Every one of us likes to earn an additional income of some nature, whether it be buy having a hobby or craft and selling our goods, trading online through auction websites, offering a service like education or musical tuition, or even a second job. One avenue I find that works is the purchase and sale of video games. You buy second hand games at a price and sell them at a higher price for a profit, less the amount required for running your operation.
The reason I choose games as a market is it is absolutely huge, it's a billion dollar industry, with new game sales almost rivaling theatrical movie release gross income. All I am after is just a niche of that market. A niche is just a small slice of a larger market group.
Why just a niche?
If you have too broad a market you will spend alot of time catering to that market and may run yourself ragged. If you concentrate on a single niche, say just console games, or PC computer games or online games. You can focus better on your chosen market, your niche.
How to start?
Start by looking at your own collection, it is an obvious choice that if you play games, then you already have an interest in this type of market. Look at selling your own current collection of games, especially if you haven't used them in some time.
Where to sell your games?
These options are endless, you can sell online at auction websites like eBay, and online stores like Amazon, Craig's List and any other online store that caters to buying and selling. Local or State based trading post papers is another avenue. Some retail game stores may buy your games for cash, but nowadays they prefer a credit towards a purchase of new games. Garage sales, swap meets, markets are other areas.
Why am I selling my games?
This gives you a start to buy more games. Any game you currently own and sell is straight profit.
Where Do I Buy Other Games To Sell?
Exactly the same place you sell your games, obviously the task is to be able to buy games from one market to sell in another market, at a profit.
How Do I Know What And When To Sell?
Do some research, choose a single market like an auction site, say eBay and keep a record of a few titles that are selling. Keep a record of say 6-12 titles and note, how many sell in a week or month, how often it appears as a buy it now or auction, what start price they have, what sell price they have (if sold). Make a note as a 'what-if' scenario, to say if you bought these titles from a different source and were one of these sellers. Keeping a record of this activity will help give you a feel for how these titles are selling and will provide a guide on how well a group of titles may perform.
When you are ready, start small, just test the water with one or two titles. Don't be put off if you don't sell your items the first time, this is a common event. Retry and see what happens the next time around.
Are There Other Avenues I Can Use To Sell Games?
Other markets you can sell to are only limited by your imagination. Here are some suggestions, and you may discover your own over time.
Your Own Website -
There is an inherent cost with running a website and you usually will benefit from making your content unique. You will also need to have visitors to your website, referred to as traffic.
How do you generate traffic. Traffic generation can take a very long time.
PPC - Pay Per Click advertising on search engines, each time someone searches for key words and your advert appears on a search page, when someone clicks on your ad, you pay a fee for that click. Be very careful with this and I don't recommend it when you are starting out your website, this can become a VERY expensive way to advertise.
Article Writing - A good way to generate free traffic to your website. You write an article, it may be a game review, a guide on a game, a walk through, it can be on any information, but related to games. You submit an article, usually between 300-500 words to an article site and you get an author resource box associated with your article. In this resource box, you may place a link to your website. The more articles you write, you more exposure to get to an audience over time.
A Web Blog - A Blog is a 'Web Log' it can be used for your thoughts, articles, video's, pictures and links to other information on yours or other web sites. You can use it for just about any idea you have. Usually similar to writing articles, it's also a useful way to generate more traffic like article writing.
Social Networking - Most people today have an account with Facebook or Myspace or similar social networking site. If you already have one, setup a new site with a focus on your niche. You can select your favorite articles and link it to your article pages, show Youtube videos of up-coming games, write a blog or article, have discussions in forums. As people come across your page, they may send friend requests. Again this is another avenue of traffic generation.
What's Next?
Over time, as you discover the best means to use some of the suggestions above, you will discover other ways and means of generating traffic to your blogs, websites, articles, etc and thence an income. There is no limit to how you can market your products. You have Affiliate Marketing, direct sales, e-stores, your own trade club, even swap meets and markets. The main thing is to be able to learn as you earn. Try different avenues and seek more ways to learn about what you are doing and see what the end results is. Some things will work, some won't, others may take time to grow.
As you can see with what I have outlined, games is my preferred niche, yet you can use any niche you have a better familiarity with. Whether it be gardening, cooking, music tuition, books, movies, art work, teh choices are endless.
