There are tonnes of ways to make a little extra money on the side, in the past we’ve looked at turning your hobby into a source of income, which is a great way to start earning doing something you enjoy.
Another common way of earning is to sell your old stuff on eBay and other auction sites (and don’t forget you can recycle your mobile for cash, sell your old gold and also get money for your old CDs), but it’s difficult to keep this going once you’ve sold the majority of your best stuff.
If you have something to sell that’s more sustainable than flogging your hard-earned belongings, such as a craft that you could potentially sell, or you’re a budding photographer selling stock photography shots, or even you have a particular niche product that you can buy and sell at a profit, then an online store could be the way to go.
There are a lot of options out there, from those that require very little setup to full eCommerce solutions to accomodate thousands of products.
If you’re after a simple store to get you going before committing to anything which will take more work (and probably more cost), then there are a few option open to you:
- Paypal – many people will be familiar with Paypal for paying for stuff online, but you can use them to setup a very simple store, with Paypal looking after the credit card payments. It might not be pretty, but it works. Read setup your own store using Paypal (via Lifehacker).
- eBay store – with eBay you don’t have to list items individually and in the standard template, you can customize your shop to your own look and feel. Read how to setup an eBay store and the more in depth guide from PCPro.
- For selling crafts, try out Etsy.
Using one of these will give you some experience of selling and should give you an idea of whether it is something you can and would want to continue with. If you eventually want a more sophisticated store, there are plenty of these available, but they will take more technical knowledge and time to setup and run, but will give you more flexibility and control over your store.
If you’ve ever setup your own online store, let us know your experiences in the comments below.
