The Best Businesses To Start From Home

The Top 3 Businesses To Start Online

There are over a hundred different option of online businesses you can start from home to create passive income or just to work remotely. Here are my top three favorites:

 

1. Drop Shipping

 Drop shipping is basically reselling an item straight from the manufacturer without actually touching the product.

 When done correctly, dropshipping can be very profitable and some people have made full time incomes from it. It is also a great option for people looking to work from home and build a business from the ground up.

 However, no matter how easy internet gurus may make it seem, dropshipping is not a get rich quick scheme. It takes just as much time and effort as would any other business and having to operate from home does not change that. You still have to take care of order fulfillment, any platform glitches, order returns and any other obstacles you’d probably face in having a regular e-commerce store. Dropshipping can also be incorporated into your regular e-commerce store, which can be an easier route for established store owners.

 Most people use Shopify.com to create their Dropshipping store as the platform provides a large range of services and make sit easy for persons who do not know how the technical aspects of creating an e-commerce website.

 Pros of DropShipping

 1. Fast and Easy Start Up

 As with any regular ecommerce store there would be a lot of extra work required to account for warehousing, and probably extra personnel to help manage stock. However, with dropshipping all the constraints are eliminated. 

2. Low Startup Costs

 Again, the elimination of having to pay for extra staff, warehousing space and more, creates a relatively low cost and low risk startup. You will never have to deal with purchasing too much stock or little stock.

 You also wont have to waste money testing out an item you are not sure will sell because if you do your proper research, your product should be one you know for a fact that people are willing to purchase.

 3. Easily Scalable

 Your dropshipping business can be scaled easily if you do it right from the start. As your reputation grows trustworthy your field and the more good reviews your store gets, the easier it is for you to grow.

 Also, your supplier would be the one fulfilling all the orders and all you have to do is create more orders. So, less hassle on you.

 

Cons of Dropshipping

 1. High Competition

 Because what you put is what you will get out, the start up costs to start an online dropshipping business can be relatively low. With low startup costs being an option, more and more persons try their luck with this business model. With the market containing many experienced marketers and bigger, more established companies, it makes it hard for smaller companies to break through the ice, as those bigger companies have mastered keeping their overheads low and have a higher advertising budget.

 2. Minimum Control Over Effective Order Fulfillment

 You are basically selling someone else’s product with no idea how effective the product is at fulfilling its job. Therefore, in as much as you don’t have to pay for warehousing, you can possibly pay the cost of dissatisfied customers with your reputation.

 Bad customer service and high return rates can make your business go under in no time.

 3. Low Profit Margins

 Your expenses may be low as you don’t have to pay for storage space, however what you put in is what you get out. I can’t stress this enough. There was a time I saw this internet marketer bragging about how she made $40,000.00 her first time dropshipping. After many people commented asking her to show her advertising costs it turns out that her profit from that figure was only $11,000.00. This is the part most people don’t want to talk about.

 Especially if you do not have a discount deal with your supplier (as many bigger brands do), your profit margins will always be lower.

 2. Affiliate Marketing

 In simple terms, affiliate marketing is simply earning a commission from selling someone else’s products. In my opinion, if I have the marketing skills to succeed at dropshipping I’d invest more into affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is another great option for persons looking to work remotely, start their own online business or just work from home. It earns you passive income and the system can be almost entirely automated.

 You can become an affiliate for Amazon, Clickbank and or almost any brand.

 Affiliate Marketing can be as easy as choosing a niche, picking a marketing platform, signing up for an affiliate program and start marketing products. This business model, like any other is filled with internet gurus telling you its “easy” and you can “start today”. However, you will see in a moment why that statement might not be completely true.

 

Pros of Affiliate Marketing

 1. No Customer Service Problems

 With affiliate marketing you’re basically just selling someone else’s product for them and therefore unlike dropshipping, you do not have to handle any customer service queries or problems that arise.

 2. Low-Cost Startup

 Like dropshipping, affiliate marketing is very low cost to start. You can almost do it for free! The wide range of marketing options gives you the ability to create an affiliate marketing business at little to no cost. A free and highly effective option is a Youtube channel. A low-cost option could be a blog or website. A popular hosting service many bloggers use is Bluehost because of its affordability and excellent customer service. Paid advertising are the fastest ways to get results, that is if you have an advertising budget. You’d be surprised some free/ low-cost methods work the best.

 You also do not have to pay for office space, warehousing (since you’re not marketing your own products), staff (since you don’t need to handle customer queries or manage stock) or to develop a product.

 3. Automation and Flexibility

 Your Affiliate marketing business can be fully automated. This may take a good bit of work in the start, however when you do set everything up you have very little maintenance to do apart from monitoring your campaigns. This can be a very lucrative passive income stream for you and you basically make money while you sleep.

 In addition, the model gives you the ability to work with different companies so you can decide which one you prefer. You do not have to stick with one affiliate marketing program.

 4. High Income Potential

 Affiliates make a small commission from the products they sell most times, however these small commissions add up pretty fast. People have become millionaires off of affiliate marketing. Some affiliate programs pay recurring commissions monthly and affiliate programs such as software companies pay pretty high commissions.

