How to make money selling online

We are living in the age of online buying and selling. Everything from your groceries to fashion to your education is available to you online with just a few clicks of a button.

There are countless ways to sell online, whether it’s your product, your skills, your time or anything else. If people want it, you can sell it! In this day and age where everything is about e-commerce, don’t get left behind. Here are some simple ways you can start selling online without a hitch:

If you’re Just Starting Out and Want to Enter the Digital Space

Below, you will find ways to sell online if you are just starting out, or have a small scale business that you want to push forward through the use of the internet. This includes selling one-time products, starting a small scale e-commerce store, or selling your expertise, skills and time online.

Sell a Physical Product

Suppose you have a product that you make and you want to tap into the online market to start selling. Don’t worry; you don’t need to go through a complicated process to create a whole e-commerce website to sell that individual product. Depending on the product you are selling and the scale at which you want to sell it, there are many preexisting platforms that allow you to sell directly on them.

If you’re looking to sell one-time products, websites like eBay and Craigslist would be best. These websites simply sign up for their services using your email address, and then you can create a listing for the product you want to sell, write a description, set your price and upload it.

If you have a Facebook account, you can also sell one-time products on their Facebook Marketplace. Click the “Marketplace” tab on the left side of the home page, and post any item you want to sell. Other users will be able to see your product according to your vicinity.

If you want to start an online store where you can sell handmade, unique products under a single category, you could sell on Etsy. Etsy works great for people who make any sort of art, craft or jewelry. This could be anything from personalized stationery, ceramics, woodwork, paintings or unique handmade jewelry. Register for an account with all the relevant details, choose a name and add the items to your shop.

All stores don’t do as well as each other of course; you need to do your own marketing through social media and on other mediums in order to get buyers for your online store.

Sell Your Skills

Do you have some special skills that correlate directly to the online market? Anywhere from graphic designing, web page designing or even writing.

If you have some free time, you can start selling your time and skills online to make some extra cash or even make it your full-time profession, depending on how committed you are.

Fiverr works for those who have short intervals of free time and want to sell their skills. The concept of the site is that any job can be done for $5 ($3 once Fiverr takes their commission), so most listed jobs on there wouldn’t take longer than 30 minutes to complete.

Upwork works somewhat similarly by providing a platform where writers, developers, and virtual assistants can find jobs that they could do in their free time as freelancers.

The good thing about Upwork is that they have a high volume of jobs available on their site, and the more work you do, the higher your rating as a freelancer will be. The downside is that these jobs often don’t pay very well, but over time, you can start to accumulate pay from multiple jobs.

There are many other websites and platforms as such that allow you to sell your services and expertise in your field for a fee. However, these markets are often saturated with people trying to sell their skills, hence, you might need to learn how to market yourself as a freelancer and dedicate some time to building your profile in order to get a steady stream of work through these platforms.

If you Have Some Experience and Want to Take it Online

Below you will learn how to take any skills or businesses with a slightly larger presence or volume, online. This includes spaces where you can start selling products or your expert knowledge.

Selling Your Product

If you have a product with a large volume, you want to reach a vast audience and want to know how to make money selling online; Amazon would be the best place to start! This doesn’t necessarily mean you have a warehouse full of inventory that you want to start selling, but more for you if you’re looking to commit and make selling your product your primary job.

To start selling on Amazon, you need to first know what it will cost. Between opening an account, buying your initial inventory, creating a logo and some initial branding for your store, it could cost you anywhere from $200 to $500. To set up your store, go onto their services page, scroll down and click “Selling on Amazon”. Since you are just starting out, it is recommended that you click “selling as an individual” rather than a professional; Amazon will charge you a small amount per sale instead of a standard monthly fee as they do with their professionals. Once you have filled out all their required info, you will be registered as a seller and can start selling your products!

If you want to set up your own e-commerce store, there are platforms that will take care of pretty much everything for you; all you need to have is the drive and time to update your products and take care of the upkeep of your website. One such platform is Shopify; you can design your website, put up your products and start selling; of course, this will require you to build your own audience through marketing your site on your own.

Your basic Shopify package will cost you $29/month and an advanced service can cost up to $299/month. Of course, on top of that, you will need to take care of your inventory and any staff if you plan to make this a scalable business. Other platforms like Shopify include Volution and 3dcart.

If you don’t have a physical product, but an e-Book or other digital products like original music you have created, templates or images that you want to start selling, there are ways to do that as well.

Websites like Sellfy make it extremely simple, even for the total novice, to get started selling online. The enticing thing about selling digital products is that they are infinitely scalable. Once you have made your product, you can continue to sell it as long as people are willing to buy it. You don’t need to worry about storage, inventory or running out of the said product as it does not exist in a physical form.

Selling Your Skills

Suppose you have expert knowledge on any subject you have a desire to start sharing your expertise for a fee as a teacher online, but you don’t know where to get started. You can start teaching through webinars, online courses and video tutorials on a number of different platforms.

If you want to start teaching something that you are an expert in or have a particular skill in, you can sign up to give classes on SkillShare. The website has an in-depth guide on how to get started making video tutorials and planning your classes online. First-time teachers on SkillShare earn roughly $200/month, but as your experience increases, so does your earning. Experienced teachers on the platform earn more than $3000/month.

If you’re a teacher and you are ready to move onto the online space, Udemy provides an established platform that allows you to construct courses for students online. The platform works through video-based classes and requires teachers to plan their courses comprehensively. Udemy charges a 50% commission on every student that signs up for your course, but it provides a vast number of students in return.

In Conclusion

We have only touched on the few ways on how to make money selling online when, in reality, there are limitless ways. As long as there is a demand for it, you can sell anything and in this age of digital marketing and e-commerce, you are more likely to find a buyer online than anywhere else!

The number of hours and your commitment to the process all determines what your end result will be. Some ways are quicker and easier, while others take more time, but have a better result.

We hope our list of how to make money selling online helps you start your own new flow of revenue!