If you’re searching the internet for “great” or “easy” ways to make money online, it’s almost guaranteed you’ll come across the suggestion of selling your old or unwanted products. Now this is a practice that can be done on various platforms in a couple of different ways. Sites like eBay and Amazon are among the most commonly used and you can pretty much sell anything. Now there’s basic selling where you simply post the product you’re looking to sell on one of the aforementioned websites, however there’s also another way of making money online that utilizes the method of buying and selling products known as dropshipping.

Selling old and/or unwanted products online is not only one of the most basic ways, it’s also one of the most popular ways of making money. As I mentioned previously, eBay and Amazon are two of the more popular sites people go to sell products, but there are plenty of other options. For instance, if you look around on Facebook the odds are you’ll find a virtual yard sale group made up of people in your community. Keeping the idea of your local community close, Craigslist is another decent site to keep in mind. In my opinion, I would say these two more local based platforms work best when dealing with heavier and bulkier products that would cost a fortune to ship.

If you’re looking to sell some more particularly niche products, luckily there are plenty of websites that provide the perfect place for you to sell your more specific products to a more specific audience. Boy, what a time to be alive! A good example of this would be a site like Etsy which specializes in handmade crafts and vintage products. As I insinuated already, selling on niche websites is a good way to narrowed down to your audience in order to find someone willing to purchase your product. If this is a concept you find yourself having interest in, this article on bigcommerce.com could at the very least help you get started on finding a niche that you may have plenty of products that fall into it’s category.

Now to further elaborate on dropshipping, this is a money making method that just a few months ago, I had no idea about. In fact, I’d say I still don’t completely have a grasp on just yet. Based on the information found in this article on shopify.com, dropshipping is a retail fulfilment method where a store doesn’t keep the products it sells in stock, instead they purchase the product from a third party (theoretically being you). So the biggest difference between drop shipping and standard selling is the fact that is the selling merchant (or third party) never actually owns the product. If you’re as enticed by this money making method as I am, be sure to check out that shopify article to take a more in depth look into the world of dropshipping.

Before diving head first into selling products of your own, there are some important notes to take down. First, put thought into the product you’re trying to sell, what’s the best platform to post it on, how much should I charge for this, be honest about the condition of the product. Secondly, brace yourself to deal with nonsense every now and then, whether it be problems with buyers or shipping issues, not every transaction is gonna be a smooth ride. Lastly and perhaps most importantly, know that just because when it comes to making money online (or anywhere for that matter) this may be one of the easier ones to get started with, it’s never guaranteed you’ll make a lot of money let alone any at all. You may have an old or unneeded game system or home appliance that while may be in great condition, it could just happen to be something someone doesn’t need at the moment among other factors. With that being said, as is the case a majority of the time when starting something new, patience is key.