WORDPRESS
7 Best WooCommerce Point of Sale Plugins (Easy POS Setup)
Are you looking for a point-of-sale plugin for WooCommerce?
WooCommerce isn’t just useful for online stores. By adding a point of sale (POS) plugin to your website, you can also sell your products in a physical store and make more profits.
In this article, we will share the best WooCommerce POS plugins for easy point-of-sale setup.
Why Do You Need a Point of Sale System?
You can think of a point of sale (POS) system as a modern cash register that runs on software. It allows you to take payments from customers in person, like in a physical store, a mobile food truck, or when selling merchandise at an event.
Like a cash register, you and your staff can use a POS system to ring up products, display the total cost to the customer, allow them to pay, and make a receipt or invoice.
But most POS systems don’t stop there. You can choose a system that offers the features you need, such as automatically adjusting your stock levels as products are purchased, keeping sales statistics so that you know what is selling and what isn’t, or working offline.
You might be thinking about purchasing one or more dedicated POS terminals for your business. However, these are expensive, and most require paying for an ongoing subscription for the software you need to run the terminal.
A better choice is to use WooCommerce, the world’s most popular eCommerce platform. It is super-flexible, cost-effective, and easy to manage, even for beginners. It allows you to sell products online from your WordPress website and in-person using a POS plugin.
The best part is that by installing a WooCommerce POS plugin, you have an inexpensive point-of-sale system that can be used at physical stores on any computer or tablet that runs a modern web browser.
Now, let’s take a look at some of the best POS plugins for WooCommerce.
1. YITH Point of Sale for WooCommerce (POS)
YITH Point of Sale for WooCommerce (POS) is a premium plugin that turns your WooCommerce website into a powerful and easy-to-use cash register.
Your cashiers can easily search for products or scan barcodes when checking out customers. They can even add new products when needed.
If you run both an online and physical store, then the product listings, orders, and customers from both stores will be kept in sync. And if you have many stores or a franchise, then there is no limit to the number of stores and registers the plugin can handle.
YITH Point of Sale for WooCommerce comes with layouts for both desktop and mobile devices. Like most POS plugins, the mobile layout is suitable for iPads and Android tablets but not smartphones.
The plugin’s dashboard lets you keep track of useful analytics such as sales trends, the revenue collected by each terminal, the payment methods used, and even the cashier with the highest number of sales.
Pros
- Unlimited stores and registers
- Layouts for desktop and mobile devices
- Useful sales statistics
Cons
- Free version is limited to cash payments
- Does not work offline
Why we recommend YITH POS: YITH makes powerful plugins that are affordable and easy to use. Their POS plugin includes the features most stores need and supports multiple stores.
Pricing: YITH Point of Sale for WooCommerce (POS) starts at $147.99/year for a single site. There is also a free version of the plugin, but it is limited to cash payments.
2. Oliver POS
Oliver POS is one of the best WooCommerce POS plugins. It is designed to allow physical shops to easily sell products from their online inventory from a single system.
This makes it perfect for people who want to combine eCommerce shops with physical stores. You can easily sync inventory between your online store, retail store, and warehouse.
Oliver POS runs on any internet-enabled computer or device, and apps are available for iPads and Android tablets. You can also purchase hardware POS devices from the official website, including registers, tablet stands, barcode scanners, cash drawers, and printers.
You can quickly look up your customers to see whether they have made a purchase online or in-store. You can track their total spending, order history, store credit, and more.
You can also keep on top of in-store and online transactions. The plugin can generate reports for payments, sales, inventory, and more.
Pros
- Easy to set up and use
- Can run online and physical stores together
- Free version
Cons
- Limited customization options
- Does not work offline
Why we recommend Oliver POS: With 4.8 stars, Oliver POS is the highest-rated WooCommerce POS plugin in the WordPress Plugin Directory. It’s easy to install and use.
Pricing: A limited free plan is available with enough features to get you started. Paid plans start from $24.99/month per register.
3. Square for WooCommerce
Square for WooCommerce is a free WooCommerce extension that lets you accept payments using Square, a popular payment gateway that makes credit card payments easy.
The Square extension allows your customers to pay using all major credit and debit card types. It also supports digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay.
These payments can be taken from customers both online and in person. However, credit card payments are only available in the USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, France, and Spain.
