The online e-commerce world has taken a rather large change in 2020. With so many people being forced to stay home due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it makes us think what online businesses are still profitable?
The Online e-commerce world has been booming more than ever, with business owners having to revert to the online use of tools, just so they can continue making a living.
Do you want a piece of the pie? Then stick around. We’ll be discussing what online businesses are profitable and how you can start your own, during this pandemic.
With everything going online, if you’re not cashing out of it, you’re missing a huge opportunity.
Do you remember YouTube once being a “watch” platform only? Whereas now, if your not earning from YouTube then what are you even doing on the platform?
Same goes for crypto trading, reselling and even teaching online.
This post may contain affiliate links. When you click on a link within this post and make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This is at NO additional cost to you.
Note: This post wont be referring to any quick money making schemes. By those, I mean, surveys, shopping cart deliveries, ad earnings etc.
For that I have a separate post. Click here.
This post is for those who are serious about starting their own long term business online.
Let’s begin
1. Blogging
Let’s begin with the one of the most lucrative businesses out there. Blogging.
Being a blogger myself, I sure know the revenue avenues are endless. It’s a profession where you can earn from writing about things you love.
The best part about blogging is, you can get started with very little investment. The main things required to get blogging are, web hosting, a domain name and you are literally good to go.
“I use Siteground – it’s super affordable and you’ll get a discount when you sign up using my link”
Additional requirements are free, such as the installation of WordPress etc. Editing platforms such as Canva and even keyword research tools.
In order to succeed in blogging, you will need to give it time. This opportunity probably has the longest wait before you start seeing consecutive cash flowing in. Although, it will all depend on your strategy and how fast you want to build your blog. It also depends on budget.
Blogging does require some skills such as SEO, content creation, and promotion. You can learn all these skills by yourself. With the help of a training course, it will make it even faster for you to grasp.
Check out Suzi Whitford’s blog by number course – she teaches you everything you need to learn about blogging and how to earn 10k monthly with it!
There are many ways you can earn from blogging. Some of the main ways include:
- Promoting your own products
- Affiliate marketing
- Advertising (Adsense, Mediavine, etc.)
- Sponsored posts
In order for blogging to give you a sustainable income, patience and consistency matters.
Ensure to blog about what your passionate about. This way you will last a lot longer in your blogging business, than have yourself give up half way.
2. Training
Know a skill you can teach? Then why not teach it for profit.
The educational world is very much different to the practical world.
Adults come to the realisation that what they’ve studied is actually of no use. Unless your very lucky enough to find a job in the exact same field (very rare), it’s pointless.
This is where your expertise can come handy for someone who wants to go a certain route but doesn’t know where to start.
Without the university fees, your training prices will be a huge hit.
Examples can include, digital marketing training, blog trainer, teaching the world of wholesaling and dropshipping etc. The options are endless.
You can offer 1-to-1 mentoring sessions and set an hourly rate. Online courses are another big hit with the audience as they love learning in their free time and you don’t have to be tied up to a fixed schedule that way.
This is the right time for you to gain expertise in a good niche and start your training career.
The eLearning industry is worth $107 billion and is still booming. So you can imagine, how much business there is to be made.
Popular platforms like Teachable, Udemy and Skillshare allow you to host your training courses. Once you set up your training course, you can begin marketing It and get the people interested to sign up.
Here are some tips to effectively market your training courses:
- Create a funnel around your training course that consists of free offers, low-risk offers, and webinars.
- Give your audience a preview on some of the things they can learn on your course. Producing free content on social media platforms and YouTube is always the best way to target warm prospects.
Such as how I’ve made a mockup image showing what you can learn when you sign up to my free ebook about Instagram.
- Provide continuous value to people interested and people who have already enrolled. You can use an email marketing system to follow up on your prospects. Convertkit is a great platform to begin with. They offer the first 1000 subscribers for free.
- Create an affiliate program for rewarding people who promote your training courses. This will encourage your buyers to promote your course and get a piece of the pie too.
Such as this one below: I’m an affiliate of Vik’s Amazon FBA course. If you sign up I get a commission too, this costs you NOTHING! This actually leads us onto the next profitable business expanding in 2020.
