5 Passive Income Ideas to Get Wealthy

15 min read

Passive income is a popular term often described as “making money in your sleep” or money that works itself. As the name implies, the ultimate goal behind it is to provide users a way to grow their wealth without a hands-on approach. For most, it can be an impactful addition to their side hustle, business model, or simply a creative savings approach.

In this article, we have decided to cover 5 different ideas related to ecommerce and online selling in which you, our reader, can use or apply this unique business model and make the most of it without the need to invest a fortune.

Is Passive Income Generation As Easy As Some Make It Sound?

Part of Ecwid’s core mission is to make it easy for new entrepreneurs to venture into the waters of ecommerce and eventually start their own businesses. This is why in this specific post we decided to focus on the different ways our readers can use online selling as an easy start to passive income generation. The reality is, as much as we’d like to believe or as tentative as it might sound, passive income generation is not a get-rich-quick approach, and if anything, it often requires a substantial investment of time and money at the beginning which many don’t have.

Yes! We know, not all of us are born with the luxury to afford rental property or start something like a car rental business.

Yes, investing in the stock market or investing in real estate are all great cash generators that require little supervision. Nevertheless, most of us who are seeking to test the waters, and perhaps get a glimpse of what it’s truly behind the whole making money in your sleep concept, don’t have the kind of funds to consider any of the above.

Fortunately, while passive income generation is a little more complex and perhaps a little more lavishly than it’s often made to sound by financial gurus, this article is supposed to provide you with relatively easy and low to no-cost passive income ideas. The goal is to provide you, our reader, once again, with a more realistic and down-to-earth approach to kick off your passive income side hustle or investment strategy.

Ready? Here we go!

Number 1: Start a Print On Demand Business

Starting a Print on Demand online store is often a favorite when it comes to venturing the waters of ecommerce or getting started with passive income generation. It often involves selling made-on-demand products that require no inventory or upfront investments. To start a Print-On-Demand business all you need is a website, a product to sell, and a supplier.

During the whole process you’ll be working along a white-label product supplier to customize and design common items like tote bags, hoodies, baby clothing, women’s clothing, and so much more. The best part about it is once set up, your store is likely to run on its own, with minimal supervision from your part.

Pros:

No need to buy anything in bulk.
No need to buy equipment or handmade the items yourself.
No need for storage space.
You can easily add new products.
Supplier prepares and ships products for you.
No need to save for any upfront cost.

If a print-on-demand business model is something you’d like to consider, you can easily open a website with Ecwid’s venture plan, connect with a supplier and add your products through the use of our Printful app. All of this is easily done and costs nothing to try. Once you develop a strong customer base, you can expect to make sales and profit without the burden of shipping and restocking your products.

Number 2: Create an App

Mobile app revenues are expected to hit roughly 190 billion this year. Creating an app is another cool and less risky way to once again venture the waters of passive income generation. The reality is, the app creation market is looking very promising for those eager enough to give a go. As of now, the competition seems to be fairly decent, looking rather low when compared to running a Youtube Channel for example.

For many, the idea of creating an app sounds eccentric or unconventional.However, there are hundreds of college fresh students, or even high schoolers who’ve been able to develop and successfully run mobile applications.

The beauty behind it is that your options are basically limitless. As you may already know, anyone can create an app for literally anything. Don’t believe us, just check your app store and type anything that comes up to your mind; we can almost guaranteed an app for it will show up. To even our surprise, there is actually an app out there called Fake-an-Excuse that plays fake sounds during an unwelcome phone call, giving you an excuse to hang up and end the conversation—how mind-blowing is that. But without a doubt, the app market can extend from anything like social media, to music streaming, games, and so much more.

Once you find your app idea, the developing process is only as difficult as you wish. There are applications that allow users to create a free app without the need of coding experience or any app developing background. Moreover, if you wish your app to be more reliable and perhaps offer more, the upfront investment to work with a developer is usually not as high as it is often required for other passive income streams. And the best part about it, once ready, there is little to no money or effort that needs to go into it.

Number 3: Write an Ebook and Promote it online

Ebooks are a simple way for sellers to monetize their knowledge by creating a product that can be easily purchased and downloaded. In 2020 around 191 million ebooks were sold, with an average of 3.67 ebooks sold per week. Without a doubt, this is a promising field that continues to grow as more and more people move away from long hardcover books, preferring tor rely on a short ebook to learn about a specific subject.