Square charges a fixed transaction rate, and this varies for each country.
Setup is easy. Your products and payments will be automatically kept in sync between your Square account and your online store. That means that when you add products to your Square account, they will be automatically added to your WooCommerce store as well.
Square also helps protect your business. They provide a dedicated dispute management team as well as fraud protection that uses machine learning to detect fraud before it happens.
Pros
- Easy setup
- Low cost of entry
- Multiple payment options
- Free
Cons
- Does not work offline
- Accepts credit card payments in only certain countries
Why we recommend Square for WooCommerce: Square for WooCommerce lets you easily set up a point-of-sale system without any up-front fees. For that reason, it’s one of the best free WooCommerce POS plugins.
Pricing: The Square for WooCommerce extension is free from the WooCommerce store. However, like most payment platforms, Square charges a fee for each transaction you make.
4. wePOS
wePOS is an affordable and attractive POS solution for WooCommerce that is fast and easy to set up and use. However, it lacks some features that other POS systems offer.
For example, wePOS doesn’t directly integrate with retail hardware such as cash drawers. However, it does support barcode readers and printers.
Also, wePOS accepts only two payment methods: cash and credit card. When paying by credit card, the order number and receipt number will need to be inserted into wePOS manually to keep track of the sale.
Currently, you can’t produce daily sales reports for cashiers, generate bar codes, offer gift cards, or customize the user interface.
And like many of the other POS plugins for WooCommerce, wePOS does not work without an internet connection.
Pros
- Fast and easy to use
- Affordable
Cons
- Does not work offline
- Only two payment methods: cash and credit card
- Limited hardware support
- Limited customization
- The free version is limited to cash payments
Why we recommend wePOS: wePOS is a popular point of sale for WooCommerce. It will suit users who are after a fast and reliable system rather than lots of features.
Pricing: wePOS offers a free plan with limited features, such as support only for cash payments. Premium plans start at $99/year.
5. Hike POS
Hike POS is a full-featured, standalone retail POS cloud service that works on PCs, Macs, iPads, and Android tablets. It also offers plug-and-play compatibility with most retail hardware, including scanners and receipt printers.
It offers lay-by sales, returns and refunds, gift cards, quotes, and credit notes. You can also see detailed sales analytics and use the software in multiple stores.
Besides its standalone apps, the service also integrates well with WooCommerce. Your Hike and WooCommerce inventory, orders, and customer profiles are automatically kept in sync.
Even though it’s a cloud service, it does work offline, making it more reliable than many of the other plugins in this list. Once you are connected again to the internet, all data is synced back to the cloud.
Hike POS supports multiple payment options, letting your customers choose their preferred method. Options include PayPal, Square, Afterpay, Tyro, and many more.
Hike POS also offers integrations with other cloud services, like Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks, Mailchimp, and Amazon.
Pros
- Works offline
- Integrates with many third-party cloud services
- Works with or without WooCommerce
- Supports multiple stores
- 14-day trial
Cons
Why we recommend Hike POS: Hike POS is a versatile solution that offers a point-of-sale system using WooCommerce or one of their native apps. It’s a great option if you need to work away from an internet connection.
Pricing: A Hike POS subscription starts at $59/month when billed annually. There is a 14-day free trial and no extra charge for WooCommerce integration.
6. Vitepos
Vitepos lets you quickly set up a point of sale system for your local store or sell from your existing online store in your physical store.
You can choose one of three different settings for the POS mode: grocery/retail, restaurant (pay first), and restaurant (traditional). Simply pick the option that best matches your store.
Vitepos can handle your inventory and stock management. You can add new products from vendors, transfer stock between your stores, and update prices.
There are also helpful features to help your cashiers, including holding stock, adding discounts or fees, and taking split payments. Your team can add products by scanning their barcodes or by searching for them.
Finally, Vitepos can run without an internet connection. Like Hike POS, once you are online again, your data will be uploaded automatically.
Pros
- Works offline
- Can run an online store and a local store simultaneously
- Free version
Cons
- Lacks third-party integrations
Why we recommend Vitepos: Vitepos is an affordable and user-friendly POS plugin for WooCommerce. It gives users a lot of control over their system and works offline.
Pricing: The Pro version starts at $79/year or $299 lifetime for a single site. Vitepos Lite is a limited free version available from the WordPress Plugin Directory.
