Learning how to sell stuff online for cash is awesome. It’s so cool to wake up, check your emails and see…Commissions Earned…
If you’re looking to do this too, then this post is for you.
Hi there, my name is Todd and I’ve sold thousands of products through giant online retailers like eBay, Amazon and Etsy.
Although it was a fun experience, it has a few drawbacks.
Namely..
- Finding Hot Products that “Hopefully” Sell Fast.
- Customer Returns.
- Inventory that Doesn’t Sell at All.
- Shipping Hassles and Exchanges.
So how do avoid the risk that comes with eCommerce and still sell stuff online, keep reading to find out.
How to Sell Stuff Online for Cash:
What if I told you that there is a much better way to sell stuff online without the risk of buying products. No more dealing with customer returns, inventory, storage, or shipping issues.
How does it work?
In today’s modern day world of technology and vast internet growth, you can create your own online business that lets you sell consumer goods with ease.
All that’s required is 3 simple steps to…
- Establish an online presence (A Website).
- Drive customers to your business (Traffic).
- Dell products without ever purchasing anything (discussed below).
3 Steps To Sell Stuff Online for Cash
Step 1: Create a Website to Sell Goods Online:
Whatever you plan on selling online, whether it be electronics, sporting goods, or high fashion clothing, you need a home to display your products.
Think of a website as more than just a display case for whatever you want to sell.
A website is really a way for you to connect and communicate with your customers, provide in depth product knowledge, and advise people on your recommendations.
Building a website these days has never been easier.
There are a good amount of services out there that will help you build a site. In my experience, none offer the support and user friendliness like Site Rubix.com (click here to read our review).
You will have a brand new WordPress website up and running in less than a minute.
Imagine this as your own eCommerce website..
This theme is one of over 1,800 themes that you can choose from and is responsive, meaning it’s mobile, tablet, desktop and laptop friendly.
Are you starting to think of some cool ideas for your new website?
Build a Free Website Today:
Now, take it a step further and think of a name for your website.
Once you’ve got a name picked out, you’re ready to start building. Just put in your site’s name in the Siterubix Website Builder below to see if the name is available.
If so, your ready to go. Just click “BUILD IT NOW” – It’s that easy!
The Siterubix builder is provided by a company called Wealthy Affiliate.
They also provide training to set up your website as well as guidance on how to bring in traffic and build a steady stream of online income.
They’re a great resource to have an your side, especially when first starting out.
Check out our latest guide to learn how to sell CBD Oil Online. This is a great niche to hit now while the market place for CBD Oil is still growing.
Step 2: Drive Traffic to Your Online Business:
Traffic is the life force of any successful business, online or offline. If you don’t have customers coming into your store, you’ll never make a sale.
And that’s what is absolutely amazing about selling products online.
Unlike a physical business, an online business is NOT RESTRICTED by your physical location.
Interesting Fact: Do you know that the internet is growing at a phenomenal rate, currently around 8 New Users per SECOND.
That’s 691,200 new internet users per day, Incredible! (source: Pingdom)
What this means to you is that the internet provides an outstanding marketplace to do business.
Plus it runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks/year.
Think about opening a shoe store in your local town or city. How many people live in your surrounding area?
Now how many of those people are going to want to buy shoes?
If you play around with the numbers, plus think of all the costs to set up a shoe store, it can be a uphill battle to say the least.
With an online business, you can drive targeted traffic to your site using SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques and PPC (Pay Per Click) campaigns.
This will bring customers to your website who are already looking to buy shoes (or whatever other consumer products you want to sell online).
Step 3: Selling Stuff and Making Money Online:
Earlier I mentioned that you can sell stuff online without ever buying the products. In other words, you don’t need to buy or import goods to sell online.
You can sell other companies brand name products. Even from places like Amazon or eBay, without ever needing to buy products, so you essentially have no risk.
This is completed through affiliate marketing techniques,where you, as the website owner, affiliate yourself with any number of companies that sell consumer goods.
You can also sell your own products and services directly on your website, but you don’t have to.
Almost every consumer product can be sold on a website through an affiliate relationship.
A website presence is all that’s required.
Once you’ve got a cool product you want to sell, you then just market it. Then when the customer comes to your site and clicks on the product link or photo, guess what?
They will be taken to the check-out page where they can make their purchase.
