Online Education Graduate Degree

Statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau reveal that a person who holds a graduate or master’s degree can expect to earn about $55,000 per year. People holding a bachelor’s degree can expect to earn around $46,000 per year. The average benefit for holding a graduate degree can raise a person’s income about $225,000 over a period of 25 years. This rate of return clearly shows that it is a solid investment to pursue a online graduate degree. Online education graduate degrees enable busy adults to attain a higher education while still maintaining employment to earn a living.

Requirements to Pursue an Online Education Graduate Degree – To earn a graduate degree online, students need to be well-organized self starters who can manage their time and review course material independently. Online students also need full access to a computer with a 56 kbps modem or better, with Internet service and virus protection. Students attending school online should be able to use email and basic Internet functions to communicate with professors and take online exams. Online education graduate degree programs are delivered in a web-based format that is available 24 hours a day for the convenience of working students seeking success.

Validity of Online Education. In the 1994 study of R. Clark, and in the Pew Learning and Technology Study ‘Innovations in Online Learning’ by Carol Twigg in 2001, they concluded that if the online course was designed with the same rigor as one taught in a face-to-face environment, the outcome is likely to be equivalent. Further, the standards for undergraduate education are defined by the Seven Principles developed by Chickering & Gamson (1991). These seven principles were updated to show how to implement these ideals in online education (Chickering & Ehrmann; Graham, et al. 2001). In 2002, the Ohio Learning Task Force issued a report that recommended principles derived from Chickering & Gamson were to be used to design, approve, assess and review all courses, whether in person, or online, or a blend of both. The Seven Principles a) encourage contact between students and faculty; b) encourage active learning; c) encourage cooperation between students; d) give feedback promptly; e) communicates high expectations; f) emphasizes time on task; and g) respects diverse ways of learning and talents. Therefore, online education graduate degrees follow the same criteria as those earned at a physical college campus, so they are equally viable.

Cost of Online Education. Getting an online education graduate degree can be more affordable than attending a physical college campus because there are no costs for transportation or housing. In 2004, an online resource site took a sample size of 120 online master’s degree programs and found that the cost for education could range from $2,760 to $110,000 for an accredited degree. However, graduate degree students can explore several options for tuition assistance, including:

Tuition Reimbursement. The National Center for Education Statistics found that almost 20 percent of all graduate students receive aid from their employers. Potential online education graduate degree students should consult with the human resources director of their company about tuition reimbursement programs and company scholarships they may qualify for.

Labor Unions. Over 60 labor unions, through 38,000 national chapters, offer $4 million dollars in educational financial aid. If a student belongs to a union, the web site at http://www.aflcio.org can offer leads to Union-Sponsored Scholarships and Financial Aid.

Financial Aid. There is even state and government financial aid available for certain distance learning programs. The free government aid directory at http://www.ed.gov/programs can help students locate resource centers in their state and offer information about financial assistance to pay for college.

Loans. There are government-backed Stafford student loans that typically carry the lowest interest rate. For example, the interest rate for a Stafford education loan in 2003 was only 3.42 percent. Students seeking Stafford loans should consult the free annual publication, the Student Guide to Financial Aid. Private student loans are also offered through finance companies such as KeyBank or Citibank, but they usually charge higher interest rates and require students to pass a credit check.

Tax benefits. There are also significant tax benefits available to online education graduate degree program students. Interest on student loans may be tax deductible during the first 60 months of the period to pay them back. Eligibility for this tax benefit can be determined by checking the IRS Publication 970: Tax Credits for Higher Education. Further, under the Lifetime Learning Credit, students may be eligible to deduct up to 20 percent of the first $10,000 of graduate tuition from federal taxes. Also, some or all tuition expenses may be deducted if an employer requires additional education to maintain the student’s current professional status. Students can review IRS Publication 970 for guidelines, or consult with an accountant to see what portion of tuition for college can be deducted from their taxes.

When a potential student considers the ease of earning an online education graduate degree, along with the improved financial status as a result of attaining this degree, it is clearly a wise decision to pursue virtual learning.

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Home-Based Business Moms Save the Day

Single-income families are becoming more and more impractical. That is why home-based business moms are the growing trend. Leaving the kids and the home to outside help just to go to work is not an option that some would want to pursue, and with the variety of possibilities that are available to today, one can always find a way to compromise.