7. ConnectPOS
ConnectPOS is a point-of-sale system that works on multiple platforms, not just WooCommerce. These include Magento, Shopify, BigCommerce, and more.
It is an award-winning POS system and has been used successfully by reputable brands like ASUS, Trinny London, Eyewa, and Lapaire.
The company can build custom POS solutions that don’t rely on any eCommerce platform. Also, they can create custom solutions that integrate your POS with your other business systems like ERP, CRM, and accounting.
Data is automatically updated in real time between your WooCommerce database and the POS system. This includes orders, inventory, customers, and products.
Plus, the software is able to work offline. Data will be saved locally and updated once your internet connection is restored.
The ConnectPOS website maintains a list of compatible hardware, including receipt printers, label printers, barcode scanners, payment terminals, card swipers, and more.
Pros
- Works offline
- Can meet the needs of large companies and enterprises
- Offers a free WooCommerce plugin
Cons
Why we reommend ConnectPOS: ConnectPOS is a highly rated, award-winning POS solution that suits large companies and enterprises.
Pricing: Payment is by subscription. However, pricing information has not been made available. You can request a quote for the Professional and Enterprise versions from the ConnectPOS website.
What Is the Best WooCommerce POS Plugin?
After reviewing all of the popular point-of-sale systems for WooCommerce, we believe that YITH Point of Sale for WooCommerce (POS) is the best POS plugin for most local stores.
However, this choice depends on your needs and budget, so we have a few additional recommendations.
Our top recommendation doesn’t work offline. If you need to take payments at times when there may not be an internet connection, such as on a food truck, then your best options are Hike POS, Vitepos, and ConnectPOS.
Some users prefer to get started with a free solution that’s easy to set up, and in that case, we recommend Square for WooCommerce. But be aware that with fees for each transaction, you may pay more in the long term.
If you have a franchise or chain of stores, then you will need YITH Point of Sale for WooCommerce (POS) or Hike POS. And if you have very specific needs and a budget for complex customizations, then it’s worth considering ConnectPOS.
FAQs About Point of Sale Systems
Our readers often ask us about point-of-sale systems and the best WordPress POS plugins. Here are our answers to some of the most common questions.
Does every WooCommerce store need a POS system?
No, if you are only making sales online, then you don’t need a POS system. They are only needed when your customers make payments in person.
What makes WooCommerce a good eCommerce platform?
WooCommerce is the most flexible eCommerce solution for an online store that sells physical goods. With the right plugin, it is also an excellent point-of-sale system for physical stores.
However, if you are selling digital goods like eBooks, software, or music, then Easy Digital Downloads is a better WordPress eCommerce plugin. And BigCommerce could be the best option if you don’t want to manage all the technical stuff of building an online store.
You can learn more in our detailed comparison of the best WordPress eCommerce plugins.
What other plugins are needed for WooCommerce?
Besides a POS plugin, there are plenty of other plugins you can use to add features to your WooCommerce store. Here are a few we recommend:
You can discover more in our guide on the best WooCommerce plugins for your store.
Best WordPress Guides for WooCommerce
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
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WP Engine sues WordPress co-creator Mullenweg and Automattic, alleging abuse of power
Web hosting provider WP Engine has filed a lawsuit against Automattic, and WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg, accusing them of extortion and abuse of power. The lawsuit comes after nearly two weeks of tussling between Mullenweg, who is also CEO of Automattic, and WP Engine over trademark infringement and contributions to the open-source WordPress project.
WP Engine accused Automattic and Mullenweg of not keeping their promises to run WordPress open-source projects without any constraints and giving developers the freedom to build, run, modify and redistribute the software.
“Matt Mullenweg’s conduct over the last ten days has exposed significant conflicts of interest and governance issues that, if left unchecked, threaten to destroy that trust. WP Engine has no choice but to pursue these claims to protect its people, agency partners, customers, and the broader WordPress community,” the company said.
The case document, filed in a court in California, also accused Mullenweg of having a “long history of
obfuscating the true facts” about his control of WordPress Foundation and WordPress.org
The story so far
Mullenweg had criticized WP Engine for infringing WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks. He called them the “Cancer of WordPress” and also called out WP Engine’s private equity partner, Silver Lake, for not caring about the open-source community.
