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While no one is suggesting that dropshipping is a bad way to make money online, it is however, unreliable, unpredictable, and fraught with charlatans offering their dropshipping knowledge and expertise in their expensive courses that teach you their “perfect model”. The fact is that there is no perfect model when it comes to dropshipping, only the standard dropshipping methods with added SEO, social media marketing, and YouTube videos.
These are all excellent ways to market any product but unless you are actually making substantial money from your dropshipping they will cost you, and that’s on top of your slow burn organic search, Google Ads campaigns, and web hosting.
However, there are genuine ways to make money online and like any honest method, they don’t pay big and can take either time, skill, or both. As such, they are better used as supplemental income and these include:
- Side hustles
- Unique item sales
- Affiliate marketing
A growing internet trend, especially during the pandemic, side hustles are an excellent way to keep money coming in and can pay very small to substantial amounts while selling unique items on eBay or Amazon is a great way to start a new business and affiliate marketing, while dependant on a third party, can be a good source of supplemental income for relatively little time.
The Gig Economy
The pandemic meant that many people lost their jobs or were put on unpaid or reduced pay leave which has had a significant impact on income. Using the internet is an excellent way to earn supplemental income without succumbing to such things as the Ecom Elites scam or others.
Using your own talents as maybe a writer, digital artist, or coder, you can earn extra money through sites such as Upwork, Freelancer, and Guru. These sites offer “gigs” that you can request to take on and usually require professional experience or creative talent such as accountancy work, commissioned art, or article writing.
Sell Your Passion
One of the oldest tried and tested methods of making money on the internet is by selling things, but an even better way is by selling unique items. Handbuilt and handcrafted goods sell very well and currently trending items include such things as stained glass, pottery, and soap.
However, for the more technically minded, hand-built custom computers also sell quite well on Amazon and eBay but these will require s substantial initial investment in order to start since PC parts can be expensive, and there is also a stock shortage at the moment because of the effect that Covid-19 has had on international shipping.
Time and Effort Can Lead to Reward
While affiliate marketing can take some time and effort to set up, it can be done relatively cheaply in order to get started. Anyone with sales experience will take to affiliate marketing like a duck to water since it encompasses many of the same aspects and there are many free courses that will teach you the basics, so you don’t need to pay for expensive scams.
One example is Wealthy Affiliate, which will provide you with a free site on their own domain, teach you how to create a website with WordPress, and provide many free resources on how to effectively start an affiliate campaign. The community there is also very helpful and friendly and is always willing to help no matter how silly you might think your question is.
