Careers

There are many different careers in the field of accounting ranging from entry-level bookkeeping to the Chief Financial Officer of a company. To achieve positions with more responsibility and higher salaries, it's necessary to have a degree in accounting as well as achieve various professional designations.

One of the primary milestones in any accountant's career is to become a Certified Public Accountant or CPA. To become a CPA you have to go to college with a major in accounting. You also have to pass a national CPA exam. There's also some employment experience required in a CPA firm. This is generally one to two years, although this varies from state to state. Once you satisfy all those requirements, you get a certificate that designates you as a CPA and you're allowed to offer your services to the public.

Many CPAs consider this just one stepping stone to their careers. The chief accountant in many offices is called the controller. The controller is in charge of managing the entire accounting system in a business stays on top of accounting and tax laws to keep the company legal and is responsible for preparing the financial statements.

The controller is also in charge of financial planning and budgeting. Some companies have only one accounting professional who's essentially the chief cook and bottle washer and does everything. As a business grows in size and complexity, then additional layers of personnel are required to handle the volume of work that comes from growth. Other areas in the company are also impacted by growth, and it's part of the controller's job to determine just how many more salaries the company can pay for additional people without negatively impacting growth and profits.

The controller also is responsible for preparing tax returns for the business; a much more involved and complex task than completing personal income tax forms! In larger organizations, the controller can report to a vice president of finance who reports to the chief financial officer, who is responsible for the broad objectives for growth and profit and implementing the appropriate strategies to achieve the objectives.

more

eBay Quick Tip videos

How to sell on eBay - first steps
click here to view video
How to sell on eBay - listing the item
click here to view video
How to take better photos—layout and lighting

click here to view video
How to use shipping labels
click here to view video
How to edit listings in bulk
click here to view video
How to apply new item conditions
click here to view video 
How to upload tracking for shipped items
click here to view video
How to use Unpaid Item Assistant
click here to view video

more

 Consignment Selling


Another way of making money on eBay is consignment selling. That’s when you sell other people’s products. If you go this route, focus on higher-priced items. I don’t like one-of-a-kind items. We're going to discuss that in a little bit.
Make sure it’s worth your while. If you go to AuctionBytes.com - which is a great Web site for eBay information - on the left hand side there’s a link for consignment sellers. You can look and see how much money they charge for selling other people’s items. You can also take a look at their contracts and see what kind of paper work you’ll need to get started.
That can be an ongoing source. It would be friends and neighbors and older ones, people at work that you might be able to sell their product. That can work out really well. I'm actually working right now on a method, a whole system for doing business consignment selling. That is a huge market because there are so many businesses with products to sell they can't get rid of. But that’s a discussion for another night.

more

 Selling Knowledge Products
 
Of all the products, this is even better than liquidated goods. This is the ultimate product to sell. A knowledge product can be an e-book; it can be an audio file; it can be a video file; it could even be a CD or a DVD, even a list of links for a Web site. If you develop the product yourself, the cool thing is you limit the amount of competition you'll have on eBay.
Remember the key to eBay is “limit your competition.” It is your best way to succeed. Less competition is more profit. For example, go on eBay and search for the words “best digital video.” There's a guy named John; I think he’s from Arkansas. He sells a DVD training set to show you how to set up lighting for use with your digital camera and your digital camcorder.
Check in the history by “completed items.” He sells two or three of these a day for $50 each including shipping and handling. He’s been doing this for at least a couple of years. His cost is probably $3 apiece, maybe $5 with shipping. He’s clearing easily $120, $150 a day, day after day, fully automated. That’s a wonderful, wonderful thing.
Maybe you have some experience that you can use. Maybe this is a hobby that he taught other people and he’s making a killing doing that. Recently eBay set up a procedure for delivering digital products automatically; it’s a new policy going into effect. People can go on at midnight, buy a product, pay immediately, and automatically be sent to the page to download.
You do nothing. You don’t even have to e-mail them something. It’s automatic delivery. Knowledge products are wonderful. For example, think of it this way. You write an e-book. You call it “How to Teach Your French Poodle to Sing.” You sell it on eBay for $10.
You get this lady who loves French poodles. At nighttime, she’s got insomnia. She buys your e-book. She pays for it immediately. She gets the link. She can download it and read it so she’s very happy. You had to do nothing except you wake up with that money in your PayPal account.
Keep that in mind. If you're going to sell knowledge products, make sure it’s a quality product that people are going to be happy with. Otherwise, you'll have the hassle of returns. Don’t do a product like, “How to Get Rich on the Internet” or things like that. Do something you're familiar with and what other people will be willing to pay money for.
For example, do you have a hobby?
Have you figured out a way of saving a ton of money in that hobby? Or do you know how to turn a hobby into a profitable business? Then, write an e-book on it. It’s that simple.
If you can't write, then simply record your thoughts on audio and have someone else write the book for you. You can hire anybody to do anything at RentACoder. You can go to Elance. They will do any programming, graphics, or writing. They’ll even write a book for you and put your name on it.
ScriptLance is also another website where you can find freelancers can do all sorts of stuff for you. There are many sources of very good, cheap labor that you can use. Some people are actually making money selling $2 e-books on eBay. I don’t know. Maybe now that the process is automated, you can make money doing that.

more

The Dangers Of Dropshipping Backorders

backorders are one of the biggest dangers of dropshipping. If you’ve ever experienced this, you know what I mean.
This happened to me way back early in my eBay selling career, I had a pretty hot-moving product from a dropshipper. It was actually a kind of rolling suitcase that women who do stamping or scrapbooking would use to carry all their supplies around.

