KFLCC Kingdom Economics

Breaking the Fear of Financial Provision for the End Time

Today many sales are transacted through Internet sites such as eBay, or for high quality art, antiques and rare collectibles, sites such as WorthPoint. Sometimes listing items in the city newspaper or a local trade paper will net you a good price. Local auctions are another option. With an auction, at times you might bring in less than you expect, while other times you will receive more than you expect. Years ago I purchased about eighty silver spoons for seventy dollars. Just one of those spoons was sold on eBay for seven hundred dollars. I had no idea when I purchased it that it was a rare spoon from the 1800s. Another time I spent about ten dollars purchasing a few nice old pictures at a yard sale, and later I sold them at an auction and received about fifty dollars. At auctions, small items are sold last and often in bulk if there are many similar items. Very little profit is made in these bulk sales. Auctions produce better income for items such as antiques, furniture, collectibles, and miscellaneous items that have value. Other methods are better for selling small items. May I also suggest that you not sell something that could be valuable if you are uncertain of its worth. Occasionally someone will place a family heirloom in an auction and discover that something they sold for five dollars was actually worth five hundred dollars. Do your research, either through books or online, to determine a fair value for your item before you sell it. When you are selling expensive merchandise, especially electronics or nice jewelry, be careful when shipping overseas. Scams that originate in certain countries—particularly Nigeria—have caused people to lose both their item and their money. Here is how they generally work. You will receive an email notification from PayPal telling you that the item has sold, and oftentimes the seller is paying extra for express shipping. The problem is this: the PayPal notification is fraudulently created to make it appear that it came from PayPal when it did not. People ship the item, and by the time they discover the fraud, the item is in the hands of the scam artist. Anytime you are shipping an expensive item or an overseas order to someone you do not know (particularly in Nigeria), always check the sale through your PayPal account to make certain the item was indeed sold and the payment processed. Do not depend on the email as verification. Use caution if you accept credit cards, too, as much fraudulent activity involves stolen credit card information. I am not implying that you will get rich by selling things secondhand, but this is a great way to help you earn extra income. While some things simply do not

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