As a young adult or student it can feel hard to make money online. It’s intimidating, especially when there’s people with much more experience trying to do the same thing. In this post I’ll share with you 5 things you can sell online in 5 different ways to get you started.
1. Create and sell an e-book via Amazon:
This is a great idea for any of you with a passion for writing or a good amount of knowledge on a certain subject. It offers very little start up capital to begin and you can make passive income almost instantly from when you publish.
Most people are often put off by writing an e-book thinking it’ll take them months to write. However, many great e-books are written with no more than 40-50 pages. As long as the content is reasonable and the price is reasonable for its length, customers will rate your work highly and you will accomplish a lot of sales.
To begin this selling opportunity, you first need to find a topic you are passionate about. One you are willing to research and revise in order to give the best knowledge you can (people will pay for it after all). You should then aim to write 40+ pages on either Word or Google docs on that topic. Make sure it is structured well and is easy to read. Asking a friend to proofread could be a good way to check this.
Once your book is up on amazon, you will need to make it visually appealing for them to buy. So you’ll need to design a cover for your book. If you are good with art and design you may like to do this by yourself. If not, I recommend paying someone on Fiverr who knows what they are doing.
Once your book is ready and looks great. You can then open up an account with Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. You can upload your completed book and set the price for the book. You’ll make around 70% of each sale and the rest goes to amazon.
2. Sell Online Courses
This strategy is similar to creating an e-book. If you are passionate and knowledgeable about a topic but prefer video to writing; Creating an online course may be a great option for you. Sites like Udemy allow you to post a course on their platform giving you at least a 25% profit for each sale. The commission they take is for using their platform and getting traffic to see your course.
Again, it would be useful to have a visual representation of the course before you sell. This includes virtual covers detailing what the course can bring you your customer. Fiver may also be a useful option here.
3. Re-selling on Ebay
Undervalued second hand items can be one of the most underrated things to sell online. Once people replace an old product with a new one, many people completely devalue their old items. This can leave some great opportunities to find 2nd hand products, fix/clean them up if needed and re-sell them to somebody who would pay more for it.
Great bargains can be found in charity shops and car boot sales where the seller is not experienced enough to know the true value of what they are selling. It is your job to see anywhere they are asking for a low price; Buy it and then sell it on Ebay for a profit. Having the Ebay app handy is useful when browsing, so if you see an interesting product, you can look it up to see what it typically sells for online.
For maximum gains, don’t forget to try to haggle the price down with the seller. The lower the price you buy at the better the profits.
4. Handmade Products On Etsy
If you are more of the artistic type and enjoy creating handmade goods, you should think about starting an Etsy shop online. Here, you can hand create items and put them up for sale on your account. Etsy will take a small fee out of each sale but the rest is all profit to you.
Etsy already had a good customer base with lots of people browsing every day. So a good way for you to catch their attention is to find a niche. Find something specific and theme you shop around this. That way, if a customer knows what they are looking for i.e a novelty t shirt, a phone case or a picture frame, they will know who to look for. If you just post random products, you will much less easily be found and therefore giving you less sales.
The best way to make a profit from this is to choose products that you can charge a good price for and won’t cost too much in terms of time or materials to make. Henceforth giving you a nice profit margin and a worthwhile hourly rate for your work.
5. Sell your photos on Shutterstock
If you love to take photos in your spare time, consider selling them on a stock photo site. There are sites such as Shutterstock that allow you to post your photos on their site. They have a large customer base of people looking to buy rights to a photo to use for a variety of reasons.
If your photos are good enough, you may not make a living but you will be able to make a little extra cash on the side. Shutterstock takes a commission out of each sale, so even trying this method is of no cost to you. For each photo purchase, you make a small profit. However, it costs you nothing to become a contributor so this is a no risk method of things to sell online.
Tips for getting more sales are to have a good description for each image; detailing certain keywords that will be typed in by customers looking for your certain image. Also, there is nothing better for profits in any business than providing a good service. In this case it means creating the best photos you can and the more photos you create, the more sales you are likely to make.
Thanks for reading…
I hope you found this post useful.If you liked one of these ideas and are keen to give it a try, inspire your fellow readers by letting us know in the comments section view.
The good thing about these 5 methods is that it generally covers something for everyone. They don’t require much start up capital and shouldn’t take too much to manage. Making it perfect to fit within your busy school/ working lives. Within these 5 strategies there are many different things you can sell online. All you have to do is to pick your niche and sell it in the way that suits you best.
If you’d like to learn more methods of making extra money online, be sure to check out the Personal Finance section of the Money Your Concern website. You may also be interested to follow my £1 a day challenge journey. This is where I try to achieve financial freedom online, starting from the simplest steps possible.
All the best with your financial journey. Cheers.
Harry.
I really liked your blog.Thanks Again. Fantastic.