Intro to Starting a Side Hustle
So you want to start making some money on the side, but you’re not quite sure where to start. There are a ton of side hustle opportunities out there and it can feel a little overwhelming if you’re not sure which one (or more than one) is right for you. I’m here to help give you some high level overviews and reviews of side hustles I have tried in order to help make your decision easier!
Starting a side hustle can make a dramatic difference in your life and income. The beauty of the side hustle is in the unlimited potential. You can put in a lot of work, or just a little. You can make a ton of money or just what you need to reach your financial goals. You may not even be that interested in the extra money and may just want to sell some things to declutter your life and home. Whatever the reason you’re here, side hustles are abundant in variety and earning potential.
This is a living article that I will update periodically as I gain experience trying new things. After all, there’s always something new to try in this entrepreneurial field and I want us all to find something we love that can make us a few extra dollars!
Make sure you get the most out of your side hustle by using these tools to help organize your journey.
So far we’ve covered:
Poshmark
Depop
Etsy
Amazon KDP
& Rakuten
Coming soon:
Ebay
Facebook Market
Let’s get started!
Poshmark
This primarily app-based consignment platform has been around since 2011. You can also utilize the platform on a web browser, but most people use the app on their mobile devices. Poshmark is currently available in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and India but you can only shop and ship within your country. This digital marketplace has categories for women’s, men’s, and children’s clothing and accessories, as well as small household items and electronics. Navigating these categories is very easy, as are many other things in this app.
Overall, my impression of Poshmark is quite favorable. I have used the app to buy and sell since February 2015 and have never really had a bad experience. I started by selling things I already owned that I no longer wanted or needed. For a few years on and off I would shop discounted items to resell, and in more recent years I purchase liquidation pallets and good quality thrift items for resell. It’s hard to say which one of these avenues of actively pursuing business on Poshmark is the most lucrative, and I continue to sell items that I have worn and loved myself, items found at a deep discount while out shopping, liquidation items, and thrifted items. In my opinion, the best thing you can have in your shop is variety and as many options as you have storage for in your home.
There are shops that are very niche and sell specific brands or styles, and they seem to be quite popular, though I am unsure how much they sell, how much money they invest in these items, and how difficult it is to obtain variety when you have somewhat painted yourself into a corner. That is not to suggest that these shops are unsuccessful by any means, but it is something to consider when starting and growing your own business. Will you have a little of everything – wide size range, diverse brands, brand new items, and gently used items? Or will you market and fill your shop with a certain style, sizes, brands, etc.? As a Poshmark seller, I can only speak to the former – having a little of everything. I am interested in creating and testing a niche shop, so follow along with the blog to see a full analysis of how that goes soon! I would really love to be able to give honest insight into which type of shop is more successful.
Poshmark is the side hustle that I have the most experience with, so you can find a growing list of articles about all things Poshmark here on the blog. This is intended to be a brief synopsis and review, so let’s do a quick review of what’s needed to start and maintain a shop:
Inventory – clothes, accessories, small household items, electronics
A mobile device to take and upload photos for your listings
Packaging and tape for shipping sold items
Regular printer or shipping label printer for your shipping labels
Expense & Earnings Tracker to simplify your sales reports and grow your business
That’s about it! As long as you have things to sell and supplies to pack those things up, you can be a Poshmark seller. I do love the simplicity of that and, in case you were wondering, the buyer usually pays for shipping and the label comes to your email, so nothing complicated there either. I get a ton of questions about Poshmark so stay tuned for more articles to see if I can answer some of your questions, and reach out to me if you want to!
Depop
Another app-based consignment platform here. Depop is similar to Poshmark in many ways, but also feels like a different animal to me sometimes. Depop features Men, Women, Kids, and Everything Else categories. For those wondering, “Everything Else” has subcategories that include things like Beauty, Home, Tech accessories, Art, Books, Music, etc. Depop is open to global users, which means international shipping is an option but not a requirement. Here, again, the buyer pays for shipping and there are different shipping cost options for varying size packages. One of the main reasons I believe Depop feels a bit different than Poshmark is the user base. Most of Depop’s users are in their early twenties if not a bit younger (source: 11 Depop Statistics Showing Their Mind Blowing Growth - Etsy Marketer). A byproduct of this is a difference in presentation and the trends that are followed and sought after.
Thus far I have about three months of experience on Depop and have made quite a few sales already. My overall experience is pretty favorable though I have found a bit of leading on with potential buyers making offers they have no intention of following though with. It’s something you can come to accept and react to pretty easily and is not deal breaker for me, but was definitely something I was not used to.
Basically what this looks like is: you have an item listed for sale, someone makes an offer that you have 24 hours to accept or counter offer. Let’s say you accept the offer. The buyer then has 24 hours to complete the sale, meaning pay for it. So you’re waiting to receive the shipping label for this sale and thinking its basically a done deal, but in many cases, it’s not. The person who made the offer does not follow through and complete the sale and you still have the item available for sale. Nothing bad happened, but it is a waste of time. That’s really the only negative thing I’ve experienced thus far and once you accept that this is absolutely possible, it’s not a huge deal.
So lets go over what you need to be a Depop seller:
Inventory that falls into one of the available categories
A mobile device to take and upload photos for your listings
Packaging and tape for shipping sold items
Regular printer or shipping label printer for your shipping labels
Expense & Earnings Tracker to maintain inventory and scale your business accordingly
Really similar requirements to Poshmark, so I would encourage you to try both if this is a side hustle niche you’re interested in, and see if you like one or both of them! Obviously, I’m not a super tenured veteran of Depop, so I will come back and update as I gain more experience.
