A guide to the side hustle: the best places to sell online

Even if you love your day job, it can’t hurt to make some extra money on the side – especially if you can do it by monetizing a hobby you already enjoy. The art of the side hustle is turning your passion into cash, and the internet has made this kind of work easy.

The internet is a massive marketplace with a niche for everyone. Got some cool vintage items you’ve refurbished? Want to offload the antiques that are lying around in your garage? Make trendy ceramics or high-fashion graphic T-shirts? There’s a site for all of it. And with an ecommerce website, you may even be able to turn a passion project into your primary hustle.

Future entrepreneurs, get ready to learn about the top online selling sites for everything from reupholstered Eames chairs to indie T-shirts with an “IYKYK” vibe. The internet has a niche for you – and there’s a niche for every buyer too.

The benefits of selling online

Local boutiques have their charm, but they don’t have the global audience, search engine features, and easy-to-use sales and marketing tools that go along with selling on the internet. It’s a lot easier to make money online than in a brick-and-mortar store. Here’s why:

1. You can make money while you sleep: Online stores are open 24/7 and don’t require staff to keep the doors open. You can catch up on sleep while buyers halfway across the world peruse your goods.
2. Online sales can help the environment: The internet now has a substantial market for pre-loved goods – from vintage furniture to clothing to electronics. So even if you don’t produce new items to sell online, you can join the sustainability movement by reselling stuff you already own.
3. Online businesses have little overhead: For side hustlers, the overhead for posting goods online is little to none. With third-party selling platforms like Etsy and eBay, you shouldn’t have to pay much (if anything) to make a sale. Even if you operate a small business ecommerce site, you’ll still save on overhead compared to the costs of running a brick-and-mortar store, which has a light bill and employees to pay.
4. You can reach more customers: As long as you’re open to shipping your goods far and wide, you can connect with audiences outside your local area to tap into a more extensive customer base.

The best places to sell items online

Ready to sell? You’re probably asking, “What can I sell online?” That one’s easy – there’s almost nothing you can’t sell online. Your next question might be about where to sell stuff – or if you’re like most new sellers, you might be specifically asking, “Where can I sell my stuff online for free?” Start by finding the best website to sell the stuff you already have on hand. And we’re going to break it down for you.

Your own website

Starting your own online store is easy with intuitive ecommerce site builders that feature drag-and-drop tools and attractive interfaces. You can get a functional, great-looking store up and running in no time. Here are a few popular site builders:

• Woocommerce
• Prestacommerce
• Shopify
• Spring

Marketplace websites

Online marketplaces are perfect for selling handmade crafts or hosting a virtual garage sale. These safe, easy-to-use platforms streamline the selling, payment, and shipping processes. And marketplace websites have an amazing range – some cater to craft lovers around the world, while others focus on second-hand sales close to home.

Best sites for national or international sales:

• eBay
• Bonanza
• RubyLane
• Decluttr
• Poshmark
• OfferUp
• Swappa

Best sites for local sales:

• Craigslist
• Facebook Marketplace
• 5Miles

Best sites for selling arts & crafts:

• Etsy
• Artfire
• Storenvy
• Amazon’s Handmade

3 tips for selling online

Now that you’ve found the right selling websites for your goods, it’s time to make a sales and marketing strategy. These tips will help you offer the right types of products and drive traffic to your online sales outlets:

1. Use social media: Use your personal or business social media account to present your products. If you’re a business, curate your social media pages around your brand’s vibe. Be sure to use every pixel of space to your advantage. Write a bio that clearly states what you sell and drop in a link to your ecommerce business. If you want to link to multiple places, use a Linktree URL, which will branch out to up to five different locations – driving traffic from one social media site to another is a great way to pick up new followers.
2. Check analytics: Many sales sites – especially ecommerce ones – offer seller dashboards that track sales and data on buyers’ locations, trending products, and current stock. This functionality will help you better understand your customer base so you can cater your marketing and products to them. You can also use these insights to run promotions for popular items or create bundles of your best-selling goods.
3. Curate: Ecommerce sites, social media platforms, and online marketplaces offer simple design tools and templates that can make you feel like a graphic designer even if you never went to art school. Decide how you want your brand to look and feel, and use a consistent color scheme and fonts everywhere you go. Take high-quality photos of your products, and use the same lighting and filters every time to make your brand recognizable across all the platforms you use.

The best items to sell online right now

If you’re itching to get started but aren’t sure what to sell, we recommend looking at what’s trending. Ecommerce platform Shopify makes this easy for future business owners by tracking trends. Fun fact: If you’re a Shopify user, you can link your products and collections on Linktree and curate a mini storefront to display in-app on your social media pages.

Here’s a look at the categories that Shopify says are trending now:

1. Baby shirts: Today’s babies are pretty fashionable. They search for the term “baby shirts” 13,000 times per month. Okay, it’s probably their parents doing the searching – and if the 8,600 monthly searches for “funny baby shirts” are any indication, today’s parents have a good sense of humor. No wonder baby shirt sales are up 5%.
2. Pet products: Fur babies are also inspiring a lot of sales. Pet toy sales are up around 13%, and the term “dog toys” sees around 210,000 average monthly searches.
3. Tumblers: People must like taking their coffee to work in a stylish, reusable cup – the term “tumblers” gets a whopping 5 million searches per month. The market for these items is up 2.6%.
4. Wedding dresses: Wedding dresses aren’t just trending – since they’re pricey, they’ve also got high-profit margins. The term “wedding dresses” receives over 2 million online shopping searches per month, and searches for “guest outfits” follow closely with about 1.5 million queries per month. If you don’t sell formalwear, you can still jump on the trend by offering accessories, custom invites, or other wedding-related goods.
5. Power tool accessories: The DIY crowd is buying. Global growth for power tools is up an impressive 23%. If you’ve got tools collecting dust in the garage, now may be the perfect time to get them listed on a second-hand site.

We’ve given you the info. Now it’s time to start your side hustle. With a little effort, you’ll soon have enough in your virtual piggy bank to book that dream vacation – and maybe even quit your day job. Happy selling!