Selling stuff online is not that hard. More and more people are moving their shopping habits to Online. Due to the Corona pandemic, nearly 70 to 80% of the people from developed and developing countries shopper are looking to online.
Most of the business is trying to sell stuff online. But in recent times, selling stuff online is becoming harder and harder, due to stiff competition and low margins. But there are few people who make thousands even millions of dollars monthly simply selling stuff online.
Thanks to Amazon and Shopify, online e-commerce is in full swing. These are really good platforms to make money as well. But we're mainly focusing only on making money from your own blog.
Note: In this article, we're focusing on Physical Products, not the "Services"
You can make money by selling your own stuff, like T-Shirts, Mugs, Books, Mugs, Pens, Bags, Caps, and More.
Making a website and placing these items are easy, But you need to keep up with the demand. Otherwise, you're going to lose more than a customer.
There will be cases when there will be no sales, and in some other situations, there will be more sales than you might expect. You and I or anyone can estimate that. So you need to be prepared for anything.
Now comes the question,
How to make money by selling My Own stuff on my Blog
Is it Possible to make money by selling my own stuff online? Yes. It is very much possible. Let me explain how.
First, you need to remember this. "Nothing is Impossible". If you think you can and want to do it, You can do it for sure.
You would have come across the "Store" section on the websites.
Let's take American singer "Taylor swift" On her website, there is a Store section.
She as a singer has a lot of leverage on the customers. Where she sells songs, phone cases, sweaters, and much more. She can determine the price and quantity /quality.
She as the owner can determine the price, so the margins will be much higher.
What can You/I Sell?
In One word anything. Remember we're talking about physical products, not the courses, or any other materials like books of your work.
Since you're a businessman you need to Understand the ROI, Staorability, Manufacturability, and Shipability.
Here is the list of things that you can sell online on your Blog.
T-shirts/Cloths, Mugs, Pens, Books, Mobile cases, Special printed Stuff, and much more.
There are some advantages to this. As these are non-Perisiable, they can be stored for a long time and can be shipped easily, without worrying about the Breakage, or spoilage.
You can order them in bulk and store them in such a way that, if you don't make any sale this year you can all the same stuff next year. without losing any money.
..
Advantages and Disadvantages of Selling your Stuff
You're good at something and I'm good at some things. At the same time, we're bad at some things, Right. Just like that each and everything has its Advantages and Disadvantages. Let's find out more. Let's start with the Advantages.
Advantages
These are some of the advantages if you like to go after this kinda money-making strategy. Let's have a look at the advantages of selling our own stuff on the blog.
1. Quick Money
Affiliate marketing is the best way to make money online by blogging. After that Selling, your own stuff is the best way to make good money. If you have the resources like cheaper labor, cheaper raw resources you can make good margins.
You can set up a fire sales or monthly/yearly sale and push your sales much further. But you need to have stronger follower bases. Otherwise, it would be a little difficult initially. Once you have the exposure to this field you won't leave it.
2. Low Risk
Compared with any other forms of money-making strategies this is a much better and low-risk barrier. This will be on your own. You determine the quantity and the price. so you have the authority to control anything. The risk factor is low.
I won't say "No Risk", but there will be a risk in the way of making money.
3. High Margins
You as the owner of the blog and the creator/controller of the products and the information that is present on the blog. You can determine the price and the quantity that you want to sell online.
If you keep the price in a way that anyone would like to spend money on your products, you can make good margins.
4. Flexibility/Your Own rules
No one involves between you and the Customer/Reader. As long as your customers are happy you can keep changes and charge.
Since you are the owner and the seller of stuff you can determine the rules and regulations. If you feel like you're not happy about the particular item you can remove it permanently from the store.
5. Make a Mark
All the time you and I need not worry about the money. Some times many other things are more important and with more than Money. Name and fame is another thing which is also important. You need to develop others and the environment around your self. Else there will be no meaning for the life.
You can organize an event, and distribute clothes, food, and other necessities, for those who are in need of those. Yes, you might not be able to do it right away. By in long run, you can. Keep a Goal of helping at least 25 people "who are in Need" in your lifetime. That way you made some once life much better.
Disadvantages
Just like Pros, there are Cons to everything. Let's find out what are the Disadvantages of selling your own stuff online.
1. Time Taking Process
Compared with any other forms of the money-making process this is the most time taking process. Because there are a lot of things that might go wrong. You need to plan for the logistics and the more, just to make one T-shirt.