Later, WP Engine sent a cease-and-desist letter, asking Mullenweg and Automattic to withdraw these comments. Automattic then sent its own cease-and-desist, accusing WP Engine of infringing WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks.
Notably, Mullenweg banned WP Engine on September 25 from accessing WordPress.org resources, including plug-ins and themes, and preventing WP Engine customers from updating them. Two days later, Mullenweg provided a temporary reprieve and unblocked WP Engine until October 1.
On Wednesday, Automattic published a proposed seven-year term sheet that it had sent to WP Engine on September 20, asking the hosting company to pay 8% of its gross revenues per month as a royalty fee for using the WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks.
Alternatively, WP Engine was given the option to commit 8% by deploying employees to contribute to WordPress’s core features and functionalities, or a combination of both people hours and money.
WP Engine didn’t accept these terms, which included a probation on forking plugins and extensions from Automattic and WooCommerce.
You can contact this reporter at [email protected] or on Signal: @ivan.42
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Automattic demanded web host pay $32M annually for using WordPress trademark
“WPE’s nominative uses of those marks to refer to the open-source software platform and plugin used for its clients’ websites are fair uses under settled trademark law, and they are consistent with WordPress’ own guidelines and the practices of nearly all businesses in this space,” the lawsuit said.
Mullenweg told Ars that “we had numerous meetings with WPE over the past 20 months, including a previous term sheet that was delivered in July. The term sheet was meant to be simple, and if they had agreed to negotiate it we could have, but they refused to even take a call with me, so we called their bluff.” Automattic also published a timeline of meetings and calls between the two companies going back to 2023.
Mullenweg also said, “Automattic had the commercial rights to the WordPress trademark and could sub-license, hence why the payment should go to Automattic for commercial use of the trademark. Also the term sheet covered the WooCommerce trademark, which they also abuse, and is 100 percent owned by Automattic.”
Automattic alleged “widespread unlicensed use”
Exhibit A in the lawsuit includes a letter to WP Engine CEO Heather Brunner from a trademark lawyer representing Automattic and a subsidiary, WooCommerce, which makes a plugin for WordPress.
“As you know, our Client owns all intellectual property rights globally in and to the world-famous WOOCOMMERCE and WOO trademarks; and the exclusive commercial rights from the WordPress Foundation to use, enforce, and sublicense the world-famous WORDPRESS trademark, among others, and all other associated intellectual property rights,” the letter said.
The letter alleged that “your blatant and widespread unlicensed use of our Client’s trademarks has infringed our Client’s rights and confused consumers into believing, falsely, that WP Engine is authorized, endorsed, or sponsored by, or otherwise affiliated or associated with, our Client.” It also alleged that “WP Engine’s entire business model is predicated on using our Client’s trademarks… to mislead consumers into believing there is an association between WP Engine and Automattic.”
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5 Most Profitable Online Businesses You Can Start Today for Free!
In today’s digitalized world, starting a business doesn’t always mean you have to have a good chunk of money and years of experience in the field. Yeah, it’s good if you have them, but even without them, you can start a business and make money. Not just a few hundred dollars; some businesses can even make you a millionaire if you invest your time and available resources into them.
You need to have the right approach and the proper set of skills to make that happen. And you can learn such skills for free on the internet. So, all you need is the willingness to put in the work and effort it needs.
In this post, you’ll see 5 most profitable online business ideas that you can start today for free. You don’t need anyone to help you with these businesses when you’re starting out; you can do it all alone, and you can manage these businesses from the comfort of your home.
Even if you don’t know a single thing about these businesses, you can learn them for free on YouTube, Udemy, and the Interent. There’s more than enough free resources out there about these topics to take you from 0-10 real quick.
So, sit down and grab your popcorns, because this article might be the only thing you need to launch your first online business, today itself!
Please note: This post contains affiliate links to products I use, trust, and recommend. If you choose to purchase a helpful product using these links, I may receive a small commission for referring you – at no extra cost to you. These funds help me keep this blog up and running.
1. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the most profitable and easy-to-start businesses out there. In affiliate marketing, you need to promote someone else’s product in order to make money. The person who promotes the product in exchange for some commission is called an affiliate.
When you sign up to be an affiliate of any program, you’ll get a unique link to promote the products called an affiliate link. You need to use your affiliate link to send customers to the seller’s page. That link tracks the amount of sales you generate to determine the money you make.