You, acting as the affiliate for said product, receive a commission for the sale.
You never have to deal with placing orders, inventory costs, delivering goods, or customer returns. It’s one of the most lucrative and efficient forms of online sales.
Got Questions On How To Sell Stuff Online:
Please promise me one thing: if you have any question on how to get started, don’t hesitate to ask.
You can leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you right away.
Ready to start selling goods online? Then use the same system 1,000’s of people are using to make their online dream a reality.
Thanks for reading our “How to Sell Stuff Online for Cash” post, don’t forget to socially share it on your favorite social sites.
Ok, question. Let’s say I “buy” a product that’s like $2. But I in turn sell it to someone through my website for $12. It’s not coming from me, it’s coming from another company. Wouldn’t the customer get an invoice with the exact amount on it? It would make me look like I’m scamming.. how do you avoid that?
Hi Solita,
Sounds like you would be using a drop shipping model. Correct? You can contact your drop shipper and have them send the invoice to you since you are the one who is paying for it, yet have them deliver it to the customer. Then you would just send you client a invoice in the mail.
They get the package from your drop shipper and an invoice from you. It’s not a scam, it’s called importation and people do it all day long. Do you call Nike packpacks a scam. They’re made for maybe $15/unit and sell for over $80 – $120/bag. Is Nike a scammer?
Thanks,
Todd
Great post you have here! It’s really inspiring to see good content. It makes me want to write also.
This is a good strategy on how to sell stuff online, getting a website is imperative in selling anything online.
Site Rubix is also a good platform to create such a niche based online business. WordPress with top notch training included. It’s perfect.
Great post and really great site!
Very kind feedback on my site and post, Elo, thanks. Man, anything can be turned into a niche based online site that allows you to sell brand name products and services without any risk.
All’s it takes is to learn how to drive traffic to your website that coverts. And this is done simply be helping people who share your niche.
By solving people’s problems, you’ll create income as you refer them to products or services that help their lives. That’s it.
Just get out there and take action and make it happen.
Best,
Todd
I am always surprised that there are not more people I know face to face who want to jump on this internet opportunity which is just full of possibility.
When I talk about it with them they sort of get this glaze over their face as if that is just a fantasy idea.
But I see learning how to sell things online as a much better option than investing in stocks right now! Sure it might take time, maybe years, but wouldn’t you rather have looked back on your life knowing you accumulated all this new knowledge and did something really cool and useful with it?
I guess people just get comfortable with their knowledge and familiar with their routines so they don’t want to rock the boat.
Ultimately I think to be successful online you need to be prepared to always be learning something in balance with taking action based on what you have learned.
Amen Liz, you couldn’t have stated this any better. Learning new material as we age is a great way to ward off mental illnesses like dementia. As well, you should you have challenges in life and I think it’s great that you’re trying to create a better life by learning how to sell stuff online.
Marketing to people is really about explaining how something can be a benefit to someone. That’s it, if you can do this through a website that runs 24/7, the business opportunities are endless.
Thanks for your feedback and I wish you the best of luck with your online business. If you need any guidance to create real success online, go with the pros at Wealthy Affiliate.
Todd
Hello,
Not everyone knows that you can sell stuff online via affiliate marketing, so this post does a great job of appealing to those that don’t want to risk buying products to sell online.
I also enjoy your website and learning about the website builder SiteRubix, I do agree SiteRubix is a very efficient and well thought out website builder. Mostly because of the detailed training you get on how to build WordPress websites.
But you’re right, you got to have a website if you want to sell online.
My only experience to offer those new to this is if your a complete beginner without Kyle (the owner of Wealthy Affiliate’s training center) it would be overwhelming. I do not think I could have accomplished so much in such a short time on my own.
Hi Jeffrey,
I hear you. I too started out not knowing anything about building a website in order to sell affiliate products online, but I’m so glad I did.
It’s much easier than importing products and much less risky.
Wealthy Affiliate is a great resource for those out there that want to learn how to sell stuff online without risking the bank.
Thanks for your feedback on this post and WA,
Todd
Hi there.
I read all your post on how to sell things online and I enjoyed the information.
I can see how a website is all important and how you discuss getting customers to your webpages is very interesting.
Can I ask .. this build a website for FREE? Is this for real? Are there no costs at all?
