When I started developing a home based business, making a good income was obviously an objective, but I also had other sub-objectives. One of most important things was to have nearly total time flexibility (I mean, if I was willing to continue to wear 9-5 Mon-Fri collar I could just have just stayed in previously "traditional" work force).

Time flexibility was (and still is) a "biggie" for me. Many people working at home have same need for various reasons. For work at home moms, a home business can be a real godsend to accommodate hectic time pressures, particularly when kids are quite young and mom is also spelled "transportation". In my own particular case, reason is not quite so noble...I just want (need?) to be able to pick up my fly rod and go fishing at a moments notice (sometimes I'll be gone for a week or two at a time, but now business has enough momentum that it keeps on operating just as well as if I were here tending to it on a daily basis).

Bear in mind, I am only able do breakaway thing now that I have put in all up-front time and effort and now have developed enough kinetic energy in my home-based Internet business to be able to enjoy fruits of my labor.

These days as a one-person business I believe that it is not enough just sell on eBay but have a complimentary web site as well. You can promote your web site to your eBay customers in several ways. First of all mention it and create a link on your About Me Page. (What you don’t have an About Me Page! As John Mackinroe would say, “You can’t be serious”). Also when you e-mail successful bidders to tell them you have dispatched their item tell them about your web site. And of course add a link in Signature block at bottom of all your e-mails.

Another way to get your eBay customers to opt in to your e-mail list is to offer them a free report on a relevant subject. Providing it contains useful facts it does not need to be any longer than this article and you can deliver it by e-mail. What could be easier.

Your web site does not have to be complicated; a price list of some of your products, and perhaps some special offers and possibly links to affiliate sites that are of interest to your niche market. You can even bolster content for your web site by including some drop ship items related to your niche.

I explained this all to my friend and told him that I was really lazy because knowing my market I was able to buy items in bulk This meant I spent far less time listing items as by using Turbo Lister they could be relisted in a matter of seconds.

My lazy way is simple have about 20 products permently listed on eBay as either Buy It Now or regular auction. Build up my opt in e-mail list, and have a web site with information and offers for my niche market. Once a month I send out an e-mail to my list with some special offer and that is it. That was considerably less work than my friend and return was far greater.

After recent price rises many sellers quit eBay, whether permanently or temporarily only time will tell. But as long as you rely purely on auction site you are very much at their mercy. At least by taking chance to build up your opt in list and developing your web site, should anything happen in future you will have something to fall back on and not be totally reliant on eBay.

Now I am pleased to say that he has seen light, his web site is already up and at last he has put up an About Me page. And really good news is that he already looks at lot less stressed than he used to.