Frequently Asked Questions for Sellers
How To Start a Real Business on FiveUp?
starting a real business from home on FiveUp
IF you are ready to be your own boss, are looking forward to a new
kind of lifestyle and are considering starting up from a home office,
then read on. The information in this chapter will help you get your
home-based business up and running with minimum fuss.
Due to changes in lifestyle and business practices, many people
are opting to start home-based businesses. Technological
advancement has improved communication and data/information
storage and transfer which helps home businesses as much as, or
possibly more so, than big businesses.
Before you start working from home, you need to make the
correct business choice. Deciding on the type of business to start
can be the biggest challenge for many, while for others there is really
only one obvious choice. For those of you who aren't sure what the
nature of your business should be it's really a case of narrowing
down your options. The following section will help you choose a
home business, determine if the business is suitable for you, and
show you the right steps to getting started.
With so many options and choices to make, a good starting point
is to consider a business doing what you love. What is your passion?
If you are a designer - what area of design do you really love? If
you are considering working with people - perhaps as a teacher or
carer - do you prefer working with the elderly or with children?
Success in any endeavour depends on the amount of effort that
you put in. When you are passionate about a particular subject, you
are naturally inclined to invest more time in it. When you are
thinking of a small business idea, it makes sense to apply the
following procedure to narrow the choices down to the one which
fits your needs/interests best.
Consider the questions below. You may want to pencil some
answers in the spaces provided. In each case I've started you off.
List five (or more) things which you do best and have a passion for:
List 5 ways that others might benefit from each of the things
which you do best:
- They would benefit from my patient teaching style
Identify the means by which you will deliver the benefit/s of your
skill or passion:
- I could give private lessons or teach small groups
Assign a dollar value to your services and how much they could
earn you:
Find out who else offers similar services and the market potential:
Learn from the successes of others in similar businesses:
- My own teacher had a thriving business and allowed pupils
to invite a friend along once a month to encourage others to
take lessons
Learn from the failures of others, and improve on them as you plan
your business:
- Competitors have increased prices too quickly and lost pupils
Categorise each of the items you've listed, measure them against
each other, then narrow down to the most viable option/s.
You should also consider that one's passion alone does not
necessarily translate into a good business opportunity, nor does it
guarantee success. Many people who turn their hobbies into
businesses fail because their markets are too limited, or because
they are unable to find customers for their products or services. For
you to be successful, there should be money to be made from your
passion or hobby, and you should be in a position to market your
products or services. In essence, determine whether there are good
business opportunities for your passion, and identify how best to
exploit those opportunities. It's logical that you should start with a
'known' rather than an 'unknown'.
Begin with an opportunity you already have. If someone you know is
earning good money from the internet and that person is willing to
teach you, then this could be a great opportunity for you to start a
web-based business. You might venture into the online publishing
business and start making money, like your friend, through various
advertising and affiliate programmes.
Having someone guide you in the right direction by
teaching you everything - from channelling traffic to your website
to identifying the best money-making programmes for your
website - is a great opportunity. Taking another example, you may
have a lot of antique furnishings in your house, so you could start
a business selling them on FiveUp.
If you have found what you think is the perfect business
opportunity for you, then go for it. This may be an opportunity
that is too good to pass up.
Figure out if the business is profitable and if it is sustainable. It may
be a business that you know little about, but if you think that the
business has great potential - and the work involved in the business
is work that you enjoy - you can certainly choose this path. It may
be more challenging because you have to learn everything about
the business from scratch, but it could be worthwhile. Some tips
on educating yourself about an unknown business are to buy books
on it, visit websites, or subscribe to trade magazines that may be
available on the business or subject area.
You could start a business by developing and marketing your own
inventions. While you can opt to sell the rights to your product and
wait for possible licensing royalties, you can also be more proactive
and start working on the product yourself. It will be more difficult
because it requires financing (the amount will depend on the type
of product you've created), and entails marketing and financial
savvy.
