How to Sell Your Wedding Dress: Make Another Bride Happy!

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For many, a wedding dress is a once-in-a-lifetime purchase and won’t think twice about spending thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars on a dress they’ll wear on their wedding day and never again.

But a new generation of brides agree that wedding dresses can get pretty expensive.

One way to compromise is to splurge on the wedding dress and then recoup some of the cost by selling the wedding dress by selling it when the wedding is over.

If this is what you’re planning to do after your own wedding, or if you have a once-worn wedding dress that you want to sell, you’ve come to the right place.

Read this guide to selling wedding dresses: the best places to sell them, how to set the price, and more tips to sell your wedding dress.

Where Can I Sell My Wedding Dress Online?

You don’t have to go far to sell your wedding dress.

Just visit any of the websites below and pick the one that fits your situation best (price-wise and overall service):

1. Nearly Newlywed

This website is highly recommended in wedding groups and forums as the process of listing and selling your wedding dress with them is among the easiest.

To get started, create a seller account, upload photos of your wedding dress along with detailed information about the dress (where you bought it, its condition, the reason for selling, etc.), pay a $19.99 listing fee, then wait for your listing to be approved.

Once approved, Nearly Newlywed will take care of everything: advertising and marketing your dress, answering buyer inquiries, processing payments, covering shipping fees (provided your dress is priced over $500), and after-sales support.

You’ll come back into the picture once someone buys your dress. You’ll be given a prepaid shipping label to ship off the dress to the buyer (again, as long as your dress is priced above $500; if your dress is priced less than $500, you’ll have to cover shipping fees).

After the 5-day return window, if your buyer decides to keep the dress, Nearly Newlywed will pay you 70% of the list price of your wedding dress through PayPal or check.

If the buyer changes their mind within the return window, they’ll ship the item back to you, and you’ll need to confirm that you received the dress in good condition so Newly Newlywed can refund them (less a $50 return fee). The dress goes back up for sale until it finds its permanent home.

  • HOW MUCH YOU EARN: You get 70% of the sales price, while Nearly Newlywed earns 30% commission for every wedding dress
  • PROS: Hands-off selling, simple process
  • CONS: $19.99 listing fee + 30% commission is a bit steep for many sellers

2. Stillwhite

This site claims to have sold over $52 million worth of wedding dresses since it opened its doors.

Its buyers and sellers come from around the world, which makes your market reach a whole lot wider.

As a seller, you get to choose from two plans: standard (one-time $20 fee with 4 photos max and no more commission fees to pay when sold) or premium (one-time $30 fee with all standard features plus a gallery feature on the Stillwhite homepage and up to 8 photos and 1 video).

There are branded wedding dresses here, from Maggie Sottero to Vera Wang.

You can search by brand, color, size, and location of seller, among other filters.

  • HOW MUCH YOU EARN: Depends on how much you priced your wedding dress and what type of plan you chose.
  • PROS: No commissions
  • CONS: Upfront fees are high

Sell wedding dress online

3. Wore It Once

This online marketplace looks like Etsy but is focused on buying and selling used wedding dresses, gowns, coats, bags, shoes, or jewelry.

Sellers can create their own custom shop, so you can add your wedding dress and everything else you want to sell.

You only have to pay a one-time $15 setup fee to set up your own shop, then list as many products as you want. These listings don’t expire and you can set your own price, as well as shipping and return options.

Plus, no need to pay monthly hosting and domain fees for your own website. It’s like you paid WoreItOnce to do all that for you.

When buyers see something they like, they can message the seller securely via the WoreItOnce messaging system.

  • PROS: No limits to items you can sell
  • CONS: Payments are made through PayPal and transactions go directly between buyer and seller. Wore It Once isn’t involved directly except as a platform.

4. PreOwned Wedding Dresses

Like Stillwhite, this website accommodates buyers and sellers from all over the world and focuses exclusively on second-hand wedding dresses, shoes, and accessories.

For a flat fee of $25, you can list your wedding dress on their site, and the listing lasts until the dress is sold. There are no commission fees or renewal fees.

You can also sell items from your bridal party, so bridesmaid, mother-of-the-bride, and flower girl dresses can also be put up for sale ($5 listing fee per item).

Your wedding shoes and accessories are also welcome here ($5 listing fee per item), so if you want to sell your veil, tiara, or purse as well, you certainly can.

Buyers who are interested in your listings will message you directly through your PreOwned account to discuss the condition of the item for sale, as well as negotiate the selling price, shipping fees, return policies, and other terms of sale.

Once you reach an agreement, you can invoice your buyer directly and then ship the item to them.

PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com has been around since 2004, so you know you’re dealing with a legitimate company.

Plus, their history puts them at the top of search engine rankings, which means your items are seen by more people and thus have greater chances of getting sold. The site even claims to have an average sell time of 70 days.

5. Sell My Wedding Dress

This website offers two ways to sell your wedding dress:

  • Basic (Free!) – 10 active ads with 10 photo uploads. Each listing is active until it’s sold.
  • Premium ($29 one-time) – 25 ads active with 10 photo uploads. The $29 listing fee applies to a wedding dress, but listing all other types of dresses is free. Each listing is active until it’s sold. Your dress is shown as a featured listing on their homepage as well as the category page for free.

For both registration options, you can buy add-ons to help improve your chances of a sale, such as better placements for your listing, bold fonts to catch buyers’ eyes, and a YouTube video.

You’ll be responsible for writing out the description, such as brand, size, color, style, and so on.

Dresses of your wedding party (bridesmaid, mother-of-the-bride, and flower girl) are also welcome to be listed here.

Their messaging system allows buyers to directly communicate with the sellers.

  • PROS: No commissions to pay, no hidden costs
  • CONS: Steep fee for the premium plan

6. OnceWed

The selling process on OnceWed is similar to some of the other websites above, in which you can register on the site, pay a listing fee for your dress, discuss with buyers, ship your dress, and get paid.

You can list a wedding dress for $19.95 and $5 per additional item, which will be valid until the items are sold.

  • PROS: No commissions, over 10 years in the industry
  • CONS: Separate listing fees can add if you’re selling to multiple items

7. Poshmark

Poshmark is an app where you can sell your wedding dress and other clothing, shoes, and accessories (even those not related to your wedding).

Just click “sell” and follow the instructions. You put details of each item, upload photos, and finalize your listing. You then wait for people to buy your items.

Poshmark gets a 20% cut on items over $15, while a flat rate of $2.95 for any item below $15. Once your buyer has received their items, Poshmark pays you either by Poshmark credit or by direct deposit to your bank.

If you’re interested in selling apps, I’ve previously written an extensive Poshmark review recently. Check it out here.

  • PROS: Very easy to use
  • CONS: High fees

Other resources you could check include:

  • Wedding Bee – a forum focused on the wedding industry. This link leads you to a section where people buy and sell used or never-worn wedding dresses.
  • Tradesy – A general online marketplace for designer clothing and other goods. There are no up-selling fees here, but you’d have to pay 19.8% commission.

How to Sell a Wedding Dress Locally

If you want to handle everything and even meet the buyer in person, you can sell your wedding dress locally, too!

Wedding Dress Consignment

For a hands-off approach, find a wedding dress consignment shop in town.

Your wedding dress will be evaluated for quality and price, then if you give your go signal, the shop will sell the dress on your behalf.

The problem with consignment shops is that they tend to charge super-high commission fees (often up to 50%) of the final sale price of your dress.

I only recommend going this route if you’re in an exceptional hurry to sell but have no time to find a buyer on your own.

If you’re not in a rush, either Craigslist or Facebook are better options for selling your wedding dress to local buyers.

Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace

Craigslist continues to be a contender in the online buy-and-sell space, even if there are tons of selling apps available these days. The reason for this is Craigslist’s undisputed way of targeting buyers by town, city, state, and so on. Plus, it’s free to list as many items as you want.

You do need to be flexible with pricing since Craigslist is a place where buyers haggle freely.

If someone tries to buy your wedding dress and decides to meet up, keep yourself safe by choosing a public place with a lot of people. If possible, get someone to go with you and always let someone you trust know where you are.

Facebook has more modern features but it works mostly like Craigslist since it’s up to you and the buyer to negotiate the selling price, discuss shipping the wedding dress, and so on. You do have to be more aggressive in spreading the word about your wedding dress for sale on Facebook Buy and Sell groups, Facebook Marketplace, or even on your own profile.

You can search for ultra-specific Facebook groups, such as “2021 Florida brides,” “Miami wedding planners,” or “Buy and Sell Wedding/formal dress in [city]”.

It’s free to post items on Facebook, and if you don’t want to go to groups, you can list the dress on Marketplace and spend some advertising money to target potential buyers.

Facebook lets you choose demographics when you boost a post, so it’s possible to choose local buyers exclusively.

Tips to Help You Sell Your Wedding Dress

How quickly you’re able to sell your wedding dress depends on multiple factors, such as the brand/designer, age, condition, and where you choose to sell it.

Here are other things you can do for you to be able to sell your wedding dress more quickly at a fair or more-than-fair price.

Make sure your listing is truthful and detailed.

Brides buying secondhand wedding dresses want as much information on the dresses they’re looking to buy so they can make the right buying decision.

When creating your listing, make sure that you include who designed or who manufactured it, what year, color, collection, and which store you bought it from. Also, indicate if you had it altered in any way.

If you had the dress professionally made, make sure you indicate it, as well as the exact measurements.

All of the information you include should be the truth; if you lie, your buyer will find out when they get the dress anyway. You don’t need the aggravation and bad karma of a return or a PayPal dispute, so just tell the truth the first time around.

Learn how to take beautiful photos of your dress.

Gorgeous photos help boost your listing immensely. Learn the basics of apparel photography, such as the right lighting, angles, backdrop, and equipment to use.

Take pictures of the front, back, and any details your buyer should know, such as intricate beadwork, lace patterns, or any damage to the dress, such as stains or discolored patches. You need not include all the details in your listing, but if a buyer asks for more photos, you should have these handy to show them.

If you have photos of yourself wearing the dress at your wedding, have those photos ready, too. Buyers would have a better idea of how a dress actually flows when a human model is wearing it, as opposed to a hanger or a mannequin.

Know how to price your gown.

Setting a price is more of an art than a science. But there are some basic rules of thumb you need to know.

If your wedding dress is less than three years old, you can sell it for around 50% off its original price; a bit more if the gown is from a well-known designer, such as Vera Wang or Monique Lhuillier.

The style of the gown can also be a big factor. If your dress is in a classic style that’s sought after, it can still fetch around 50% of its price even if it’s older than three years old.

If a dress has never been worn, you can expect to sell it for around 80% to 90% of its original value, provided it remains pristine.

Include any fees you expect to pay, such as cleaning fees, listing fees, commissions, and other fees, in your computation.

Take excellent care of the dress.

Worn or unworn, immaculate or stained, taking care of the wedding dress before you sell it is a must.

Right after the wedding, hang it out to air dry. Don’t wrap it, especially in plastic, before it has been cleaned, as this is a surefire way for stains and gross smells to set in.

Wine, makeup, sweat, blood, and perfume are the usual causes of stains on wedding dresses, so try to remove the stains as soon as you can before they set.

Get the dress professionally cleaned. It will cost a few hundred dollars, but it’s a worthy investment, whether or not you plan to sell it.

After taking photos of the wedding dress for your listing, make sure it’s stored in a dark, dry place with constant temperature.

Other Ways to Offload Your Wedding Dress

If you haven’t been able to sell your wedding dress after a while, don’t get too discouraged. Here are other ways to “rehome” your gown.

Rent it out

Renting out your stuff can be pretty lucrative, as long as your stuff remains in demand.

Tuxedos are often rented, so why can’t wedding dresses, right?

Your best bet is to rent it out locally so that the turnover is quick and if the dress is damaged or lost, it’s less of a hassle to sort out than with someone who lives in another city or state.

Donate it

If you don’t mind eating the cost of the wedding dress and simply want to give to charity, you can donate your dress to websites, such as Brides for a Cause or Brides Do Good, who will sell your wedding dress and donate the proceeds to women-centered charities.

Maybe help a military or first responder out by donating your gown to Brides Across America.

Or help bereaved parents who have lost their baby by donating your wedding dress to NICU Helping Hands’ Angel Gown® Program who will turn them into custom-made gowns for final photos and burial services.

Repurpose it

You probably won’t be wearing your wedding dress to any other event, so if you’re comfortable with a sewing machine and don’t mind seeing your wedding dress in pieces, turn it into something you’ll wear again and love.

Create separate top and bottom pieces, or a cocktail dress you can wear to formal events.

Or turn it into a christening or first communion dress for a daughter or a loved one.

If you cringe at the thought of taking tailor shears to your dress but don’t mind someone else doing it, have the folks at Unbox The Dress help you out.

Sell Your Wedding Dress Today!

For many brides, their wedding dress is the most expensive piece of clothing they’ll ever buy and wear. It makes sense to want to recover even part of the cost of the dress.

Hopefully, this guide to selling your wedding dress has been helpful to you and given you plenty of ideas.

Planning to sell your wedding dress soon? Which of these options look most interesting to you? Tell us in the comments!

The Best Ways to Sell My Phone and Make the Most Money

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Got an old phone or two, or maybe a drawer full of them? Ever wondered “Where can I sell my phones?”

Maybe you want to make some side cash, or maybe you want to buy a new phone and selling your old one gives you additional funds to put toward your new phone.

Well, wonder no more.

Today’s article is a guide to selling your phone to make some cash.

What Should I Do Before Selling My Phone?

Before you log on to your first online marketplace or contact your first buyer, there are some things you need to do first.

1. Pay it off.

If you’re still under contract with your wireless carrier (i.e., you’re still paying off your phone), chances are it won’t be accepted by resellers, and individual buyers won’t be able to use the phone.

The phone you’re selling should not have any problems or liabilities associated with its identifying serial numbers.

2. Unpair your phone.

Your phone might still be paired to your Bluetooth devices.

Make sure you unpair your phone from these devices before you sell them.

3. Log out of all your accounts.

All your email, social media, and cloud backup apps, among other apps, should not have your accounts connected to them any longer when you sell your phone.

4. Back up important data.

There’s a lot of information on your phone that you’re likely going to want to keep.

Make sure you download everything from your phone and transfer them someplace safe.

5. Remove all accessories not included with the phone.

It’s easy to forget your SIM card/s and external memory card/s in your phone because they aren’t readily visible.

Make sure to remove them.

6. Reset your phone to its factory settings.

Any information that you have on your phone is personal, sensitive, and possibly identifiable, so make sure all of this is wiped out before you sell your phone.

