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How To Run A Stress-Free Shopify Side Hustle

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How To Run A Stress-Free Shopify Side Hustle

Congratulations! You have a brilliant business idea and you’re ready to say au revoir to your job to focus on peddling it. However, making your online shop your main career focus can be a major risk. You don’t know if your product is going to sell, how difficult it will be to run your store, and whether you’re built for the instability of self-employed life. And of course, you need some sort of assurance that you’ll be earning enough money before you say goodbye to your current role. 

Luckily, with the power of Shopify, an ecommerce platform that makes it easy to sell your products online, you can start a shop as a side hustle until you make any life-changing decisions. Not sure how to do it? Here’s our four step guide to a stress-free Shopify store.

  1. Make sure your product has legs

Well, not literally. But we’re sure you’ve come up with the most brilliant product out there. Something that you believe at least a specific category of people will benefit from. Unfortunately, your solemn belief is not enough to sell, and you need to ensure a market exists for whatever it is you’re offering. After all, producing your merchandise will cost money, and you should steer clear of remortgaging your house before you’re absolutely certain people will need what you’re selling.

In order to do that, you must conduct some market research, test your idea with your target audience, and adjust your plans based on your results. Some retail gurus have made it their life’s mission to help others come to these conclusions, so it’s worthwhile investigating before you start the process. Meanwhile, don’t forget to query about different price points, both to get an understanding of what your items should cost, but also whether it’s viable to produce them with that margin.

  1. Outsource your fulfilment

The first rule of owning a business with limited time is to outsource everything you can. However, if you could only choose one thing to contract out, it should be your fulfilment. Companies that offer these services will receive your inventory in bulk, and handle every part of the headache that is administering the shipping process. From picking, packing, posting and dealing with returns, these centres lift a significant weight off your shoulders (and your hands if your product is heavy). What’s more, it will allow you to split your items between multiple warehouses in different locations, minimising cost for your clients and increasing delivery speed, and with that, their satisfaction.

Even more importantly, however, fulfilment services can deliver orders from several platforms, so you don’t have to stop with Shopify. “Multi-channel fulfilment should be a key strategy for growing your ecommerce business,” fulfilment experts at Bezos.ai state. “By expanding your sales channels, your business will reach a bigger audience, so you can sell more.” This is the trick to moving your shop from being your side hustle to your main source of income.

  1. Build your website

Once you have a product and your delivery systems are ready to go, it’s time to create a website you can sell through, which is where Shopify comes into play. The eCommerce platform makes it super easy to do, with pre-made design templates and an anyone-can-do-this approach. So, what’s the process? 

First, you’ll need to populate your website with your products. Don’t forget that words are important when it comes to a web store — that’s how your potential customers are going to find you. So, invest time in creating perfect titles and descriptions, while personalising their tone of voice to your target audience (did somebody mention keyword optimisation?). Images are also crucial, as very few people nowadays are going to take the risk of purchasing items that don’t have pictures showing them.

However, product pages aren’t the only element your ecommerce website should have. In order to help people to find you, but also to convince them of your mission, you should also add key pages with essential details. From an About Us page to FAQs, it’s important your site has all the contact information presented in an enticing manner.

  1. Market your products

Now that you have everything set up, people can come onto your site and purchase your products. Sadly, though, you can’t expect them to flock in their masses and immediately make you rich. Your brand is unknown considering you have barely any reviews at this point — or none at all — and not many people know they need what you’re selling. So, you have to market yourself. It sounds costly, but it doesn’t have to be. Of course, you can invest thousands into paid advertising, and sometimes it can pay off. But for a new retailer, you should probably start from the basics and look at organic methods of growing awareness.

By setting up social media accounts, you can reach your target market and build a community without spending too much time or money. First, you need to research which platforms your audience uses. If they’re on the younger end of the spectrum, a TikTok profile is a must, while for the older generation, you should invest far more on Facebook. You want to create engaging content that adds value to your viewers and follows social media best practices, tempting them to follow you as well as share your posts and comment on them. For example, if your product is a delicious IPA, you can create videos showing how you brew it, or provide tips on how to pair beer with food. The sky’s the limit when it comes to social media — both in terms of the content you produce and the audience you can reach.

I am the founder of Startup Today. I am the main writer and have put in many hours of work into creating this blog. If you want to find out more about me then lets get in contact.

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