Earn Passive Income with an Online Store

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Many interior designers make just as much money, if not more, on the commission off the products they are selling to their clients than they are on their design fees. There are only so many hours in a week to be able to create designs so a great way to grow your business is by selling products.

You can earn a great passive income by creating an online shop where your clients and target market can shop goods that are curated by you.

Curious how to get started?

1.       Set up trade accounts. I’m guessing most of you have several trade accounts set up already so research which vendors allow ecommerce sales. These are the vendors you can work with in your online shop.

2.       Create an inventory plan. Every vendor will be different in what they require for order minimums and re-order minimums. Start small and grow from there meaning start with small inventory number but a larger range of products.

3.       Create your site. There are a lot of ecommerce site templates you can purchase to make this part easy. Popular ecommerce site builders for small business are Squarespace, Shopify, Weebly and GoDaddy. You will need to calculate shipping costs so have your weights and dimensions on hand. Once your inventory and shipping are loaded connect your site to your preferred payment processor and you are ready to roll.

4.       Add content. Consider SEO when typing in descriptions for your items and use professional looking photography.

5.       Market your site. Showcase your site on social media, your blog, in a video, to your email subscriber list and anywhere else you get exposure.

There are a lot of great articles and videos online that will help you create a gorgeous ecommerce site. However, if you need help you may want to consider hiring a professional with experience creating ecommerce sites for small businesses.

If the above sounds too complicated another option might be to consider using a dropship service where you don’t have to worry about inventory for your online store. I’ll share more information on dropshipping next week!