The procedure for resetting a phone will depend on the device, but you can easily look that up online.

Be aware that when you do a factory reset, there’s no way to undo it, so make sure you’ve backed up your data properly.

7. Clean up your phone—physically.

It’s not enough to trade in a digitally clean phone; it needs to be physically clean as well.

I mean, would you buy a filthy phone?

Remove lint from crevices, wipe off fingerprints from the screen, and remove any visible dust or grime on the back.

For heavier cleaning jobs, inexpensive cleaning tools and accessories for phones are readily available.

8. Set your price.

There are plenty of factors that go into the price at which you can sell your phone.

First, name-brand phones like Apple or Samsung phones retain their value longer than non-name brand phones, so if you have a name brand phone, even if your phone is one or two generations old, you can expect to fetch a price that’s nearer the price you bought it at.

iPhone accessories

Second, the original packaging and accessories will increase the value of your phone.

Packaging the box and all the other accessories that came with your phone, such as the charger, cord, and earphones, can increase buyers’ interest in your phone and make it more likely to be snapped up.

Where Can I Sell My Phone?

Once your phone is ready for selling, you can now look for places to sell your phone.

When deciding whether to sell your phone online or offline, consider your convenience, your preferences, and how much profit you want to take home.

You’ll also want to consider if there are fees and if the fees are worth the seller protection, buyer traffic, and other benefits you’re likely to get.

If you prefer to sell your phone online, do your due diligence when researching platforms or shops where you can sell your phone.

Look for genuine customer reviews on TrustPilot or ResellerRatings.

Here are some of the places where you can sell your phone.

Sell Your Phone to Individual Buyers Through Marketplaces

1. Craigslist

People have been using Craigslist to sell various stuff for over two decades, and it’s still good for people who want to sell their stuff locally.

Selling through Craigslist is as straightforward as it has always been: take good pictures, write a compelling description, and post.

After that, all you have to do is wait for potential buyers to contact you and set up a meeting.

However, meeting a stranger in person has its inherent risks. Make sure to meet up in a public, well-lighted place, and never give the phone unless you already have the cash in hand or transferred to your Venmo.

This goes for all transactions with strangers: Be safe!

2. eBay

Another classic, tried-and-tested way to sell your phone is by offering it through eBay.

You can either put your phone up for auction or name a price for it. Either way, ensure that you took eBay’s fees into consideration, as well as the packaging and shipping costs.

Also, make sure that your phone meets eBay’s seller standards.

3. Facebook

Plenty of Facebook Groups exist for buying and selling things, so this is one of the avenues you can take to find a buyer for your phone (read more about using Facebook groups to sell your stuff online).

You can also use Facebook Marketplace to find buyers in your local area.

Simply list your phone for sale so buyers in your area can see it on their Marketplace and buy it from there.

Since you’re dealing with individual buyers, and Facebook is free, you don’t have to think about transaction fees.

However, you do need to vet the Facebook groups you’re joining or the buyer you’re selling to.

You certainly don’t want to waste your time with individuals who don’t plan to buy your phone or are just planning to drive the price down once you’ve met with them.

Again, be vigilant when meeting with strangers.

4. OfferUp

Another way you can sell your phone to local buyers is to sell via a selling app like OfferUp.

OfferUp works a lot like Craigslist, in that buyers don’t purchase the items directly from the app.

Instead, they connect sellers with buyers to agree on a price, as well as a date and time to meet and exchange the goods for cash.

This means that OfferUp has no liability, and both buyer and seller take on the risks, so take all the necessary precautions so that you don’t get robbed or tricked into accepting a low-ball offer.

Here are other selling apps you can use to sell your phone to a local buyer.

5. Swappa

Swappa is a user-to-user marketplace that guarantees buyer and seller protection through PayPal, fast and immediate payment to sellers, and no seller fee (the buyers shoulder this minimal fee).

They only accept “newish” items; that is, they don’t accept broken items and claim to have an approval process that ensures only quality items are sold on their website.

Swappa Local is another service they offer, which works similar to Craigslist but claims to be safer. It is currently in beta version and it’s not available for all cities as of this writing.

6. BankMyCell

BankMyCell is a website dedicated to helping users find the best possible price and buyback program for their phones.

Thus, BankMyCell connects users with resellers and recyclers; they aren’t the ones who actually pay you for your phone.

Selling your phone to BankMyCell is pretty clear-cut: get a quote for your phone based on brand, model, and condition, accept and lock in your quote, mail your phone with the prepaid shipping label that your chosen reseller will send, and wait for your payment.

Sell Your Phone to Dealers and Resellers

7. MaxBack

MaxBack is a reseller site that buys your phone and sells it to other users, hopefully for a profit.

The process of selling your phone to MaxBack is similar to that of BankMyCell: get a quote, accept your quote, mail your phone with the prepaid shipping label, and wait to get paid.

The difference is that MaxBack actually does the buying and reselling.

The prices they’ll quote are likely to be lower than other reseller sites, but their approval process is more reliable than others and the payouts take mere days to process.

8. Buyback Boss

In terms of buying selling your phone, it couldn’t get simpler than going through Buyback Boss.

Go to their site, answer a few questions about your phone and get a quote (they say it can take less than 30 seconds!), print out your shipping label, ship your phone to them, and get paid when they get your phone.

Sellers who have sold their phones to Buyback Boss appreciate the simple process and the excellent customer service, but noted that their phones sold for less than they expected.

9. OCBuyBack

OCBuyBack works pretty much the same: get a quote, ship your phone for free, and get paid.

They accept even older smartphone models and any condition, even damaged.

Aside from smartphones, they also buy smartwatches, GoPros, and game consoles. Sellers can also send in multiple gadgets in one shipment, scoring points for convenience.

Trade In Your Phone For Cash or Store Credit

10. Amazon Trade-In

The next few items are trade-in programs and not for cash, but for store credit. As these are popular stores, chances are you’d be able to use the credit quickly.

Amazon’s Trade-In program exchanges your gadgets, such as Amazon Devices, electronics, phones, video games, and others for an Amazon.com gift card.

First, do a search for the phone you want to trade-in to see if they accept that particular brand and model. Then, answer a few questions about the phone.

When your phone gets accepted for a trade-in, a prepaid shipping label will be sent to you to print and attach to your phone when you ship it to them.

You might fetch a lower price for your phone than if you sell your phone on eBay, for example.

But there are no fees when trading in with Amazon, even for shipping, plus you get excellent customer service and the entire process is efficient.

11. Walmart Trade-In Program

Walmart’s trade-in program works similarly to that of Amazon’s.

Find your phone in their list of accepted devices, answer a few questions, get a prepaid shipping label, send it back, and get a Walmart gift card for your phone.

Despite being handled by a third party, the transactions are still pretty simple and straightforward.

Plus, the third party dealing with Walmart’s trade-in program recycles phones that can’t be resold, refurbished, or repurposed in accordance with strict environmental management standards so you’re reducing the waste your old phone would have become.

12. Best Buy Trade-In Program

If you’re a frequent shopper at Best Buy, the Best Buy Trade-In Program may be a good choice for you.

You can take your smartphone (as well as your other electronics) into a Best Buy store to do the trade in, or you can do it online. They do offer competitive prices but they only provide store credit in the form of gift cards (no cash or PayPal).

13. Apple Trade In Program

Apple Trade In works similarly to Amazon’s and Walmart’s programs.

The main difference is that Apple can only accept Apple products for trade-in.

Also, you can choose to process your trade-in either online or in-store.

Lastly, you can choose to get an Apple Store Gift Card or put in the trade price of your old phone toward a new Apple device.

Tips To Help You Sell Your Phone

Here are some more tips to help you sell your phone quickly for a good price.

Write your own description.

Copying your description verbatim from another website, especially when it’s directly from the manufacturer’s site, is not advisable here.

Of course, an exception would be the technical details of the phone, such as its hard disk space, memory, operating system, etc. This information is better obtained from the manual with the phone or the actual website of the manufacturer.

Learn how to take compelling photos.

With very few exceptions, potential buyers of your phone would want to look at photos of the phone you’re selling.

Review the image guidelines of the website or store you’re selling your phone with.

Make sure you take pictures of the phone from all angles so that any imperfections or damage is visible.

Have a broken or cracked screen fixed.

There’s not much you can do about minor cosmetic damage, like scratches or small dents.

But a broken or cracked screen decreases the value of your smartphone by a huge amount. So much so that whatever you’re spending to fix the screen will likely be less than the difference in the amount you’ll get for your smartphone.

In other words, it’s worth fixing a cracked screen before selling your phone.

Be honest.

Give other people and reseller sites a reason to trust you.

Be as truthful as you possibly can about the condition of your phone and the history of any imperfections.

The more details you can include in your product description, the better.

Selling Your Phone: The Bottom Line

Selling your phone can get you some extra cash, but it doesn’t only benefit you.

It helps other people save money on a new phone while reducing potential waste because your phone becomes reused instead of taking up space in a landfill and contaminating the environment.

Don’t have an old phone to sell, but need to declutter? Here are some things you may have lying around in your house that you can sell to make money.

Have you been successful in selling your phone for cash? Where did you end up selling it? Tell us how below!

How to Sell Baseball Cards for Top Dollar

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Baseball card collectors know this too well: if you came into this hobby years ago to sell baseball cards in the future to make a profit, there’s a good chance your cards can get top dollar.

If you’re a long-time baseball card collector, you’ve likely spent a lot of time and money finding and collecting these baseball cards over the years.

Or, as luck would have it, you may have gotten a few baseball cards by chance; as a gift, an heirloom, or a garage sale find.

Either way, you’ve probably thought about how to sell these baseball cards so you can get some side cash from them.

Today, let’s look at how to sell baseball cards: what to consider, where to sell them, and how to maximize your profits.

Important Things to do Before You Sell Baseball Cards

Dealing in sports cards is exciting, but it’s no cakewalk.

Learning the ins and outs of the buy-and-sell world is important, especially if you have a lot of baseball cards or even collections lined up for sale.

Here are the top things you need to do before introducing your baseball cards into the market.

1. Identify and make a record of what baseball cards you have.

Selling baseball cards (or anything, really) is so much easier if you know exactly what you’re selling.

Having a catalog of what you have makes it easier for you to see the details of a particular card at a glance.

Here are the important details that you need to know for the baseball cards you have.

Print Year

Baseball cards are generally classified into four eras. Since the year a card was printed heavily influences its selling price, cards from certain eras are valued differently.

  • “Pre-War” baseball cards were printed before World War II. Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner or Christy Mathewson are just some of the names dominating this category.
  • “Vintage” baseball cards were printed between 1948 and 1969. Topps released many of the highest-valued cards of this era, but those printed by Bowman, Fleer and Leaf could still fetch some cash. You’d find names of Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays in-demand in this category.
  • “Semi-vintage” baseball cards were printed in the 1970s. Many dealers don’t distinguish these from “vintage” cards, but baseball cards printed in this decade tend to be common and lower priced, unless one sells an entire collection or if they’re in mint condition.
  • “Modern” baseball cards were printed from 1980 to present. Unlike the older baseball cards, modern ones are printed on a massive scale, so your chance of getting a lot of money from them is pretty slim. Your card does have to be extra-special to be sold for a high price. For instance, if it’s a certified autographed card, has a rare feature like a refractor or a colored border, or is a rookie card that’s autographed.

If you’re not sure how to tell what year a card was printed, look on the back at the statistics listed and look for the last year mentioned on a player’s stats. For example, if the last year on the back is 1955, then the card is from 1956.

Manufacturer

The current baseball card market is dominated by Topps, but various companies released sets of baseball cards over the years. Goudey, Bowman, and a few other smaller manufacturers have put them out.

Many baseball cards will have the copyright date and manufacturer printed on the back as well. If not, try a Google search for the player’s name and any other information printed on the card to find the manufacturer.

Player

Find out if you have any star cards; that is, if you have a baseball card of one of the greatest baseball athletes.

If you’re unsure, you can look up ESPN’s Hall of 100 or Clutchpoints’ top 50 MLB players and see if you have cards with those players.

2. Know the condition of your baseball cards.

Do your best to examine your baseball cards closely using a magnifying lens if you have to; any flaws, such as corner wear, creases, scuffs, paper and color loss, writing on the card (that’s not an autograph) and other visible marks will affect its price.

It makes sense to do this even if you’re opening a set of cards fresh out of the pack. Just because they’ve stayed in their packaging doesn’t mean they’re automatically in mint condition. Older cards were manufactured with imperfect printing processes and equipment, and they’re likely to have print defects or centering issues.

Assume that if you find even the smallest imperfections, others will, too.

3. Familiarize yourself with the grading system.

One of the most important things to know when selling baseball cards is the grading system.

Baseball card collectors often turn to third-party graders, such as
Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA), Sports Card Guarantee (SCG) and Beckett Grading Services all help collectors and dealers put a value on vintage cards and memorabilia.

Knowing how to judge your baseball cards’ condition by yourself is a great skill to have, and will save you a lot in fees for professionally inspecting and grading your cards. You can then focus on the ones that can potentially earn you more profit.

Read up on PSA Grading Standards and learn the basics.

4. Send out those baseball cards that have the most potential profit.

After you’ve gone over your collection and judged which ones you can sell at a relatively high price, weigh the costs of grading (around $15 to $20 per card for basic services) against the potential profit.

Send the ones that are potentially valuable off to professionals to have them officially graded. These tend to be worth more than ungraded or “raw” cards. Read this article on whether or not to get your cards graded to help you decide.

5. Organize and store your baseball cards.

As I’ve mentioned, the condition of your baseball cards is a huge factor in determining their price.

Invest in proper trading card sleeves for your baseball cards. Toploaders made of hard plastic are most commonly used for baseball cards, and some collectors even use a soft sleeve aside from the toploader itself.

If your baseball cards aren’t too expensive and you’d like to protect them but not spend too much, soft sleeves and pocket page protectors (the ones that can store 9 cards on a plastic binder page and has holes so you can fit them into a binder) are also good investments.

Find a secure, dark, dry, cool, and dust-free place to store your baseball cards to greatly slow down their deterioration.

6. Decide which baseball cards to sell and where to sell them.

While your cards are safely tucked away, go over your catalog and decide which cards have the most value. Choose which ones you’re willing to let go and decide where you’d like to sell these baseball cards.

Where to sell baseball cards

6 Places to Sell Baseball Cards

Another important aspect of selling baseball cards is knowing where to sell them.

Note that all of the options below each has its own benefits and disadvantages, so choose wisely to prevent being lowballed, getting scammed, or costing you a lot in fees.

