E-Commerce. What a world. It’s big, it’s bad, and there’s a lot of money in it. However, there is also a massive amount of competition which means you might find yourself drowning if you don’t work hard to stand out from the crowd. Don’t worry though, running a business is no fun if everything is smooth and easy all the time.
We have some great e-commerce ideas to make money, and the key is all about making yourself personable and engaging with customers in a way that makes them want to come back again and again. After all, your business isn’t just your products – you’re selling yourself as well. Let’s take a look at some of the leading ideas out there.
Top E-Commerce Ideas to Make Money
- Meal delivery service
- Online clothing
- Online cosmetics
- Handmade cosmetics and goods
- Dropshipping
- Online teaching
- Smart home products
Meal Delivery Service
These went absolutely mad during the first lockdowns of the pandemic, and they are showing no signs of slowing down. Cheaper than going to the supermarket, meal boxes provide all the ingredients and recipes people need to eat well every week. There is always variety so that you don’t get bored, and the quality tends to be excellent.
Starting up a meal delivery service means you can push into a market that already has more demand than it can provide for. It’s the perfect time for you to present something that is of excellent quality and delicious to customers. Some meal delivery services even allow you to order breakfast and basic groceries alongside it – a key aspect to implement.
Online Clothing
Great deals, a passion for fashion, if that’s what you like then I can tell you that others like it too. What you have to do to maintain a successful online clothes store is to be competitive and provide great offers that people will find hard to resist. However, there is also a need for good quality items in a market swarmed by fast fashion.
Slow fashion items tend to be more expensive and it can take longer for your business to get off the ground, but the clothes are more ethical and tend to be high-quality so that customers know they are getting what they pay for. Fast fashion is, well, fast, but slow fashion is definitely the future of the industry.
Handmade Cosmetics
Safe, environmentally friendly, vegan, not tested on animals. We look for some or all of these things when we are searching for cosmetics, and it can be pretty hard to come by. This is why shopping small and finding handmade cosmetics is starting to grow as an industry. It’s one that people are more and more eager to support because of the strong ethics behind it.
You can sell handmade cosmetics on loads of platforms, with Etsy and Shopify being two of the leading ones. Making them so that they are safe and gentle on the environment are top selling points, and the fact that you’re making them means that customers don’t have to worry about hidden animal testing (we hope). It’s a win-win situation.
Dropshipping
This is such a fantastic concept. It gives you the freedom of running an online e-commerce store without having to worth about holding stock and shipping it out. Once the customer places the order, it ships from the supplier warehouse so that you don’t have to worry. All that you need to do is collect the cash (with a fee for the products sold).
You can also sell a whole range of different products, you aren’t limited to just clothing or just cosmetics. You can sell whatever you like as long as your chosen supplier has dropshipping as an option. It’s a much cheaper way to sell online and the shipping tends to be wonderfully speedy for a smooth process that keeps everyone happy.
Online Teaching
Sharing your knowledge with the world is wonderful, and online teaching is actually a form of e-commerce. It gives you the opportunity to share knowledge and sell packages that are suited to a range of different people and subjects. You could even hire several people so that you can offer various teachers and topics for people to learn.
Online teaching isn’t just about helping kids get their grades up. You can help adults learn about new subjects, you can teach topics that relate to business, even music. There are endless possibilities and it’s up to you to determine how to market yourself in an appealing manner.
SEO
The basics of SEO are simple, so much so that pretty much anyone can do it and get their ranking up a little. However, if you want to be the best and hit that top search result consistently, you need to ensure that you are the best you can be. That means getting detailed and learning the ins and outs of the trade.
SEO is essential for any e-commerce business, and being able to show them new and innovative ways to boost their ranking and get more traffic will pay off for you. SEO is detailed and complex, so get to work learning everything you can about longtail, short tail, and everything between so that you can start building a reputation with Google and getting customers form search engines.
To Conclude
Which ideas did you like best, and which do you think you’ll explore further? There’s so much potential out there, and all you need to do is set your mind to it. E-commerce is such a lucrative industry and one where we can all make a little cash if we work hard enough. Let it gain some traction and you’ll find yourself making a very comfortable living.
But starting a business is all about being confident that you know what you want to do. That’s why it might be a good idea to check out some of our other business guides so that you have a broad range of choices. Might I suggest the easiest online business to start and online business ideas without investment as starting points? Let us know how you get on!