Are you interesting in selling physical products online?
If so, you’re in the right place. Ecommerce can be a lucrative side hustle with great potential to scale into a full-time business.
In these archives, we cover Amazon FBA business models, ebay selling, dropshipping, and of course the traditional ecommerce model of setting up your own online storefront.
You’ll discover print-on-demand ecommerce models and how some side hustlers have found success in the homemade and handmade marketplaces.
Now these different “flavors” of ecommerce can vary widely in terms of how much they cost to start. With print-on-demand and dropshipping, you essentially have zero upfront inventory cost. With Amazon FBA private labeling, you might be looking at a minimum order of several thousand dollars to get your product imported and up for sale on Amazon.
Your time involvement on the fulfillment side is another factor to consider. With shops like Etsy, you’re in charge of making and shipping the product for each order that comes through. With ebay, it’s off to the post office each time an auction ends. At the other end of the spectrum, the print-on-demand services and Amazon FBA handle the fulfillment for you — but at a cost.
Keep these concepts in mind as you explore the ecommerce archives here at Side Hustle Nation.
Rene Delgado started an online drop shipping store with no ideas and no inventory and went from $0-300k in sales in his first year in business.
It was the search for an extra stream of income that led Rene Delgado to consider e-commerce; selling physical products online.
Storage unit auctions are happening near you every month and somebody’s making money from them.
Why not you?
I’ve flipped over 100 storage lockers in my spare time; here’s how to get started without losing your shirt.
Recently a friend of mine posted about how he sold his 2.5-year-old Amazon FBA business for over $400k, which I thought was incredible.
The twist was it turned out the buyer was a familiar face as well. Spencer Haws of NichePursuits.com was the seller, and Ace Chapman of AceChapman.com was the buyer.
They are both previous guests of the show. Spencer was on episodes 18 and 70 of The Side Hustle Show talking about niche sites and software, and Ace was a guest on episode 182, talking about investing in digital real estate.
It’s no secret that Amazon FBA is one of the hottest side hustles going right now, and it shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
FBA is Fulfillment by Amazon, the program that allows you to list your own products for sale on Amazon, tap into their giant audience of customers, and have them handle all the shipping when orders come in.
The trick is figuring out which which products to sell, and that’s where Greg Mercer comes in.
This week’s episodes is a, “Where are they now?” show as I revisit with Ryan Grant of OnlineSellingExperiment.com.
Ryan first appeared on the show all the way back on episode 61 in 2014. Back then he had just quit his $50k a year job to sell online full-time using retail arbitrage.
In this episode Dustin lifts the lid on a business he invested a large chunk of time and money into, only to pull the plug on it a year and a half later.
He designed a great product that solved a pain point for people in the fitness community.
So, what went wrong?
From the spare bedroom to $15k in monthly recurring revenue, Sam Gonzalez has grown the subscription style service UrbaneBox.com all on the side from his day job as a police officer.
He noticed his wardrobe was getting pretty outdated and with family and work life, he didn’t have any time (or desire, really) to go shopping. So he decided to do something about it and create an online subscription box business with a cool value proposition: $120 worth of designer clothes for $60.
Chris Green is one of the foremost advocates for the side hustle lifestyle. He has 10+ years’ experience as an Amazon seller, author, software provider to others involved in the Amazon ecosystem, and most recently as a t-shirt designer selling shirts on the Merch by Amazon platform.
Chris calls Merch by Amazon “the best side hustle out there right now”. With no upfront capital, no shipping or returns, no customer service, and no risk, it’s certainly one of the easiest side hustles to get started with.
Sarah Miller is still in college (and plays soccer for her school) but that hasn’t stopped her from starting a pretty cool side hustle: painting custom pet portraits. She’s done 300 paintings so far! But the business isn’t without its challenges. She’d like to raise her rates, expand her marketing efforts to land new clients, … Read more
After spending hours of research and using the little money that I had saved, I bought my first pair of shoes to resell. It was a pair of Jordans that I bought for $190. I sold them hours later for $300 — an $80 profit after shipping and fees.
It was the quickest and easiest money I had ever made. I had finally found a product that met all of my criteria: high ticket items with good margins that sold quickly. Sneakers checked those boxes very nicely.