1. Card dealers and shops (in-person)

If there’s a card dealer in your local area, and you have older baseball cards to sell, selling to them is a good option.

They may have connections to more buyers, plus they may participate in events and conventions that you may not have access to, so they’re likely to be able to sell baseball cards you may not be able to sell yourself.

This is a convenient, easy way to offload baseball cards and get quick cash. However, since they are in the buy and sell business and will aim to sell your cards at a profit, you may not get the best price for your cards.

2. Online through eBay

This online marketplace is perfect for selling sports cards because you have an option of putting up a baseball card for sale with three kinds of formats:

  • Fixed price via “Buy It Now” – You decide the amount you wish to sell your card and wait for someone to buy it full price.
  • Auction-style – You set a minimum amount, wait for buyers to put in their “bids” and let the listing go its course. The highest bidder wins the baseball card (if the amount reaches the price you set at the beginning of the auction)
  • Fixed price with “Best Offer” option – You set a fixed price when listing the baseball card for sale, but add a button that tells would-be buyers that you’re willing to consider their best offers.

3. Online through COMC.com and other similar sites

Sports card dealers nowadays can now be found online, which makes it even more convenient for you, as you can sign up to sell your baseball cards without having to leave the house.

The specific process may vary, but generally, you send your baseball cards for sale to them, the online stores list them on their sites, and when someone buys your cards, you get paid.

Fees and commissions may also vary among the online stores, as well as their promotions and return policies, so it’s good practice to read up on these terms and conditions before you agree to them.

Here are some online stores where you can sell your baseball cards.

4. Sell through an auction house

Auction houses are geared toward expensive baseball collections, one-of-a-kind cards, and other valuable pieces from your collection. A good auction site values your cards as their own, which is why they’re setting up auctions for big-pocketed buyers.

The biggest benefit of going this route is the amount of marketing auctions provide.

Auction houses take care of everything from promoting to paying for a public event, shipping and handling of the cards, insurance, and so on. It does take longer to sell cards here, so you have to be a little patient.

The largest and probably the most well-known of these auction houses is PWCC Marketplace.

5. Online through Craigslist and other selling apps

You can use Craigslist to sell your baseball cards to individual buyers. They’re convenient and good if you want quick transactions. However, do prepare to haggle and research your buyers’ past purchases if you can to avoid getting scammed.

6. Online through communities of baseball card collectors

If fetching a better than usual price for your baseball cards is not a priority, join online communities of baseball card collectors and offer up your cards.

These communities already have plenty of enthusiastic buyers looking for cards to add to their collections, plus you get to compare notes about dealers and buyers and find out who is legit and who’s not.

You can find plenty of these communities on Facebook Groups, and here are some of the popular ones:

How much can I earn by selling baseball cards?

Selling your baseball cards can be a quick way to make money in a day.

Unless you have a 1909-11 T206 White Border Honus Wagner baseball card lying around (this is the highest-sold card of all time at $2.8 Million and only 57 of them are known to exist), you really can’t go rich overnight selling baseball cards.

However, like other things you can sell to make money, your collection of baseball cards could get you through a rough patch, to earn extra cash for your Christmas fund, or other personal reasons.

Whether you’ve decided to just buy-and-sell now (or decades ago), flipping baseball cards is something you might want to try.

Are you a long-time baseball card collector looking to sell? Or maybe you just decided to start flipping baseball cards today? Tell us in the comments!

Get Paid To Recycle Everyday Things: Earn Cash for Trash

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How To Get Paid To Recycle Everyday Things

You know the 3 Rs of saving the environment: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.

But did you know that you can also receive cash for doing these 3 Rs?

Earning money while saving the environment sounds great. Fortunately, small and large businesses are becoming increasingly interested in reusing, repurposing, and recycling various materials.

Many of them are even willing to pay individuals as an incentive to give up their unused items to be recycled instead of throwing them away.

Today, I run down all the ways you can get paid to recycle things that would otherwise go into landfills and become waste.

Get Paid To Recycle These Everyday Items

1. Glass Bottles

These are one of those items that you can put out on your curbside recycling bin to be recycled by your local waste management company.

Recycled glass

Also, if you live in a bottle bill state and surrender your beverage bottles to designated centers, you get your bottle deposit back.

But you can also sell your glass bottles and earn some money from it.

Wine, beer, and spirit bottles, glass jars that contained sauces, jam, or baby food, as well as bottles that contained non-food items are in demand on eBay and on Etsy, as these can be used by crafters.

2. Aluminum cans

Aluminum cans are classic examples of items you can get paid to recycle, as recycling aluminum costs less than mining and processing them.

If your household or your neighborhood uses several aluminum cans, you can collect them, clean or at least rinse the inside, crush them to maximize transport, store them until the dollar amount you can get for them is worth the cost of transporting them.

Your local recycling centers and scrap metal centers will pay you for these cans.

3. Electronic Devices

The materials used to make your gadgets, such as smartphones, laptops, tablets, and other electronic devices, are harmful to the environment and should be kept out of landfills and thus out of contact with soil, water, and air as much as possible.

If your gadget is fairly new, or a few years old but still looks and operates as good as new, here are some websites where you can sell them:

However, if your gadget has seen better days, there are still companies that’ll still pay you to take it off your hands:

In addition, here are some electronics retailers that have trade-in or recycling programs:

Before you send out your electronic devices, make sure you’ve backed up the data and files you need and that you’ve cleared your device of your personal information.

See also: Where To Sell Your Phone

4. Printer cartridges

As working and studying from home become more common than ever, your ink, toner, and laser cartridges tend to pile up.

Instead of watching the clutter build up, you can actually earn from recycling these cartridges.

You can sell these empty cartridges on eBay, especially in lots. Or find cartridge buy-back websites that provide you quotes and often send you prepaid shipping labels for your convenience.

If you live near an office supply store, such as Office Depot or Staples, you can get rewards points for each empty cartridge you bring in, but these rewards are only of value in the store you got the rewards from.

Most printer manufacturers, such as HP, Brother, Lexmark, Canon, Xerox, and others, have their own recycling and take-back programs. Check the websites for the manufacturer of your printer and cartridges to know the details.

5. Clothing

If you Marie Kondo’ed your house recently, plenty of the items you’ve cleared are most likely clothing.

The environmental impact of producing clothes is massive, and so is the impact of every effort to reduce the number of clothing that are wasted and left to languish in landfills.

Like-new or slightly used clothing, especially branded ones, always has interested buyers. Sell it to companies who can offer it to these interested buyers, donate them to the needy, or transform them into other materials. Either way, you’ll get cash for recycling your clothes.

Here are some companies that will buy your clothes:

6. Cardboard Boxes

Almost everything you buy online arrives in a cardboard box.

Recycled Cardboard

And unless you return the items you bought or have your own business where you ship out items, those cardboard boxes have nowhere to go but the waste bin.

Why not sell these cardboard boxes and earn some change?

Chances are your friends and family have used cardboard boxes in their households that you can ask to have.

Commercial establishments, such as your local grocery stores, liquor stores, restaurants, and retail stores, may also be willing to give you their cardboard boxes instead of throwing them away.

Here are some companies who are willing to buy your used cardboard boxes:

7. Books

Do you have too many books that are in good condition but don’t read anymore?

You can swap them out for other books that you do want using websites such as BookMooch or PaperBackSwap.

It’s not exactly cash, but you save the money to buy a new book in exchange for keeping your old book from the landfill.

8. Cooking Oil

Your used cooking oil can be disposed of by pouring into a container with a lid, cooling it, and disposing of it in the trash (Note: NEVER pour used cooking oil down the kitchen drain or in the toilet; it’s going to clog pipes).

That’s a waste of oil! Companies buy and collect used cooking oil for repurposing, such as for biodiesel.

Here are some companies that will take your used cooking oil off you:

On the other hand, if you have unused cooking oil that is past its best before date, you can actually still make something of it: soap.

Homemade Soap

Yes, soap.

Here’s a step-by-step instructional guide on how to use rancid oil for soap.

You can make bars of soap and then sell them on Etsy, or use them and save what you’d normally spend on soap for your home. Either way, you get money from recycling cooking oil.

9. Car Batteries

Car batteries contain heavy metals and acids that are harmful to the environment, so it’s really important to prevent them from leaching into the soil or water.

Advance Auto Parts, an automobile parts store with branches all over the country, accepts old batteries and gives you a $10 gift card in exchange.

You can also sell old car batteries to your local scrapyard. Download the iScrap app to find the nearest scrapyard.

In addition, companies such as United Battery and Rockaway Recycling will buy your scrap batteries from you. However, they only serve certain areas and cities.

10. Junk Cars

If you have an old car lying around that costs too much to repair, there are companies you can contact to take your junk car so they can salvage parts and scrap metal off it. That way, instead of it just rusting in your garage or garden, you can get paid to recycle it.

Below are a few companies that will pay you for your junk car:

11. Random Trash

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

And this is nowhere more apparent than in eBay.

Here are some random knickknacks that you would normally throw away but can fetch you a few dollars on eBay:

  • paper towel/toilet paper rolls
  • wine corks
  • egg cartons
  • Box Tops For Education (make sure they’re not expired or expiring soon)
  • high-value mailed coupons (especially for expensive items like furniture and appliances)
  • broken crayons
  • plastic bottle tops
  • beer bottle caps
  • empty candle jars
  • old catalogs
  • old magazines
  • empty perfume bottles
  • pinecones
  • installation CDs
  • empty MAC cosmetics containers
  • trophies
  • board games with missing pieces

A downside of doing this is that you might have to be hoard some of these items in your home for a while since buyers prefer to get these in bulk. But if you have a high turnover of these items, you shouldn’t have to hoard for long.

12. Hard-To-Recycle Waste

No matter how much you recycle, there will always be something left over. Recycling programs such as Terracycle and Recyclebank encourage you to enroll in various recycling programs or do so-called “green actions” in exchange for points.

These points can, in turn, be exchanged for rewards, such as discounts in their partner businesses, or items in their online store made of materials that they recycle. You can also donate them to their educational programs so they can teach children how to recycle.

They’re not exactly recycle-for-cash programs, but you still get something in return for helping the planet.

Get Paid To Recycle Today!

Recycling reduces waste and is good for the environment.

Now that you know these everyday things to recycle for cash, start saving the planet and some money for yourself today!

Have you ever managed to make money from recycling before? Do you have any other recommendations for recycling for cash? Share them with us in the comments!

How To Sell Vinyl Records For Side Cash

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How To Sell Vinyl Records For Side Cash

It’s probably hard to imagine now, but vinyl records were the standard format for decades before Sony came up with the compact disc in the early 1980s. Since then, music has evolved into MP3s and into streaming, the format we all know and love today.

But streaming music on demand can make listeners feel like they don’t really own the music, leaving the door open for a vinyl resurgence in the mid-2000s. There’s just something about buying and collecting vinyl records that fill a need for actual ownership.

The comeback of vinyl has spurred on entrepreneurial types to cash in, and you can certainly join in if you have some quality records to sell.

In today’s article, learn how to sell vinyl records: from determining how valuable your records are to where you should sell them to get as much out of them as you can.

Is Selling Vinyl Records Profitable?

The short answer: Maybe.

Unfortunately, I can’t just predict whether this will be a profitable venture for everyone.

What determines the value of your vinyl records? Two major things: release version and condition.

Release version applies to vinyl albums that have been released multiple times. Some of these pressings are worth more than others, so make sure to find out the release version of the vinyl records you intend to sell.

Condition will greatly influence how much you can sell your albums for. It doesn’t matter how valuable the release version of your album is; if it doesn’t sound or look good, you won’t fetch a very high price for it.

Vinyl records that look like new, such as if the sleeve looks pristine, the record hasn’t been played, and in general doesn’t have visible dents or dings, are almost guaranteed to be worth more.

Vinyl records for sale

On the other hand, if the record is warped or the sleeve has scratches, water spots, or any other visible damage, it will be worth considerably less than a pristine one.

While you’re inspecting your vinyl records, you’ll probably want to clean the opened ones, especially if they haven’t been opened in a while. Invest in a high-quality vinyl record cleaner, especially a good brush that will clean dust out of the grooves while not scratching them.

The most widely used guide for buying and selling vinyl records is called the Goldmine® Grading Guide. Check it out and learn it so you can grade the vinyl records you’re selling for yourself.

Other factors that determine the value of your vinyl records include:

  • Artist
  • Sealed or opened?
  • Autographed or not?
  • Commercial or promotional?
  • Small label or major label?
  • Mono or stereo or quadriphonic?
  • General release or limited edition?
  • Black or colored or picture disc?
  • Demand (i.e., are people looking to buy it?)

 

Additionally, there are websites you can consult to find out the price of your vinyl records.

Popsike is a database updated every two days that aggregates data from eBay’s sold record listings. You can easily search and filter their listings, both from their website and their mobile app.

The number of searches is limited for non-members, and $17.50 can get you full membership and thus unlimited searches for 6 months.

Another website tool to help you price your vinyl records is a site called Discogs, which as you’ll see later, is also a marketplace to buy and sell vinyl records. Records are listed here as individual releases as opposed to per album or master release, so you’d know exactly which release you have. Registering for an account in Discogs is completely free.

Other websites you can use to price your stock are MusicStack and ValueYourMusic where you can search for your records and they give you prices based on data on various auctions.

Where To Get Vinyl Records To Sell

From your own house

If your parents or grandparents were big music fans in their day, they might have a few vinyl records (or a few boxes of them, even) lying around in your basement or your attic.

Start sifting through them, list the titles and whatever metadata you have, and then use the Goldmine® Grading Guide to classify the records you have.

Group records together based on their condition and release version and create a detailed inventory so you’d have an estimate of how valuable your entire collection is.

Buying from secondhand stores

Stores that sell secondhand items have some potential of earning you some money from flipping records. Thrift stores, used book stores, flea markets, and even garage sales may have some hidden gems.

Records store

They may also be more willing to sell them to you if you’re willing to buy them in bulk. Just make sure you have some way to know if what you’re buying has some value.

Buying at record fairs

A record fair is an event where music lovers go to buy and sell records, and sometimes even swap or trade them.

You’ll be more likely to find records that are in good condition here than in garage sales or thrift stores because the people who participate are record collectors themselves, or otherwise in the music business, like record store owners, record producers, or DJs.

The trick is finding out when and where the next record fairs are happening. Check out your social media communities and local message boards to find out.

Where To Sell Vinyl Records

1. Online Through Discogs

Discogs helps you price your records (as we’ve seen above) and is a tool to organize your own personal vinyl collection. It’s also a very popular online marketplace to buy and sell vinyl records.

