Selling online is no longer a choice; it is now the best way to run a business. Selling online is hard because there are so many things to do. There are so many things to learn, and it can be hard for some to put them into practice.
Where do you even start? What are you going to sell? Today, you’ll learn about nine ways to sell things online that can help you get your online business off the ground.
First, though, why should you do business online?
Why should you sell online?
Here are the three most important reasons why you should do business online.
- It Requires Low Capital: You can open a store with as little as $29 in your bank account. Yes, all you need to do is pick a platform and start building your store from there. Once you’ve done this, you’ll have to pay a monthly fee. You don’t even have to pay for the inventory. We’ll talk more about this in a bit.
- It’s Easy To Expand: your product line and reach more people once you start making sales.
- It’s Easy To Handle. You can run your business from anywhere. If you want to take a vacation, you can bring your laptop with you and still take care of orders.
As you can see, starting an online business may be hard at first, but in the long run, it will be a better choice than building a physical store.
Now, let’s talk about the nine things you can start selling online today.
Open a dropshipping store
One of the least expensive businesses you can start today is a dropshipping store. You build an online store and sell someone else’s products through dropshipping. You don’t have to buy inventory; all you have to do is get the word out about your store.
When someone buys something from your store, you have to order it from your supplier. The item will be sent to your customer by your supplier.
The difference between the price you sell it for and the price you bought it for is how much money you make. If the price of the product from the supplier is $10, you can sell it on your store for $15. To make this business profitable, you need to think about the shipping rate and your other costs.
You can sell on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram. Just one. There is now something called “Facebook Shop” on Facebook. Facebook is one of the best places to sell online if you want to take advantage of the power of social media.
It’s up to you to decide what you’re going to sell. Setting it up is also free of charge. You can promote your business on Facebook for free by joining groups, or you can pay for advertising.
You need a shopping cart tool that costs money every month if you want to charge people’s credit cards. Shopify and Ecwid are the two best tools. You can connect these two services to your Facebook store so that your customers can pay you online.
Sell on Etsy
Etsy began as a place for artists to sell their work. Now, it’s a big place for people who want to sell things online to do so. Even though Etsy has some strict rules, it is the best place to sell things that you have made yourself.
If you don’t make your own goods, you can hire someone else to do it for you. For example, you can sell t-shirts on Etsy, but you don’t have to buy and print your own t-shirts. There are companies like Printful and Printify that can help you do this.
You only have to design the t-shirt and put it on Etsy to sell it. When someone buys a shirt from you, you order it from the printing company, and they send it to the buyer.
Do Amazon FBA
Fulfillment by Amazon, or FBA, is what it means. In this way of running a business, you have to buy your own stock. You send all of your products to Amazon, and then Amazon makes a list of them. Once this activity is over, you can now put your products on the Amazon website.
You have to decide what to do next. You can tell people about your products or just let them find them on Amazon. When someone buys something from you, shipping is no longer your problem. Since you sent your items to an Amazon warehouse, they will ship them to the customer.
Amazon FBA is kind of pricey. You also have to pay “rent” on top of the seller fee for each transaction. Since your things take up space in the warehouse, you have to pay each month for that space.
Start a business that takes care of drops.
Drop servicing is like dropshipping for services. Dropshipping is a similar way to make this work. But you’ll sell services that other freelancers offer, not physical products made by companies.
Some examples of services you could sell are:
- SEO
- Writing
- Artwork
- Graphics
- Animation
In drop servicing, you put up ads on your store and sell these services. When a customer asks for a service, you order it from a freelancer. When the work is done, the freelancer sends it to you, and you then give it to your client. Like dropshipping, your profit is the difference between the price you pay the freelancer and the price you charge your customers.
Start your own shop
This one works the same way as dropshipping, but you’ll sell your own products. This is great if you want to make something.
With this business model, you are in charge of everything, from making the product to making sure it is packed and shipped. All of these things are your job.
It also costs a bit more than dropshipping. In this type of business, you have to pay a monthly fee for your store. The next step is to spend money on making your items. You also have to pay for your own packing materials and gas when you drop off the item to be shipped.
This works best if you’ve made your own brand, which is something unique. If you’re going to sell someone else’s products, you shouldn’t use this business model.
Sell digital tools
People can download or use online things that are digital tools. For example, you could sell a calendar, a planner, or an Excel sheet that can automatically analyze data.
There are a lot of people who need help online. If you know how to code, you could even make your own app that people could use every day. Even though there are a lot of apps already, there’s always room to grow and add more.
The key is to figure out where people who spend a lot of time online feel pain. If you can make a tool that helps them solve these problems, you’ll have a steady stream of customers.
Sell your brand
This product is you. As you can see, the only thing that “influencers” sell is themselves. If you know a lot about a certain subject, you can use that to make money online.
How do you do this?
You can help people who are having trouble in life by giving them advice. There are a lot of people who make a lot of money by giving business advice. People pay you for your time, in short. In exchange, you teach and help them in important ways.
Sell what you know
You can use an eBook or an online course to sell your knowledge. This is a great way to make money without doing anything. You can keep making money from it for many years. Building a course or writing an eBook takes time, but it will pay off in the long run.
You can pay someone to write your book, for example. Find someone who knows a lot about your niche and ask them to write a long eBook course for you. Get ready to spend a lot. Since you own the copyright for life, this eBook will make you money over time.
You also need to keep selling these things. It works best if you’re known as an expert in your niche. Use YouTube and social media to teach people a little bit about what you know, and then invite them to buy your course and learn more.
Summary
It may not be easy to sell things online, but if you can do it well, it will pay off. The first thing you need to do is figure out how you want to make money online. Once you’ve made your choice, you’ll need to spend some time learning how it works.
You can take a class to make things easier for yourself. You can learn the basics of how to set up an online business by taking online courses. With these courses, you can start an online business and keep learning more advanced ways to make sales.
