WORDPRESS
How to Setup WooCommerce Abandoned Cart Emails (+ 3 Alternatives)
Do you want to set up WooCommerce abandoned cart emails?
Around 70% of shopping carts are abandoned by the customers in your online store. By sending abandoned cart emails to these potential buyers, you can improve the customer experience and boost conversions.
In this article, we will show you how to easily set up abandoned cart emails in WooCommerce. We will also show you different ways to reach out to these customers and get their sales.
Why Send WooCommerce Abandoned Cart Emails to Customers?
When users visit your online store, they usually start adding products to their shopping carts but some of them abandon the items before finishing their purchases. This can happen due to multiple reasons, including high shipping costs, a slow checkout process, or needing to create an account on your website.
However, you can easily recover your abandoned cart sales by sending emails to these potential buyers. These abandoned cart emails will remind customers about the items in their cart and urge them to revisit your WooCommerce store to make a purchase.
It is a cost-effective marketing strategy that can improve your brand perception, strengthen your customer relationships, and increase your conversion rate by up to 30%.
Having said that, let’s see how to easily set up WooCommerce abandoned cart emails, step-by-step. We will also cover abandoned cart SMS, popups, and notifications, so you can use the quick links below to jump to the method you want to use:
Set Up WooCommerce Abandoned Cart Emails
You can easily set up automated WooCommerce abandoned cart emails using FunnelKit Automations.
It is the best marketing automation tool for WooCommerce stores that comes with a drag-and-drop builder and pre-built email sequences that you can set up in a few minutes. You can even design your own emails from scratch and design workflows without needing any code.
First, you need to install and activate the FunnelKit Automations plugin. For detailed instructions, see our beginner’s guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Note: FunnelKit Automations also has a free plan that you can use for this tutorial. However, upgrading to the paid plan will give you access to more features like smart delays, unlimited automation, SMS marketing, and more.
Upon activation, you need to visit the FunnelKit Automations » Settings page from the WordPress admin sidebar and switch to the ‘Cart’ tab in the left column.
Once you do that, check the ‘Enable Cart Tracking’ box. You will not be able to run an automated workflow for abandoned carts until you allow FunnelKit Automations to track the product carts on your website.
You can also configure other settings here, including the waiting period to mark a cart as recoverable, blacklist emails, and GDPR consent.
After that, just click the ‘Save Settings’ button to store your changes.
Next, head to the FunnelKit Automations » Automations page from the WordPress dashboard.
Here, click the ‘Add New Automation’ button in the top right corner of the screen.
This will take you to the ‘Add Automation’ page, where you can select from premade templates that have abandoned cart email examples and workflows.
For this tutorial, we will choose the ‘Abandoned Cart Reminder’ workflow that will send users 3 abandoned cart emails over time.
You will now be taken to a new screen where you can see the trigger, action, and delays for this workflow.
From here, click the ‘Import’ button at the top right corner of the screen to save this template.
Once you do that, an ‘Add Automation’ prompt will open up on your screen.
Here, type in a name for the workflow according to your liking and click the ‘Create’ button.
FunnelKit will now open the template in its automation editor, where you can edit your workflow’s trigger, delay, and actions.
You can even add other actions and delays by clicking the ‘+’ button.
Here, the trigger has been set to ‘Cart Abandoned’, meaning that the automation will start once a customer abandons their cart.
Now, you must click on the ‘Delay’ action to configure its settings.
This will open a prompt on the screen where you can configure the time for your first abandoned cart email.
For example, if you want to send the first email two days after the cart abandonment, then you can type ‘2’ and select ‘Days’ from the dropdown menu.
After that, click the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.
Next, move to the ‘Action’ step in the workflow and click on it to open the prompt.
From here, you can change the subject and text for the cart abandonment email you want to send to your users. You can also use merge tags to add dynamic content like the user’s name and the items in their cart.
Once you are done, click the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.
Next, you can configure the second and third delays and action emails for cart abandonment in a similar way.
Finally, toggle the ‘Inactive’ switch to ‘Active’ to activate your automated workflow.
The potential customers who abandoned carts in your store will now be sent these emails after multiple delays.
Here is an automated abandoned cart email example from our testing site:
Send WooCommerce Cart Abandonment SMS
Other than abandoned cart emails, it’s also a good idea to send cart abandonment SMS to users. This is because open rates for SMS messages are significantly higher than email marketing, so your messages are more likely to reach your potential customers.
Plus, sending SMS ensures that your messages will be seen instantly compared to other communication channels.