You already have a strong advantage of being in a community of genuine music and vinyl lovers. Plus, Discogs provides seller tools and shipping materials, allows you to leave your records up as long as it takes, and provides a dedicated support team to resolve whatever issues that you might have.

They do have a price, though; Discogs takes 8% as a fee. Also, they require you to submit highly detailed data and metadata about each record, such as country of release, pressing information, material, artist credits, conditions of the discs and the sleeves, and other identifiers.

Best for: Rare, mint condition vinyl records

2. Online Through CDandLP

Another online marketplace for used music is CDandLP, which has been around almost as long as Discogs.

Each new seller is also required to provide plenty of details for all records they list.

They have a detailed pricing guide, but sellers are free to price their items. Shipping fees are automatically calculated, but sellers outside of France can also set their own shipping methods and fees if they prefer.

Listing is free, but CDandLP does take a commission of 5% to 15% of each sale on their site.

Best for: Rare, mint condition vinyl records

3. Online Through eBay

A popular way to sell vinyl records is through eBay. The advantage of selling through eBay is that you can put up more valuable records for auction and less valuable ones for sale for a set price.

It’s easy to start selling through eBay; a few seconds and you have your account set up (if you haven’t already got one). Plus, eBay has looser metadata standards, so you don’t have to input too many details about what you’re selling.

Thus, you can expect buyers here to be more casual collectors of vinyl.

However, if you haven’t sold anything on eBay, you’d have no seller rating, and you might not get good bids for your records. Plus, eBay charges a 10% fee, cutting in on your possible profits.

Best for: Any of the vinyl records that you want to sell at a fair price

4. Your Local Record Store

If you’re desperate to offload your vinyl records that aren’t in very good condition or not very popular, consider selling them to your local record store.

Not only do you get to help a local business but you can also get some cash for doing so.

If you do wind up selling your vinyl records to your local record shop, make sure to manage your expectations. They need to make a profit off the records you’re selling, so they’ll try to offer you a lowball bid for your records.

If you’ve consulted pricing websites and the Goldmine® Grading Guide, you should have an idea of how much you can get approximately for your records. Be willing to accept a lower offer than you normally would, but don’t allow yourself to be stiffed.

In general, if they say they can’t offer you at least a dollar for a record, it’s not something they want to carry in their store. Worst case scenario, call their bluff and don’t sell it to them. If they really want it, they won’t let you leave.

Your old vinyl records may not be worth as much as you’d like, but it doesn’t mean you can’t earn a few dollars from them.

Best for: Not so rare, not so mint condition vinyl records

5. Garage Sales Or Record Fairs

The point is to go to where the buyers are. And you’ll find plenty of vinyl enthusiasts looking to add to their collections in record fairs or in the grounds when there are concerts or music events.

Records at garage sale

Location is important here. If you think you can get buyers near where you live, then holding a garage sale is a low-cost, low-overhead way of selling your merchandise.

Otherwise, go where the buyers are. Participate in record fairs so you can find enthusiastic buyers.

If you’re selling other items aside from your vinyl records, here are some garage sale tips to take note of.

Best for: Popular vinyl records that aren’t in mint condition but are in high demand

6. Online through communities of vinyl record collectors

Selling vinyl records straight to collectors may not sound very lucrative (or particularly safe), but just like record fairs, online communities of collectors have plenty of already-enthusiastic, already-searching buyers.

Some of them are very picky about the conditions of the records they’re buying, but some of them are just starting out or are more focused on completing their collection of a certain artist or genre that it doesn’t matter as much whether the record is in mint condition.

Getting to interact and network with like-minded people is a bonus.

You can find plenty of these communities on Facebook Groups, and here are some of the established ones:

Best for: In-demand vinyl records no matter their condition

7. Online Through Selling Apps

Offering your merchandise through a selling app is another option if you want to appeal to a local buyer but don’t have the energy or motivation to host a garage sale.

An advantage is that it’s similar to selling in an online marketplace but there are no fees and you can negotiate prices with the buyer in person.

Here are the five selling apps that we recommend.

Best for: Any of your records that have local buyers

8. Repurpose And Sell Online Through Etsy

The resurgence of vinyl means there’s also a resurgence of vinyl record-themed décor and other knickknacks. With a little DIY spirit and some elbow grease, transform your unsellable vinyl records into crafts and sell them on Etsy or on your own website, if you have one.

Repurposed Vinyl

Here are some ideas for repurposing vinyl records.

  • Jewelry
  • Guitar picks
  • Clocks
  • Canvas for pour paintings
  • Coasters
  • Cupcake stand
  • Stools

If you don’t have the skills, tools, or just don’t have the time for DIY crafts, you can always sell your banged-up records as is and advertise them as good for crafting. Other crafters get their raw materials, you get some money out of them, and everyone’s happy.

Buyers pay for the shipping fees, while you pay a 20-cent listing fee plus 6.75% in transaction and payment processing fees when your records sell.

Best for: Beat up, damaged, heavily played vinyl records

Get More For Your Vinyl Records

Take care of your records.

The main thing to remember is that when you get your vinyl records out of storage, or once you buy them, you’ll need to store them properly.

Record collection

Make sure to place them upright in a dust-free, waterproof container. Stacking them or laying them flat is going to warp the records.

Also, remember that the sleeves are protective, so keep the records in them. The sleeves will keep dust and other elements away from the records.

Find the coolest, most consistent area in your house and store your records there. Alternatively, if you have too many records to store in your house, find a temperature-controlled storage unit or a space that’s pest-free and has ample ventilation.

Have your most valuable vinyl records appraised.

Having a mere idea of what your records are worth is one thing, but when you have a record in your stock that could be worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars, the best thing you can do is to have those appraised by a professional.

One of the most popular appraisers online is Marshall, more widely known as Mighty John Marshall. You can send in your records to him (minimum of 5) through his website MoneyMusic, which he’ll appraise for $1 per record.

Consider more than one buyer.

Unless you’re looking to move your items really quickly and get cash right away, you’d want to consider as many offers as you can. You want to get the best price, but more importantly, you want to examine all the potential buyers so you can weed out the sketchy ones.

Start Selling Vinyl Records Today!

After all this, you’re probably wondering whether people will buy vinyl records in the first place.

For a vinyl enthusiast, it’s not just that the quality of the audio is much better when playing a vinyl record (some music experts even argue that this is a myth).

The entire experience—taking out the record from its sleeve, putting it on a turntable, and focusing your attention on listening to one side at a time—is almost ritualistic. It adds a new, aesthetic aspect to music that isn’t available in its other usual forms.

Plus, nothing says collectible more than the huge cover art and the liner notes that provide context and a personal glimpse into the artists’ musical journey.

Want to sell other things in your attic?

Do you have other old stuff in your attic aside from vinyl records? You might want to sell them for side cash, too. Here are some articles to show you how.

Are you sitting on some vinyl records in your house that you want to get some side cash for? Or do you plan to start buying them up and flipping them? Share your stories with us in the comments below!

Get Paid for Your Jokes: Legit Ways to Earn From Humor

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Do you love making people laugh? Do people describe you as witty or funny? Why not use your sense of humor to earn some cash and get paid for your jokes?

Your comedic skills partnered with writing skills can earn you some cash by writing and sharing your funny stories, one-liners, and other hilarious jokes with the world.

There are a few ways to do this, so here’s where to begin!

Websites That Will Pay You for Your Jokes and Other Humorous Writings

I mentioned a few of the sites that pay you to write funny in my massive writing gig post, but if you really want to dig deep and turn your humor into a real-money-paying “funny business,”  then this list of websites could help you get started.

1. Funds for Writers ($60 per accepted article)

If you have funny stories about being a freelance writer (or even not-so-funny ones), you can share your story or wisdom with other freelancers.

Funds for Writers like story pieces with “a dash of humor,” “a positive note,” and “a happy ending.”

All submissions should be submitted through email hope[at]chopeclark[dot]com. Payment is through PayPal or Venmo.

2. Cracked ($100 to $250 per accepted feature article)

Although the print mag retired in 2007, the web version is still alive and well.

They often accept Pictofact and Photoplasty submissions from contributors, but you can also pitch feature articles to them by emailing Cyriaque Lamar at workshop[at]cracked[dot]com. Accepted articles pay between $100 to $250 based on the length and the number of articles you submit.

3. The Funny Times ($75 per accepted story)

Ray Lesser and Susan Wolpert, the duo behind this 35+year-old magazine, call themselves “publishers and troublemakers.”

Story submissions can be about anything under the sun: from food to pets to death to religion and even politics and relationships. The duo says “Not much is off limits, so do your best to make us laugh.” Stories should be about 500 to 700 words.

4. Writer’s Digest (pays 30 to 50 cents per word)

This writer resource is pretty popular, which means it can be a challenge to get published here.

Target the section of this magazine called “Inkwell,” which is the lead story that kicks off the magazine. If you’re lucky to get a spot with hundreds of competition, you’ll get paid for one-time print use and electronic publishing in perpetuity. If they ever have to reprint your article, you’ll get paid 25% of the original fee you received for each reprint.

5. The Imperfect Parent (starts at $25 per accepted story)

For parents with funny stories about their kids, parenting, and family life in general, this website accepts the stories that focus on the lighter side of parenting.

Editor Preston Carlson recommends taking a shot at “Parody, humorous takes on parenting, satire, an ‘open letter.’ Take your pick.”

6. Mother.ly (Payment varies)

This is another parenting site, but unlike the one before it, Mother.ly is a bit more “personal” and accepts essays written in the first person.

Submissions should be around 700 to 900 words, focusing on motherhood.

7. Reader’s Digest ($25 to $100 per assignment)

You can submit quotes, jokes, gags, or funny stories and become a part of the history of this 1920-launched magazine.

8. Chicken Soup for the Soul ($200 per story)

This publication is known for heartwarming stories, but it also accepts hilarious real-life stories and funny poems.

The maximum word count is 1,200 words.

If your submission gets chosen, you’ll also receive 10 free copies of the book where your work is published.

9. Saturday Evening Post (Payment varies)

Launched in 1897, the Saturday Evening Post has been publishing its magazine for decades.

If you’re sharing something funny, email your submission as a Microsoft Word, RTF, or PDF attachment to editors[at]saturdayeveningpost[dot]com and indicate “Attn: The Lighter Side” on the subject line.

10. The New Yorker (Payment varies)

If you have a knack of writing satire and fiction, The New Yorker will love you for your submission.

You’ll have an amazing audience if your work is accepted, so make sure to follow Daily Shouts for more guidelines.

11. Weekly Humorist ($20 per accepted article)

This satire magazine accepts pieces 1,500 words or less.

The articles can be in list form, open letters, topical, absurdist, fake-news blurbs, and so on.

12. The Offing ($25 to $100 per submission)

If you have a funny poem, story, or joke, this literary magazine accepts humorous pieces for the humor section called “Wit Tea.”

Note that each website has its own voice and writing guidelines.

If you’re a fan of the site, you’re probably aware of the content style by now. If not, make sure to backread and familiarize yourself with their articles.

Sometimes, no writing opportunity will be posted, but if you send a pitch and your idea is pretty unique and match their style, you can be given a lot in upcoming issues.

13. The Rumpus: Funny Women column (Payment varies)

The Rumpus is an online magazine that is a place for budding writers to share their work. Funny Women is a column in this magazine especially for woman or non-binary writers.

Submit your evergreen pieces with short conceptual humor (650 to 1,000 words) and get paid between $10 to $25 depending on the length and quality of the piece.

14. Functionally Dead ($50 per accepted submission)

Functionally Dead is a left-leaning culture and comedy zine. If your humor fits the zine, email your pitches to functionallydead[at]gmail[dot]com with “Submission” in the subject line.

15. Hard Money ($30 per published article)

More satire? Hard Money is a financial news satire website. Their editor-in-chief looks at pitches (5 pitches max per submission) and will get back to you if they’re interested. When you write the article and it gets published, you’ll get paid.

16. Sasee Magazine (Payment varies)

Based in South Carolina, Sasee Magazine is a women’s lifestyle magazine constantly on the lookout for non-fiction content from freelance contributors on topics relevant to women, including humor and satire.

Email submissions in plain text format to editor[at]sasee[dot]com and include the month(s) of consideration in the subject line.

17. McSweeney’s Internet Tendency (Payment varies)

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency has been publishing comedy and satire article submissions for the past two decades. Submit your piece to websubmissions[at]mcsweeneys[dot]net and wait to hear back from their editor.

Other Ways to Get Paid for Your Jokes

Writing for these websites, as you’ll soon find out, is good for side cash and some publicity.

But unless you get hired as a full-time staff writer, it’s extremely difficult to turn this into a regular income.

Maximize your earnings by dipping into other niches:

Join humor writing contests. Winning a humor writing contest can earn you a significant amount of cash. For instance, the Slackjaw Humor Writing Challenge 2021 had a grand prize of $1,000.

Aside from the cash, it’s your chance to get publicity, as well as feedback for your jokes from comedy fans and writers.

Sell your jokes to greeting card companies. Several greeting card companies that pay for submissions accept jokes and funny rhymes to include in one of their cards.

Write jokes for established comedians. You’ll need to know a comedian personally or have a connection to them. You can negotiate for a pay rate per joke, or have them buy a set of jokes that fit a theme or a specific topic.

This is a great training ground if you’re aiming for a career as a stand-up comedian so you can find out if your jokes are landing with a live audience or not.

Write jokes for a comedy show or sitcom. This is not an easy gig to land, but if you have the right connections in a network or a streaming media company, writing one-off jokes can be your foot in the door to a comedy writing career.

Create a comedy comic strip. Even if you don’t have the drawing skills, you can still write a comic strip. Partner with an artist with whom you connect mentally and can take your vision from mind to paper (or screen).

Stand-up Comedy, Pranks, and Skits on YouTube

If writing jokes in the shadows isn’t your cup of tea, consider going the traditional route of becoming a comedian.

Norm Macdonald, Jim Carrey, Kevin Hart, Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Burr, Dave Chappelle, and many other popular comedians spent years performing in obscure comedy clubs in far-flung places before they got their shot to stardom through Comedy Central or Saturday Night Live.

However, the internet has made it possible to reach an audience even from the comforts of your own home. Just look at celebrity impersonator ShaneDawsonTV, parody songwriter/performer Bart Baker, skit-comedian Nigahiga, and other famous people who shared their humor via YouTube and made bank.

Start Your Own Humor Empire

You can mix and match all the methods of making money with being funny.

For instance, while doing stand-up at local bars and doing your fair share of real-world experience, you maintain a YouTube blog to showcase your other jokes.

If performing isn’t your thing, you can submit as many funny stories as you can with third-party websites. While doing this, you can build your own website, share your ideas there, and hopefully attract a following.

