Online business has become a reality for many home-based ambitious entrepreneurs. Indeed, on the internet, it has become possible to earn money through drop shipping, affiliate marketing), making videos with ad revenue and so on. Thus, this is something people either start on the side or do as their job whenever it becomes possible. Indeed, everyone can make the leap into entrepreneurship with ambition, hard work, a laptop and the right idea. Looking for ideas to start your own online business without necessarily quitting your day job? Here is a collection of easy ideas!
1) Launch your drop-shipping store
Drop-shipping offers several advantages, the main one being that you don’t need a physical warehouse to start. You just create a e-commerce website and purchase the item from a third party that has it shipped directly to the customer. The supplier basically handles the whole process. It means that you don’t actually need to buy a lot of products from a manufacturer risking to find out afterwards that there is no market for them.This solution is great if you are on a budget. In addition, it doesn’t really require particular skills and you won’t struggle with the inventory. You can run your online business everywhere and you are free to decide when you want to work.
2) An online store to sell your own creations
There is a market for plenty of creations! If you are crafty, you can definitely monetize your handmade beauty products, furniture, jewelry or clothing. Artists could also have their own platform to showcase their art and sell it. Whether you are a musician, painter or photographer, you can turn your art and passion into a source of income. And if if works, you might be able to do what you love for a living. Writers can also sell their own ebooks through a download link. Many platforms allow you to start selling your homemade goods and your creations (Etsy, Craigslist…). However, you could also create a website and establish pricing strategies with Shopify. It gives you more control and makes it easier to track and fulfill orders.
3) You could also teach an online course
Internet is known to be an endless source of knowledge. If you are particularly skilled or knowledgeable about a topic, chances are it will be useful to someone willing to learn about it. It could be anything from music production to web development, building apps or marketing. Of course, it takes some work to enroll people in your course and create quality content to teach people how to do something from scratch. Most of the time, it will require several videos (filming and editing included) or thorough articles, meaning more work on your hands. However, if you manage to share it, it can quickly become a source of regular income. Moreover, helping people is extremely rewarding.
4) Start a blog
Blogs shifted from virtual journals to real marketing tools where monetization has become a common practice. Indeed, promoting products, sharing sponsored posts or hosting third-party ads are now frequent although it does require to gain an audience beforehand. Thus, you will have to be motivated in order to offer quality content and build an engaged audience. This is definitely a long-term work and monetization is the fruit of long labours. To put it simply: you won’t see the result right off the bat. However, once you have your audience, it will provide you with regular income. Having a gift for writing and being regular is also essential.
5) Launch a podcast or become an influencer
If having a blog is not you cup of tea, you could also launch a podcast. It is similar to starting a blog but you’ll need a high-quality microphone and an audio recording software. And why not inviting guests or solicit sponsors and advertisers to make unbelievable connections? This is indeed how you will manage to build your own online business from scratch. Finally, if you are comfortable with the social media and enjoy sharing your own quality photos and videos, becoming an influencer could be a possibility. Because of dishonest practices (buying followers and so on), sponsors are now more interested on smaller influencers with an engaged following. Thus, you won’t need millions of followers to earn some money!
No matter what type of website and activity you choose, you can pretty much always rely on affiliate marketing to make an additional income. How does it work? You recommend a product or a service to your audience. Then, you make sales commissions by driving traffic to e-commerce sites through affiliate links or referral codes in your blog posts, emails or other channels.