And if so .. how long will it take me to set it all up and start making money?
Thanks
Chris
Hi Chris,
Thanks for your feedback on our how to sell stuff online post – much appreciated. I’ve seen people do it using SiteRubix’s website builder with free training. But I wouldn’t recommend going totally free.
Why? Professionalism, long term success, and professional online business training.
In the long run, you will make much more money and waste much less time which will ultimately keep you in or out of the online game.
See you can put up a free website with a suffix domain name (mysite.siterubix.com or mysite.blogger.com) but you should just pay the $15 dollar per year for a cool domain name. It’s not much money, looks totally professional, and will have a positive effect on you online business.
And you can also get the 10 free lessons that teach you the basics of setting up your site as well as online business training. But to really get good at building content that ranks, bring in the traffic, and generate a high volume of online sales takes a real education.
And that too is less than $1/day. I just published a post where I break down my total daily expenses to run my online biz and it’s very informative as to what to expect when you start an online business. If you want to read it, click… How Long Does it Take to Make Money Online? Good Question
Cheers,
Todd
Hi,
This is a pretty interesting idea. I’ve been thinking about ways to earn some extra money lately and I keep looking for something I can do from home. That makes me drawn to all sorts of Internet opportunities like the one you’re proposing.
I’ve ran into a lot of programs that seem to be scams and a lot that are for sure scams. It’s crazy how many people there are out there looking to take advantage of unsuspecting people. Really sad.
Wealthy Affilite sounds really promising. The fact that you can start building 2 websites for fee makes me think that it must be an honest program. Thanks for the great info.
Cheers,
Robert
Hi Robert,
Thanks for your kind feedback on our post. There are a lot of people looking to learn how to sell stuff online and I was one of them. I started out drop-shipping and selling on Amazon. Realizing how fast online sales can occur when you have a hot product was jaw dropping.
I didn’t like the risk of selling actual physical products and when you choose products that don’t sell fast, you see the high risk factor. Once I discovered how easy it was to promote affiliate products or sell advertising, I fell in love again with the concept of selling online.
The key is traffic, and if you learn some good White Hat SEO skills, create engaging content that helps out your niche, you can bring in all the traffic in the world. Add products that help your niche audience and you’ve got yourself a full time online gig.
And you avoid having a 9-5 job, traffic jams, and can work while traveling and earn 24/7.
Wealthy Affiliate is where I learned how to rank, write, keyword research, and build a successful online business. If you’ve got the passion Robert, WA can teach you how.
Take a chance and make it happen, I think you’ll love the results from the Wealthy Affiliate training program.
Cheers,
Todd
Article was very easy to follow. The three steps needed in how to be successful at selling online were clearly outlined.
Includes great options for a website builder.
I didn’t know that you didn’t have to buy something in order to sell it online. Also, the idea of being able to reach far more consumers while selling online versus being restricted to a physical location was a new perspective for me.
Keep Smiling!
Hi Joeka,
Thank you so much for your kind feedback on our How to Sell Stuff Online post, much appreciated. Yeah, when you look at the amount of internet users, the quickly rising trend of buying things online, it makes sense how anyone can learn to sell goods online.
The keyw is building a website based on a niche that you enjoy, then create content to help people in the same niche. Add in affiliate marketing strategies, and you never have to have products and can make a ton of sales online.
All that’s needed is the know how to make it work, and that’s where the Wealthy Affiliate Training Center comes in. I joined Wealthy Affiliate almost 2 years ago and since then have made 1000’s of online sales without any risk.
Glad to have pointed out a few new things to you, if you every have questions, don’t hesitate to ask.
Todd
Todd,
I love the fact that you can sell stuff online through affiliate marketing. It’s one of the best tool that benefits online marketers because one does not need to buy products or inventory.
I have been using Jaaxy frequently and without a doubt, it is one of the best keyword research tools for bloggers. By targeting keywords that people are searching each day, you can connect to your niche audience so much faster.
That way, when they come to a post based on some product or activity, you can reach them when they’re ready to buy. This is how you sell stuff online without any risk.
Great article and a great resource for those that want to learn to sell online the intellegent way.
Hi Stanley,
Thanks for your feedback on our post, much appreciated. And yes, you’ve got it right. Learning how to sell stuff online isn’t that hard when you know how to do keyword research using a tool like Jaaxy.