Comedians like Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias has done stand-up, TV sitcoms, hosted a comedy series, lent his voice to several animated characters for different films, and even landed his own shows on Fuse and most recently on Netflix.

The funnyman even has his own merch: he was the first stand-up comedian to have and sell out his own Funko Pop!

Are You Ready to Get Paid for Your Jokes?

The cool thing about having a good sense of humor is that there are unlimited opportunities available for you these days. You can choose to write jokes for a living, perform, or do both.

Whichever route you decide to take, isn’t it awesome to be paid real cash for spreading laughter and bringing good vibes to the world?

Have you tried to get paid for your jokes to one of the websites we listed? Are you inspired to work toward a career in comedy? Share it with us in the comments!

How to Make Money on TikTok: 6 Best Strategies to Follow

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TikTok is a popular social media app that has taken the world by storm and has been the center of meme culture and viral dance challenges in the past few years.

Ever heard of the “Renegade” viral dance step or the Wipe It Down challenge?

TikTok fame has also catapulted creators like Charli D’Amelio, Addison Rae, and Bella Poarch to stardom beyond TikTok.

And as with everything on the internet, it has people looking for ways to get rich off this app.

In today’s blog post, I’m going to discuss how to make money on TikTok.

What Is Tiktok?

TikTok is a video-sharing social network that allows you to create and share 60-second videos on an app. They’re now rolling out longer videos, and eventually, all users can share videos up to 3 minutes long.

It was formerly known as Musical.ly, which mostly featured videos of users lip syncing to popular songs.

Today, TikTok offers an extensive selection of sounds and song snippets. You can also add special effects and Snapchat-like filters.

A unique feature of TikTok is the Duets feature, which enables users to lip-synch or dance to their favorite song side-by-side with another TikTok user.

Another often-used feature is the Reactions feature, which allows users to record themselves while watching a video and publish the original video and their reaction on the same screen.

TikTok also allows its users to go live so viewers can watch them in real-time.

What sets it apart from other social media networks is that, unlike Instagram and Facebook, TikTok is more of an entertainment platform rather than a lifestyle one.

As of January 2021, TikTok has over 689 million users worldwide.

The app is still overwhelmingly more popular among teens and young adults,  but the use of TikTok among adults has been increasing among older adults, especially in the US. In 2020, 62% of TikTok users in the US were aged between 10 and 29, but as of March 2021, only 47.4% of them are in the same age range.

Set Up Your TikTok So You Can Start Earning Money

When you’re getting ready to make money on TikTok, every piece of content you’re posting should be geared toward entertaining your current followers while getting new followers interested in you and your content.

Here’s how you set up your TikTok so you can start making money from it.

1. Set up a TikTok Pro account with a unique profile.

When you first sign up with your phone number, email address, or registered social media account, the first thing the app will ask for is your username and profile photo or video.

Your TikTok username and profile photo/video are the first things people see when they browse, so make sure you come up with a username and an eye-catching profile photo, or better yet, a profile video that captures your personality.

TikTok Model

Your bio is another place where you can persuade people to follow you. Be as inviting and welcoming as you sincerely can.

Make sure to link your Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter to your TikTok account, so you can promote your TikTok on these other accounts, and vice versa.

TikTok designates all new accounts as Personal, and you’ll need to change this to Pro in your account settings under Manage Account > Switch to Pro Account.

Select Creator as your account type (Business is for brands, retailers, service providers, organizations, and the like), and then choose a category that fits your planned content.

Why do you need a TikTok Pro account?

Because you get access to your analytics plus the Creator Portal, which opens up a lot of monetization options for you (more on this later).

2. Start posting compelling videos.

If you want to be popular on TikTok, your content needs to be captivating, interesting, and shareworthy.

Here are some ideas for TikTok videos that you might want to use.

Lip sync videos. This was what the Musical.ly app was originally known for. Lip sync to a currently popular song and put your own creative twist to it.

Duet videos. There’s an option to share a non-private video and take a video of yourself singing along with it or interacting with it.

Reaction videos. React to a viral TikTok video or trend.

Pet videos. If you have a cute pet dog or cat, or any other adorable pet, videos of them just hanging out and being cute can become highly popular.

Challenges. When there’s already a viral challenge going around, it pays to hop on the bandwagon and do your own version of it. Remember, you want to create videos that your audience will like.

It has even more potential to be found by new followers when there’s a hashtag associated with the challenge, because your video will be “filed” under that hashtag, and can be found by those who are tapping that hashtag.

Dance videos. From time to time, viral challenges involve dance crazes, and you’ll probably need to practice a lot if this isn’t your strong suit.

TikTok Dancers

But posting your version of a dance challenge is one of the easiest ways to be found by TikTok users.

Events. If you’re in a highly popular event, like a music festival or a convention, take a video of yourself in the event while it’s going on.

Your talents. What unique talents do you have? Can you trap rap? Or do spoken word poetry? Or do calligraphy? Or paint? You can use TikTok to show off these talents.

Whatever’s trending. Pay attention to trending catchphrases, memes, concepts, and content on TikTok, as well as on other social media, YouTube, and Google Trends.

3. Boost your popularity on TikTok.

To be able to earn at least a few dollars of side cash on TikTok, you need to aim to have over 10,000 followers and a high engagement ratio; that is, the number of likes and comments over the number of views should be a high percentage.

Be consistent. If you need to create a schedule and an alarm to remind you, do it. Users need to consistently see quality videos on your TikTok profile.

Consistently doesn’t necessarily mean every day. If you commit to posting twice a week, for example, every Wednesday and Friday, make sure you stick to that such that your followers come to expect it.

Promote your TikTok on other channels. Link to your TikTok profile from your other channels: Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, etc. Also, if you already have a website, you can promote it there as well.

Connect with other popular TikTok users. You don’t need to pander to them, but if you network with other TikTok users who are popular, you might be able to get into duets with them and you might be able to get more exposure to their followers.

Engage with your followers. Reply to comments on your videos, and at the same time, like and comment on your followers’ videos. Showing that you’re interested in your followers as more than just spectators makes them more loyal to you.

Be positive. Steer away from negative or controversial content. You’ll hear that “bad publicity is still publicity,” but given the current climate, users don’t want to see negative content on a platform where they expect to be entertained.

How To Make Money On TikTok

The main ways you can earn money on TikTok are dependent on your popularity on the platform, and this is why you need to have an extensive follower count first before you even think of monetizing.

Here are a few ways you can make money on TikTok.

1. Earn TikTok Diamonds

Even though getting TikTok Diamonds isn’t very lucrative, this is probably the easiest way to earn some cash from your followers.

How TikTok’s virtual items work is a bit complicated, so I’ll try to break it down.

TikTok users can buy TikTok Coins with their actual money. Then, TikTok users can send TikTok Gifts (equivalent to a certain number of TikTok Coins) to other TikTok users on a live broadcast.

When you’re on a live broadcast and your followers send you Gifts, these Gifts become TikTok Diamonds that show up on your profile. The number of Diamonds you have is an indicator to other TikTok users of how popular you are.

When you make enough diamonds, you can collect the cash via PayPal or another credible payment service. The minimum withdrawal amount is $50 and the maximum amount you can withdraw is $1,000 per day.

To be clear, only TikTok Coins can be used to send Gifts, only Gifts can be converted to Diamonds, and only Diamonds can be converted to cash.

The cash value of Coins, the Coin value of Gifts, the Gift value of Diamonds, and the Diamond value of cash are all at the sole determination of TikTok and may change from time to time.

2. Get paid to create by TikTok

Aside from your fans, it’s now possible to get paid to create by TikTok itself.

The newly released TikTok Creator Fund aims to support and reward creators for their creativity and enthusiasm.

The funds per creator depend on factors such as video views, engagement, and whether you adhere to Community Guidelines and TikTok’s Terms of Service.

If you meet the eligibility requirements, you can apply to participate through the TikTok app.

3. Become a TikTok influencer

If you’re popular enough on TikTok, and if your followers are part of a certain target market, interested brands can work with you and pay you for directly or indirectly advertising their products or services through sponsored videos.

Indirect advertising or product placement is more subtle and feels like an organic part of your videos.

Nike brand ambassador

On the other hand, brands can ask you to be a brand ambassador, wherein you actively talk about the product or service and recommend it to your followers.

The good thing is that you usually don’t have to change your personal style of creating content. In fact, it’s discouraged because then you alienate the very followers you and the brand you’re working with are trying to reach.

Recently, TikTok created a Creator Marketplace where brands can connect with creators who are likely to reach their target audience.

If you’re eligible, it’s worth joining for the sponsorship opportunities and the additional chances to make money on TikTok.

Once you’re part of the Creator Marketplace, brands can then send you invitations to collaborate.

If you do participate, remember to toggle the “Sponsored Video” status so that brands can get data about the video, including its reach and impact.

4. Advertise your music

If you’re an aspiring music artist, songwriter, singer, or musician, TikTok is a great way to start putting your talents out there and getting a few (or plenty) of fans.

First off, find a distributor that works with the popular streaming platforms, as well as TikTok. Not only can you use your own music as a soundtrack for your own content but other users can also use it for theirs.

As your music gets used by other users, you earn royalties from it (obviously you won’t earn from your own TikTok content).

5. Sell your merchandise

Traditionally, only rockstars and pop musicians had their own merchandise. T-shirts, caps, bags, and other apparel are the most popular ones that are sold with the artists’ likeness or logos.

Now, social media celebrities produce and sell their own merchandise, and their most loyal followers buy them.

When you become extremely popular on TikTok, you may want to work on launching your own merch line.

Make sure you’re protected by copyright law; if you need to register your brand and trademark, do it.

Then, decide what type of merch you want to sell. Do you want to start small, like with pins or stickers? Or do you want to go with apparel? Or maybe souvenirs, such as mugs, keychains, or magnets?

If you yourself are an artist or calligrapher on TikTok, you may want to sell your creations themselves, or your artwork or lettering printed on merchandise.

Once you’ve decided what you’re going to sell, partner up with a brand that you trust to produce high-quality merch.

Don’t forget to ask to see a mockup of your merchandise first before you order the first batch that you’re going to sell.

Once you have the merch in stock, you can now promote on your TikTok profile and videos the website where your followers can buy your merch, whether it’s on a third-party e-commerce website, like Facebook Marketplace, or on your own website.

6. Promote affiliate links

Whether you’re already an affiliate marketer or just starting out, promoting on your TikTok can help you increase traffic to your affiliate links.

TikTok is currently rolling out a feature that allows users to add one link on their TikTok bio so that viewers can click on the links and be directed to the page of the product or service they’re promoting.

This rollout is taking longer than expected, and this feature isn’t available for all TikTok users until now.

If this feature isn’t available for you, you’ll have to display a URL as text on your TikTok profile as well as on your videos. For your viewers to go to the link, they’ll have to type it out on their browser.

It isn’t very straightforward, but if you’re persuasive enough, you just might get it to work.

One thing you can take advantage of is that your Instagram and YouTube accounts are linked to your TikTok profile, so you can direct traffic to those social media accounts instead and do affiliate marketing that way.

The surefire way to get to add links to your TikTok bio is to switch to a TikTok Pro: Business account. You’ll lose a lot of songs that can’t be used for commercial purposes, though.

If you have plenty of affiliate links, the smart way to go about this is to look for “link in bio” tools that can display a landing page for a list of links displayed attractively.

For more information about how to start affiliate marketing, read this article.

Start Making Money On TikTok Today!

TikTok is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms in the world that provides an alternative way for users to express their creativity.

It has great potential to be as popular as other video-sharing apps like Instagram and YouTube, as long as the platform continues innovating and growing its user base.

Thus, the potential for earning money from TikTok is also great for you.

Make no mistake, however. There’s no shortcut to making money on TikTok. It requires hard work, creativity, creating value, and a little bit of luck.

Other Ways To Earn From Social Media

Are you currently a TikTok user? What do you think about using it to earn some cash? Tell us in the comments!

Selling Crafts Online: A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Started

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If you’ve started a crafting hobby and wondering whether you can make extra cash from it or maybe even turn it into a full-time business, look no further. Today, I’ll detail all you need to know about selling crafts online.

I’ll answer commonly asked questions, discuss what you need to get started, the best places to sell your crafts online, and other tips and advice to increase your chances of success.

Selling Crafts: Most Common Questions

First, let me cover the most common questions that crafters ask when starting out.

What craft should I sell?

If you already have a craft that you enjoy doing and are good at, then great!

But if you’re doing a few crafts and you’re not sure which one to start with, check out what’s popular on Amazon Handmade right now for some ideas to start.

I also recommend reading our breakdown of the Etsy best sellers. You’ll get a good idea of what some of the more popular craft items are and how much they sell for.

After all, you want to be sure you have an audience first.

Where is the best place to sell crafts online?

Etsy is arguably still the biggest and best platform online.

This e-commerce site has been running their ship for years and have the means to help new sellers easily get set up and selling their crafts.

The other bonus is that it’s one of the most well-known places to buy crafts so there’s a steady stream of customers flocking to the site.

I have a detailed guide on how to get started with Etsy if you’re interested.

Etsy isn’t the start and end of selling crafts online, however. There are other ways and stores available online that will help you sell your handmade items. I list the various ways and sites for you later in this article.

Do I need a business license to sell crafts online?

This depends heavily on where you’re located. In general, you do need a business license whether you sell online or from a brick-and-mortar business. So it’s best, in this case, to consult your local laws and/or an accountant.

Some regions won’t require a business license if you sell to customers that are located outside of the country. But many countries or states (if you’re in the US) require that you collect sales tax from the items you sell, which means you will have to register your business.

Some sellers on stores like Etsy change their business names on the platform to be more unique. Nothing wrong with that, but you may need to register a Doing Business As (DBA) even if you’re not required to get a business license.

How do I start an online craft business?

Starting an online craft business can be as simple or complicated as you want to make it. The easiest way is to set up your own store on an already popular e-commerce website. But you can also take the easier (though sometimes more rewarding) route of setting up your own e-commerce website.

Another way to start an online craft business is to simply use social media.

You can start building a community around your crafts business through your chosen channel and sell your products directly to them.

How to Sell Your Crafts Online

1. Find Your Niche.

When you know which craft you’re going to focus on, you’ll want to figure out what your niche is; that is, what exactly you’re going to make.

For instance, if you knit or crochet, would you want to focus on making baby clothes, such as bonnets and mittens? Or would you want to focus on sweaters and shawls for women?

Focusing on a niche makes it easier for you to hone your skills, define your target audience, create a marketing plan, and build your reputation as the go-to crafter for that particular product.

