Marketing your e-Commerce Side Hustle

Marketing

November 7, 2022

This article explores the trendiest e-commerce side hustles of 2022 and how best to market these products. Side hustles are an excellent way to make extra money in 2022 and if you’re planning on selling a products, locally or globally, creating an online shop on Shopify or WooCommerce is fairly straightforward.

It doesn’t matter what type of product you sell, what’s important here is which channels you choose to market your products. Here, we will uncover the top 5 e-commerce side hustles to start, and which channels would assist in best monetizing your efforts (with statistics!):

Trending e-retail categories and how to market them:

Low-cost, budget-friendly, and niche products are taking the world by storm. Let’s take a look at the best retail businesses to start:

Marketing Wellness products

The wellness space continues to adapt to the times. On one hand, wearable technology like smartwatches, health trackers, and AI-hearing aids are embracing the future of technology and health. On the other hand, there has been a shift towards more holistic medicine like essential oils, Chinese and Indian herb medicine, and collagen (to name a few). The wellness space is bright, booming, and fairly simple to sell, moreover, consumers are relying on convenience to get their products to them quickly.

If you’re planning on starting a Shopify store based in the wellness space, we would recommend marketing your products on Pinterest, TikTok, and Facebook ads, as well as Takealot for South African retailers. If you’re involved in the skin, make-up, and beauty space, we would recommend integrating your campaigns onto Google Ads.

Discrete Marketing for Intimate Products

Part of the Wellness space’s adaptation to the technological realm so has intimacy been redefined in a new, fresh and sophisticated way. An excellent side hustle for South African freelancers is in the adult product space, where retailers can make money simply and discretely.

A great channel for marketing sex-related products in South Africa is PriceCheck‘s AdultFun page, as well as Pinterest for international sellers. These channels are discrete, widely used and are world-leading due to their wide and varied audience. Here are a few Pinterest statistics from Shopify:

Pinterest has over 431 million active users
97% of products are unbranded
Pinterest is one of the best channels for product discovery
60% of the platform users are women
Gen Z pinners are up 40% year-on-year
Most Pinterest users use Instagram

Online Thrift Stores

Second-hand products are not only budget-friendly, but they’re also widely popular in everyday streetwear. The best part? You can start your WooCommerce or Shopify store by beginning your Marie Conde spring clean, checking your closet, and your friends’ or families’ closets, and selling right away. Several online thrift store owners make a good bang for their buck by collecting dresses, coats, shoes, and quality wearables from previous clothing owners that no longer feel the spark in their wearables. However, as they say, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure – and you can take advantage of that!

The best place to best display your second-hand goods is Facebook and Instagram marketplaces. Here are some meaningful statistics about your ad spend on these channels:

Facebook Ads CPC increased by 13% since 2020
Facebook’s potential advertising reach is 2.11 billion people
50% of consumers use Facebook stories to discover brands
Facebook comes second after Youtube in live video content.

Pet goods are the best goods

Increasing in popularity in the e-commerce world are pet-related products. Here are a few ideas that are trending right now: Pet toys – like electric cat mice – raw, or vegetarian pet cuisine, cat scratchers and jungle gyms, and dog leads and treats, to name a few. Consumers love their pets, so you’re ultimately guaranteed a large audience should you decide to start a pet-related side-hustle.

In South Africa, we would recommend Leroy Merlin and Takealot marketplaces as your first choice for your pet-related products. If you’re considering online channels, and if you’re a global company, consider Facebook catalog, Pinterest, Google Ads, and most importantly, TikTok! Here are some insightful TikTok for business stats:

Those on TikTok are likely using other forms of social media too
Gen Z is the most active on TikTok, but Millennials are increasingly downloading and using TikTok
TikTok is known for its wide and increased engagement, and therefore is more likely to be used for purchases
The most successful TikTok ads are funny and engaging and it stands as the top app for consumer spending in 2022.

Side Hustles to Start and their channels — Infographic (2022): Side Hustles and Suggested Marketing Channels

Monetize your store – seamlessly

As you can see, marketing your side hustle products on a variety of Marketplaces and Channels allows for ample opportunity to monetize your store in a seamless, and budget-friendly way. The ShoppingFeeder data feed app can help you integrate your product data onto several channels of your choice so you can run your stores seamlessly, strategically, and simply without having to log in or out of your chosen channels.

Learn more about ShoppingFeeder’s multi-channel strategy available for Shopify, WooCommerce, AdobeCommerce, OpenCart and PrestaShop

Conclusion

This article outlined 4 trending products to sell online, and how to market these products using a multi-channel strategy.

If your store is already set up and ready for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it’s useful to consider which channels and marketplaces would help in setting up your store for success. If that’s the case, ShoppingFeeder is a sophisticated software solution that will enable you to track the clicks and conversions of your store with one simple dashboard.