Firstly, it is essential to identify a need, and then capitalise on
it. Identify if there is a large number of a potential customers. Then
develop a product/service that could answer that need. With
inventions, the marketability of the product/service is absolutely
essential, especially if the product entails a high development cost.
Someone must be willing to buy the product for an invention to
succeed.
Of course you will need to comply with any legal responsibilities
when you embark upon a new business. You need to decide upon
the best structure (this was discussed in Chapter 1). Then you need
to register your business name - remember, your business name
must be registered if it is not your full legal name. Your business
name informs the public that you will be doing business and will
also help in marketing your business.
You need to research and confirm the rules of registering your
home business within your state or territory. Details differ from
location to location and may depend on the nature of your
business. Some require that you publish a notice in the local
newspaper while others do not.
You may need a licence to start your business. Licensing occurs
at a state/country and/or local level. Contact your state or territory
and local council offices to find out what licences you will need for
your business.
Your accountant can advise on tax compliance issues and there
is a lot of information on the ATO website, www.ato.gov.au. It will
be your responsibility to file tax returns. Depending on your
business structure and whether you are registered for GST, will
determine whether you have to lodge a quarterly business activity
statement (BAS) or just pay as you go (PAYG). More about this in
Chapter 9. It is enough to emphasise here that it is your obligation
when you start to work for yourself to comply with taxation
legislation.
The following three points discuss the major reasons why complete
and accurate financial record keeping is crucial to the success of
your home business:
Good records provide the financial data to help you operate
more efficiently, thus increasing the profitability of your
business. Accurate and complete records enable you, or your
accountant, to identify all your business assets, liabilities,
income and expenses, which, when compared to appropriate
industry averages, will help you pinpoint the strong and
weak phases of your business operations.
Good records are essential for the preparation of current
financial statements, such as the income statement (profit
and loss) and cash flow projection. These statements, in turn,
are critical for maintaining good relations with your bank.
They will also present a complete picture of your total
business operation.
Good records are also required for the preparation of
complete and accurate tax documents. Poor record keeping
often leads to the preparation of income tax returns that
result in underpayment or overpayment of taxes. In
addition, good records are essential in the event of a tax
office audit.
In theory, working from home (or from a coffee shop with a WiFi
Connection and an iPad) is great.
There's no commute on busy roads or overcrowded trains and trams.
You can fall out of bed and start work in your pyjamas if you like.
You are not paying rent for business premises and you're there
for the kids when they come home from school or stay off school sick.
However, choosing to work from home doesn't suit everyone.
The cross-over between work and home can be confusing. Your partner
or family may expect you to do extra home chores, just because you
don't physically leave the home when you are working. Friends may
drop by and interrupt you. It may be difficult to keep motivated and easy
to get distracted. It may be harder to switch off from work.
For some people working for yourself from a home office is
often a good way to keep costs down when you are starting out, but
you may soon find you are looking for business premises as soon
as your revenue flow allows.
Below are some tips to make working from your home office
more manageable:
- Make sure your family and friends know you are 'working'
from home. Encourage them not to contact you during
working hours unless absolutely necessary.
- Have a dedicated room, or work station to work from. Don't
'float' from kitchen bench to study to dining room table.
- Don't work where you like to relax; it's important to have
somewhere at home that you don't associate with work,
where you can kick back and enjoy being at home without
files or computers or other work 'stuff' getting in the way -
physically or mentally. Keep all of that in the home office and
leave your favourite spaces for relaxing.
- Have a dedicated work phone number (this could be your
mobile) and make sure you always answer it professionally.
- Make sure you network with other self-employed, small
business owners to share experiences and support each other.
- Don't let work take over. Maintain interests outside of work.
- Have something that signifies the end of your work day and
the start of 'home time': such as making dinner, going to an
evening class or visiting the gym.
- Small changes of environment help break up a full week at
home. Spend a day working from a city-based state library
(you'll get to commute with the masses and be reminded of
how annoying that is!), work for an hour at a cafe, or have a
regularly scheduled day at a friend's office or shared office
space.