2. Know How To Price Your Products.

An important aspect of selling your crafts online is knowing how to ask for a fair price for your products.

It’s also the aspect that first-time sellers often get wrong.

You don’t want to price your products too low. Customers are suspicious of too-low prices and may think that your products are low-quality or you used subpar materials.

Plus, it’s difficult to offer discounts if your prices are too low to begin with.

More importantly, pricing your crafts too low undervalues the time, materials, knowledge, and skill that you put into your craft.

Obviously, you don’t want to price your crafts too high either; when presented with the same product, comparable quality, but different prices, customers will go lower. It’s that simple.

You need to hit that sweet spot where your products get sold and you earn a profit from it.

Always factor in everything, as in everything that goes into making your product: the cost of raw materials, packaging, shipping, seller’s fees, maintaining your online presence; the complexity of the design and expertise involved; the time it takes to make the product.

Once you have a baseline for your costs, add around 50% to 75% to it. Do your research on Etsy and other similar websites as well so you can find out the usual price range for your product and tweak your own pricing accordingly.

3. Establish Your Branding.

Building a strong brand identity from the start will help you connect to your target audience and will help you effectively sell your crafts online.

Having a strong brand involves a catchy brand name and an eye-catching logo, but it’s so much more than that.

It’s understanding who you are, what your story is, what makes your crafts unique, and then applying those core values in everything you do: your shop name and logo, product photos, product description, social media posts, blog posts, even your packaging.

Being consistent helps your customers remember your brand and builds customer loyalty.

4. Choose An E-Commerce Platform

First-time crafts sellers love e-commerce stores because setup is easy, there are little to no start-up costs, and there are plenty of prospective buyers already browsing these sites.

Here are the top e-commerce stores where you can start selling your crafts online right now:

Etsy

Etsy is the number one choice from beginners to experienced crafts sellers, and for good reason.

They already have a solid reputation as the go-to website for everything handmade, custom-made, one-of-a-kind, and vintage items.

Getting started is easy and the customer base is built-in, but there’s also a wide seller base, which means plenty of competition. Plus, there are transaction fees, listing fees, and fees to upgrade to Etsy Plus to allow more personalization on your shop page.

Amazon Handmade

Amazon is one of the largest brands in the world and attracts millions of visitors each month.

They’ve set up a special category for selling handmade items and it’s free to list however many items you want. However, your application has to be approved first and Amazon takes 12% of every sale.

You’ll also have to pay $39.99 per month to retain your membership.

ArtFire

This site focuses on hand-made items and craft supplies.

They also offer buyers the option to post “wanted” items if they want to have something specific made. ArtFire has a few pricing plan options.

There’s generally a per-item listing fee with a limit to how many items you can list, a monthly subscription fee, and they take a percentage of the final cut.

Folksy

Unlike the other stores on this list, Folksy caters specifically to crafters from the UK.

It’s a great opportunity for British crafters to get their handmade items out there with a bit less competition from the rest of the world.

Folksy has a Basic subscription that charges a listing fee per item and takes 6% of sales. The Plus subscription that doesn’t charge per listing but charges £5 monthly and also takes the 6% cut.

Handmade Artists’ Shop

As the name implies, this is a home for artists who produce handmade items.

Items have to be handmade or altered significantly from existing products and family-friendly. They charge a flat monthly fee of $5 (or $50 annually); no listing fees or transaction fees.

Since this site doesn’t have as many sellers as Etsy, there’s less competition and thus less effort to show your goods to potential buyers.

However, the website design isn’t as polished as Etsy’s, which can possibly be a turn-off for some buyers.

Facebook Marketplace

Selling crafts locally has never been easier, thanks to Facebook Marketplace.

At first glance, the goods look random, but there is an Arts and Crafts category to place your products under.

Because you’re selling locally, you might be able to do away with shipping costs, or at least get it cheaper. In addition, because Facebook Marketplace is linked to your customer’s Facebook accounts, you get additional customer insights and target them for social media promotions.

However, if your aim is to go national or even global, you should be selling on more e-commerce sites than just Facebook Marketplace.

Zibbet

Zibbet is unique in that not only does it have its own marketplace but you can also integrate it with other ecommerce platforms, particularly Etsy and Facebook, and manage your listings, inventory, and orders for all three marketplaces in one place.

They charge a monthly fee of $5 per sales channel. No listing fees, no percentage. If you only sell on Zibbet Marketplace, then you only get charged $5. However, if you sell on Etsy, you still get charged the Etsy fees on top of the monthly fee of $5 to Zibbet.

5. Create Your Own Website and Open Your Own Online Craft Store

Working with popular e-commerce stores is an easy way to get started with selling your crafts online.

But having to abide by their rules and paying them a monthly fee can be chafing.

At some point, you will need to move off of the major platforms and transition into your own online store.

Creating your own web-based business isn’t as hard as you might think, though.

There are plenty of tools, advice, and tutorials out there that will help you set up your online crafts store even if you’re a complete rookie who hasn’t heard of the term HTML before. Shopify is one great option here, and there’s also IndieMade.

Google for Retail can be a great help in this regard too.

They provide you with the tools that are necessary to help get your business off the ground and keep track of how it grows. Many people who want to sell their crafts online look to Google tools like Adsense, Google Analytics, Google Shopping, and Google Checkout to help them with running the more technical aspects of an online business.

One essential cog in the machine of a successful e-commerce store is a great blog.

Blogging has many benefits, but two of the main ones are helping your customers (which helps you and your reputation) and getting your page ranked higher in search results pages.

6. Run a Successful Facebook Page

It’s entirely possible to run a crafts business entirely from a Facebook page.

A website will add legitimacy to your business, but it isn’t necessary if you build up trust with your page followers. This method is especially forgiving for those who sell as a local business, as people are more likely to trust that they’ll get what they order from you.

Like Google, Facebook has a lot of tools that business owners can use to reach their audience and analyze their growth through their Facebook for Business Program.

Opening up a business page on Facebook also grants you access to the various features they provide, like live-chat, reviews, the ad center, publishing tools, and ways for customers to get to know you.

One of the best things about creating a crafts business page on Facebook is that it’s completely free to set up and you have a platform that billions of people already use.

Plus their advertising system lets you reach people in their whole audience network, including Instagram and various Google Play apps.

7. Utilize the Power of YouTube

This might not seem like a legitimate way to start selling crafts online but YouTube has many faces and crafts is definitely one of them.

All types of crafters have uploaded thousands of hours of videos around crafting and their crafting businesses. The key here is to make entertaining videos, strategically reference your craft business, and tell your viewers all the ways they can buy your products.

You’ll still need an online storefront where they’ll be able to order the crafts you create.

But the advantage here is that you don’t necessarily have to rely as much on getting traffic to your website from other means. Freeing you up to focus on creating the best and most unique videos and crafts you can.

Of course, utilizing both YouTube and Facebook in addition to an optimized web page is a surefire way to set yourself up for success. The more avenues you can use to reach potential customers and get your amazing crafts out there, the better.

Tips to Successfully Selling Crafts Online

Let’s face it: it’s pretty intimidating to start selling your crafts. But you’re not the first one to do it, and we have the benefit of wisdom from those who have come before you.

Here are some tips and advice we can learn from more experienced crafts sellers.

Don’t overlook the small details.

You may be too in deep with your online crafts business that you forget to restock your raw materials, order more custom packaging, or get shipping supplies.

Monitor your supplies and schedule your supply runs regularly. I know this sounds more work on top of making the crafts and maintaining your online shops, but trust me, you’ll wish you’d have done it when you’re frantically rummaging in drawers for packing tape or looking where to buy yarn at 3 in the morning.

Learn how to do product photography.

Product photos are the first and only impression potential buyers would have of your products. They can’t touch, feel, or smell the products, so they’ll rely on the photos to see all the details and estimate their sizes.

You can actually put together a mini-studio for cheap; you can even create a photo lightbox out of nothing more than bond paper and tape.

It’s the actual training and practice that you’ll have to invest in, especially learning a particular style and aesthetic that fits your brand identity.

You want a consistent look and feel for all your product photos, even if you’re showcasing different products.

Trust in yourself and your work, but be open to feedback and change.

It takes a lot of time, dedication, and patience to sell crafts, and if you second-guess your talent and skills, as well as how great your product is, you’ll probably just give up.

Put your passion into making crafts that you love and know that other people will love, too.

On the other hand, if you’ve been at it for months and even years and you’re still not going anywhere, you may have to change something.

Listen to your buyers when they tell you what they liked and what they didn’t like and use that to improve your products or maybe even focus on other products instead.

Start Selling Your Crafts Online Today!

There’s a lot of information here, which might seem overwhelming. But the great thing is that you aren’t limited to just one choice.

If you decide to sell on Etsy and other stores in addition to running your own e-commerce website then you’re fully free to do so. In the end, making the most out of each platform that is available to you is what will spell success for your crafts business.

The other great part about this is that you aren’t reinventing the wheel. Plenty of other sellers have had success with their own sites and online stores like Etsy, and you can learn from them.

Are you currently into arts and crafts? Are you considering selling your creations? Share your plans with us in the comments!

6 Legit Ways to Get Paid to Advertise

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Companies are increasingly turning to individuals to advertise their products and services. So even if you don’t have a marketing degree and hold a full-time job, you can get paid to advertise for companies.

Traditionally, large companies promoted themselves on TV, in billboards, magazines, newspapers, and other media.

But now that everything is digital, advertising has also moved to digital platforms like websites and social media.

And with the rise of influencer culture, companies have found a way to maximize the ROI on their advertising budget by working with individuals instead of working solely with marketing companies.

This, in turn, opened up opportunities for individuals to make money on the side by advertising for companies that fits their needs, skills, and their schedule.

Here are some legit ways you can start getting paid to advertise for companies.

6 Ways to Get Paid to Advertise for Companies

How much money you make by following the methods outlined below will depend on the option you choose and how much effort you put in.

Some options require little effort but don’t yield a lot of income while others might offer a steady enough salary for you to quit your full-time job. You can, of course, make money through advertising by doing any or all of these at the same time.

1. Create Your Own Blog

Creating a blog on your own website can be a great way to make money through advertising. Practically anyone can do it provided they find the right niche and work hard to increase their audience.

All you need to start your own blog is a computer and a web page to share your ideas on. It’s recommended to set up your own website so you’ll have more control over the topics you can write about and your advertising options. However, many beginners start with a free blog site, such as Blogger.

Before you can successfully advertise on your blog, though, you need to grow your audience first. The more followers you have, the more advertising opportunities you’ll get and the greater your earning potential.

Getting paid to advertise on your blog can be one of two ways: rent out ad space on your blog or create sponsored posts.

Ad Space

Once your blog reaches a certain number of followers, companies may pay you to display their product or service to your visitors.

This is commonly through display ads through the sidebar or the bottom of the page.

You can start with Google Adsense early on, as there is no minimum number of visitors required to join, but your earnings will be in cents at the early stages.

Sponsored Posts

Sponsored blog posts are articles mentioning a product or service of the brand, or solely about the brand itself, for which the brand pays you for the exposure.

For instance, a smartphone manufacturer can sponsor a post listing the top smartphones one should have and listing their smartphone as the top option.

Or they can send you a smartphone for you to write a product review blog post that they’ll sponsor.

Important: Always disclose sponsored blog posts. Not only does this transparency build trust with your followers but it’s also the law.

You can get started with sponsored posts by waiting for brands to reach you, reaching out to brands, or joining sponsored posts networks that connect brands to bloggers.

Here are some of the top sponsored post networks you can join.

2. Become a Social Media Influencer

This works much the same as blogging does, except you don’t necessarily have to write about what you’re advertising. Instagram and Facebook brand ambassadors get paid to take photos of themselves or the products they are promoting, while YouTubers usually get paid to either talk about or review products.

Naturally, getting paid to advertise as a social media influencer requires that you have a large following on your chosen platform.

How to make quick money:

The following three websites are all looking for influencers/ambassadors to help shape their future products:

I highly recommend signing up will all three to increase your chances of actually making money as an influencer.

There are different ways to approach affiliate marketing through social media, and I’ve set up handy guides if you’re looking to get started on any of these platforms:

3. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is an advertising model where companies pay a commission to affiliates to advertise their products and services and generate sales.

You’re given affiliate links that you promote online. Every time a link gets clicked by a reader or viewer and that click leads to a sale, you get a commission.

It is one of the most effective ways to get paid to advertise online. First, you don’t have to build up too many followers to start. Also, once it’s been established, it can turn into passive income.

This is normally found under blogging, but affiliate marketing deserves its own entry because you can actually promote affiliate links through different channels, not just blogging.

Aside from your blog posts, you can share affiliate links on your social media posts, videos, landing page, and newsletters.

To start with affiliate marketing, you can look for companies that have “Affiliate Program,” “Affiliates,” or “Partner With Us” on their websites.

Or you can join an affiliate network, which connects affiliate marketers to companies offering affiliate program opportunities.

The following are some of the best affiliate networks to join:

Important: Just like sponsored posts, disclosing affiliate links is mandated by the law. Whenever a link is used on your website that results in a commission, you must tell your site visitors.

If you want to know more, I’ve put together this practical guide on how to get started with affiliate marketing if you’re looking to be one.

Another option, if you’re a complete beginner, is the Wealthy Affiliate training program which teaches everything you need to know; I’ve also reviewed them if you want to check that out.

4. Use Legitimate Car-Wrap Advertising Companies

Car wraps are probably the most well-known way of getting paid to advertise. It’s also one of the best ways to get scammed.

There are plenty of examples out there of people getting scammed in this way. But is it possible to actually make money by getting a car wrap?

The short answer: Yes, it is possible if you drive around a lot in big cities.

Legitimate car wrap advertising companies like Carvertise and Wrapify do exist but getting a gig with them is conditional.

Both have different requirements, but in general, they will require that you own a newer car, that it isn’t damaged, and that you have a clean driving record.

They will also require that you drive a certain amount of hours or distance every week during the campaign.

If you don’t fancy putting a huge sticker on the outside of your car, then you can opt for getting paid to show ads inside your car from companies like Vugo.

They only target drivers for ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft, however.

5. Skinvertising

Not every money-making opportunity involving your body has to be illegal.

Skinvertising involves having an advertisement tattooed on your body, whether permanently or temporarily.

There used to be a site called Lease Your Body that was a marketplace for companies and willing participants for tattoos.

Of course, you’ll need to be aware of the risks of tattoos before you go this route, but if this isn’t your first time and you’re still willing to do this, there are ways to make it happen.

You can auction off parts of your body as advertising space on eBay. Or you can reach out to brands directly and offer to do it.