You don’t need to create, package, or ship the products yourself. The seller who is selling the product will do these all. All you need to do is, refer customers to the seller. And when the customer referred by you through your affiliate link makes a purchase, you get a small percentage of the sale amount as a reward. That’s it. That’s what affiliate marketing is!
Through affiliate marketing, you can promote both physical and digital products.
You don’t always have to sell products to earn affiliate commission. Sometimes, you get commission to make people download something. That can be an app, software, or browser extension. Sometimes, you get commissions to make people sign up for particular websites or services. Sometimes, you get commission to generate leads for businesses and agencies, etc. All these things need to be done through your affiliate link in order for you to make a commission.
How to Get Started?
1. Choose your Niche
You need to choose a niche to start affiliate marketing. You can’t promote everything from workout gear to making money online courses yourself! So, choosing a niche is very important to succeed in affiliate marketing. Some popular niches for affiliate marketing are: health & fitness, finance, home & kitchen, technology, relationships, etc.
2. Find the Product
After choosing a niche, you need to find a product to promote. If you decide to get into the health and fitness niche, then you can promote workout plans, weight loss supplements, keto meal plans, hair loss products, and so much more. So, decide what you want to promote and find a good product for it.
3. Build a Platform
Now, you’ve decided your niche, and your product is ready to promote, so all you need is a platform to promote it. You can promote affiliate products either through a blog or through social media. You can write articles on your blog or grow your social media accounts to share your affiliate links.
Here are some popular affiliate marketing platforms you can join.
The affiliate marketing industry is worth nearly $17 billion. So, you can start your affiliate marketing journey today to get a small chunk of that seventeen billion dollars for yourself!
2. Selling Digital Products
Selling digital products is another great way to make a hefty amount of money online. Digital products are a great way to share your knowledge and creativity with the world while making some money.
Digital products are products that are created and sold online. They don’t exist in the real world, except for printables. Printables are graphics that are created digitally but needs to be printed out in the real world to be used.
From ebooks to online courses and printables to music, there’s a wide variety of products that you can create and sell.
Here are some digital products that you can create and sell easily.
If you’re wondering which digital product sells the best and which one you should sell, consider this analysis done among 96,000 creators by influencers.club. According to the analysis, online courses were the most sold digital products, with 35.7% of the entire digital products sold, followed by ebooks (7.3%) and cookbooks (3.8%).
Here are a few more:
Check out 16 Best Digital Products to Sell in 2024
How to Get Started?
1. Choose Your Niche
The first step to building a profitable digital product business is to choose a niche that you’re interested in and have a demand in the market. You can select a niche based on your expertise, passion or to profit from an untapped market opportunity. Make sure that there are enough people willing to pay for your products so that you can make a good amount of money selling them.
2. Create Your Product
After choosing a niche to get into, you need to create a solid product to sell. In order to get constant sales, your product needs to be highly valuable. Either it needs to solve your customer’s problem or it needs to add significant value to their life. Make sure that your product is up-to-date, functional, and user-friendly.
3. Set up a Platform to Sell
Now that you have decided your niche and your product is ready to sell, all you need is a platform to host and sell your products. You can either sell digital products through your own website or through platforms like Etsy, Gumroad, Teachable, etc.
You can sell ebooks, printables, planners, digital arts, wallpapers, templates, etc. through Etsy and Gumroad. And to sell online courses, you can use platforms like Teachable or Udemy.
You can use graphic design tools like Canva and Adobe Illustrator to create printables, stickers, templates, wallpapers, etc. And you can write your ebook on Google Docs or Notepad and save it as a pdf to sell it.
4. Price Your Products
After your product is ready and you’ve decided a platform to sell, you need to set a price to sell your products.
Pricing is a really crucial part. You can’t price it too high or too low. If you price it too high, very few people are likely to buy it, and if you price it too low, you won’t make enough profit.
So, while pricing your product, evaluate the product yourself and do your market research to analyze your competitors pricing to determine your own product’s pricing.
You can promote your digital products by creating video/image content, writing blog posts, email marketing, paid ads, SEO, and through social media marketing.
Digital products can be a great way to make money online passively without needing much work and attention. So, this might be something you would love to get into! The best part is, there is no limit on how much money you can make. Ana from TheSheApproach has made over $55,000 selling ebooks alone through her small blog.
3. Print on Demand
Print on Demand, or POD, is gaining immense popularity in recent times due to its business model. Print on demand business has less to no startup cost, which makes it easier for anyone to get into it.
In Print on Demand business, you create designs to print on mugs, t-shirts, hoodies, caps, pants, etc. After your design is ready, you find a print-on-demand supplier to print and sell your products.
Unlike other type of businesses, in POD, the products are not produced first and listed for sale later. Instead, the products are promoted first and only produced or printed when a customer places an order.
In POD, your job is to create designs and market your products. Your POD supplier will do everything else, from printing, packaging, and delivering the product. They will even handle the returns if they have to.
How to Get Started?
1. Choose a Niche
First of all, choose a niche you want to start your business in. Choose a niche that has huge demand in the market and something you’re interested in. For example, if you’re interested in sports, you can create designs related to sports, print them, and sell them.
2. Create Your Designs
After you’ve chosen your niche, you need to create designs to print on products. Good designs attract more eyeballs and generate more sales compared to plain, low-quality designs. So, put your maximum effort into creating good designs. Your designs might be the only differentiator between success and failure of your POD business.
3. Choose a Print on Demand Supplier
After your design is ready, you need to find a good and trustworthy POD supplier to print and supply your products. Choose a supplier that uses high-quality materials to create products, has less fees, low shipping time, good customer support, and large area coverage. These things are crucial for your business’s success.
Here are some popular print-on-demand suppliers:
4. Set up Your Store
Now that your product is ready to sell, you need to find a platform to sell it. You can sell your POD products on Etsy, WooCommerce, or eBay, or setup a Shopify store to sell them. Your store must be clean and colorful to convert more visitors into customers.
5. Price Your Products
After your store is setup, you need to price your product. Make sure to check your competitors prices before pricing your own products. You can’t sell your products for significantly more than what your competitor is selling for. If you do so, you won’t get as many sales as you would have with a lower price point.
You can market your Print on Demand products mainly through social media and paid ads. You can start and grow a social media account to promote your POD products for free.
The print-on-demand market is worth more than $7.24B in 2024 and is projected to reach $43.4B by 2030 with a growth rate of staggering 26.8%. So, this might be the chance to dip your toes into the world of ecommerce with print on demand.
4. Dropshipping
Dropshipping is one of the hottest and most popular online business right now. It has made thousands of teenagers and 20-year-olds millionaires, and its craze is not going down anytime soon.
Dropshipping is a business model where you find a product, advertise it, and generate sales, but someone else produces, packages, and ships them for you.
You buy products for less price from retailers or even manufacturers and sell them for a higher price through your own store. For example, if I find a cool watch on Alibaba.com that I can buy for $7 a piece, then I will create my own store to advertise that product and sell it for $20, $30, or even more. That is how you make money with dropshipping.
In dropshipping, you don’t have to worry about producing product, packaging, shipping, or keeping a product inventory because whenever an order comes in, you forward that order and customer’s details to your supplier, and then your supplier will produce, package, and deliver the product to your customer. There are several tools and softwares to automate this entire process. Here you’re basically a middleman reselling the products.
How to Get Started?
1. Find a Product
To start a dropshipping business, first you need to find a product that solves a specific problem of your customers. Sometimes the product can be a fashionable or decorative item like a watch. The product has to have a high potential to sell. In the world of dropshipping, a product that solves a problem and has a high potential to sell is called a winning product.
2. Find a Supplier
After finding a good product to sell, you need to find a supplier who can supply you the same product for a cheaper price. A supplier can be the making or breaking point of your business because your job is to promote the product and bring customers. Everything except that is done by your supplier, so if you find a good supplier, you won’t have or have very few problems in your business, and vice versa.
So, before choosing your supplier, check their product quality, delivery time, packaging style, and customer service. A good supplier must have high-quality products, low delivery time, good packaging quality, and good customer support.
AliExpress is the go-to platform to find suppliers and products at a cheaper price, for dropshipping.
3. Build Your Store
After you’ve found a good product and a reliable supplier, you need to build a store to market your products. You can create your store on platforms like WooCommerce, Shopify, GetResponse, and Wix or sell them directly on Amazon or eBay. The design of your store must be clean, simple, and colorful to get more sales.
4. Market Your Store
After your store is setup and ready to sell, you need to advertise it, to bring customers to it. To advertise your store, you can use social media, paid ads, content marketing, SEO, and more.
Most dropshippers advertise their store through either Facebook or TikTok ads and through content marketing by creating viral pieces of content for TikTok, Instagram reels, and YouTube shorts.
That’s it! That’s how you can start your own dropshipping business and profit from the $250B dropshipping industry.
5. Dropservicing
Now you know what dropshipping is, but have you ever heard about dropservicing? Huh? Dropshipping deals with selling physical products, but dropservicing is all about selling services.
Dropservicing, also known as service arbitrage, is a business model where you sell services to clients. But instead of doing the work yourself, you outsource the work to a third-party service provider, either a freelancer or an agency. In dropservicing, you’re basically a middleman, just like in dropshipping, who acts as a service seller in front of clients to make money without doing any work yourself.
Whatever remains after paying your service provider from the amount your client paid is your profit. For example, if you find a client who is ready to pay you $1000 to edit a video for him. Then you find a freelancer or a video editing agency who can edit the same video for $400, then you can keep the remaining $600 with yourself. The more you charge your client and the less you pay your service provider, the more money you make. Didn’t understand? Read it again, you’ll get it!
How to Get Started?
1. Choose a Niche
To start a dropservicing business, you must be good at some kind of skill or a particular niche. That can be web designing, video editing, graphic designing, content writing, etc. Even though you’re not the one doing the work, you need to have proper knowledge and skill in the field to convince your client that you’re capable enough and a perfect fit for the work.
2. Find Your Service Provider
After you’ve decided your niche, you need a service provider to do the required tasks for you. While choosing a service provider, you need to make sure that they are good at what they do; otherwise, you’ll end up with a low-quality output that may not satisfy your clients and may not fulfill their requirements. You can find service providers on platforms like Fiverr, Upwork, Freelancer, etc., or on social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn.
3. Setup a Platform
After you’ve decided your niche and found the service providers, you need to market your services in order to get clients. To do so, either you can create your own website, create a profile on freelancing platforms, or promote your services through social media.
While setting up a platform, you need to add your portfolio, past works, pricing, client testimonials, and contact information. Don’t worry if you don’t have any of these! You can add your service provider’s portfolio and client testimonials as yours while setting up your platform.
4. Set Your Prices
Before you launch your dropservicing business, you need to set a price for your services. While setting up pricing your services, find out how much your service provider is charging for the service you’re going to sell, and set your prices accordingly. For example, if your service provider charges $400 to edit a video, you can set your video editing price at $600, $700, or more.
You can promote your dropservicing business through content marketing, SEO, social media marketing, cold outreach, paid advertising, and freelance platforms.
Cold outreach is a process where you reach out to or contact someone via email who doesn’t have any connection with your business. The email is meant to aware them about your product or service and provide them with an offer.
Best Platforms to Start Your Business
If you’re thinking of starting a blog to get into affiliate marketing, then I would highly suggest you create your blog on either Wix or WordPress. These two are the best blog builders out there.
And if you’d like to create your own website to promote your digital products, dropshipping/dropservicing business, and print-on-demand products, then I would suggest you use GetResponse’s simple drag-and-drop website builder. It’s very easy to use and completely free to create and manage a website for lifetime. Getresponse also has its own email marketing tool, so, if you want, you can even start email marketing with it for completely free!
Tips to succeed:
1. Stay Consistent: You won’t see results overnight, so you need to be consistent to get results and make money.
2. Learn, Learn, Learn: Whatever business you get into, learn about it as much as you can. Learning will help you gather more knowledge about the topic, which ultimately helps you to get better results and earn more.
3. Be Patient: Many people give up too early because they are really, really impatient. Remember, great things take time, and if it were so easy and fast, then everyone would have done it.
4. Provide Value: If you want to make money, then you need to provide something that is equally valuable to your customers. So, make sure your main motive is to provide value along with making money.
So, these were the 5 most profitable online business ideas that you can start today for free. Let me quickly recap them for you. 1. Affiliate marketing 2. Selling digital products 3. Print on Demand (POD) 4. Dropshipping 5. Dropservicing. Make sure to give them a try if you’re thinking of starting an online business. And tell me in the comments, which one of these businesses would you start if you have to?