Why Home-Based Businesses are Booming

Technological Advances. Perhaps the biggest factor in making and building a home-based business a plausible alternative to a corporate career is the fact that technology has made it a lot easier to share information from all over the globe. It also has become more convenient to go online to purchase something, or to sign up for a contract of service.
Security Measures. Servers, websites and even blogs now have security certifications and protocols that protect the clients and the business establishment themselves – not only from unwanted incursions into their computer systems, but more importantly to protect the transactions, as well. With a lot of virtual businesses relying on the trust that people will give them to deliver, this surge in security troubleshooting is a big deal. They are also very easy to learn that even the most inexperienced home-based business moms can incorporate them into their systems.
Software and Applications. There are a lot out there that have been developed and improved with e-commerce specially in mind. There are very good ones that home-based business moms can even get for free, or for a very minimal amount. This is also one of the reasons why doing business at home over the Internet has survived the economic slowdown.

You Will Still Need Help

On the outside, it looks like a plausible idea. You get to spend time at home AND make money while you’re at it. But, in the end, you might find yourself spread too thin. There are two ways to go about it that home-based business moms have found to be useful. One would be to find a business partner, and the other would be to find household help.

Outsourcing Tasks

“A one-legged man in a hopping contest” is a description that you would not want to be described as, and if you are just starting out, it really is best to get as much help as you can. Delegating work that you cannot get a handle on does not mean you will give up any measure of control over your business; you will still get to choose to whom and how much to delegate.

There are just things that are more worthy of your attention than others, and many home-based business moms have learned to use the resources available to them to succeed.

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Home Based Business Opportunity – Converting Your Fears Into Motivation

When starting a business venture, especially when you are presented with a home based business opportunity; fear is bound to be present as you may be treading on unknown territory. The fear of failure prevents many an entrepreneur from achieving the much needed success in their business. Starting a business is a step towards self growth.Your attitude is the main factor behind achieving success. You need to overcome your fears by doing considerable research before embarking on a home based business opportunity. Try to gear your fears towards motivation. You will overcome your fears only by taking risks and by emulating other successful business owners.Overcome fearYou need to set goals in order to get motivated. Why are you starting a home based business? What do you intend to achieve in the long run? What are your fears and how do you aim to overcome them one by one? Is lack of confidence in your abilities preventing you from going ahead?Once you start addressing these questions, you will know where you stand in your journey towards success. When you face an adverse situation in business, don’t get depressed; instead work towards setting right the situation.Take risksThe only risk in a business venture is not taking any risk at all. Only if you are willing to take risks will you open up hidden opportunities and hence bring in profits. If you are not willing to take new steps, you will never know how you may have benefitted. If you do fail, don’t let it hold you back. Failure is part of growing.Analyze your mistakesCommitting mistakes can actually teach us new learning. Mistakes teach us what we need to do and what should be avoided. The stigma of being branded a failure has prevented many from achieving success.Taking stock of your mistakes and not repeating it again by taking a new direction will make you a lot wiser, mature and confident. Of course confidence will give you the motivation to surge ahead instead of holding you back.Equip yourself with skillsMany business owners fear that they don’t have enough experience or skills to get involved in a home based business opportunity. You can overcome this fear by getting the right training and education necessary to start a business. Laziness is usually at the root of failure. Work diligently towards achieving your goals. Confront your fears rather than trying to avoid them.When exploring a home based business opportunity, overcome your underlying fears and motivate yourself towards your goal of achieving success in your business. Be fearless, have faith in yourself. The journey can be exhilarating.

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A Highly Recommended Home Based Business Startup Opportunity

