Still looking for ways to earn extra income? With the rise of side hustles, more and more people are building wealth outside their 9 to 5 jobs.
Why? It’s not necessarily because their monthly salary won’t suffice for their basic needs. Sure it does, but sometimes it’s not enough to afford a particular lifestyle you want for yourself or your family.
It’s a bonus that you can put your creativity to good use. Imagine having the freedom to sell your artwork or write content for someone else–things you wouldn’t normally do in your corporate job. Doesn’t that feel good?
How about this: if your business is new and you don’t want to use your credit line for small expenses, the money you get from e-commerce initiatives will go a long way in funding your needs.
This article will show how you can generate passive income through e-commerce and why creatives prefer it.
What is Passive Income?
In a Forbes article, passive income is defined as the “money which flows in regular intervals without the need for putting in a considerable amount of effort to create it.”
In other words, it’s the money you generate as you sleep.
American business magnate and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway believes that there’s power in creating a second source of income.
Having a passive income is timely nowadays because no one can get any grounding as to when work will be stable. Therefore, for many people, starting a side hustle or finding ways to generate passive income may be the best long-term strategy for stability.
Why Earn with e-Commerce?
The e-commerce industry shows promising growth, driven primarily by the COVID-19 pandemic. An Adobe study revealed that by 2022, e-commerce is expected to reach its first $1 trillion benchmarks.
Owners of brick-and-mortar stores have undergone massive business transformations to reach at-home customers through digital platforms. In-person shopping is now replaced by in-site and in-app purchases, and this trend will continue to persist even when the pandemic is over.
That said, there are tremendous opportunities for everyone to leverage eCommerce as another source of passive income.
Whether you’ve been hustling for a long time or you’re new in the game, e-commerce will offer you great opportunities to gain financial stability.
4 Ways to Earn Passive Income with e-Commerce
- Dropshipping
One of the benefits of running your business online is that you don’t necessarily have the goods in your inventory. So you can set up an online store and make money online to sell products without physically having them. That’s called dropshipping.
Here’s how dropshipping works: you can upload photos of the product to your website and purchase the actual items from a third-party vendor. Your vendor can handle the packaging and shipping, so you won’t have to worry about it.
As a result, you as the seller won’t have to spend your time making, packaging, and delivering the goods to the customers.
The best thing about dropshipping is you don’t need ample space to store your products. You also don’t need to keep tabs on all the items in your inventory.
This is essential if you want to sell frozen goods–you don’t have to purchase freezers and other heavy-duty appliances to make sure your food products stay fresh. Instead, you can partner with a wholesaler to contact the manufacturer directly to fulfill your customer’s orders.
- Affiliate Marketing
If you’re watching videos on YouTube, you’ve probably heard someone encourage you to use their promo links or codes when purchasing a product or to subscribe to a service. In some instances, you might see blog posts with the tag “sponsored post” in them.
That’s how affiliate marketing works: when you’re given an affiliate code or link, you earn a commission for every sale, sign-up, or lead you make when someone uses your unique code to register.
What’s great about affiliate marketing is, you can promote as many products or services as you want and work with as many clients as you wish.
Also, you don’t have to respond to customer queries; you can redirect them to the company’s customer representative to answer any questions about the product or service.
If you already have a huge following on social media or your website generates traffic, you can reach out to brands and see if they offer affiliate programs.
- Online Courses
If you have considerable expertise about specific topics – like content writing, flower arrangement, or coffee making–, you can set up your online short courses or workshops.
Since everyone is spending time at home, most discover their passions, learn a new hobby, or hone their skills.
If you want to impart your knowledge to people who you think might benefit from your tips and experiences, join learning community platforms like SkillShare, Coursera, or LinkedIn Academy and leverage them to create passive income.
By 2026, the global learning market will reach $374 billion, which means this trend won’t disappear soon.
Here’s how to do it: create a series of modules that will cover all the exciting topics about the subject matter. Then, take a video of yourself to demonstrate the modules, just as a teacher would do in a typical online class.
Once that’s done, you can upload your lessons on any e-learning platform and earn a percentage every time someone signs up for your class.
Setting up online classes can be an excellent way to market your small business. It establishes you as the thought leader in the topic, giving your company more credibility.
- eBooks and Digital Art
Are you a writer, a photographer, or a graphic designer? There’s good news for you: many creative people sell their work on online platforms like Adobe Stock, Shutterstock, Etsy, or Payhip.
This is great if you have perfect photos on your hard drive or when you have an unpublished e-Book: you can upload it to online platforms that accept content from designers and writers.
To give you an idea, here’s a list of platforms you can use to upload and sell your content:
Where to sell photos
- Adobe Stock
- Shutterstock
- Fotomoto
- Etsy
- Alamy
- 500px
- PhotoShelter
Where to sell videos
- Uscreen
- Amazon
- Vimeo
- iTunes
Where to sell eBooks
- Sellfy
- Payhip
- Fiverr
- Google Play
- Blurb
- Amazon
- Amazon Kindle Direct Publish
- Lulu
- NOOK Press
What’s great about selling your content is you can earn it every time someone wants them, and it won’t get deleted on the site. There is no limit to how many people can purchase it, and you don’t have to work on it every day. You can upload and forget it–but of course, the only leg work you have to do is promote it on your social media accounts.
Generating Passive Income is Another Way to Achieve Financial Stability
Whether you want to earn extra from your side hustles or generate more sales for your business, leveraging eCommerce is a good start.
Just make sure to review the guidelines set by each company you want to work with so you know what expectations you need to meet and if the commissions you’ll get are worth your time and effort.
