One of the downsides of living on the coast as I do is the winter. Whilst I get to see some of the best weather the UK has to offer, I also get to see the worst. We are not even close to the main winter months yet but I have still spent the last couple of days holed up at home watching some spectacular storms over the sea and 'enjoying' force 8 winds battering my house! Some of the more crazy locals chose to windsurf in the incredibly rough sea but given that I managed to crack a rib a few weeks ago windsurfing in next to no wind, I figured I would give it a miss :-) It looks as though the summer sun has been and gone for another year.....On the plus side, as we creep into the autumn/winter months many business owners will be heading towards their busiest time of the year. This is especially the case if you are in retail of some kind as the run up to Christmas should, ideally, mean that you will be rushed off your feet for the next two or three months.

eBay still offers one of the best online opportunities for anyone wanting to start selling stock on the Internet. When I traded on eBay my sales during November and the beginning of December always used to skyrocket. One of the main reasons for this was that I chose to sell relatively low cost products (less than £20) which were ideal for people to give as Christmas gifts. Often time I was only making a few pounds profit on each item but because I was able to sell so many of them, the overall profit became substantial.