Affiliate marketing
If you’re not looking to sell products and start your own ecommerce store, you can turn to affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is when you promote a specific brand, product, or service to your audience and earn a commission fee when your followers make a purchase using your link.
The upside of affiliate marketing is that you don’t need to create products or bother with manufacturing, packing, and shipping. You only take care of the marketing aspect of your new ecommerce business.
However, the downside is that in order to make money from affiliate marketing, you’ll need an audience. That’s why affiliate marketing typically works best for people with an established audience—people with a large social media following or a successful blog.
But everybody starts somewhere. You can try affiliate marketing with Printful’s Affiliate program—read more about it here.
Source: Printful
DIY crafts on Etsy
There’s good money in handmade goods. In 2023, the global handicraft market was valued at $1 billion and is expected to reach $1.9 billion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of 10.8%.
Personalization is a growing trend—customers are increasingly looking for personalized, unique products when shopping online and searching for ways to DIY things themselves. So now is the perfect time to start an ecommerce store focusing on handmade goods or craft supplies. And what better place to sell arts and crafts supplies than Etsy?
Source: Etsy
Plus, when selling on Etsy, you can easily combine it with other business models, such as print-on-demand. You can sell art supplies and merch with your art in the same store. This strategy of mixing different business models will make ecommerce profitable for you.
Online courses
Another excellent ecommerce business idea is venturing into online education. Creating and selling courses online isn’t an easy gig. But it can be lucrative—the global e-learning market is a multi-billion industry, expected to reach $336.98 billion by 2026, with a compound annual growth rate of 9.1%.
If you want to sell courses online, the first step is figuring out which skills you could monetize. Are you a talented painter or photographer? Maybe you’re a copywriting guru? Think about your skillset and find a niche.
You’ll also have to research where to publish your course. You can use online learning platforms like Udemy or Skillshare or create your own website with, for example, Shopify or Squarespace, and sell your digital products there.
Selling digital products like an online course can be a great source of passive income that doesn’t require much upkeep. Plus, if you find the right niche, you can turn your e-learning venture into a successful business.
Source: Udemy
Coaching
If you’re into the idea of monetizing your skills but want to try something a little more hands-on than selling courses online, you can try coaching. Coaching, a subset of the e-learning industry, can be a very profitable ecommerce business idea. The global market value of the online coaching market is expected to hit $11.7 billion by 2032, with a compound annual growth rate of 14%.
Online coaching is one of those ecommerce business ideas that took off during the pandemic. It’s not hard to see why—it allows customers to receive a personalized approach to learning in the comfort of their homes.
Find a topic or subject you know a lot about. If you’re athletic, you can join the health and wellness industry and offer fitness coaching. Or, if you know a ton about sustainability, you can coach your audience about eco-friendly practices or organic and natural products. There’s a ton of opportunities out there—you just have to find something that works for you.
Fashion reselling
If you’re into fashion and have great taste, you might want to try reselling clothing. Vintage and unique secondhand clothing is an excellent niche apparel product in high demand and limited supply.
Nowadays, with the pressure for more sustainability in the fashion industry, the secondhand clothing market has been on an upswing, especially among younger people. In a survey conducted in 2021, 42% of millennial and Gen-Z shoppers said they were likely to shop secondhand for various items.
This means there’s a huge target audience—but not everybody has the opportunity or patience to dig through piles of clothing at their local thrift shop in the hopes of stumbling upon an iconic fashion piece. That’s where you come in. Your job is to search for awesome clothes that you can resell online.
An excellent example of this ecommerce business venture is content creator Melissa Tatti or @threadsobsessed on Instagram, who travels to thrift shops around the world, looking for original pieces and reselling fashion in her online store. She later resells her best picks on Depop, a platform that caters specifically to selling secondhand clothing. Melissa primarily focuses on Y2K fashions, but you can find your own niche—for example, your focus could be on 1960s/1970s mod and hippie looks.
Source: @threadsobsessed on Depop
Thrifted or vintage goods
If fashion isn’t your thing, you can resell other thrifted goods and items. Business ideas like dropshipping and print-on-demand can be intimidating because the competition is tough. But when you open an online antique store, you can offer genuinely one-of-a-kind products.
Start by scouting your local businesses and thrift stores to see what interesting, unique items you can buy and resell online. Whether you choose to sell antique books, home decor, art, photography, or toys, there’s bound to be an audience for those products.
You can use many channels to market your thrifted goods, but arguably the most popular is Etsy. Etsy is an online marketplace that caters specifically to thrifted and vintage items. Many sellers there have found their audience selling thrifted, vintage, or antique goods. A good example is Etsy seller TwoForJoyBooks, who has racked up 800+ sales selling antique books from the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Source: TwoForJoyBooks on Etsy
Your services
If you’re skilled at something—graphic design, digital marketing, programming, video, or music creation—you can bet that someone is looking for your skillset. That’s why it can be a good idea to monetize your skills with freelance work.
Source: Faizur Rehman on Unsplash
There are several ways to start your online business as a freelancer. You can start your ecommerce website and build your customer base through social media marketing. You can also offer your services on sites like Fiverr or Upwork, which are designed to connect freelancers and people who need their skills.
Source: Amy Shamblen on Unsplash
Source: Prinful
Source: Printful
