I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been hesitant every time I went to use my credit card number online. There have been many times that I wouldn’t buy something I wanted, just because I wasn’t sure if the site was safe or not. Years ago, I heard about virtual cards but didn’t know how they worked and I never got around to trying it. Now I’m using virtual credit cards and I don’t worry about anyone taking my credit card information. I feel much better making online purchases and I wish I’d done this years ago.

A virtual credit card can only be made from financial institutions who use ShopSafe. The ones I found who use it are Bank of America, MBNA, Citibank, and Discover. They are sometimes called “single use numbers”, “substitutes” or “controlled payment numers”. You can also have one made thru PayPal, but I’ve never done it with them, I’m sure it works pretty much the same way.

I just log into my bank or credit card company, go to the ShopSafe link, plug in my own expiration date and spending limit, and make my purchase online. It keeps your real numbers and information safe from hackers and fraudulent sellers by giving you a new temporary 16 digit card. No one can find your real numbers when you use these online cards. If anyone hacks into the company you bought from, the hackers cannot use your numbers. If they try to make a transaction the bank will reject it.

With credit card theft you only pay the first $50. so that is no biggie but it is a hassle. The worst thing is that if a hacker finds your real credit card numbers and matches it to some of your other information (which is easy for them to do), it can easily turn into indentity theft and that can take years to straighten out… if ever. So if you worry about using your credit card for online purchases, you really should try using a virtual credit card.

An added bonus is that I tend to buy less things because I know I have to go and get a virtual card. That keeps me from making  “impulse buys” so for me, it’s a money saver.

I found a really great tool that helps you find out which products sell well on eBay. I’m sure some of you already know about it, but I didn’t … and I think it deserves mention. It’s www.terapeak.com and you have to pay about $19 a month to use it. I really think it would be worth it to use for one month if you’re looking to sell products on eBay. ( I don’t mean selling your Aunt’s Elvis bobblehead… I mean selling a lot of product.)

Terapeak lets you search an eBay item to find all kinds of data on how it sells. That’s a great tool to have because some products just don’t sell well on eBay, so why waste your time even trying. It doesn’t mean your product is not good, it just means it’s not worth selling on eBay. It’s good to know these things before you get in too deep and spend a lot of money trying to sell something at the wrong place.

It give you the listing fees, items a seller has, and the success rate on a daily, monthly, or 90 day basis. When you search with something like this, always look for top sellers on eBay… don’t just look at the average price because it’s usually wrong. I recommend looking for the top 4-6 sellers to see what the product sold for. That’s the best way to get the right price on eBay and/or to know if you can compete easily enough.

You can also check out the “Hot Products” on eBay. This is good stuff to know if you don’t have a product yet, but know you want to sell something. You could choose something to sell from the Hot Products and start your venture from there. Of course there are hot products in many different categories, so check around.

I like that idea and to me it would be worth using it to find out what sells the best on eBay right from the start. I would get Terapeak for only a month and get all the information I could from te site in that one month. I would also get Robert Cyr’s book “Liquidation Sources Revealed” at http://www.thecloseoutindustry.com under Increase eBay Profits to find out more about liquidation, if I were going to take that route.

Let MomsCashBlog know if there’s another way to find this information easily without using Terapeak. I’ve never sold anything on eBay, but I’ve been a buyer many times! This looked like a good tool to use for sellers or anyone thinking about selling, but you might have something else to share with us.

A fun way to make money online is buying and selling domain names. Most people think all the good domain names are taken, so “domaining” isn’t such a hot topic as it used to be. But the truth is, selling names is becoming even more profitable than ever and can only get better. The supply of good names is getting low, and the demand is increasing as new businesses and products crop up every day. It used to be that only the very big companies bought names, but now more people are willing to pay to get what they want.

The short one word names are thought to be the best and most are taken. (Sex.com sold for a record $12 million!) But there are still some uncommon words that haven’t been used, and it’s fun finding them or making them up. Google and Yahoo were not common household words until they hit the internet. Just get out a dictionary and plug a few words into the field to see what’s available. Two and three words strung together can have more meaning than just one word. They can be catchy and easier to remember than some one word names.

Always buy dot.com names because dot.org, dot.net, and the other dots are not as valuable as dot.com. To sell your names you might want a broker, so Google “domain name broker” (but you don’t really need one because if someone wants to buy your name, you will be contacted). Sedo.com, websitebroker.com, dotster.com and www.registernames.com are all good brokers but you have to find the best deal. Type the name you want into the field and it will say if it’s “available” or “make an offer”. If it’s available, buy it! If it says “make an offer, you can just move on to your next name, or if you think the name is valuable and you want to gamble on it, then become a buyer and make that offer and plan to resell. 

Think of new ventures, globally or just within your state or community. One of my friends just sold a domain name for $1,600 in less than 6 months! When he heard that a new mall was being built in his city, he ran to his computer and bought the name. Within a few months, a broker told him someone wanted to buy the name. It’s hard to believe the mall owners didn’t register their name on the web before building the mall, but it happens all the time.

Domain names are a good investment and they don’t cost much (less than $15 each!).  But as with any investment, the more you have, the better the chances of making money. Get in on it now, while there’s still some left. One of these days, everyone will have to “make an offer” to get a good webname and you could hit it big by selling yours.