The internet has given us the opportunity to make new friends, get hired for jobs, etc but how about making money? Are there ways to make money online? Sure, there are. You only have to decide what exactly you want to make money from.
There are many ways to make money online and a lot of people have written about it. However, today, we’re focusing on how to make money online selling products.
We’re focusing on this because while you can make money online through a lot of channels, making money selling a product is actually one of the surest ways that we have seen.
So, how do you make money online selling products?
Well, we start with the actual products. You have to carefully decide what you sell. It’s often said that you should sell something you have a passion for, but do you really need passion? Passion is great but you need to sell the most lucrative product that’s suitable to you. We say this because if selling stuff you have a passion for isn’t lucrative, what’s the point?
Consider selling products within your current area of knowledge. Do you want to sell PPE like virtually everyone is doing right now? Do you want to sell children’s books? Do you want to sell loungewear instead of “corporate wear” considering that most of us are home right now? Would you rather study a particular market and look for gaps? E.g What if the expatriates and returnees to your country miss some products they were used to? Baking goods? Cooking utensils etc. Think out of the box.
What channel do you use to sell then?
Now that you have your product(s) sorted, we move on to channel. Channel of sale isn’t usually given much thought and that’s wrong. Channel is often just as important as the actual products. The channel you use is often determined by the nature of the products you’re selling.
Flutterwave Store is a great channel for selling products especially physical products. Flutterwave Store is quite simply the best and easiest way to launch and manage an e-commerce business that accepts payments from anywhere in the world without creating a website, knowing how to code etc.
This is because Flutterwave Store allows you to upload products, set prices and (in some markets) have our integrated delivery partners pick up when you have an order and deliver to your customer.
Flutterwave Payment Links is a more suitable channel for digital products. With Flutterwave Payment Links, you can add a download link to your receipt/response to customers so they can download as soon as they’ve paid you.
There are a lot of channels you can use but we’ve highlighted the ones we can vouch for. That we created them might have something to with this but it isn’t fully why. We know that either of them is a great way channel for you to sell online.
How do you get your products seen?
Marketing is a crucial part of selling products online because while millions of people spend time daily on the social media apps, for instance, almost none of them is there looking to be sold to. But sell we must. To market your products, start with social media.
First, create a social media page for your business and use your Flutterwave Store link or Flutterwave Payment Link as the website in your social media bio. This is essential because you want to make the ordering process smooth and also available even when you’re not available for a conversation with the customer.
Create content your customers care about. What this does for you is that in addition to genuinely helping your existing customers, you attract new customers to your business. Customers looking to buy clothes are probably also interested in knowing what clothes are appropriate for what occasions. You don’t need a blog for this, you can create this content on social media.
Share your store on online forums. ‘Forums’ like Nairaland, Quora etc, see a lot of people asking a variety of questions about different products. You have to be active and genuinely helpful on these forums because just spamming everyone with your store link could get you banned and would probably turn people off.
Post on Classifieds Websites. Websites like OLX, Jiji etc offer customers the chance to meet all kinds of merchants so you want to be there where your customers are. Make use of good quality pictures, clear descriptions and don’t forget to add your store link so that they can always make purchases even when you’re not available.
Create a mailing list. A mailing list allows you to grow customer retention because you get to maintain a direct communication link with customers who have bough from you. With Flutterwave, you can connect a Mailchimp account (it’s free for up to 2000 contacts). You can connect it such that every customer that buys from you is automatically added to your Mailchimp list. You can find out how to do that here.
There’s a lot more you could do but for a start, this is it. You’re well on your way to make money online selling products.
Again, you have to research what product is best for you to sell, then pick the most appropriate channel for selling, then get your products seen. It’s not going to be easy, but it’s possible. Kola’s Egg Factory, Mmirinzo and many more have shown us that it’s possible.
You might fail a few times but rest assured that the guideline here is working for people and you can always reach out to us for help. Here’s what you need to do right now:
