Whether you run an ecommerce business, or provide services to your clients, you may be looking for ways to boost your income. If you are in employed work then perhaps you are looking for an additional source of income or two. ‘Side hustle’ really is the buzzword of the moment.

And it’s not hard to see why we are all seeking additional income streams. With the recession setting in, we are all doing the best we can to stay ahead of the game.
The great news is that there have never been so many options to generate income from home, even during the Covid-19 pandemic.

If you are a creative thinker with Entrepreneurial drive, then you can absolutely find something that will work for you.

Here are some fresh ideas that you might not have considered yet.

Find creative ways to encourage repeat business

Are you running an ecommerce business? Try using business cards in your packages to share special offers with your customers. You can use these to give loyalty rewards like discount codes, and to generally make yourself more memorable.

Create your own cards online with a tool like BusinessCards.co, adding a discount code or a link to a free digital gift. This can be a really nice touch that encourages repeat custom.
For service-based businesses, you could offer a repeat customer discount in a similar way. Or perhaps you could invite people to join your email list in exchange for a discount code in the welcome email.

It is never a bad idea to keep growing your email list.

Ebooks and digital products

If you have information to share with your audience, then packaging and selling it can be a great boost to your online income.

Since the start of the pandemic, there has been a boom in people taking online courses again. And they don’t have to be long or complicated to create. It is easier than you might think to record a short video course and publish it on a platform like Udemy or Teachable.

If you think creating an ebook might be more your thing, then you have some great publishing choices there too. You could use Amazon KDP to create and sell your own self-published Kindle book. These can be short reads and don’t have to take many months to create.

If you prefer to create and sell an ebook by yourself, you could build an attractive PDF using a tool like Canva. Then you can sell it directly from your own website.

Affiliate Marketing

If you are less keen on having a full-time business, and looking for more of a side hustle, then Affiliate Marketing is an appealing option.
Try Amazon Associates or Clickbank to register for affiliate links to add to your online content. Your work then revolves around social media promo, email marketing, and blogging with your affiliate links embedded.

Successful marketing of affiliate products doesn’t happen overnight. You will need to be very persistent to keep growing your following and getting enough link clicks for some to convert into sales commission.

Try Dropshipping

You don’t have to get involved in handling stock and delivery in order to try your hand at ecommerce.

Dropshipping provides a middleman service for you. A third party holds the stock and fulfils the orders. You simply market and sell them from your own online storefront.
This business model makes life a lot simpler when you are just starting out in ecommerce. This option removes the need to invest money in stock up front, as stock is taken care of by the third party.

To give you a balanced view, there are downsides to this too. Due to the third party taking a cut, your profit margins will be smaller than if you were managing your own stock and fulfilment.
Also, if something goes wrong with fulfilment, the customer will be contacting you, then you will have to resolve things with the third party. This can be frustrating.
But overall it’s a good way to dip your toe into ecommerce without investing in stock and taking a financial risk.

Paid content

If you enjoy content creation, there are myriad ways to get paid for creating. Many business owners are not creative or don’t enjoy this process themselves.
So if you do enjoy writing or social media, then this could be a great boost for your online income.

If you are a writer, check out the Medium Partner Program and Vocal Media for hosting your own content. With both sites, you earn based on audience reads. If you can ghostwrite, try offering your services to other business owners on Fiverr or Freelancer.

If you enjoy managing social media and creating for specific social platforms, then again, Fiverr and Freelancer could be good places for you to find paying clients. And if you do well on video, try YouTube and Patreon as platforms to focus on.

As I’m sure you know, on YouTube the business model is paid advertising. You earn for views of your videos where ads are displayed.
With Patreon, it is very different. You are creating exclusive content behind a membership pay wall, and encouraging people to subscribe to your content.

Sell your photography

With the increasing popularity of blogging and online content in general, comes an increased demand for fresh stock photos.

If photography is your thing, then you can sell to stock photo sites, or upload to free stock photo sites and collect tips from users.

This is hard to make a full-time income from, but nice as a side-hustle in addition to other income streams. It’s also an enjoyable creative outlet.

Of course, there are plenty more things you could be doing to generate more income online. These are just some of the more creative ones that you might not have considered before.
Times are tough right now, but being an entrepreneur means you are a creative thinker. So take comfort in the fact that you are going to spot new opportunities or create your own, before other people even get out of bed.

You never need to be without a source of income when you can think outside the box.