6. Wear T-Shirts With Ads

T-shirts emblazoned with a company website or name and logo can be distributed by companies and they can pay individuals to walk around for a number of hours in high-traffic places to advertise their brand.

While this is a legitimate way to get paid for advertising, the opportunities are few and far between. Right now, influencers and celebrities get paid to wear branded clothing and post them on their social media to promote them.

But if you don’t mind going the extra mile, you can certainly reach out to companies to offer to wear clothes with their brand in exchange for a fee.

Jason Zook famously made a million dollars doing this way back in 2009, so there might still be a market for this.

Beware of Shady Companies and Scams

The methods I mention here are tried and trusted but always make sure to be on the lookout for scams. Tapping into the world of advertising can be a lucrative deal but its sheer size means there are plenty of ways to get scammed.

Always approach an opportunity with a bit of skepticism.

Here’s why:

You don’t want to waste your time or get roped into some scheme that will end up seeing either your money or identity stolen. Criminals are wily and they will take any opportunity to fool you out of your money or personal information.

A general rule of thumb is to use a separate email address (and password!) for your side-hustling ventures and to never click on any links sent to you if you can enter the web address yourself.

Also, and this goes almost without saying, you will never be required to pay for the chance to work with a legitimate company.

They should only be paying you.

I’ve outlined a number of red flags to pay attention to in my recent post on how to make money posting ads. All of them apply here as well.

The Bottom Line

By now I’ve researched plenty of ways to earn a living through various side hustles.

Some require a lot of effort and skill, while others have much fewer and simpler requirements, and I still find new ways to make money.

Often, the only real requirement to getting a side-gig is that you have a go-getter attitude.

Getting paid to advertise is pretty flexible and doesn’t fit into any one category, but it is one of the best ways to make a passive income, and you can put in as much or as little effort as you want.

Ready to get paid to advertise? Which one of these methods are you interested in? Share your thoughts with us in the comments!

Best Selling Products on Amazon: What to Sell on Amazon

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Whether you’re a new Amazon FBA seller, or a veteran store owner trying to shuffle his/her products, it’s good practice to discover and identify best selling products on Amazon weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually.

Keeping tabs on this data will boost your sales in the short-term, especially in off-peak seasons.

It will also allow you to become more aggressive with your marketing efforts.

Amazon Best Sellers

This guide tackles three things:

  • Product categories that sell best on Amazon all year-round, regardless of season, trends, or occasions
  • Tried and tested ways of finding products that would sell on Amazon
  • Important rules to follow when conducting product research

If you’re just getting started, make sure your read our guide on how to become an Amazon seller.

Current Best Sellers on Amazon

You don’t have to look too far here.

Amazon publishes what’s currently trending in their Movers & Shakers tab.

The list is updated hourly and tells you exactly what has been selling the best over the past 24 hours.

It doesn’t make sense for me to publish a full list here because by the time I hit the publish button, the list will already be outdated.

Amazon Movers and Shakers

Bookmark that page and check it often. The list has completely changed in the time it took me to write this post.

Instead of focusing on what’s current, here are a few ideas on how to find evergreen products that you can sell on Amazon year round.

Keep Tabs on Seasonal Best Sellers

Different products sell better depending on the time of year.

You may want to start a spreadsheet and see what are some of the best selling products on Amazon month-by-month. From there, you can plan for future trends and try and get ahead of the game by focusing on seasonal products right before they start to pull a lot of interest.

Get ahead of the game.

How To Build a Successful Amazon Business?

I’m hosting a totally free webinar that will teach you how to start an Amazon business from scratch and make 5-7 figures per year selling simple high profit, low competition items.

In it, you’ll learn the best way to create a global Amazon empire by selling just a few items at a time.

You’ll also get a unique strategy for finding incredible, high profit, low-competition ‘hidden gem’ products.

=> Reserve your seat right now. It’s free to join!

10 Best Selling Products on Amazon Year-Round

The following product categories sell regularly in the thousands because even if they don’t fall under basic needs (food, water, shelter, clothing, etc.) that are vital for survival, these products have made the lives of people easier or happier.

These categories are immune to the seasonal trends I mentioned above.

1. Baby Gear

Baby clothes, toys, feeding tools, educational items, and other adorable infant-related products aren’t on top of the best selling products on Amazon, but their demand knows no season.

It’s ideal to target parents with first-borns, since they tend to spend more money for their first son or daughter.

2. Pet Supplies

The demand for this product category aren’t surprising at all because pets are family and many “fur parents” consider their pets as their babies.

Kitten in a Bowl

Pet care supplies like grooming tools and shampoo fall under basic needs and will continuously be needed throughout the year.

3. Beauty Products

Many best selling products on Amazon in the healthcare category involve items that help people improve their hair, nails, teeth, and skin.

This niche is huge, which is why it’s best to focus on a specific group of products.

For example: Korean face masks, cucumber skin care products, and so on.

4. Jewelry & Watches

You have two very extreme choices when it comes to selling jewelry or watches on Amazon – either you sell legitimate, expensive and branded ones or go for the cheapest (yet cool-looking) ones you could find.

It depends entirely on your store and vision, but these items are safe bets since people’s go-to gift for loved ones are either watches or jewelry.

5. Kitchenware

Think of the things you use regularly in your own kitchen – rugs, can openers, mugs, knives, food storage, and so on.

Kitchen Utensils

You’d be surprised that these same items are best selling products on Amazon kitchen category simply because other people use them as often as you.

6. Workout Clothes & Underwear

Those who have chosen clothing as their main niche should break down their products to sub-niches like athletic wear, kid’s formal clothing, etc.

But if you want to go for the top-selling products, sell underwear and workout clothes because they’re in-demand all year-round and can be bought cheap and sold at a higher price.

7. Electronic Accessories

Gadgets will forever be a part of modern civilization, so the development of TV, gaming, and phones will continue even beyond 2019. 

The reason why accessories for electronics are one of the best selling products on Amazon is that they come cheap and often serve to extend the lives or improve the quality of smartphones, tablets, TVs, gaming consoles, and other expensive electronics.

8. Books

Even when it sells digital ebooks on the marketplace, Amazon continues to sell traditional books today for a reason: people still buy books religiously.

You can sell used or new books on Amazon.

9. Outdoor Home Goods

Outdoor home items may seem unnecessary in the grand scheme of things, but you’ll think otherwise once you need to replace your rugs, umbrellas, hammock, bins/trash cans, pool floats, and more.

Tour your garage and backyard for items you know would sell on Amazon continuously.

Your product research may just be as near as your own backyard.

10. What’s Tending in Pop Culture

When it comes to product research, pop culture is probably the hardest to category to crack (unless of course you’re deep into all the fandoms available).

Best selling products on Amazon

This niche has a ton of competition, but if you sell products with your own twist to pop culture references (such as popular movie lines etched into a wooden frame), you’d be surprised at how many customers can and do eat this up.

If you’re into “meme culture” and regularly track what’s trending online, you can seriously catch fire here.

There is a bit of a gamble as not every meme will take off, and they will never last as a long-term business strategy, but if you get the right combination of interest and product, you can make A LOT of money very quickly.

Remember silly bands? Fidget spinners? Slap bracelets? (How badly am I dating myself right now?) These things took off unexpectedly and anyone who was on board that train before it left the station definitely came out ahead.

Never latch onto a dying trend either. If everyone is already talking about it, you’re much too late.

3 Ways You Can Find Best Selling Products on Amazon

Now that you know some of the best selling product categories on Amazon, it’s time to get into the nitty gritty details and decide on specific items.

There are several ways to do this:

1. Let Amazon Guide You

Amazon didn’t become the #1 online store with pure luck.

It really has a strong system in place.

If you look closely as you browse Amazon, there will be plenty of upselling opportunities sent your way.

These include the showcase of recommended products under a product description and an entire section of “bestsellers” for that specific category you’re currently in.

Don’t fight these suggestions – instead, let the algorithm guide you to the best selling products on Amazon.

2. Use Tested Sellable Factors

The list above features in-demand product categories, but this sellable factor shouldn’t be the only deciding factor you use.

You’ll also have to consider a product’s wholesale price and shipping cost, as well as Amazon’s seller fees, competition, and other criteria that makes a particular item “sellable.”

When deciding on products to sell on Amazon, consider these key factors:

  • Choose very specific niche products
  • Find items that you could sell for $10 to $50. Make sure you can sell it for twice as much as your buying price.
  • The cost must be 25 to 35 percent of your target selling price
  • The item should be small and lightweight enough to be easily picked up. 2 to 3 lbs is ideal.
  • Everyday-use items (check the list above)
  • If possible, opt for quality when trying beat the competition

3. Spy on Your Competition

When conducting product research, you should check out your competition to gauge their worth, copy their strengths and avoid their mistakes.

  • Avoid products sold by major brands or veteran Amazon sellers
  • Choose similar items that have Amazon’s Best-Seller Rank (BSR) of 5000 or lower
  • Amazon Sponsored Products is an advertising option for sellers. If the items you’re eyeing are being sold by another seller that invests in Amazon Sponsored Products, steer clear and let your competition have it.

Make these 3 methods a part of your product research and you’ll never have to rely on guesswork or bets ever again.

Dos and Don’ts: How to Find Products to Sell on Amazon the Right Way

Creativity and research are equally important in deciding what best selling products on Amazon you’d include in your store.

While the options seem far-reaching and limitless, there are still a couple of rules that all Amazon sellers should follow:

1. Sellable criteria are greater than average sales

Don’t be fooled by the demand of a particular product.

What seems to be a hot-selling product may not produce the best ROI once you’ve considered competition, shipping costs, product weight, seasonality and other factors.

2. Double-check requirements for your chosen product category

Every category on Amazon has its own requirements, but if the item you chose falls under a category that Amazon deems off-limits to regular sellers, you’d have to learn the requirements and follow them to the T before you are let into the categories.

These “gated” or off-limits categories include collectibles, high-liability, high-maintenance, or high-quality/expensive.

3. Track your products continuously after launch

Don’t just choose one product at a time.

If possible, sell multiple products to maximize your sales.

However, not only will you need to invest more money with more products to launch, you’d also have to track their progress continuously.

This way, you can pull them out if they turned out into non-sellable items, or if competition suddenly overpowered your product discovery by offering the same thing.

4. Become a master of ROI and margins

As an Amazon seller, estimating return on investment should be a natural thing by now.

Never ever just focus on sales. Instead, figure out how to earn back your initial investment as quickly as possible and possibly following the “3 times rule” or 3 x rule (sell an item triple the amount of what you paid for them).

The “investment” I’m talking about here isn’t exclusive to the money you pay for buying your chosen product.

Consider your training, advertising, and other expenses when trying to reach a healthy Amazon profit margin.

5. Product research should go hand-in-hand with a solid marketing plan

Once you’ve decided on the products to sell on Amazon, it’s time to brainstorm yet again but this time for a solid marketing plan.

Adding new products or launching new ones into your store without a strategy on hand is foolish, even if you think you’ve discovered the best selling products on Amazon.

This is particularly true if you plan to implement Amazon PPC and realize only after that you’ve made a costly mistake.

Increase Your Revenue by Tracking the Amazon Best Sellers

This comprehensive guide in choosing the best selling products on Amazon can be relevant even beyond 2019.

A tweak in sub-niches here and there, creatively expanding popular categories, or targeting a specific crowd all helps, as long as you follow the guidelines above.

If you want to read more about product research and learn how to get a piece of the pie from best selling products on Amazon, check out my post on the top 20 products you can buy cheap and sell high.

How To Make Money Doing Everyday Things

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How To Make Money Doing Everyday Things In 202

What if I told you that you can make money doing everyday things?

We can always use some extra money, whether it’s to buy the newest gadget, save for a rainy day, or invest in a fund to get even more money.

You might think that to get extra money, you’ll have to do an extra job.

But what if I told you that you can squeeze some dollars from your ordinary, daily tasks?

And you wouldn’t have to make drastic changes in your lifestyle?

Well, it’s true!

In fact, here are 16 ways to make money doing everyday things.

16 Ways To Make Money Doing Everyday Things

Here are some everyday things that you can make money from without exerting much effort or changing up too much of your routine.

1. Listen to music online.

Yup, just plug in your headphones, listen to some music, and get paid!

You can either download an app from a market research company and listen to your usual music. The app will let them know what type of music you normally listen to.

Or you can listen to internet radio with ads and get a portion of the ad revenue.

Here are a few ways you can get paid to listen to music.

2. Do simple online tasks.

Swagbucks is mainly known for its surveys, but it offers points for doing so many other everyday tasks.

The easiest way is to switch your default search engine to Swagbucks instead of Google. This way, you can start racking up points for surfing the web as you would normally do.

It’s simple to start, too: create your free account, claim your signup bonus, choose a task, and start earning points. At a certain point threshold, you can exchange these points for cash or gift cards.

3. Take photos on your phone.

Phone taking pictures of food

If you love taking pictures on your mobile phone and can find ways to make even the most mundane moments look interesting, you might find the Foap app interesting to use.

The Foap app (available in the App Store and in Google Play Store) provides a platform for amateur photographers to upload their photos and videos, where companies, advertisers, and website owners can then buy these photos for royalty-free use.

If you sell a photo on the app, you get 50% of whatever the buyer pays, which can be anywhere from $2 to $60, and even $80 for photos that get transferred to Getty Images.

Read more about how you can get paid to take pictures with your phone using Foap.

4. Go shopping.

Market research companies want to know what people are buying and what people want, and that’s why there are plenty of cashback apps around that you can sign up for.

These companies are willing to pay you in exchange for your shopping information.

An example of an app that gives you cash for your purchases is Ibotta. Not only does it look for coupons and discounts for you but also, it will give you cashback when you take a picture of your receipt.

Remember to only enroll in cashback programs and apps that include stores that you really buy from. It defeats the purpose if you have to go out of your way to shop at stores you don’t normally shop at.

5. Unlock your Android phone.

How many times do you unlock your phone and see if there are any notifications?

Just made you look, didn’t I?

Why not earn some change from unlocking your phone?

Download the S’more app on your phone and earn points from looking at relevant ads and content on your lockscreen. Exchange points for gift cards from major retailers.

6. Drive.

Have to drive to town every day to get to work, or occasionally to run an errand? Are you planning to go on a road trip soon?

Why not drop off a package while you’re at it and earn some cash?

Sign up as a driver with Roadie and get matched with gigs that are going on the same route as you are and earn discounts and cash for your trouble.

Since you’re only driving packages, not people, you don’t need to give up an inch of your personal space and privacy.