I use Jaaxy for every keyword based post I write because I need to know exactly what people are searching for online, and which phrases are going to be easy for me to rank with.
It’s a very easy concept to understand, you just have to see what people are searching for using Google instant and Jaaxy.
Thanks,
Todd
Hello Todd,
I really enjoyed this post. It is so great how you streamlined the possibly of creating your business with just a few simple steps. I especially liked how you called the website a “home” to set up business. I think it does tend to feel like a home when you see how much work you put in and how beautiful and full it becomes.
Better yet, you’ve proved how to sell stuff online without having to invest in buying products to sell – Perfect!
Hey Jessica,
Thanks for your feedback, I was amazed when I learned how to do affiliate marketing. I used to sell goods online and drop ship them, but that business model has it’s issues and limitations.
Learning how to build traffic to your affiliate products is so much easier and less headache. If you too want to learn how to sell stuff online, check out my favorite training resource.
Cheers,
Todd
I love the fact that an Online Business is not restricted to geographical locations, our target market is practically the whole world – never gets old!
If I were to take a break from my website say for one month, will my online business go down or will it still continue without me working on it? I’ve been working for a few months now and I’m planning to take some time off and take my mind off things for a while.
Hi Riaz,
That’s the beauty of an online business, you can always take a break. That being said, if you’re only doing content marketing, consistent posting (meaning the same day of each week) is very helpful to rankings and the more you post QUALITY CONTENT the more that search engines will define your niche site.
I have several sites going and it can be tough to stay on more than one site at a time. But I put up a site, laid out the foundation (6 pages) and did one post. I got the post to rank position 36 in a few days, did a few SEO tweaks and got it to position 30. Got busy, haven’t touched the site for 3 months and the post ranks now in position 50.
And that’s OK, when I get a weekend I’ll do a follow up post (which will be an affiliate product review) and then I’ll work on getting social and personal engagement within the post and I’ll get it on page one in a few weeks, maybe position one.
So don’t worry. Life is about Quality of Life, take a break and come back invigorated.
Hope this helps,
Todd
Hello Todd,
I visited your post how to sell stuff online and I was so interested in the fact that you don’t have to have the products on hand. I am excited to hear about Siterubix.com, and also that it’s free.
I have heard about this website builder, but I have never used it. I was just not sure about it as a permanent website platform, but now I think I will try it. Wow, 691,200 new internet users each day! Just that fact lets me know that affiliate marketing is a wonderful second career I have chosen for myself.
I have definitely bookmarked LearnToGrowWealthOnline.com, you are a natural at teaching! Thanks Again!
Best,
Linda
Hey Linda,
Thanks for your feedback on how to sell stuff online. I too fell in love with affiliate marketing due to all the benefits and low risk. SiteRubix is nothing more than a WordPress website building platform. The main difference is that you get premium cloud hosting, two free websites, and 10 free courses to set up your site.
But if you really want to learn how to build a successful online business, you’ll want to invest a little bit. But it’s not much. A domain name for $12, take the Premium Training offered by Wealthy Affiliate. This will include the free cloud hosting for your domain and all the courses, Webinars, and community support offered by WA and their community.
It’s an invaluable service to learn affiliate marketing, selling your own products, email marketing, video marketing, content marketing, you name it. But what’s best is the easy to follow classes that launch your online business off on the right track.
Hope the is helps,
Todd
Once again I am rewarded with a wonderful review full of insights and practical steps for success.
So my first question is – where have you been all my life? If I had known about your blog much earlier I could have saved a lot of time, energy, and yes, money.
The good news is that I found the Wealthy Affiliate training website and I used siterubix.com to begin building my online business.
And how did I find this site? Well, I came across a post you wrote on another person’s blog!
I was so impressed with your in-depth review that I checked out Wealthy Affiliate and signed up for the free training.
Of course, I didn’t forget it was your review that got the ball rolling for me, but I had no idea where to find you to say thanks.
And now, I’ve come across your site https://learntogrowwealthonline.com again so I thought I’d stop in and show my appreciation and say, Thank you, Todd.
Hey PJ,
Too funny, that’s great to hear, you’re very welcome and that’s music to my ears. And I hear ya on Wealthy Affiliate.