- Get dressed for work. Find the halfway mark between formal
and pyjamas.
- Don't keep junk food in the house! If you really crave it, at
least you'll have to get out of the house to buy it.
- Finally, get an official FiveUp.com.au T-shirt and wear it proudly!
How do make sure that my jobs or gigs are a success?
Please, read these guidelines which may help to improve your job performance:
Use unique, good resolution, appropriate, high quality, images. You may add few if you wish as long as images are related to the content of your jobs or gigs.
Your Jobs or Gigs of visual nature (graphic design, art, photography, video etc.) should use actual images of work created by the seller.
Add several images.
Add web links to YouTube and Flickr (if you have any).
Make sure that you complete the address field with a name of the suburb, the state and our country. Then check to confirm your location is showing on the map below. Click on the map to refresh and if it does not show your location correctly, go back and check the Address field.
Start your job or gig's with a catchy title and describe them clearly.
Provide detailed Instructions To Buyer in the provided field when you create your jobs or gigs. If you require a Buyer to provide an attachment, please, tick the appropriate box. This will save the time you could waste going back and forth explaining and communicating your requirements with your buyers.
Be realistic and set a realistic delivery date so that you can definitely meet.
What are your Instructions To Buyer?
We strongly advise you to specify 'Instructions To Buyer' in your jobs or gigs. Your buyers will see these instructions as soon as they order.
When you use 'Instructions To Buyer' you help your jobs and gigs:
When you use 'Instructions To Buyer', the order will not complete until the buyer provides your required information. Hence you will always get complete orders with full information and files you require so you can get started.
When you use 'Instructions To Buyer', the time that the buyer takes to respond after they gathered this information will not be counted as part of the agreed delivery time. That order will only start counting from the time you receive the full desired buyer's info.
Here is an example of Instructions To Buyer:
Please send me:
Your photo, Minimum 300Kb size, JPEG format
How do I get my jobs and gigs featured?
Featured jobs, gigs and Gift Ideas posts are manually managed by our content admin.
As a Seller you may get featured draw our editors attention of our editors by using social media (Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Orkut, Vkontakte, etc.), send traffic from blogs and email links to your gig to your friends and family, thus increasing the amount of traffic coming into your jobs and gigs. The jobs and gigs that provide true user value, look attractive (images, description, user profile completeness etc.) and have earned many several reviews from buyers are likely to get featured.
If your feel that your jobs and gigs have good web traffic and you received positive reviews, send us a request for Featured consideration.
What is the clearing period for my sales revenues?
We may apply up to 10 days mandatory clearing period for seller revenues and additional verification for certain transactions. You can only withdraw funds after that time. This clearing period protects you and the buyers against fraud and unauthorized activities, chargebacks and PayPal disputes.
Why can't I find my post?
All jobs and gigs get posted to the 'Recent' category. Other categories are moderated. Those posts that are genuine, unique, valuable and are not considered duplicates, spam, jokes or pranks will be listed. We moderate the content every few hours. Your jobs and gigs will appear in all relevant key word and other search results, regardless whether they appear in the Categories. New posts are collected by our search engine regularly. FiveUp is moderated to keep this social network safe for everyone. If you made a mistake or feel your post deserves being placed in other categories instead of the actual category listed, please ask.
How many jobs and gigs can I advertise in total?
Presently we allow unlimited gigs per account.
Frequently Asked Questions for Buyers
Can I group and record the jobs and gigs I liked?
Absolutely! Just click on the "Like" button located on each post. Those "Liked" will be added to your Jobs I Like page under your profile. At this point, you cannot "Like" sellers, but only specific gigs.
Paypal, Credit card or Payza account
According to our Terms & Policies, when an order is cancelled, the funds are returned to your FiveUp account balance and you can use them for future purchases.
If decide that you don't want to use FiveUp anymore and have no use of your balance ever in the future, please contact us and we will refund your balance (according to our Terms & Policies).
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