Plus, you get to choose which jobs to take; you can make money every day of the week, or choose a few days a week to drive and deliver packages.

If this interests you, check out how you can get paid to deliver cars as well.

7. Watch or stream on your phone or smart TV.

Netflix and chill?

How about Netflix and earn?

Download the TV-TWO app on your phone and smart TV (Samsung or LG), watch your usual videos, shows, and movies, and earn cryptocurrency for every second you watch.

8. Walk your dog.

Get paid to walk dogs

If you have a dog and you’re going on a walk, why not find other dogs in your area that need to be walked?

You can simply promote your service to your neighbors, or sign up on an app like Rover as a dog walker.

9. Exercise.

Everyone wants to be a little bit (or a lot) healthier this coming year.

If you’re trying to build that habit of exercising daily, you might as well get paid to lose weight.

Apps like DietBet and stickK allow you to set goals, bet a certain amount of money that you’ll achieve those goals, and then win money for achieving those goals.

The catch is that if you don’t achieve those goals, you’ll lose the money that you bet. That’s the motivation for you to achieve those goals.

Or, if the thought of possibly losing money doesn’t motivate you, sign up for Achievement instead. You don’t risk any money; this app rewards you with points for doing healthy things for yourself.

The great thing is that exercising is not the only behavior it rewards.

You get points for keeping a food diary, meditating, and answering health-related surveys that give you some insight into your own health.

These points can be exchanged for cash or donated to charity.

10. Play video games.

If you love playing video games and are good at it, why not squeeze a few dollars from it?

Sign up for an account on Twitch and start streaming yourself playing your games.

To earn a few dollars, add a donation button (at least at first), collect subscribers, and earn ad revenue as you continue playing.

11. Hang out in other people’s houses.

Being a house sitter allows you to make money from what you normally do every day, just in another person’s house.

Of course, you’d probably have to do activities out of your normal routine, such as basic housekeeping (i.e., don’t be a pig), pet sitting, watering plants, getting the mail, and other menial tasks.

Applying as a house sitter will take some time and effort, but once you’re hired and staying in the house you’re taking care of, it doesn’t demand much from you.

12. Download an app.

You download apps for many other reasons.

How about downloading an app that pays you $50 just to download their app?

The Nielsen Computer & Mobile Panel only asks that you install their apps so they can collect your (non-personally identifiable) internet usage data.

In return, they’ll give you $50 if you keep the app installed for a year. You’ll also get entered into their sweepstakes, where it’s possible to win $10,000 a month.

Who knew downloading an app and using the internet as you normally do can be possibly this lucrative?

13. Read.

For someone who likes books and loves getting to read books by new authors, getting paid to read books sounds ideal.

Apply to be a reviewer on a per-book basis on sites such as Online Book Club and Writerful Books to not only get free books but also to get paid $5 to $60 per review.

14. Recycle.

Helping save the environment is good.

Getting paid to do it? Even better!

Take a look at what you consume and discard every day: glass bottles, aluminum cans, cardboard boxes from your online purchases (not judging!), egg cartons, toilet paper rolls, and many more.

From now on, think twice before you throw away this stuff. Here are some ways you can get paid to recycle.

15. Be a friend.

People are increasingly becoming isolated, and meeting new people and making friends has been difficult. The recent pandemic certainly didn’t help.

Websites such as RentAFriend make it easier for lonely souls to find people to spend time with or even just to talk to once in a while. Sign up to be a friend and get paid for your time while getting to meet new people and experience new things.

If real-world interactions aren’t your thing, or you’re concerned about your safety, you might feel more comfortable signing up to sites such as RentaCyberFriend where the interactions are all virtual.

Keep in mind that these aren’t escort sites, adult sites, or dating sites. The interactions here are strictly platonic.

16. Sleep.

Of all the everyday activities you can be paid for, this may be the most unexpected.

Paid sleep studies help researchers study sleep-related problems and disorders so that treatments could be developed for them.

Look for ongoing sleep studies in ClinicalTrials.gov, a database of paid clinical studies currently being done.

Most of them require that you’re onsite for the whole duration of the study, but some studies allow you to stay out and then go back to the facility to sleep.

The Bottom Line

Of course, in terms of earning a steady income, nothing will ever beat getting a great online job or starting your own online business.

But it’s nice to know that one can make money from doing everyday things and that you can earn extra cash without stressing out too much.

Have you ever tried to make money from everyday stuff? Which one of these ways I enumerated above sounds most interesting? Sound off in the comments!

Drone Pilot Jobs: How to Make Money Flying Drones

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From military to recreational to commercial use, drones have plenty of applications. Thus, drone pilot jobs are increasingly becoming in demand.

Before 2006, the use of drones or UAVs (for unmanned aerial vehicles) was mainly for military applications, such as surveillance, decoy, and weapon.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued its first commercial drone permit, and both the government and private companies used drone technology for various applications.

Later on, personal and recreational drones became big, as cheaper versions of drones without the sophisticated software and sensors required by commercial drones became available for amateurs.

Today, both consumer and commercial drones are increasingly used for several applications in multiple industries.

Along with that increase in demand is a growing need for pilots to operate them. Just because they’re unmanned doesn’t mean they don’t need humans to operate them (unless they’re automated drones, but that’s for another article).

In this article, I’ll discuss how to be a drone pilot and what drone pilot jobs are out there.

How to Become a Professional Drone Pilot

Flying a drone requires very specific skills, training, and certification, which all costs money. If you’re determined to succeed, though, your earnings should exceed your investment.

Education

Even if you know how to fly a drone recreationally, it’s still wise to take drone courses, especially if you find courses that are specific to the industry that you’re interested in working.

Some of the schools or learning institutions can even assist you with getting your FAA certification.

A simple Google search will pull up many results, but here are some of the recommended ones:

Equipment

Freelancers must provide their own drones for their services. This is not a simple purchase; a quality commercial drone can cost at least $2,000. If you’re looking for a trusted brand, there’s nothing better than DJI, hands down.

You’ll also have to download drone apps to your smartphone as well as software on your computer.

Some drone accessories that are useful in commercial applications include an extra controller, shade, extra batteries, GPS tracker, emergency tool kit, extra data storage, and bags or backpacks to house your drone.

Certification and Registration

Around 99% of the time, drone pilot jobs require you to have a commercial drone license; that is, if you stand to profit from flying your drone, the FAA has to sign off on it.

For first-time pilots applying for what’s called a Part 107 License, you would need to be at least 16 years old, able to read, write, speak, and understand English, and physically and mentally fit to safely fly a drone.

Take the aeronautical knowledge test (“Unmanned Aircraft General – Small (UAG)”) in one of the FAA’s approved testing centers. Once you pass that, apply for a remote pilot certificate, which will be sent both digitally and physically to you.

Afterward, if you’re going to fly your own drones, you’ll need to register them with the FAA, and you need to mark the drones with the registration numbers.

For more details, read the complete information on the FAA website.

How much can a Drone Pilot make?

Full-time drone pilots can make anywhere from $58,000 to $96,000 a year.

The money you can make as a drone pilot depends on several things, including what industry you’re in, how much time you spend marketing your services, the quality of your work, your reputation, and many more.

Freelancers have more flexibility when charging clients.

If you were contracted to take drone photos, you can get paid from $70 to $250 per picture. Mapping, inspection, deliveries, or search and rescue fees are usually set on a case-to-case basis.

But this can still depend on your client.

For example, real estate agencies getting a drone shot of a million-dollar property can bank higher than other gigs. In most cases, you’ll be able to charge higher from corporate clients than from the government or from individuals.

Industries That Offer Drone Pilot Jobs

1. Filmmaking

This is probably the most familiar way that drones are used.

If you’ve ever watched a film in the last five years that starts with an aerial view of a town or scenery, that shot was probably made by a drone.

It’s a bit hard to break into the film industry if you’re not connected or if you don’t live in LA or New York, but send in your resume to production companies, both the big ones and the smaller indie ones, include a demo reel of aerial shots you’ve done, and you may just have an in.

Alternatively, you can go into amateur filmmaking, especially for events such as weddings. You’d be surprised at how many couples would like an aerial shot of the wedding venue (the church, garden, or beach) and the reception in their video.

2. Real Estate

UAVs have been providing realtors with a new perspective that hasn’t been possible before. With aerial videos, still photos, and 3D maps created from data captured by drones, potential buyers can now get a comprehensive view of the property they’re considering buying.

3. Journalism

News helicopters used to be the norm when covering news from an aerial perspective, such as traffic situations, disasters, or wide-scale attacks.

Nowadays, news organizations are using drones to lessen the human risk, the cost, and interference to the scene.

Depending on FAA regulations and what your license allows you to do, you may even be able to cover demonstrations, sports events, and events that have crowds

4. Building and Infrastructure Inspection

Drones are also great as tools for inspection of hard-to-reach areas, such as communication towers, bridges, wells, rooftops, and chimneys of everything from houses to skyscrapers, cables, remote stations and so much more.

Safety inspections, ironically, can be dangerous for the people who normally do this job, so having a drone do the inspection of structures that are on precarious heights.

5. Construction and Mining

Surveying potential and ongoing construction sites used to cost a lot, in terms of both money and time.

UAVs are now used to conduct aerial surveys over a large area to collect photographic and GPS data, which are then processed in specialized computer software to create a digital 3D map of the area.

Once this information is available, those in charge can now decide where they can or can’t start construction.

Mines and quarries do the same thing where they survey a digging site and decide where to dig and where to stockpile materials. They can also determine the volume of a stockpile from the information they gathered.

6. Insurance

Insurance companies are using drones more and more to assess insurance claims for property damage, whether it’s because of fire, weather, or water damage.

Not only does it take longer for manual inspections, but the site can also be a dangerous place to be due to structural damage and the aftermath of what caused the damage.

7. Energy

Wind farms, pipelines, and solar panels are massive and can cost a lot to inspect and troubleshoot. The trans-Alaska pipeline, for example, runs 800 miles. A single leak along those 800 miles can result in environmental damage and financial loss.

Drones with thermal cameras can go along the pipeline and detect leaks and weak spots along the pipeline much cheaper than using a helicopter.

Wind farms, on the other hand, have plenty of turbines, which can rise up hundreds of feet off the ground. Inspecting by helicopter can be impractical here, and drones can do a much better job.

8. Agriculture

You can work with farmers to improve their crop yields by flying a UAV to take photos of their crops and identify which areas need attention.

You can also set up pest-control, irrigation, and crop-planting strategies using mapping and imaging technologies in drones.

9. Search and Rescue

As far as drone pilot jobs go, this may be one of the high-stakes ones but also one of the most rewarding.

At the scenes of accidents or natural disasters, some areas may not be easily accessible by humans and makes search and rescue highly difficult.

Police and fire departments can use drones to survey an inaccessible area to locate people in need of help and divert resources much more efficiently.

While often a voluntary position, you can find search and rescue employment with the government, Red Cross, and other organizations.

10. Package Delivery

Drone delivery is being developed as the next big thing in ecommerce, but the sheer volume of orders would likely crowd residential airspaces, which is not an ideal situation.

Amazon first announced Prime Air in 2013 but hasn’t rolled it out completely.

Some of the companies currently doing this in a limited capacity include DHL, Wing, and Zipline.

Non-profit organizations, hospitals, institutions, and other private companies have been incorporating drone deliveries to clients located in areas hard to reach by vehicles.

However, handling delivery drones is a bit different, since the equipment is more heavy-duty than regular photography drones to be able to carry loads seamlessly.

11. Security

Professional security agencies have explored drones as a surveillance tool, especially in wide areas.

While drones cannot shoo trespassers on the spot, video capture can help in monitoring or documenting multiple areas at a time.

Drones are also being used in private investigations, making it safer for people in the security and surveillance industries to do their jobs. And because drones today can have thermal imaging, HD videos, and other advanced features, drones can survey an area even at a distance and still reach the intended target.

12. Law Enforcement

Drones are useful for tactical operations when stealth is needed, such as pursuing an active shooter in a wooded area or in a crowded building.

Border protection agents can also use drones to monitor a wide area of land, sea, and airspace to detect and track unauthorized vehicles, ships, aircraft, and persons.

These are high-risk operations and thus require great skills from the drone pilot.

The mapping capabilities of some drones also help in crime scene mapping, when evidence is spread over a wide area and criminologists want to study how evidence was dispersed.

You can find drone pilot jobs in both local and federal police bureaus, as well as through the US Customs and Border Protection website.

Other Places To Find Drone Pilot Jobs

There are networks and job boards that are specific to drone pilots of varying skills, experience, and expertise. Here are some of the websites you can check out.

  • DroneBase — Sign up as a pilot and get tons of opportunities to fly drone missions for clients near you.
  • Droners.IO — Network of commercial pilots, probably the world’s largest. Allows those who need drone pilots to post jobs on their website where pilots can bid on them.
  • DroneHive — To sign up to be a drone pilot with them, you need to be able to fly a DJI rotocopter with 20mp sensor. Works with many large corporations.
  • Hire UAV Pro — Connects companies to professional pilots worldwide.

Alternatively, you can go into Google or general job boards and search for “drone pilot jobs,” “UAV operator jobs,” or “UAV pilot jobs.”

The Future of Drone Pilot Jobs: Your Own Business

The drone pilot jobs you can get hired for are mostly on a freelance basis.

However, if you branch out on your own and start growing a fleet of drones, you open up more earning possibilities and maybe even hire a team of your own drone pilots to operate your drones.

You can choose from the industries I’ve listed above or you can find your own niche. Either way, the potential business opportunities are extensive. In fact, a recent report by Research Dive found that the global UAV drone market is expected to grow to around $55.65 million by 2027.

The Bottom Line

Drones do work with a sophisticated remote control, but it doesn’t mean everyone who has had video game practice can do this.

Flying drones is still a unique skill and the drones themselves aren’t cheap, so you’d have to be careful with your equipment while mastering how to fly.

Now that you know how to make money with a drone, you’d have to practice religiously and learn everything you can about the local and state laws of flying drones. Generally, the FAA is the authority of all things flying over the skies, but this agency also won’t save you if your drone flying ways break local or state laws.

Whether you’re going to do this as a freelancer or set up a business around drones, make sure you give leeway for maintenance (or replacement). Track the drone’s mileage and prepare money for emergencies (missing/damaged drones).

If you’re really interested in flying drones as a way of income, you have to understand that this isn’t an easy way to make money. You do have control over how far you want to scale this business and since the market isn’t saturated yet, there’s a chance you can break into a niche industry that nobody hasn’t thought of yet.

Do you know how to fly drones? Do any of these drone pilot jobs sound interesting to you? Tell us in the comments!