So you’re obviously interested in a home based business startup opportunity that can enable you to make a living online otherwise you would never have arrived at this article. No doubt you will be looking for an opportunity that is legitimate and has real potential to earn you some residual income. Well if that’s the case, keep reading because this is exactly what you have been looking for.Before we speak about the opportunity, let’s look at the facts. It may surprise you to learn that one third of all searches conducted on Google and Yahoo are people searching for other people. In fact if you don’t believe me, I invite you to type people search into the Google AdWords Keyword Tool and check out the results yourself. Globally speaking this search returns a result of 55,600,000 searches on this keyword every single month. This is a massive niche that has grown consistently and continues to grow.If someone is looking locate someone online they want not only a service that is free to use but they also want fast accurate results. Now when it comes to your competition, they offer a people search engine that returns the results but at a cost to the user. Your home based business startup opportunity provides this service free of charge so you have a significant edge over your competitors.Now, perhaps you are wondering how does this benefits you?This niche can be targeted to give turn your home based business startup into a very lucrative business indeed. When you sign up you are given your very own people search engine and when people conduct searches using your search engine you get paid commissions from 5 integrated income streams. This is one of the most reputable home based business startup opportunities on the internet without a doubt.Branding your search engine with its own personalised domain name is the only cost you will incur but this is a very small price to pay for your own profitable search engine. Having your very own branded search engine that can generate huge commissions has to be one of the best home based business startup opportunities you are likely to get your hands on. Now just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, you will be pleased to learn that you also get referral bonuses and a real opportunity to generate even more residual income. You even get paid $125.00 as soon as you refer $75.00 worth of prospects..Your people search engine will be advertised for you for free on Google, Yahoo, and MSN so you can benefit from it quickly. But you will then need to M.A.P. your search engine. This basically means you monetize, advertise and promote your search engine. The more you do this the more you earn and it’s as simple as that.This is a home based business startup opportunity that you shouldn’t let slip through your fingers. I have personally jumped from one scam to another but by since November of last year I have been very profitable using this system. Acme People Search is one of the most reputable affiliate marketing programs available to budding entrepreneurs.It is free to sign up so you stand to lose nothing by at least trying it out. Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

Perfect Home Based Business Ideas

The shaky economy has obviously created a great impact on the employment rate. Due to this, many companies have decided to let go of some of their employees regardless of their length of time of service or worse, close down their companies before they go bankrupt. In effect, several people are now looking for serious options on how to augment their income. They are after the legitimate perfect home based businesses which are on the rise these days. Good thing, there are several ideas which are offered by the Internet these days.Now who said that you can’t be your own boss or you have to dwell on the negativities of hiring freezes, layoffs, or shortage of work employment opportunities? With a careful analysis and choice of a home based business idea, you can forget your worries about earning too little. Here is your chance of earning a good deal of wage!Determining the Perfect Home Based Business for YouYou will definitely ask how you will be able to determine the right home based business that you must try on. Basically, that will obviously revolve on how much money it can potentially make you generate, how much time you plan on taking the said business, the number of hours you are required to spend, and how you are to get the training so you can properly manage it. It can’t be denied though that a lot of those who do home based business are more of after the monetary reward they are to get out of the venture. That is clearly understandable since the financial and economic crises are the driving factors that let everyone yearn for these home based opportunities.Ideas for Home Based BusinessAlthough owning a business and running it by yourself may all seem to be a huge task and responsibility on your shoulders, it must not stop you from venturing into it. There are actually too many opportunities available and definitely, there is one that you will like best.Here are some of the perfect home based business ideas that you may want to look into.Become a yoga trainer. If you have been doing yoga for a long time already and you are confident to teach others, then, you can set up a makeshift studio in your own home. You can get paying students and cover for your daily provisions.Become a tutor. Depending on your capacity, you can decide on the students’ educational level to teach.Become a management professional. People need professional advice. You can turn yourself into a business coach and then make money by training entrepreneurs.Become a medical transcriptionist. Doctors and other medical advocates will need your service. This is one thing you can basically do at home.Become a ghost writer. Writing is both a skill and a talent. You can provide contents for website owners and be paid.Overall, the list goes on for the perfect home based business. All you have to do is explore your choices.Want perfect home based business ideas?

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Ideas For Home Based Businesses That Increase Your Chances To Retire Quickly

Owning your own business has its perks and operating from home is very convenient and fun. If you decide you would like to start a home based business you must really want to do so because there is no room for doubt.This means understanding that the business may not be successful, putting money investments in and of course building up your clientele. Not every business can be home based but there are some items you can consider launching from your home. One idea is to do a candle or soap business from home of course this will require the right tools and one must be able to have enough room to produce these items. Candles are usually a great seller and you can make up your own website as well and ship from home. Handmade soaps are good sellers as well; everyone can use new soap.Some people who have home based businesses also attend craft shows to display product and make a profit for a nominal fee. There are several individual consultant positions that one can do from the comfort of their home including paying to get the product shipped from the company taking orders online and keeping product stocked at home for home parties. This can include selling anything like makeup, food, plastic containers, candles and baskets. It is very easy to get started selling products once you pay to get a package delivered from the company to start you out with products.Food businesses from home are very fun such as selling cupcakes but there are FDA compliance’s one must meet and as with any other business you will want to make sure you have all the tools first. Some people even ship these items from home and take orders online. If you are crafty you can start a quilting business from home as well. Some people that would be interested from making items like these from home and selling them will make items in advance. This way in case you sell a lot of items you will always have more if a customer likes it.You can also express your own individuality as a home based business through selling services such as housing a daycare in your own. There are regulations that go with this as well and your home has to be appropriate for the children and have programs including learning and meal plans.

