Yahoo Finance The top 3 side hustles which could replace your job
Brisbane young entrepreneurs Taylor Reilly and Lachlan Delchau-Jones are masters of the side hustle – helping people find new ways to make more income. They both build businesses and consult in the digital space helping people develop new skills without huge upfront investments or specialised skills.
Money. Whether you are planning a renovation, a wedding, a holiday or just need to pay down your credit card, many of us are looking for clever ways to earn extra cash.
During the Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020 we launched an e-commerce store that sold craft products for families to do at home.
That venture netted us $70,000 in less than one month.
A successful side hustle could give you those extra funds, but the ultimate dream for many is leveraging it into their full time job and ditching the 9 to 5 for good.
So where do you start?
1. Tips for starting a drop-shipping brand
Drop-shipping involves a vendor fulfilling orders from a supplier who then ships the product directly to the customer.
Step 1: Find your product:
Start off by researching across news or social media to spot a trend or niche that the public is beginning to talk about. This is the best way to catch something before it saturates.
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Step 2: Source a supplier:
Keep it really simple. AliExpress is your best friend, think of this website as the child of the wholesale giant Alibaba. Use the platform's rating system to determine if this supplier is reliable.
Ask for the supplier’s WhatsApp account so you can have a reliable communication stream with them. Then make sure you ask for proof of the product e.g. a photo of their stock.
Step 3: Create your website:
Shopify is an absolute must for beginners. With a good template and zero website design experience you can have a site that looks usable within a matter of hours.
Suppliers will always provide pictures, but order the product yourself first as a way to test the product's quality, take your own pictures and check the reliability of your supplier.
Step 4: Run Facebook advertising:
Although tricky at first, there are thousands of hours of free YouTube content which teaches people how to do this. We suggest checking out tutorials made from the Shopify app Oberlo!
Step 5: Fulfil orders:
When sales start to come in, notify your supplier and begin sending them through the details of your orders.
2. Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree reselling
Have you ever realised the garage is filled with items you haven’t used in years? Most people have a few thousand dollars worth of stuff just lying around their house collecting dust.
Flipping these can be an easy way to offload old junk and earn some extra cash.
Step 1: Identify items you no longer use:
We like to follow an 18-month rule. If you haven’t touched it in that long, it’s generally time to let it go! No one wants to be hoarder.
Step 2: List them:
Visit sites like Facebook, eBay and Gumtree and price check items.
Step 3: List the products at a competitive price:
Sometimes undercutting the price of other listings is helpful. We would normally like to find listings that have previously sold and base our prices around those.
3. Identifying a skill and monetising it as a service
This is the best way to build a business that you're passionate about. You can find a way to monetise almost anything.
If you play a sport competitively, teach it to others. If you’re passionate about a certain show, talk about it on a YouTube channel and make an income from Google’s AdSense program.
Blogging is a great side hustle job. Just write about whatever you are passionate about.
Make money by adding partner links to your posts or linking to the online store where you sell dropshipping products.
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