Often hobbies turn into full time jobs and ecommerce is 100% one of those types of hobbies that can roll into a full time job if you can find things to sell online. So where do you start on this ecommerce journey? The easiest way to start learning about selling online is as a hobby especially if you are new to the whole space. To get started most of us have something of value which we never use. These are the best places to start to learn the ropes of listing, orders, shipping and reviews.
So what are things to sell online? Think old clothes, jackets, kids clothes, toys, stuff on shelves, drawers or closets that you never use anymore. The garage is always a good place to walk around with eyes wide open for this. Let’s get you ready to take your existing things to sell online.
- Take inventory of what you have that you are ready to part ways with. Get your items together and if needed clean them up.
- If you are selling items from around your house this would typically imply they are used or pre-owned. As a result, I would recommend starting on eBay and registering for a seller account there.
- Once you have your eBay seller account, the first thing you need to do is create a listing for each item. When you create your listing you will want to remember to take really good pictures of your items. You will want to use keywords that you would expect someone to search for your items in the title and descriptions to be clear of what it is and ensure it is found when someone searches.
- For pricing of your items you can do a quick look on eBay to see if anyone else is selling the same or similar items and price accordingly.
- Once you have your listings ready, you can publish them and they are officially for sale.
The key to growing your ecommerce business especially with bootstrapping it with starting finding things to sell online around the house is to constantly reinvest your profit into more products. Think of the items you found around your house to sell online as your upfront investment capital to launch a new startup business. You will take the revenue gained from these sales and buy products to have more things to sell online. As those sell, you will again reinvest. Eventually you will have thousands of listings and be able to start taking income but plan on reinvesting for a while to grow your inventory.
This approach helps you to turn a hobby into a full time job with limited risk however less upfront capital means slower growth so be patient. You can do this but it will take time and allow your side hustle to turn into a full time career. The good news is that you are learning in the trenches and if you make mistakes or regret getting involved, you can really back out with no loss. If you decide this is what you want to do well then you are already off to the races with getting started on ecommerce.
