1. Start a dropshipping business
Last year, many worldwide trends experienced decades’ worth of acceleration. One such trend was the rise of ecommerce. There are a number of ways to run an ecommerce business, some of which allow for minimal need to carry and hold lots of inventory.
Consider dropshipping—a business model where you don’t keep the products you sell in stock. Instead, when a customer buys something from your store, a third party fulfills and ships the order for you. Because startup costs are low, it’s an increasingly popular way to make money online for beginners and pros alike.
Dropshippers have a habit of chasing the latest trends. And while there’s nothing wrong with catching a trending product wave, there are many steady product categories that offer similar opportunities to do well.
Startup time: A few hours.
Effort to start: Very easy with little ecommerce knowledge.
Time to first payment: Two weeks to one month, on average.
What to know:
At Shopify, we regularly see these categories on our list of top performers: clothing and accessories, jewelry, home and garden.
You can create a Shopify store and use it for free for 14 days.
The pay period using Shopify Payments is five days plus the number of days remaining until your payout day.
Requirements:
You must be 18 years or older to start a Shopify store. If you’re under the age of 18, your parents can start one on your behalf.
Requirements vary by state, but you need to have licenses or permits to sell online.
2. Print on demand
Print on demand allows sellers to customize white label products with their own designs and sell them only after a customer buys, eliminating the need to hold inventory (which is what makes it a subset of dropshipping).
When a customer places an order, a print-on-demand company will add your design to the product, fulfill the order, and ship it to the customer.
The most significant advantage print on demand offers over dropshipping is that you control the aesthetic of your products—a key differentiator for product categories where the design is the distinguisher, like t-shirts or fan merch.
When it comes to making money online, you can also use print-on-demand services to:
Test online business ideas or new products lines without the risk of buying inventory.
Monetize an audience you’ve already built, whether it’s on YouTube, social media, or a personal blog.
Offer diverse products by selling t-shirts, books, shoes, bags, mugs, phone cases, laptop skins, wall art, and more.
Sell photos online by placing your images on physical products to sell to your fans.
Overall, print on demand lets you create customized products quickly. You don’t have to worry about shipping or fulfillment—it’s taken care of by your suppliers. And since you have no inventory to worry about, it’s a low-risk, low-investment way to make money online.
Startup time: A few hours to set up an ecommerce platform, then however long it takes to create your designs.
Effort to start: Very easy with little ecommerce knowledge.
Time to first payment: It depends on when you get your first sale and which ecommerce platform you decide to use, but Shopify’s pay periods are five business days.
What to know:
You can set up accounts with ecommerce platforms like Shopify that have the logistics included in their services.
Payments will vary depending on how much you sell and your profit margins.
Pay period using Shopify Payments is five days, plus the number of days remaining until your payout day.
Requirements:
Most ecommerce platforms require that you’re at least 18 years of age. If you’re under the age of 18, your parents can start one on your behalf.
Requirements vary by state, but you need to have licenses or permits to sell anything online.
3. Create custom products
While the options above come bundled with the convenience of not holding on to expensive inventory, they also come with some limitations—mainly that you don’t have full control over the product you’re