You need to keep a lot of effort, Both Physical and Psyogically. Planning itself takes a lot of effort.
2. Conversion is low
Nearly 99% of people don't want to spend money on your Blog. Yes, It is hard the truth. Even in 1% of the people who are planning to buy will compare Price, Quality, and Reviews. If you not excel in any one of the factors they are not going to buy it.
With ever-growing competition from Big companies like Amazon and Flipkart, your products need to face a lot of competition. Both from the customer point of view and from the product point of view.
Tell me one simple thing, if you're in a customers' situation what would you do? I think I don't have to answer that. You know what would you do.
3. More Initial Capital
Initial investment High. Yes and No.
Yes, because if you want the total control of what you're doing you need to invest more. All the machines and the material need to be highly competitive.
No, because if you have the connections you can simply order in bulk and can reduce the upfront cost.
However, you need to have some hard cash in your hand.
4. Difficult to Maintain
Starting the business is easy but, keeping up with the demand and the process is little heard.
You might have to face competition, and the important thing is maintenance is also heard. For example, if you're into making t-shirts and the machine that you print the t-shirts logos breaks down then the repair cost is high.
Finding the service stations for the delicate products is not that easy If you do find them the cost of repair might exceed the cost of the machine. Most of the machines are from China. So you need to be careful while selecting the product and the company.
5. Not able to Keep up
There are cases where successful bloggers and online sellers are not able to keep up with the demand during peak ties.
For example, you run a hardware blog, and make hardware accessories, suddenly there will be a spike in the demand, so what would you do?
Increasing labor will increase the cost and the cost of maintenance might be more. What if there is no demand? Are you going to fire all the employees?
Keeping up with the demand during peak and non-peak times is not that easy. so you need to be prepared for all the things.
Does Selling Stuff works in real life?
Yes, you can make solid money in real life. there are people who make a full living out of selling stuff online.
If you're successful in any particular field, you can cash it in many ways. Most success full people like singers and artists, anyone would go after this kind of business. Because the ROI is more.
Take Taylor Swift or any most successful singer. They have their own dedicated shop where they sell a lot of stuff.
If you look at Taylor swift Store, she is selling all of her products like CD's, sweaters, Online Downloadable files of songs, Mobile cases, and more.
Since there is no need to worry about expiry or any other stuff. They are easy to sell or you can simply outsource them to the other providers.
This is another simple way. "Outsourcing". You need to promote the products on your website and on social media. Anyone who is willing to buy can buy them from anywhere. This means the Outsourced person or supplier will take care of all the things, like printing, shipping, and all the other. You'll receive some of the money on every sale that was made via your website.
You can also completely employee other wholely where they'll take care of AtoZ.
At the end of the day, you're working is to find out how much is sold and how much did you make it. That is the only task. "checking the balance".
Should I go after selling my own stuff?
Yes, You can. There are no prerequisites are needed. If you have a stronger community and customer base you can go after this process. Once you have satisfied customer bases you can repeat the process again and again.
Patience is the key to make money in the long run in the business.
You might think from day one you need a lot of sales that need to happen and you want to make real money quickly. But that is not going to happen.
It takes some time just to establish an online presence. ou might have known this Amazon took 5 years to make good sales. That time they are selling books.
Now the competition is high and the alternatives are more. you need to build a loyal following only then you can make some money.
Your deals should look like Cyber Monday sales. You need to offer more than they pay.
This could be one step closer to their own business. They out your stuff selling on your blog or on the website, take reviews carefully, if there is any scope for improvement, improve that. And try to build a larger business around this idea.
Final Thought
Personally if are well connected and surrounded by a loyal following/Community, making money by selling your stuff would be the best choice you could make. After Affiliate marketing, this is another potential way to make quick money.
If you have resources like cheap labor or cheaper resources you can make good margins. But for that, you need to have a larger audience base.
Affiliate marketing is the easiest way to make money. But is you're into product based or service based Blogger or online shop you could go with this. Since the repeating purchase is more. What I mean to say is, if the customer is satisfied with the product that you sold vis Blog or online store, he/she is more likely to come back.
Nowadays, many online shops lose money on the first sales. their main goal is to build a loyal following and then make money. may tech companies lose millions, sometimes Billions in the initial phase, but later on they are like the Tesla of the world of automobiles.
You need to have faith and patience, and then your content will take care of itself.
Follow with me