The reality is, unlike what most people think, writing an ebook doesn’t require a specific degree or required any specific type of training. Also, it’s not unusual for most of us to laugh at the idea of writing one due to the lack of time and hectic lives we live today. Moreover, ebooks don’t need to be long or complicated. In fact, shorter versions around 100-200 pages tend to do better than their lengthy counterpart.

You can choose to write an ebook about any subject you have experience with and can provide research for in order to back up your writing with. Once the initial time investment of creating the ebook is done, it can generate income for years without any work from your side other than promoting the book or building a strong customer base.

Here are a few strategies to make money selling ebooks:

Create a home page or website about your ebook for others to interact with and learn about it.
Make sure you’re promoting your ebook past launch period. You’ll need to build a strong customer base.
Create an affiliate program for others to help you promote your ebook.
Make use of social media and Instagram or Facebook ads.
Create email funnels.
Sell your ebook on third-party sellers like eBay or Amazon.

It’s fairly easy to start making money selling ebooks. As you noticed, there are many different routes and strategies to help you succeed and make the process easier. With platforms like Ecwid, you’ll quickly realize how soon you can have your ebook store set up and begin selling without the need to process transactions on your own. Ecwid’s allows users to quickly add digital products to their carts and complete the checkout process the same way they would with physical products. There is also no limits on the amount of ebooks you can sell, and your store can be easily sync with amazon, Google Books, or even eBay.

Alright, so we got three of our options down, two more to go! … Let’s go! We might’ve saved the best for last!

Number 4: Create a Course or Webinar

Selling online courses is a booming and promising market. Back in 2015, it was worth $107 billion, $190 billion in 2018, and is expected to be worth more than $319 Billion by 2029. For most of us, online courses offer a practical and less expensive way of learning a specific skill, topic, or service. Education is often something most are willing to invest in, especially if it’s online and from the comfort of their home.

You can create an online course based on any interest or subject out there. From photography, nutrition, fitness, cooking, to coding, there are basically no limits. Once created, all you need to do is build your customer based and make sure others know about it. The course will sell and deliver its purpose on its own for as long as it can remain relevant. How much profit you get out of it also depends on the value of your course, which can be increased using some of the following strategies and recommendations.

Create a personal brand for yourself and the course

It’s good to have a face others assimilate to the course. Also, in order to build trust and gain recognition others need to see you’re serious, which is why having a brand helps.

Increase your level of expertise

The more knowledge you can offer the more value it adds to your course.

Stand out from your competition

Offering something different or unique from that which others with the same cours have to offer can help you increase your not only your value but also your chances of making more sales.

Create a website for your audience to purchase and learn more about your course

The reality is, no one is going to trust your brand or course without an established website. Also, unless you’ll plan to ask for individual Paypal transactions, it’d be very difficult to process payments. With a website in place you, you quickly gain the opportunity to create more trust, and add more value and relevancy to your course and brand.

Number 5: Start a Subscription Business

Last but not least, and also one of our favorites, creating a subscription business is another fairly convenient and popular way to create passive income. Nowadays, most of us have at least one sort of subscription service we pay for every week, month, or year. The opportunities are limitless when it comes to the subscription market as it continues to be very promising for those using it for their advantage. The amazing part about it can be easily seen in the long-term customer it often generates, the opportunity to stand out from the competition, and more room to increase the financial value of your products.

With a subscription business, you can expect recurring purchases from the same customers. Unlike single product selling, new customers often buy your product once and then never again. Moreover, with a subscription business model, a new customer can often symbolize a long-term or lifetime customer, hence creating the perfect opportunity for a smart passive income idea.

With our Ecwid subscription feature, it’s easier than ever to collect automatic recurring payments from your customers, making it easy for you to start a subscription business and collect passive income.

Final Thoughts On Passive Income Ideas

Overall, tapping into the idea of passive income generation can lead to the luxury of making money in your sleep as we often hear. Moreover, it’s crucial we venture it with the knowledge and understanding that it does require time and dedication when just getting started until you reach that point where you can sit back and watch your profits effortlessly flow in.

If you’d like to start your own ecommerce business or store website, try Ecwid’s free plan today or update to our more advance options to begin selling online and promoting your products.

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Selling Online

Dec 9, 2022

About the author

Max has been working in the ecommerce industry for the last six years helping brands to establish and level-up content marketing and SEO. Despite that, he has experience with entrepreneurship. He is a fiction writer in his free time.