February 1, 2011
Generate Income Shopping
Choosing to start your own business is a step that many people are taking. Now that you have decided to become a business professional and a personal shopper, it is now time to learn how to make money shopping for others.
Goal setting is a major step in starting your business. How much do you want to earn? Will travel be an issue at times, and how far are you willing to go? Putting you goals down on paper and placing them somewhere that you can see every day will help to keep you motivated.
You won’t be able to start your business without a client base. Who is it that your are going to provide your service to and who needs them? Seniors are a good client base to look at. At some point age makes it difficult to get about to do shopping and friends or family members may not always be readily available to take them out to complete what they need. You can help them with this. There are also business executives. They tend to be quite busy a lot of the time and do not have the extra time to get out to complete shopping duties and hire others to do this for them. These can be your two main sources for clients, as well as the wealthy who can not be bothered to go out and shop as they have much more important duties to tend to.
When looking at the costs associated with starting your business, you won’t need much. You will require a telephone so that your clients can reach you when they need to, a vehicle and a PDA or some other form of organizing device to keep track of your orders and purchases.
Fuel and maintenance costs for your vehicle will have to be paid by yourself, as this will be one of your business expenses, but these costs will be more than covered by your profits from your service.
Advertising will be another concern. If you know who your client base is, how do you tell them about your business? Knowing how to make money shopping for others is great, but you need to have others to shop for in order to make this happen. Try advertising through online classifieds and at local retirement homes. Let friends and family know about your new business.
What will your fee be for your service? Will you be charging an hourly rate or a commission based on the sales total. This should be one of the first things decided. You may even want to charge a base fee per order placed as many clients will want you to go to more than one store for them.
Discounts are usually offered by stores via coupons or rewards cards and points. Use these to your advantage and participate int he programs if you find yourself going to that store frequently.
Your clients will be an additional form of advertising for you so be sure to provide them with quality service. They can help to spread the word about you and your business leading to many more clients.
If you need initial funding to help with your client’s shopping list, then use these balance transfer offers to get a no interest loan.
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