Etsy
This is one of the OG online selling platforms. Etsy is an online market place supported on both web browser and mobile app that features creative sellers from all over the world! Etsy is absolutely enormous as far as users go and that can be both an advantage and disadvantage for sellers. To quickly touch back on that and why this could be a disadvantage, you may be entering an overpopulated market depending on what you’re selling. Do ample research before you dive in headfirst. Research similar items, see what prices other people sell similar things for, see if things like that are selling at all. But most importantly, don’t let that scare you off, just take this into consideration depending on what your goals are. Lots of users can mean things are extremely competitive but can also mean you have a TON of opportunity to make sales! The product categories are extremely abundant and the variety of items is basically endless. Many things are handmade on Etsy but you don’t have to be a crafty artist to sell here. There are also markets for vintage items, printed items, digital downloads and truly SO much more.
I’ve been an Etsy seller since 2021 and have an overall good opinion of the platform. The biggest thing that I have had a hard time with on Etsy is the time required to produce my own items for sale. Everything in my shop thus far has been handmade and takes quite a bit of time to craft. This brings us to the concept of “time is money.” If this is the avenue you’re interested in starting a side hustle, really take the time to calculate how much you want to pay yourself for your time, and consider the cost of supplies needed to make your items (if your items are handmade). I think I personally have been so excited to make things and get going that it didn’t occur to me immediately just how much time and investment in supplies certain things would require. For me, Etsy is a hobby that sometimes makes me some money. For MANY others, its enough to make a full time gig! If this is what you want then I hope and pray and send all of the successful energy your way!
The selling platform is very user friendly and intuitive with sales reports and traffic conversion. There are marketing packages that you can pay for so that you have ads on Etsy and this can probably give your business a good boost! I have not personally tried this but hope to try and review this soon.
So what’s needed for being an Etsy seller?
You need a product(s) to sell, and any supplies that could be involved in making products
Time to make your products
Mobile device or camera to upload photos of your product if it is a physical item
Mobile device or laptop to access selling platform to manage your business
Adequate packaging materials for shipping
Expense & Earnings Tracker is an absolute must
Side Hustle and Self Care Planner to organize your time spent making beautiful products
Etsy is such a fun place to buy and sell but does require, in my opinion, a fair amount of work to get going. Every situation will be different with Etsy because there are so many things that can be sold here. I love the creativity that flows through this marketplace and encourage you to consider this option if you are wanting to monetize a creative outlet.
Amazon KDP
Kindle Direct Publishing is an Amazon service that allows you to publish low content books with ease. You also have the ability to publish regular books here, though I have zero experience to speak to on that subject! So, low content books are basically journals, planners, notebooks, fillable recipe books, that sort of thing. Think books that you are writing in to fill, not so much books that have been filled for you. Publishing books like this is actually easier than it sounds. You design a cover and interior pages, which are mostly lined pages, and upload them in your KDP dashboard, you have to fill in some additional fields with questions about your book, and then you submit the book for review and approval. This can take up to two weeks from what I’ve seen but I have not had any books be rejected or questioned.
I’ve been designing and publishing low content books for since 2023 and mostly enjoy the process. I don’t love having to fill the required form, mostly because its tedious and you’re filling the same info out for every single publication. Not a horrible complaint, but it just takes a little time and effort. The royalties made off of these books are usually not huge payouts, which of course depends on the price you seet for each book. I believe I make about $2.44 off of each book purchased. That’s fine, because I didn’t invest anything but time to make this product available, so the low earning isn’t a big deal because it’s $2.44 that I didn’t have before. But there are other considerations to bear in mind here. Your books are printed on demand but this does not mean immediately. They have to be printed, set, bound, and then shipped - this is a two week process. You can buy thousands of other journals that are already printed and in stock on Amazon with 2-day shipping. This does not necessarily give you a competitive edge but that doesn’t mean you won’t sell anything, it just means that people have to really like your design and be able to find it on one of the largest online retailers in the world to purchase and wait two weeks for it. So that means give it your best with the designing!
So what will you need to be a low content publisher on Amazon KDP?
Design software, I use Canva!
Access to the internet to use KDP Dashboard
Creative ideas for your designs
The Side Hustle & Self Care Planner to make sure you put time aside for designing and publishing
Amazon KDP is a fun side hustle, but not one that is likely to make you a full time income. The two biggest things that I love about it are: 1. There’s no monetary investment needed and 2. Its completely passive once your book has been uploaded and approved. There is no shipping required on your end, no need to have books stored in your home or a warehouse waiting to ship. It’s just incredibly easy and that is worth $2.44/book for me. And designing covers and pages is usually pretty fun and cathartic, so we’ve got a little self care in there as well 😉.
Rakuten
Rakuten is the easiest side hustle out there, in my humble opinion. This is a cash back app, website, and browser extension that works while you shop. There are thousands of stores that are partnered with them, and they are still growing! All you do is navigate to the stores you plan to shop at through the app, website, or browser extension that I mentioned earlier, and they rack up the cash for you in your Rakuten account. They pay out by check or Paypal every three months, so it’s actual cash that you receive, not gift cards or anything that has some loose strings attached. I’ve used Rakuten for years and have only had great experiences with them.
Here is all you need to get started:
My Rakuten referral link- click here for $30!
Something to shop for
If you’ve read all the way through, I’m sure you agree this is THE EASIEST way to earn extra cash. There’s no up front investment, no lengthy sign up, no process to find and list items for sale, or make your own inventory. 11/10 for Rakuten.