Are You an Entrepreneur or a Small Business Owner?

Do you want to be an Entrepreneur or a Small Business Owner? Is there a difference, and does it matter?There is a difference, and it’s easy to confuse the two or use the two terms interchangeably. A Small Business Owner owns their own business, but also actively participates in that business. Often the Small Business Owner is critical to the ongoing success of the company. Without him or her, the business either does not exist (i.e. medical, legal, accounting, consulting, freelancing) or would suffer greatly in the owner’s absence for any period of time.We often use the term “Solopreneur” to refer to the individual practitioner who is their own boss but must personally deliver a service or create a product for their business to generate revenue. While this may certainly be better than working for someone else, it’s still about trading time for money – and time is our most limited resource.Whether you are a Solopreneur or a Small Business Owner, you likely own a business that depends primarily on you. Perhaps the business is run by you and a couple of other founders. The point is, only a few people know and can execute on the secret recipe at the foundation of your business. And those key people must be present for the business to operate.An Entrepreneur instead builds a business and supporting systems that are independent from the founder. The founder may well be an integral (or exclusive) part of the businesses initially, but the goal is always to grow the business to the point where the owner does not have to be involved in day-to-day operations. When you build a business that continues to generate revenues in your absence, then you have created a truly leveraged model and can call yourself an Entrepreneur.Many of us start as Small Business Owners, enjoy success, and grow our companies. We may then move on to creating a larger business that does not require us to be present, and we graduate to the level of Entrepreneurship. If we repeat this multiple times, then we may call ourselves Serial Entrepreneurs.”Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.”
Howard Stevenson, Harvard Business School Professor.
You may not be clear at the start as to which one you want to grow up to be, an Entrepreneur or a Small Business Owner. But by asking yourself a series of hard questions, and honestly assessing your true desires, you are more likely to start a business that suits you best. And it’s certainly acceptable if you want to be Small Business Owner… we are not saying that’s a bad thing. But it’s important for you to begin understanding the difference between the two as it may impact the type of business you build and how you plan to develop it.It’s also important to avoid creating another low-paying harder-working “job”, like the one you may already have! Michael Gerber explains this situation best in his seminal book “The E-Myth”. This book is a must read for small business owners, with one of its major themes being the difference between working “in” your business (you make the pies) versus working “on” your business (others make the pies following your recipe and systems).As you prepare to become your own boss, or if you have already started a small business, it’s important to keep your long-term vision in mind. Doing so will help you determine the type of business you start and build, helping ensure that you achieve your definition of success.Do you want to be an Entrepreneur or a Small Business Owner? Here are some questions to ask to help you determine want you really want:

Do you want to own just one or two locations (i.e. one or two franchise units, or your own practice) or do you want to create something bigger with multiple locations and perhaps grow internationally (i.e. offer franchises and hire others to run the business)?

Do you want to work in the business (i.e. make the donuts) or do you want to have someone else manage the day-to-day operations (i.e. someone else makes the donuts following your instructions)?

Are you looking for a job or are you looking to create a self-managing company (a business that does not rely on your day-to-day presence for success)?

Do you prefer to create or do you enjoy executing?

Do you envision creating multiple different businesses across multiple industries?

Are you able to let go of all of the details, or are you a micro-manager?

Are you the only person who can deliver your service or product, or can you teach others how to do it?

Is your goal to work hard until a certain age and then retire, or continue creating and leading your businesses until you are no longer mentally capable?

Can you sell your business as it currently operates and without you having to continue being part of it?

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Your Real Path To An Easy Home Based Business

Your search for an easy home based business probably won’t produce what you’re hoping for. The thought that one can uncover a hidden gem type business that allows you to cash in without working hard is a mistake. Far too often we fail to see reality because we only see the success stories of the individuals who are making it appear simple. Although finding a simple 1-2-3 easy home based business is like trying to find a needle in a haystack, you CAN make your journey to success easier by following a few simple guidelines.

