What is the best way to make money online?
Whether you are trying to start an online store, or a blog, or a side hustle, it's definitely worth doing some research to see which option would meet your budget, your timeline, and also your preference.
Why I Chose To Start An E-commerce Business
I started with selling products online because I have always had interest in selling things. When I started searching for products to sell, it was fun. It felt like I was shopping to make money! The idea was simple.
Buy products at a low cost and sell at a higher price.
Okay, maybe it's actually not that simple, since a lot of work goes into it. But you get the idea.
I loved learning about marketing and sales strategies and creating a brand. I felt proud that I was becoming a business owner! When I started to private label my product, using my creativity to create a product the way I had envisioned was very rewarding. Seeing customers like the product I created was exciting and creating a brand was visually pleasing too.
But I will say this.
Selling products require having inventory and having money to invest up front (unless you are doing drop-shipping).
RELEVANT READ: How I failed at drop-shipping
If you don't have enough money to start or have some money saved up to invest in a business, then I would suggest you start researching how to make money blogging.
AND making people to open their wallet and make that purchase requires a lot of work. You have to build trust with your customers. You have to control the quality of your products. And you have to think about how you are going to store and fulfill your products.
Why Blogging?
I do believe that blogging is a great avenue to make money, given that all you need is your computer and a very small investment to start the blog (compared to running an e-commerce store). But, in order to make money, you would need to invest a lot of your time writing great posts that would interest and benefit the readers.
When I started writing a blog and had an intention to monetize it, I did a lot of research into what would really interest the readers and what pro bloggers are doing (such as Making Sense of Cents, Chasing Foxes). I joined Facebook groups to discover what's working and what's not working, and also listened to various podcasts.
Running an e-commerce store has taught me many things to blog about since I wanted to document and share my experience. And blogging is a way to express me, a business owner and a mother who worked in corporate world for the past 10 years and switched the career. I want to help others that want to follow a similar path - have more flexible work schedule while not sacrificing financial status.
And as I continue to run my e-commerce store, I truly believe in this saying:
“If you want to learn something, read about it. If you want to understand something, write about it. If you want to master something, teach it.” Yogi Bhajan
I plan on becoming better at running my e-commerce store. Since there are constant flux of changes and new apps to try, I thought blogging would be a fun way to do it.
So What Is The Best Way Of Making Money Online?
Although you might not want to hear this, I think it really depends. If you are really crafty or really great at spotting products out, or you used to have a brick and mortar store, or really good at marketing and sales, you can really shoot for an ecommerce business. Blogging might be really for everyone, especially if you don't have up-front capital to spend. But it does take time and effort to monetize your blog.
If you have decided to blog, then think about what you want to write about and how you can attract readers to your site to monetize your site.
If you decided to sell products online, then start researching what products you want to sell and how to effectively sell it. (You can see my post on how to sell on Amazon here) Since I loooove quotes, here's another one for you!
"A year from now you may wish you had started today" Karen Lamb
So start now. Start putting things into action today. Because, a year from now on, you would've wished you started a day, a month, or a year sooner.
