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.
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He noticed his wardrobe was getting pretty outdated and with family and work life, he didn’t have any time (or desire, really) to go shopping.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.
John Cavendish of FBA Frontiers started his FBA business three years ago and has become an advocate for the e-commerce and FBA scene in Europe.
If you already have experience with Amazon FBA in the US, expanding into Europe is easier than you’re probably thinking and opens up a much wider customer base.
Scott Voelker is the host of the super popular Amazing Seller podcast, where he’s recorded more than 300 episodes about the Amazon FBA business model.
He’s a family man and a serial hustler, having been involved with a number of businesses ranging from construction to photography to ecommerce.
His latest project is the 1k FastTrack Challenge, where he takes a group of students through the paces of making their first $1000 selling online.
Dan Meadors is one-half of TheWholesaleFormula.com. He and his partner Eric Lambert began selling on Amazon as a hobby with an original investment of only $600.
They would work nights and weekends buying products on clearance at local retail stores and selling them on Amazon for profit.
It took only a few months before they saw the potential to turn this hobby into a business and they both left their day jobs to sell on Amazon full-time.
Nathan Chan is the founder of FoundrMag.com. The digital magazine started as a side hustle in 2013, and has since transformed into a multi-million dollar media company.
Nathan is perhaps best-known for growing his business through Instagram, a platform where Foundr now has almost a million followers.
But today I want to dive into a different angle of Nathan’s business, and that’s crowdfunding.