Chances are if you clicked on this article you want a side hustle to make some extra cash. Or maybe you’re tired of the 9-5 grind working for someone else. Good news, You’ve come to the right place! Let’s go over the Top 6 best side hustles.
1. Amazon FBA
The FBA stands for “Fulfillment by Amazon”. All this means is when you become a seller on amazon, instead of you personally shipping items off to customers, Amazon takes care of the heavy lifting and fulfills the orders for you. This allows you to scale your business much easier than the traditional route of hiring more employees to get up with orders. The process can be a get a little nuanced, but the basic process looks like this:
- Research the market to figure out what niche and product/products you think you can sell successfully. They’re are a ton of market research tools specifically for selling on amazon. A good place to start is the FREE chrome extension “Market Intelligence“. This is where you’ll figure out what people are buying, whether or not you can be competitive, what niche is best for you, and ultimately what products are best for you.
- EIN number. You can acquire this from the IRS (it’s free), you’ll need this in order to even begin purchasing from a supplier. It’s highly recommended to set up an LLC not just for the legal protections, but also all of the tax benefits (consult your CPA).
- You’ll want to track down some wholesalers who sell your product. These can be found on “Alibaba.com” or Aliexpress.com“. You must be careful when choosing a supplier, it’s well known that some are frauds. It’s recommended to pay using a credit card or paypal so that you can easily dispute the charges if you do get scammed. Some tips to avoid the scams are to only deal with sellers with at least “3 years of experience” and to verify the supplier either through Alibaba’s website resources or actually hiring an organization whose job it is to go to the supposed suppliers warehouse and verify that they indeed exist and do make your product. Additionally, you should make sure the supplier has the ability to customize your products packaging. This will be important once you create your logo and packaging design.
- Create your logo and packaging design and ship to amazon. If you’re inclined, you could create this yourself. Otherwise, it’s recommended that you seek professional help. You can find these professionals on Upwork, Fivver, or Peopleperhour. Once you have your logo and packaging design, you can then send that information to your supplier. They package your product to your exact specifications and send you a sample product. If everything is copacetic, then you can have your supplier ship the product to Amazon’s fulfillment center.
- Start selling on Amazon!
2. Flipping
This is one of the best side hustles that you can start. The best part of this side hustle is that if you don’t need any money to get started! The way you’ll begin is by going on the “FREE” sections of craigslist and Facebook marketplace to find items you think you can sell. You’d be surprised what people just give away, pianos, washing machines, TV’s, weight lifting equipment, if you’re diligent, you can find awesome deals. You then simply procure the items, clean them up/fix them. And sell away! Once you get going you have some capital to start actually purchasing more profitable items and be able to better scale your side hustle into a full time business.
- Handyman
This side hustle may not be as sexy as selling on amazon or flipping Yezzys on eBay, but nevertheless you can earn a ton of money! Many people don’t realize just how many people hire others to install microwaves, fix appliances, install ceiling fans, or even paint their house. In many areas the average cost to install a microwave (which is two bolts and ten minutes) is $100! It would be wise to market yourself to the elderly community who are most likely to need these services. And because the startup cost are low for this side hustle, and because it’s just a side hustle, you can afford to lower prices a bit. This will not only help your business to grow, but it also helps these people in need. Another plus side is that if you don’t how to do something, YouTube it!
- Cell phone/ electronics repair
It’s sort of self explanatory what all this side hustle involves. But again, this one requires little to no startup costs, and you can learn almost everything you need to know online! It would behoove you to market yourself to the older demographics who are less likely to YouTube the repair themselves and try to DIY the situation.
- Photographer
The cool thing about this side hustle is although you’ll have to invest a bit of money up front to get started. Once you have the equipment, the amount of side hustle options you have are nearly unlimited! You can do wedding/engagement photos, real estate photos for people selling or renting properties, product photography for local or eCommerce businesses. Or even better, you can utilize your equipment and skills to do your own photography for your products that you sell on Amazon, or flip on eBay! Or take awesome pictures of your before and after handyman work or cell phone repairs. You can even start your own YouTube channel. The possibilities are endless!