 You can become an affiliate for almost any product so go for it!

 5. Assistance is Provided

 For some affiliate programs like ClickBank, the vendors provide affiliates with materials such as email swipes, audience insights, banner ads, ad copies, ad creatives and much more! Some even provide landing page formats that hey have already tested. If you choose to go with paid ads, This eliminates the  hassle of you having to create these things on your own.

 6. Flexible Hours

 Have you ever seen someone with a sitting on the beach with a laptop just sipping on cocktail and wonder what exactly they do? Chances are they could be an affiliate marketer. This business model gives you the opportunity to work remotely from almost anywhere.

 7. Fixed prices

 Unlike the regular e-commerce store, your competitors cannot steal your customers by offering lower prices. Everyone markets the same product at the same price.

 

Cons Of Affiliate Marketing

 1. Little Control

 Depending on the product you choose, you could run into some limitations. Some vendors do not want you to advertise on certain platforms or use certain approaches when marketing. Respecting a vendor’s rules is always a good practice while going against them can get you banned from marketing their products again or even from the program.

 2. Complex Setup

 This method applies mainly to paid advertising. If you know what you’re doing, setting up this system will be a piece of cake. However, for newbies it can get complicated. Many beginners make the mistake of just finding a product and running and ad for it. This is the easiest way to waste your money and this is why you hear from many newbies “this doesn’t work”. The truth is, like many other business models, you get out what you put in.

 The affiliate marketing system is a series of, creating and testing ads, creating and testing landing pages, setting up email marketing as “the money is in the list”, having email swipes ready, creating up-sells and much more. It sounds overwhelming but once you get the hang of it you’ll be fine. The hardest part of this setting up the system.  

 There are persons who sell a “done for you system” but creating your own gives you more flexibility over the software you pay for and changes you would want to make in the future.

 3. Not Guaranteed

 Most affiliate programs pay when a purchase is made. Contrary to what gurus might make you believe, its not that easy to get someone to purchase a product especially if it is high ticket (expensive). This business model takes a lot of patience and hard work to find a formula that works for you.

 

3. Print on Demand

 Print on demand is exactly what the name suggests. A print on demand store is another great way to make money online working from home.

 With this model, you create your own store with a print-on-demand service like Printify or Printful, then you design your products whether it be t-shirts, mugs or pillows and when someone buys from your store the company prints the design on the item and ships it out to the customer. With services like Printify or Printful the company charges your credit card every time an order is made and then they pay you the cost of your product periodically.

 However, there are services like “Teespring” where you do not need a credit card. When someone makes an order, the company basically takes their shirt price, then pays you the profits through paypal.

 In my opinion Print-On-Demand can be a very lucrative stream of passive income if done correctly. What I love most about it is that you do not have to be an artist to do this. Simple text prints on shirts can sell just as well as graphics.

 

Pros of Print on Demand

 1. Low Cost

 Depending on the Print-On-Demand service you choose, you can pay little to nothing to start this business. If your work does well the first few days of creation, the platforms automatically pushes your product so more people can see it therefore you don’t necessarily need to spend much on advertising. Signing up to these sites and creating your store is free. You do not have to pay for domain names or hosting. Also, if you do not have money to start off, Teespring or Redbubble would be a better option as they just pay you a balance through paypal, no credit card needed. You can also use free services such as canva.com to create your designs.

 2. Expressive Platform

 Print on demand gives artists a chance to express themselves and promote their work. Many inspiring artists don’t have an avenue to gain exposure and putting their designs on T-shirts or other items gives them that leisure.

 You can even create a storefront on the platform that lets people see more of your work when they visit your store.

 3. Passive Income

 Print on demand can, inevitably be one of the best sources of passive income there is in today’s age. There is no software care to maintain, no domain names to renew and the platform helps you with advertising.

 4. Can be Integrated With Other Platforms

 Print on demand platforms can be integrated with sites such as Etsy, Shopify and Wordpress. This gives you more flexibility and wider reach to get more customers. Especially seeing that Etsy is well known website for person looking for personalized items.

 5. Great Customer Experience

 Customer service is at an all time high when it comes to Print on demand. When a customer orders an item from you, that item is created an shipped out almost the next day.

Cons of Print on Demand

 1. High Competition

 It is clear that the starting a print on demand business is possibly one of the simplest forms of making money online. Because of that, more and more people are starting POD businesses making the competition really high.

 2. Low Profit

 Depending on the Print on Demand platform you choose, the base cost of the item is relatively high. Therefore, the selling price you put cannot be too high resulting in less profit.

 3. Little Control

 You have very little control over your product handling and shipping since it is done through a third party.

 

In conclusion, I believe all of these businesses can be lucrative and fun ways of making money from home if done properly. I personally have tried them all and so far my favorite is affiliate marketing. I plan to incorporate dropshipping into my e-commerce store when it takes off.

 My favorite thing about all of these services is that they can be integrated into one another. You can have an e-commerce website and sell your products in the store. You can also integrate a section in your store with Printful and sell your T-shirts or other Print on Demand items. You can also place affiliate links within that store for different items.

 Most internet marketers try to tackle them all in this manner but there’s nothing wrong in trying them one at a time. So, goodluck!