Why Some People Make The Easy Home Based Business Claim

First of all, you need to understand the difference between an easy home based business and people who make it appear to be easy. Recalling a particular event I attended, I listened as a team member boldly announced “this is the easiest thing I have ever done in my life.” While she found the process easy to implement and make money with, it can send the wrong message to people. It can force people to setting unrealistic expectations concerning their personal results, since everybody brings various skills and personalities to the table. Background, previous experience, and established skills are all part of the reason that some people are being honest about working with an easy home based business. In her case, it was easy because she already developed business skills, people skills, and already carried a certain level of influence with people. Not everybody starts a business in the same way, with the same skills.
Guidelines For Your Easy Home Based Business Journey

1. Begin with proper expectations. When a result doesn’t match the expectation it is easy to get frustrated and give up. If you have never run a business before, never been self employed before or never worked from home before, it wouldn’t be realistic to assume the same easy home based business claim that others might. Most likely it will take time for you to develop the necessary skills and self discipline required to build a serious business. Overnight success is an anomaly in the home business arena. When you hear the stories about people who attain quick success, you are not hearing the whole story. For most of those people, that success was the result of failing forward, meaning they probably made several attempts before they found a niche where they could use the skills they learned. Expectations are a double edge sword, because you need to have positive expecations for results while expecting that challenges are a part of the process.

2. Commit yourself completely. Building a flourishing home business takes time and patience. If you are not naturally a patient person, you need to learn it quickly. Commitment means seeing your goals through completion. This will require that you learn new skills and become devoted to mastering those skills. Making a commitment also means that you will discipline yourself to investing a specific amount of time to your business each day or week. An easy home based business is not found, it is created by your commitment to follow through.

3. Make appropriate sacrifices. Learn to view everything as short term sacrifices for the long term gain. If you genuinely want to grow to be a professional you will have to give up to go up. This means saying good bye to certain habits or luxuries like watching TV, evening outings with friends, or relaxing after a day at work. You have a new business now, and much like a new baby, it requires your time and attention in order to flourish. In the beginning you have to expect that your life will get out of balance, where working becomes a bigger priority. Eventually when you build it right, you can say good bye to your day job and resume rewarding yourself with some fun!

4. Work in your area of passion. When you are looking for an easy home based business, keep in mind that although you won’t find an easy ticket to success, your journey will be much easier if you choose something you can get totally excited about. You need a product or service that you can truly stand behind and are excited to learn about and share with others. Nothing can throw a big wrench in your learning curve like buying into a business you have mediocre feelings about.

5. Support is a must. Given that an easy home based business is really not that easy, having a good support team is vital. Please understand that not everybody is going to understand why you missed the party, or are always busy, and you may lose friends along the way. If you are married or have children it is important they be on the same page with your goals, so they can give you the time you need to build your business. When you face a challenge or difficulty, you need to have people around you to uplift you and encourage you. You will also need additional support besides your family. When you start you new business make sure the company offers the support and training that you will need to develop your skills.

Easy Home Based Business Is Like Following A Recipe

As stated, succeeding with your own business doesn’t equate to landing that perfect easy home based business. It has more to do with knowing how to make your journey to success a little easier. Getting to your destination will not be a piece of cake. No two people follow a recipe exactly the same way, making the result just a little different for everyone. Besides, doesn’t the recipe always taste sweeter when your hard work and effort finally produces the result you want? An easy home based business is merely a business made easy by overcoming obstacles and failing forward.

Why Do Businesses Choose Pay Per Click Advertising?

In this short article we will be covering the following FAQs about Pay Per Click Advertising:

1. What is Pay Per Click Advertising?
2. Why do Businesses Choose this form of advertising?
3. What are the Benefits?

1. What is it?

Pay Per Click Advertising is an online form of advertising offered by a variety of networks and search engines, including Google AdWords. Every advertiser has the opportunity to create their own advertisements and set how much money they are willing to invest every day.

If you are advertising via Google AdWords, the advertisements are listed on the Google SERP whenever someone enters a search term (a keyword) that is relevant to your advertisement. The more you pay or the better optimized your advertisement and website, the higher up the Google SERP you will climb.

If someone clicks on your advertisement, Google will then charge you the price that you have previously agreed to through your Google AdWords Management Account. This is why it is called Pay Per Click Advertising… you pay every time an internet user clicks.