It is super easy to set up WooCommerce cart abandonment SMS with FunnelKit Automations.
First, you need to install and activate the FunnelKit Automations plugin. For details, see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Note: You will need the premium plan of the plugin to unlock the Twilio SMS feature and send automated messages to users.
Upon activation, visit the FunnelKit » Automations page from the WordPress dashboard and click the ‘Add New Automation’ button.
You will now be directed to the ‘Add Automation’ page, where you will see a list of premade automated workflow templates.
However, since FunnelKit Automations does not have a template for sending SMS messages, you need to click the ‘Start from Scratch’ button.
This will open a prompt on the screen asking you to name your automation workflow.
Simply type in a title and click the ‘Create’ button.
This will open the automation editor on the screen where you have to click the ‘Select Trigger’ button.
The ‘Select an Event’ prompt will now open on the screen. From here, switch to the ‘WooCommerce’ tab and select the ‘Cart Abandoned’ option as your trigger.
After that, click the ‘Done’ button.
Now, click the ‘+’ button in the automation editor.
This will expand the ‘Add Step’ tab, where you must select the ‘Delay’ option.
Once you do that, the ‘Delay’ prompt will open up on the screen. Here, you can configure the time for sending the abandoned cart SMS.
For example, if you want to send the cart abandonment message a week later, then you can select that option from the dropdown menu.
After that, click the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.
Now click the ‘+’ button in the automation editor again to expand the tab and then choose the ‘Action’ option.
This will open another prompt on the screen where you have to select the ‘Send SMS’ option under the ‘Twilio’ section.
Note: The automation won’t work if you don’t have a Twilio account and phone number. For details on creating an account, you can see our tutorial on how to send Twilio SMS notifications from WooCommerce.
Once you select that option, you can start typing the text message that will be sent to the users once they abandon their carts.
You can also use merge tags to add dynamic content. After you are satisfied, just click the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.
Finally, toggle the ‘Inactive’ switch at the top right corner to activate the automated workflow.
Now the users will be sent an SMS message a week after cart abandonment from your Twilio phone number.
Create WooCommerce Cart Abandonment Popups
Additionally, we recommend setting up abandoned cart popups on your website.
This method is a bit different from sending emails because cart abandonment popups will be immediately triggered when a visitor adds items to their cart and then attempts to leave your website.
Overall, opting for this method can encourage users to take immediate action and can be highly effective, as popups have a conversion rate of over 30%.
To create cart abandonment popups, you will need OptinMonster, which is the best WordPress lead generation and conversion optimization tool on the market.
It comes with a drag-and-drop builder and premade templates to create popups and banners for your website. OptinMonster even has Exit Intent technology that will only display the popup when a user is about to leave your website.
First, you must visit the OptinMonster website and sign up for an account by clicking the ‘Get OptinMonster Now’ button.
Once you have done that, you must connect the account to your WordPress site using the OptinMonster plugin. For details, see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, a welcome screen will open up on your website. Here, click the ‘Connect Your Existing Account’ button.
Once you have connected your WordPress site with OptinMonster, you will also have to connect it with WooCommerce.
To do this, visit the OptinMonster » Settings page from the WordPress dashboard and click the ‘Auto Generate Keys + Connect WooCommerce’ button.
The WooCommerce and OptinMonster plugins will then be connected to each other.
Next, visit the OptinMonster » Templates page from the WordPress admin sidebar.
From here, you can select any of the premade templates to create a cart abandonment popup for your store.
Once you do that, a prompt will open up on the screen, asking you to name your campaign.
Simply type in a name and click the ‘Start Building’ button.
This will open OptinMonster’s drag-and-drop builder, where you will notice a popup preview on the right with blocks in the left column.
Here, you can add images, videos, CTAs, dynamic content, social media buttons, and more by simply dragging and dropping blocks.
For more detailed instructions, you may want to see our tutorial on how to create a WooCommerce popup to increase sales.
Once you are satisfied, switch to the ‘Display Rules’ tab from the top and expand the ‘current URL path’ dropdown menu.
This will open up a list of different settings. Now, select the ‘Exit Intent’ option.
After that, you can select the type of device where the popup will be displayed and configure its sensitivity.
Next, choose the ‘Page Targeting’ option from the second dropdown menu on the left. Then, pick the ‘exactly matches’ option from the menu in the middle.
Once you do that, you must add the URL of the product checkout page in the field on the left.
Now, the abandoned cart popup will only be displayed once the visitor starts leaving the checkout page.
Finally, switch to the ‘Publish’ tab from the top and click the ‘Publish’ button to store your settings.
