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5 Products You Can Sell Online With Little to No Inventory

If you are a long time listener of the podcast, this episode may not be for you, however you may know someone who is looking to start their own business who this episode would be perfect for! You may also be looking for something different or another revenue stream. That’s why episode 94 of the Product Powerhouse Podcast is about 5 product-based business ideas with little upfront cost!

In this episode of the Product Powerhouse Podcast, I’m sharing the importance of foundational work behind the start of a business, like niche and legalizing your business, and actionable steps you can take right now to start selling an online product today.

Some of the talking points I go over in this episode include:

Limitations and boundaries that both service based and product based businesses have, like inventory, time spent, etc. that you should keep in mind when you start your own business.
Why I don’t believe in the debate between etsy and shopify - but rather believe you should have products in both.
Why Print on demand products would be my product-based business of choice if I were to have my own product-based business.
A few product-based business ideas that don’t involve an inventory at all, as well as platforms and software to help you if you don’t have a natural design eye.

Don’t get me wrong; none of these are a “get rich quick” scheme, but they are easy types of businesses or products that you can start to sell online today. So be sure to tune in to all the episodes to receive tons of practical tips on growing your product shop and to hear even more about the points outlined above.

Thank you for listening!

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Learn more about Product Powerhouse and Erin at https://productpowerhouse.co/podcast/

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Links mentioned:

Printed Mint Printing Company

Printful

Ali Dropshipping

Oberlo Drop Shipping

Free trial of canva pro

Creative Market

People looking for businesses they can do to make extra money, or use to eventually quit their job. Great for moms who want to make extra money.

Specifically product based businesses because they types of businesses are going to be easy to squeeze in during small windows of time, like nap time or evening hours after work or the kids go to bed. Unlike services which required you to spend a set amount of time doing something. For example, when I sell my website services that means I will spend a chunk of time sitting at my computer working to deliver that service. As someone who started their business when my kids were really small, that was REALLY tough. I would work long hours at night or need to drop the kids off with a sitter.

Listen to my story on episode one of the podcast!

These are businesses that don’t required big upfront costs, don’t require you carry an inventory, don’t really require you to make anything like handmade businesses.

Shopify is a great platform for starting any of these businesses because it’s very low costs upfront. The monthly fee for Shopify is only $29 plus whatever taxes are in your area. I recently just published a YouTube video that walk you through starting a Shopify store from start to finish, if you are looking for that. The link to my YouTube channel is in the show notes. Keep in mind that only Shopify you do pay credit card transaction fees on each sale as well.

However, you could also start some of these businesses with an Etsy shop as well. Etsy doesn’t charge a monthly fee, however you will pay a listing fee of .20 per listing and then they will take a percentage of your sale. Coming up in April of 2022 that will 6.5%

Etsy vs Shopify is whole different conversion but I will say that if you want to really start a business and not just a hobby than you should have both an Etsy shop and your own website.

Just because the start up costs are low, doesn’t mean that business will just take off. You’ll still have to market your businesses. You’ll still need to do some up front research to find a niche and figure out what makes your business different and valuable to your audience. Just creating a website isn’t the same as running a business. If you aren’t marketing and learning more about online business and things like email marketing and SEO then you probably won’t see the success you’re after.

Print on Demand Products - mugs, tee shirts, zipper bags. There’s a ton of possibilities here. They are print on demand businesses for nearly everything you can think of that can be customized.

- You create a design for whatever the item is. You’ll get a template for the sizing and placement from the printer you are using.
- They also have mockups to you can create a mockup in order to list the product on your website
- Once someone places the order you tell the printer what to print and where to send it.
- They usually have options to customized the packaging so it looks a little bit unique

I’ve personally used Printed Mint, which is a small print on demand company. I’ve used their service to create custom Product Powerhouse mugs and things for client gifts. Also their service syncs directly with Shopify so you don’t even have to lift a finger.

Another really popular on is Printful. They have a lot of clothing options for printing.

These apps sync with your Shopify store so you don’t even have to lift a finger. They handle the fulfillment and shipping of the order.

Dropshipping Products

Very similar to Print on Demand, but instead of custom products you are selling products from a catalog. You select the products you selling on your shop and they handle the fulfillment and shipping of the products.

You would basically be curating a collection of products to carry in your online store, like a boutique, but without the inventory. MOSt of the time you select the products you want to carry and have access to their catalog for free. You’ll only pay them once you’ve made a sale.

Some higher end drop shipping companies have membership fees.

I do recommend you order samples of products to that you can ensure the products are good quality since your name/business will be associated with these products.

With both print on demand and drop shipping you are able to handle off fulfillment and shipping so your main job will be marketing! And one other note, that profit margins on dropship and print on demand do tend to be a bit lower.

These aren’t get rich quick things, but they are great ways to get a business off the ground relatively cheap and easily.

Printables -

These are basically things that you create once and sell the digital file so you customer can print it at home or at their local print shop. You only sell the finished file.

These are things like checklists, calendars, wall art, trackers.

These are so easy to make and you can get started for free, if you design them with a program like Canva. Canva is a free design website. Once you get started you would probably want to start using Canva Pro to get more features but the free version will be great for getting started.

You don’t even need to be super skilled at designing things to sell printable. You just have to be able to create something people will use.

Templates -

Similar to printable, but with a template you are selling editable file. Again you can do this with Canva. There are tons of people selling canva templates out there for things like social media graphics and workbooks.

You can create all kind of templates that people will pay for spreadsheets, email copy, PSD files, google slides. There’s so many that I can’t even think of right now.

Digital Resources -

Same family but I think of these as a little bit more robust. A PDF style workbook or ebook, planner, budgeting worksheets. I have a workbook/mini-course called Simplified SEO that I sell as a digital resource.

These can also turn into physical products. You could get a quote from your local printer but don’t order the print until the product is sold.