2. Why do Businesses Choose this form of advertising?

What makes Pay Per Click such a good choice of online advertising for both small and large businesses? Why do so many people now market their businesses in this way? There are three main reasons why and they are listed below:

1. It costs very little to begin: You don’t have to invest a huge amount of money to begin advertising, which means that it is an accessible form of marketing for all businesses, large and small.

2. You can monitor everything: At the click of a mouse, you can see all the action of your advertising campaign online and you can look at the developments/trends of your marketing over time.

3. Global Audience: Pay Per Click is the best way of reaching a global audience and even if your business is not a particularly large one, you might want to target an audience in another country or continent, which this form of marketing allows you to do with ease.

3. What are the Benefits?

When any business considers any kind of advertising campaign, it needs to weigh up the benefits to be had from the advertising against the work, time and money that the advertising strategy would require to get going.

Pay Per Click is full of benefits. It is one of the best forms of online advertising for achieving a healthy ROI and this is why so many people are now investing in networks such as Google AdWords.

But what are the Best Benefits for small and large businesses alike?

1. Immediate Results: If you invest enough money and if you optimize your campaigns well, you can have instant results and your business can soar to the top of the SERP within minutes.

2. Audience Targeting Tools: If you run your advertising through networks such as Google AdWords, you can target your audience by indicating the world location of your audience, the language that they speak and the keywords that they like to use regularly.

3. Low Risk: If you set up a daily budget on your campaign, then you know that you are not risking anything. You advertise within your means and you enjoy the results without financial worry.

4. Monitoring and Evaluating Tools: There are hundreds of different marketing tools to help advertisers monitor and evaluate the progress of their campaigns. These tools help advertisers to improve their campaigns and get more out of their online advertising.

For more of the best ways to get the most out of your advertising and ensure that all of these benefits start working for you as quickly as possible, contact a Pay Per Click Advertising Company and ask them about managing your campaign for you.

Webrageous Studios is a highly experienced, fully qualified Pay Per Click Management Company with plenty of success stories to its name. It would be a good place to start your online advertising venture with them.

The Finer Points of Internet Auctions

WHAT IS A PENNY AUCTION?

Penny auctions have exploded in popularity with the massive growth of the internet. However, few people know the true origins of penny auctions.Beginnings actually stretch back to the Great Depression. Those were hard times for everyone, but even harder for farmers. Farmers struggled to bring in steady income because of droughts and crops not selling as well as they had previously. As a result, the banks would foreclose on the farmers who couldn’t keep up with their mortgage payments.

The banks weren’t satisfied with just repossessing the house, they wanted to raise as much capital as possible, so they resorted to selling off the possessions of the owners of the repossessed houses. There was not much the farmers could do about it so they began bidding ridiculously low prices, pennies, on the items while threatening others who dared to bid higher than a few pennies.

The auctions of today hardly resemble their tremulous beginnings. Being part of a penny auction today is exhilarating, fun, and addictive. It combines the selling format of auctioning with a little bit of chance factored in.Auctions are a game of strategy but also a game of luck.

The premise behind penny auctions is giving people the chance to win an item at a drastically reduced price.Auctions make that possible by spreading out the cost of the product among multiple bidders. In order for a person to take part in an auction, they must pay a set price for each bid. For example, if a person wanted to bid on a fifty dollar Amazon gift card then he would spend a dollar for each time a bid placed. If he ended up winning the gift card, then he would only have spent a few dollars for a fifty dollar gift card. Usually penny auctions sell bids in packages.

HOW PENNY AUCTIONS WORK!

The main foundation of penny auctions is the pay-per-bid format. It is the key that allows bidders to win items at the fraction of their retail value and allows the auction owners to keep their site profitable. Most y auction sites run on the same premise: people pay a set amount for each bid, whenever a person places a bid within the closing seconds of the auction time will be added, the last person left with a unique bid after the clocks runs out will win the item. There are a large variety of items that can be won, but they tend to be popular electronics or gift cards to popular stores.