My wife enjoys stamping as a hobby and she said, “This is a hot item. It’s hard to find.” So, I started selling it and was doing really good with it. Then what happened was one day, I learned the dangers of backorders. I sold one and my office manager went to place the order. The reply she got was, “Sorry, but those are backordered. We expect them in two to three weeks.”
I'm thinking, “Oh, no.. I’m in BIG trouble.” I've learned since then: if anybody ever tells you that something’s expected in two or three weeks, that means they have no idea if, when, or how they're ever going to get them in.
From eBay Zero To eBay Hero 22 of 50
So, don’t hold your breath for two or three weeks. That’s the lemonade that I made from this lemon of a situation.
But then I figured, “This is no biggie. I'll just tell the eBay buyer and just say, ‘Sorry. It’s such a hot item and so popular, we're out of stock and we expect more in two to three weeks.’”
I was sooo…. naive. I figured, “No problem. We'll take care of it.” That’s what I did and I e-mailed her. I get a reply back from her and I thought her e-mail was going to melt my computer.
It was like a flaming hot e-mail!
She was like, “Say what? I immediately paid for that item and I want immediate shipping. If you don’t, I'll report you to eBay and PayPal and the FBI and the CIA and NBC and the IRS.”
She was really, really mad. You know what? When I stopped and put my buyer’s shoes on, I realized that she was right.
She did pay immediately. I think she even used Buy-It-Now and she immediately sent the money. Who knows…. Maybe she had a get-together that she needed the item right away.
What happened next was that the office went into full code RED alert and my office manager and I spent the rest of the day trying to find somewhere in the country where we could find this hot item in stock.
We had to go all the way cross country to a distributor. I lost money on it, but at least I got the problem solved and the fire out. The most important things are that I got rid of those flames of wrath and I didn’t get my eBay account shut down!
Amazingly, the buyer ended up giving me a positive feedback for the transaction I was patting myself on the back that I survived that and got a positive feedback. Sweet!
What happened after that experience, and if you’ve been through that yourself, it was like falling off a horse. I was really scared to get back in there. In fact, I said, “It’s not worth it. I'm not going to put myself through this again. This was crazy.”
Actually, I stopped dropshipping those products because I didn’t want to have to deal with backorders and having the, “Two to three more weeks we'll have more stuff in.”
One day, I'm in the shower thinking. I don’t know about you, but that’s where I do my best thinking. “Okay, there's got to be a better way of doing this.” That’s when I thought about it and it hit me like a light bulb going off, a great way to take care of the problem.
From eBay Zero To eBay Hero 23 of 50
Since I've done this, I've never had a single backorder over 10,000 items later.

more

•Figure out what to sell on eBay.
•Source it, purchase it, and manage inventory of product.
•Research more products to sell.
•Write the auction ads for eBay.
•Answer emails with questions from potential buyers, and other customer service tasks.
•You need to box and ship the items.
•Etc…

more

Listen to a live or archived eBay Radio, Ask Griff & Lee or eBay Town Hall broadcast: 1. Subscribe to this Group (Click the Join Group button in the box below)
2. Click the Log In link to the left (under My Groups).
3. Click the Home link under Group Menu to the left.
4. Then, click the Listen Live button to activate the media player for either a scheduled LIVE or archived (On Demand) show.
Phone in your question or comment during the live shows, Tuesdays 11-2 PM Pacific and Thursdays 3-5pm Pacific toll free @ 888-708-6226. Send all email for Griff to griff@ebay.com

want to join click here

more

I won the auction and the item I wanted is Mine! How do I get it?



You and the seller should have exchanged emails, you're verifying that you are going to pay, and the seller is providing you with information about payment and shipping costs and such.

Sellers often provide several alternatives for both payment and shipping. For the most part, sellers want to get paid in a safe and expedient manner, which usually means paying them using a cashier's or bank check or money order. None of these need to be verified (they are like cash in that manner). Many sellers, especially small businesses, are accepting credit cards, an easy form of payment to verify. Some sellers now even offer secure servers on which credit card numbers can be sent and used for payment. If you do pay by personal check, you can expect the seller to wait until the check clears (when the bank verifies that sufficient money is in your account to cover the amount of the check) before the item is sent off. This should take fewer than 10 business days from the deposit of your check, so be patient.

Sellers often offer various shipping options, which can include regular U.S. Mail, priority services, or UPS. There are costs associated with all of these, so be sure to read the note from the seller carefully before sending payment; ensure that you're sending the correct amount.

It is the responsibility of both the seller and the buyer to reach a mutually satisfactory arrangement for payment and shipping. The vast majority of eBay transactions are smooth and easy to complete.

more