3. Amazon FBA
As if I haven’t touched on this business style enough, Amazon FBA can really turn into a high profitable running business before your even know it.
If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know I’ve touched on this topic before. If you’re new to my blog, hey! Welcome aboard. Here’s a link to my Amazon FBA business post and how you can get started from A-Z.
Amazon FBA involves selling white labelled products and shipping them off to an Amazon fulfilment centre, where Amazon handles the shipping, packaging, and support for the products.
Not sure you can afford the pre-hand investment? No problem, you can begin with dropshipping, and once you’ve established enough funds, go on and invest! (That’s how I did it)
What’s dropshipping you say? It’s an alternative to wholesaling where you don’t hold stock inventory and only purchase the item once it sells.
How to dropship on eBay EXPLAINED!
4. Sell Digital Products
This is a very lucrative business and one that is almost topping the charts when it comes to passive earnings.
Digital products can include selling ebook’s, songs, informational products, WordPress plugins, themes, digital services, memberships, productivity tools and even training courses.
While creating any product, first off do you research on what is in demand on the market. What are your buyers hungry for? That way it will be easier to grab sales once your product is launched.
5. Freelancing (writing)
A freelance writer is pretty much required for every type of business.
Large companies and even small, sometimes just don’t have the time to be creating their own content, especially when it comes to their blogs, copywriter content, or any other written work. This is where you as a freelance writer comes in.
You can be a niche freelance writer.
A professional copywriter
A legal script advisor
…review writers, digital marketing writers, health care professionals, finance writers, medical writer…
Whatever it is, there is a demand.
If you are a medical practitioner, yes you can choose only to write medical related articles. The moment you have domain expertise, people will be willing to pay you more money when you ask them. Same goes for any other niche you may have knowledge of.
Freelancer sites like Upwork, Outsourcely and Fiverr, are all popular platforms where you can promote your freelance skills.
6. YouTube Channel
YouTube is one of the world’s most visited sites. Their audience is huge.
It’s obvious that becoming a YouTube star requires some amount of effort, however once you’ve sussed out your audience and fans, becoming popular on the channel itself, will be a piece of cake.
Review Channels, Beauty Channels and Tech Channels are all a hit. People just love watching them. It’s easier than reading a blog when you just want to see some faces in action.
Keyword research is also crucial. Just as you would look up keywords when blogging, it’s essential also for YouTube.
Top Tip: Not sure what to film? Enter your keyword in Google and if the top 10 search results DON’T show in a video format, it means there’s space for you to grab some views.
Treat your YouTube channel like a business. Update your channel regularly with fresh videos. Include your keywords in the video description, tags, and even subtitles.
Just like blogging, YouTube avenue streams are pretty similar. You can consider, Adsense monetization, affiliate marketing, sponsored videos and so on.
Video marketing is the future, it involves your audience deeply. Videos are also easier to digest as opposed to reading text.
Video content will continue to grow as there’s a tremendous need of video in some niches. People like to see before they believe.
Overall
There are tonnes of business ideas out there. However they all come back to the top 6 mentioned above, in some sort of way.
Word of advice: Pick a business idea and stick to it for atleast 6 months to a year! Success doesn’t come overnight unfortunately. And as much as we all want to see those shining coins real fast, they can take time to appear. Have trust in the process and most importantly, have trust in yourself – writtenbysadia
Post Tags: successful online businesses, online business ideas for beginners, online business ideas 2019, online business ideas 2020, unique online business ideas, online business for students, online business ideas from home, how to start online business from home, online business ideas for students, online coaching business ideas, online business without investment, online business opportunities
Thank you for the wonderful article. This blog helped me learn the skills required to market. The concept of e commerce is more clear to me now. The paperless exchange of business through electronic medium in my view is very useful and necessary in today’s world. The tips and tricks on E-commerce business have enlightened me and have helped me to plan marketing in order. It gave me knowledge on key strengths of the marketplace and how research plays an important role in any business. The branding of e-commerce is also important in my view as well as the presentation. Overall the blog is very useful and will definitely recommend everyone to go through it once.
You’re welcome:)