There are two types of auctions: lowest unique bid auction and highest unique bid auction. Lowest unique auction sounds confusing but it is actually quite simple. A unique bid is when only one person has a bid at a certain price. Bids usually start at one penny, a bidder can then place a bid at two pennies. Until another bidder places a higher bid, the most recent bidder will be the lowest unique bid because that was the only bid at two cents and nobody bid higher. However, penny auctions generally don’t stop at one penny. It is not uncommon to find auctions that end up at a couple hundred dollars based on the popularity of the item being auctioned. However, the same principles apply for those auctions. Highest unique bid auctions follow the more traditional auction format such as eBay. The person with the highest bid at the end of the auction wins the item.

Auction site owners turn a profit by selling bids. Say twenty people are bidding on a ten dollar gift card at one dollar per bid, at the end of the auction if there were twenty bids placed in total then the site owner would have made twenty dollars with a ten dollar profit.Auctions do seem like a win-win situation:The site owner makes money while the bidder gets an item for dirt cheap. However, not everyone wins in penny auctions. The people who paid one dollar each bid but left with nothing to show for their investments will not be so happy.

HOW TO WIN!

Penny auction has a lot of chance mixed into it, but one can incorporate strategy that will help raise the chances of winning. Playing smart can make all the difference between gambling and auctioning.

The first crucial tip to winning penny auctions is to know how to manage your bids. Your goal should be to win as much as possible without spending a ton of money buying bids. Managing your bids means that you should already know how much you are willing to risk in order to win an item. The amount of capital you are willing to risk will determine how many bids you can use. Once you know how many bids you have to spend on an item, then you will be better able to manage how and when you place a bid. That will keep you from blowing away all of your bids in the first few seconds of the auction.

The next tip is to practice time management. When fighting in the trenches of penny auctions, you have two enemies: other bidders and time. Knowing when to bid is a must if you want to have success. Placing a bid when there is a lot of time left on the clock is never a good idea. You have to remember that the key to winning a penny auction is being the last one standing when the clock runs out and that each bid increases the amount of time left. It would be a good practice to wait until the last few minutes of the auction before you begin to bid.

The final tip for successful auctioning is to keep your emotions under control.Auctions have a lot of similarities to gambling, and just like gambling, your spending can get out of control. If you keep your emotions level, it will keep you from making rash decisions and blowing loads of cash. Keep your mind clear so that you can gage the behavior of the other bidders and outsmart them.

HOW TO AVOID SCAM SITES!

Penny auctions are a great addition to the web whether you want to win an item that otherwise you wouldn’t be able to afford or if you simply enjoy the thrill that comes with bidding in auctions. Unfortunately, scam sites have tarnished the reputation of the legitimate penny auction sites. However, there are ways that you can protect yourself from scamers and enjoy your auctioning without having to worry about losing your money due to dishonesty.

Checking the reputation of the auction site before you start spending your hard earned money is always a good idea. Chances are other people have tried the site before you and some of them have left reviews. The reviews are your way to gage whether a auction site is trustworthy or not. If a site is getting overwhelmingly negative reviews, then that is a clear indication that you should steer your business elsewhere.

Another tool you can use to protect yourself is checking the Alexia ranks of the auction sites. Alexia rank will give a solid view of how much traffic the auction is getting. If you see a huge difference in the amount of traffic Alexia is projecting and the amount of active bidders on the site, then warning signals should be ringing in your head. Some auction sites have been known to set up robots that automatically bid on projects in order to keep the auction going and inflate the price. That is known as shill bidding. You can sniff out those sites by comparing the traffic the site should be getting to the amount of users using this site.

CONCLUSION!

New legislation may come out later down the road that will officially make penny auctions gambling, but until then, it is a fun, exciting auction that allows one to win the item they’ve always wanted but couldn’t afford.Auctions are also quite lucrative for the site owners because of the pay-per-bid strategy they’ve incorporated. Penny auctions had humble beginnings with farmers who just wanted to get back at the banks who kicked them out of their house. More recently, auctions have enjoyed an explosion in popularity with the rise of the internet.

There are two main formats fora auctions, lowest and highest unique auction, however they both run on the same premise where the last unique bid wins the item. Winning a penny auction will require a certain amount of mental tactic and a bit of luck. However, you can increase your odds of winning by practicing certain techniques such as managing your bids wisely, learning how to work with the time, and keeping a level head and your emotions under control. When you combine those three strategies to your bidding plan, you will find that you win a lot more often.

It is important that you do your due diligence to protect yourself when participating in auctions. Not every auction is run by honest and trustworthy people. There are people out there who just want to take your money. You can protect yourself by ensuring that you only bid on sites that already have a very positive reputation from real users.

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