I felt the same way too when I first started investigating these guys to get my online businesses running. In one week I learned more than months of trying to figure things out online.
Now that I finished the training program, I still use them daily for updated education, SEO tricks, and support when I’m stuck on how to do something.
I wish I would have found them 7 years ago when I caught the travel bug, but hey, better late than never.
Thanks so much PJ, you’ve made the right choice of using Wealthy affiliate to learn how to sell stuff online, it’s simple and it works.
Todd
Awesome post Todd!
I think learning how to sell stuff online really is an awesome thing.
This opportunity was not available not that many years ago, and it is only going to get bigger!
Your article is very informative and outlines the process in 3 very easy to follow steps!
The fact is that these days ANYBODY can learn the skills to make money online and all it really takes is a little education and effort!
Great post 🙂
~John
Hey John,
Great insight into creating online businesses and the future potential of making money online by selling whatever product you want.
Affiliate marketing and targeted traffic equals a lot of cash. And it’s not all that hard once you learn the basics to online marketing.
How to sell stuff online? Get educated and training and take action on what you learn, wash, rinse, repeat.
Have a great weekend John and nice to hear from you.
Todd
I started selling stuff online about a year ago using affiliate marketing and blogging and my business has taken off. It’s not that tough to understand why either. Most people go online and search something based on a product or service.
Something specific, if you know what your niche audience is looking for, than it’s easy to find keyword phrases that they are searching. Once you write about the product or service, and do a good job solving a problem for your niche audience, the sales come in.
I noticed you recommend Wealthy Affiliate to learn how to do this and I must say that I agree 100% with you. I took the WA training program too and this is how I learned how to build my online business and make it successful.
Keyword research – go figure, but it’s the best thing I learned how to do at Wealthy Affiliate.
For those who don’t know, if you want to learn to sell stuff online, start with the training at WA, you won’t be disappointed with the results.
Oscar
Thanks Oscar for your personal advice on how to sell things online as well as your personal take on Wealthy Affiliate. It’s not rocket science using WA’s training program. Take the classes, learn the skills, apply your knowledge and build your online business.
As you build your site, your targeted traffic begins and the online sales come shortly after. Good to hear that you’re having so much success and that a big part of that was the training that you learned at WA.
Thanks,
Todd
You know I would have bet money that you would have to have physical products to sell online, or at least a bunch of traffic to sell advertising.
But I never would have thought about affiliate marketing as a great way to sell whatever product you want to sell online. What a great alternative to avoid the high risk of most business ventures.
Thanks for this information and recommendations.
Nick
You bet Nick, happy to help. Affiliate marketing is a cool way to sell stuff online and although it’s not new, it’s one of my favorite ways to make money online.
If your new to working online or need to improve your SEO/Traffic to your current online business or website, I’d highly recommend the Wealthy Affiliate Training Center for those new and seasoned.
You’ll find 100’s of benefits from the program that will make online life easier including 25 sites premium cloud hosting, ongoing daily support, structured training programs, and updated weekly webinars that all educate you on “white hat” SEO that’s used to create long term online business.
You can sell all the stuff you want to 😉
Let me know if you need any help Nick or if you have any other questions,
Todd
I believe everything you posted about how to sell stuff online made sense. However, is it really more profitable to sell physical brand name products versus affiliate products, wouldn’t you make more money selling brand name products online?
Thanks for your help,
John
Hi John,
If you want to learn how to sell stuff online without risk, affiliate marketing is the way to go. Selling imported products can be very risky without guarantees that you’ll sell your stuff online. I still have over 200+ iPhone 5 cases that are collecting dust in my garage.
With affiliate marketing, you never purchase inventory, you just learn how to write targeted content that leads your reader to (hopefully a) smart online purchase. Then you make your commission.
Sure the commissions aren’t as large as selling products that you buy wholesale and then mark up 250%. But you never have the risk of selling that product for cost or not selling it at all. And once you learn how to rank product based content, if your commission is $10 dollars is insignificant if you have 3,000 people coming to your affiliate product per month and 10% of your readers are buying.
That would be a profit of 3K/mo for one post that is based on an affiliate product (3,000 visitors x 10% x $10 dollars = $3,000. What if you had 10 more products that you could bring this kind of traffic to? That’s 30K/mo.
