How to Make Extra Income from Online Firesales

The Willie Crawford Wedding Firesale  Story

Some years back, Willie Crawford, an Internet Marketer, was very happy when his youngest daughter came around to let him know of her wedding plans. The wedding was to take place on September 16, 2006. However, Willie’s joy was not to last for long, when he got to know that the cost of the wedding was huge and looked quite unaffordable. Quickly, his instincts went to work. In February 2006, He went online to create his now famous Wedding Firesale, which was acknowledged as one of the biggest marketing events ever seen on the internet.  

Crawford offered lots of valuable stuff on his Wedding Firesale site for peanuts. Some of the products included in that firesale was software worth $4,588, with some unreleased versions and exclusive rights to resale. Others were MP3’s, access to paid membership sites, courses, and E-books, given out at a ridiculously low price. However, all this was for a short period of time. Between the last two days of February 2006 and the first week of March 2006, Willie Crawford’s Wedding Firesale had ended up generating $80,000 in direct sales and another $25,000 in backend sales –all within a week!

What Is a Firesale?

The word “firesale” originally referred to the sales of property recovered from households which were damaged by fire. Usually, in order to recover part of the loss suffered, owners of such property or goods would offer to sell them at much discounted prices. Over time, however, “firesale” has come to be identified with the sale of goods or products at discounted prices and for a limited time. Buyers usually rush to take advantage of this limited time offer and  buy off the firesale at a discounted price, since they may not be able to get them at that price, thereafter. Some of those buyers usually pay peanuts for such stuff, only to resell them at the duration of the firesale and at a good profit.

Starting Your Own Firesale

You too can make a huge extra income with your firesale by taking note of the following tips:

1.  Sell a Bundle: In order to come up with a firesale to which different kinds of people can respond, you should “bundle” a huge collection of related products together. Bundling your firesale products means your firesale will include ebooks, software, membership sights, reprint rights, private label rights, etc. Offer the bundle for an incredibly low price, but only for a limited time.

2. Build Up “momentum”:  Do you remember ever watching a thriller? As the movie builds up to a climax and the soundtrack comes to a head, your heart beats violently…like something is going to happen. You can create this kind of excitement with your own firesale by creating time-bound pricing with different prices for each day or week of the firesale. For example, for a one week firesale, you could have this kind of pricing method: Days 1-2: $15/ Days 3-4: $21 /Days 5-6: $45 /Last Day of Firesale: $55. Watch how buyers rush to take advantage of the low price offer in the first few days.

3. Give a Reason Why: Do not forget that people often like to lend a helping hand to a worthy cause. Let them know why you are offering such a load of rare “diamonds” for next to nothing. (your reason could be a wedding, to pay for unexpected bills, to raise capital for a new orphanage, etc). People are naturally suspicious. Therefore, let them feel not only more at home with your offer, but under pressure to help your cause. In 2007, Gobala Krishnan, Vince Tan and Melvin Ng made a huge income of $69,000 in a week with a firesale website they created (www.sendusto.us)  to help them travel to the United States to attend a seminar. Lots of people bought from their firesale, not because they needed the stuff immediately, but because they felt obliged to help out.

4. Put a bit of Originality: Offer original, “never before released” products as part of your firesale bundle. Willie Crawford, for instance, offered 2 new original pieces of software during his firesale. You can buy software products (including resale rights and source code), get programmers to improve on them and put your own label, thereafter releasing them as your own.

5. Promote Your Firesale: Look for innovative ways to promote your firesale. The more people get to know about it, the more buyers you get. Let your subscribers hear about it first and get joint venture partners who will also tell their subscribers about this great firesale. Create a buzz. You should support your firesale with lots of viral marketing. Create an opportunity for people to purchase and become affiliates. Give up to 50% or more away in affiliate commission on each sale. This way, people can buy your inexpensive firesale product, join the affiliate programme you have created for your firesale and send promotional emails to hundreds and thousands of their subscribers to promote the firesale (talk about a virus that infects millions of people!).

Remember, you may call your firesale by any name other than “firesale”. Giveaway, Megasale, etc., are other names you could use instead of “firesale”.