips in the video that I didn’t already know about — but not that it matters at all. It was still enjoyable to watch.

Until next time…