But you can do either, sell your own products or affiliate products – the key is learning how to get the traffic.
And for that, I recommend the training from my #1 ranked online education program, check out my review if you’re interested and thanks for your feedback and question.
Todd
Hi Todd,
Great summary you have there on how to sell products online. My website is starting to get a lot more visitors and I am thinking to venture into PPC now.
Fearing that this might be another steep learning curve, I would like to know;
1 – Is there a time frame that determines when I should go into PPC?
2 – How does it actually work? What should I be expecting as a new website owner?
3 – Are there any courses out there that teaches PPC?
I appreciate any guidance that you can provide. Thanks!
Hi Cathy,
Nice to hear from you as always and thanks for your feedback on my “How to Sell Stuff Online” post. Good to hear you are picking up in the amount of regular visitors to your site as well that should be the case since your content is so awesome.
As far as answering your PPC questions. You are in the right position to start running PPC campaigns now that your site is well developed. If your site is not well developed, you sometimes can get into trouble with certain advertisement platforms like Google Adwords for example.
Especially if you are running ad groups that are specifically designed to bring someone to an affiliate product or promotion. Goolge wants to make sure your site is providing good content and is not merely a spam site.
I would start working with Bing Ads to begin with, they are a little less stringent and very easy to use and have helpful staff for when you have questions.
How it actually works is that you want to create a campaign, then create Ad Groups under that campaign that target specific landing pages on your site. You want to make sure you are creating RELEVANT ads, that are based on RELEVANT keyword phrases that people are searching for online, and then you want to lead the person to a RELEVANT landing page. Notice the trend here, RELEVANCE is the key.
If you can do this, you will have a high Click Through Ratio and more conversions of sales. As a new site owner, I would start small, bidding 35-50 cents per keyword phrase, see how your ads position within Bing, and then adjust your bid price. Ideally you want to be within the top 3 positions for that specific ad.
It can be a lot of fun if you are getting a good amount of people that are really interested in what you are offering, you can see a good amount of sales conversions and that’s what we want.
At the same time, if your ads aren’t converting, you can lose money, so you should get some training on this. I would recommend using the Wealthy Affiliate education program. You can start on course 6 in the Bootcamp Program or course 5 in the Online Entrepreneur Program.
Both of those courses will teach you how to set up your account, find relevant keywords, and walk you through the process one step at a time.
If you have any other questions Kathy, just let me know.
Have a great day and take care,
Todd
Good afternoon Todd, I just finished reading your article and found it very informative. Not everyone know’s that you don’t need a product to sell online.
Your article will definitely help Someone who is looking to make extra money online & they will find your article very useful. You have really helped to clarify selling stuff online, for everyone to understand that you don’t need to own a product to sell.
As always great read…
Thanks Todd!
Hey Jennifer,
Thanks for stopping by and leaving your positive feedback, always appreciated. I agree, many people think that you need to actually import products or resale goods in order to make money online. With affiliate relationships, you can easily get approved and sell thousands of products without dealing with the hassles that I listed in the article. Mainly delivery, quality control, and inventory.
I still have 185 iPhone 5 cases sitting in my garage. Know anyone who needs an industrial strength iPhone 5 case? 🙂
But seriously, affiliate marketing is an amazing way to make a living, for some a fortune. Personally I find affiliate marketing enjoyable and always interesting. The main focus is to find a niche that you’re passionate about and then focus on providing quality content to your audience, then the money will come.
Take care Jennifer,
Todd
Todd, your article has helped clarify that you don’t have to have your own product to sell stuff online and make money. This was my initial hang-up. I checked out SiteRubix, awesome! Thanks again for steering me in the right direction. I’m now a member of Wealthy Affiliate too. You’re right, it’s the best place to start, especially with all those step by step videos. I even set up my free website already. Affiliate marketing, wow! A whole new world has just opened up thanks to you.
Hi Lev,
Your are quite welcome my friend. Affiliate marketing is a very cool concept and I felt the same way when I first discovered. I still have products sitting around in my garage collecting dust from my importation days. That doesn’t happen with Affiliate marketing. I’m glad you joined Wealthy Affiliate, you’ve made a wise move and now its just a matter of taking action on a daily basis to develop the foundation of your business. Let me know if you need a hand with anything and see ya inside WA.
Cheers,
Todd