The statistics reveal that about 44 million Americans invest their time in a side hustle. The number is constantly growing because everyone wants to take advantage of the growing gig-economy.
There is no wonder that people seek part-time work because it offers an incredible sense of freedom. People love to choose their favourite projects to earn extra money and be their own boss. Although the perks are simply amazing, this may take some time to get going. Your growth will limit if you do not know how you will operate your eCommerce side hustle.
It is quite daunting to grow an online business in today’s scenario. You need to learn how to treat your ecommerce business for better success. You will have to maintain a great balance between your full-time work and an eCommerce side hustle. Then only you can hope to gain a huge success. You just need to invest 15 hours a week to make it a huge success. This is how you can do it.
1. Be a smart worker, not a hard worker:
Every successful business is established by smart workers. You have to treat your ecommerce business as a powerful selling machine, even though it is not as big as Amazon. Get a perfect business plan, set some goals, work according to the timeline, and most importantly stick to them.
The Harvard Business Review reveals that the chances of success increase when you have a perfect business plan. That plan guides you for running your business in a better way. That plan not only reveals things you will sell but also how you will sell them. You will have a plan for shipping and delivering your products. It will reveal what marketing methods will be and what price you should set to gain a good profit.
You can sit calmly and see the bigger picture when you have a perfect business plan. It reveals the directions for your future moves and also guides how to achieve the targeted goals.
You will not be wasting any minute of your life on thinking what to do next if you sort it out in the beginning. Essentially, your work efficiency will improve and you will save more time when working on your eCommerce side hustle. You should first consider a flawless business model and then create your ecommerce plan. That’s how you should move ahead.
2. You must rely on automation:
Your ecommerce business should keep going, even when you are on a vacation or at your main job. You should always monitor things, whether you are there or not. It will hurt your customers if you are offering some sort of solution and you are not there when they need you.
You may probably lose some customers if you fail to meet their needs. Therefore, you should use automation tools to run your eCommerce business. These tools will keep your business in action when you are not available. It will be exactly like hiring a robotic assistant.
There might be some tedious tasks, which you do not like to perform but essential for your business. Automation tools can tackle such tasks. These tools can be implemented to offer customer support, sell, and observe the buyer when you are busy in your full-time job.
The leading startups and eCommerce giants are using automation tools for sales, marketing, email marketing, social media posting, and replying to customers’ questions. You can also use these tools to run your business more efficiently when you are not there to handle some important procedures in your business.
3. Encourage your audience to promote the business:
Marketing plays probably the most important role in growing any business. You need to connect with your prospects and that can be possible only if you promote your products and brand. Every expert will reveal a new way of marketing an eCommerce business. None of them will generate positive results if you fail to gain the attention of your target audience.
Every moment will be precious when you are operating a full-time business in very limited hours. You cannot take the risk of wasting time on marketing tactics, which may not work. Things can get in your favour if you curate content for the target audience.
You can engage your audience through social media and encourage them to be a part of your marketing campaign. Provide them with some unique hashtags and ask them to show off with your products. This tactic can work and your shoppers would love to be a part of your promotion, even if you are not spending any penny from your account.
Every social media platform is essential for any modern-age ecommerce business. Get active on all the social media platforms to engage with more people and to make them a part of your marketing tactics.
4. Outsource when it is difficult to manage everything:
Perhaps you are planning to manage everything alone. It will require complete dedication and a lot of time every day if you want to grow your eCommerce business. Hence it is just a side hustle, you cannot manage everything alone and you should not try to do it.
You should simply outsource things that require full attention. You can empty your plate a little bit by hiring a virtual assistant, who can handle those responsibilities very well. Try to outsource tasks you are not good at performing, you do not like to do, and tasks that you cannot complete within the required timeframe.
For example, you can hire a professional to create successful social media copy, click quality photographs of products, create quality videos of your products, and also for managing promotional emails.
You may not be ready to pay a lot of money to a virtual assistant but see the bigger picture. That virtual assistant will help you in earning more profit and running important business procedures smoothly.
Over to You
It is difficult to run a successful eCommerce business if you can give only 15 hours a week. You may not earn a huge profit quickly, but the above-suggested tactics will certainly help you in growing your business at a steady pace. So, try these simple things and help others too in doing great with their side hustle.