The exit intent popup will now be displayed when the visitor tries to leave your WordPress website.
Here is a preview of how the abandoned cart popup will look in your WooCommerce store.
Send WooCommerce Cart Abandonment Notifications
Finally, another way to reduce cart abandonment is to set up push notifications on your website. These messages will be displayed inside the browser for users who have already left your online store.
Unlike emails or popups, push notifications don’t require you to collect additional user data like email addresses or phone numbers. This means that users may be more likely to opt in to the notifications, but you won’t be able to ask for their contact details.
To send WooCommerce cart abandonment notifications, you can use PushEngage, which is the best push notification service on the market.
PushEngage has a custom-triggered campaigns feature that can send users abandoned cart push notifications. It also comes with powerful features like A/B testing, automatic drip campaigns, and smart opt-in reminders, and supports all devices and browsers.
First, you have to visit the PushEngage website and click the ‘Get Started For Free Now’ button.
This will take you to the pricing page, where you have to select a plan for your online store. Keep in mind that the triggered campaign feature is only available in the Growth plan.
After that, create your PushEngage account and provide website details like your domain name, industry, company size, and more.
Upon account creation, you will then be taken to the PushEngage dashboard, where you must provide your website URL and name.
You also have to add an image that will be used as a site icon in your push notifications.
Once you do that, visit the Campaign » Triggered Campaign page from the PushEngage dashboard.
Here, you need to click the ‘+ Create New Triggered Campaign’ button.
This will open another screen where you will see a list of premade templates by PushEngage.
Go ahead and click the ‘Create’ button under the ‘Cart Abandonment’ template.
You will now be taken to another page where you can start by adding a name for the triggered campaign that you are creating.
Once you do that, click the ‘>’ icon on the right to configure push notification settings.
This will expand the tab and you can start by adding a notification title and message in the prompt.
You will notice that the ‘Notification URL’ and ‘Image URL’ fields will already have variables. We recommend leaving these settings as they are.
When the user sees this notification, they will also see an image of the product they added to their cart in the image section, while the notification URL will direct them to the checkout page.
Upon configuring these settings, switch to the ‘Trigger Settings’ tab from the top.
Here, you will see that the conditional logic for the campaign has already been configured. It will send a push notification to a user once they have added an item to the cart and left your website. The notification will stop displaying once the user is back on the checkout page.
Next, you have to click the ‘Activate Triggered Campaign’ button. After that, you also have to click the ‘Integration Code’ button.
This will open a prompt on the screen displaying multiple code snippets for your website, including the add-to-cart event, checkout event, and goal tracking.
Simply copy these snippets and paste them on your WordPress site. Keep in mind that you will need a developer to fill out these snippets with the variables used on your website.
If you don’t want to hire a developer, then you can also contact the PushEngage Customer Success team, and they will set up the campaign for you.
Finally, click the ‘Activate Autoresponder’ button to store your settings.
Now, the customers who abandon their carts will be sent a cart abandonment push notification.
Here is an example of a cart abandonment notification sent to a user.
As you can see, the notification has a photo of the product and a link to the checkout page.
You can also connect the PushEngage software with your WordPress site to create different kinds of push notifications, including sending notifications upon a sale, successful transactions, and more.
For details, see our tutorial on how to add web push notifications to your WordPress site.
Bonus: Use WooCommerce Automations to Increase Sales
Apart from sending cart abandonment emails, you can also use other automated workflows to increase your WooCommerce sales.
An automated workflow is a sequence of tasks that is executed once an event is triggered on your website. You simply set up the trigger and the action, and the automation will take care of the rest.
For example, you can send automated coupons to bring back users to your website or create personalized email marketing strategies.
You can do all of this using Uncanny Automator, which is the best WordPress automation plugin on the market.
It is super easy to use and can connect your WooCommerce store with over 150 tools like WPForms, Zoom Meetings, Facebook, Twilio, and WhatsApp to create automated workflows.
With Uncanny Automator, you can send emails and SMS messages to users upon a failed transaction, product statuses, coupons, product reviews, and so much more.
You can also create, update, and delete users based on various triggers, like user registration or form submissions.
For detailed instructions, you can see our tutorial on how to create automated workflows in WordPress with Uncanny Automator.
We hope this article helped you learn how to use WooCommerce cart abandonment emails push notifications, SMS, and popups. You may also want to see our tutorial on how to customize the WooCommerce checkout page and our expert picks for the best WooCommerce plugins for your online store.
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.”
WORDPRESS
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?
