The COVID 19 pandemic has caused economic hardship to a lot of individuals. While quite a few have got cuts in their salaries, there are others who have completely lost their jobs.

Majority of the people are working from home and some of these either have reduced working hours, or work flexi-hours. In other words this segment of people has got surplus time available with them during which they can run a flourishing home-based business.

Below are some ideas that can help them get started.


Buying products in bulk and selling them online
This is a good strategy that is safe and not fraught with risk. If you have identified products that can be easily transported and stored at your home or garage, then you can buy them in bulk and sell them online.
You can hire a Shopify development company that will build your online store quickly and once your store is tested and ready for launch, then you can be in business.



Sell products that are made at home
Nothing works better than making your own products at home and selling them online. By sourcing different raw materials, or ingredients you can exercise control on the quality of items, their price and composition.

In the end, when the final product is ready, you can be proud, because it has been done in the way you wanted and you can price it appropriately.

The products that are suitable to be produced at home comprise candles, jewelry, cosmetics, art, food, apparel. As and when you want to scale up, you can hire employees or move to a bigger premises.



A dropshipping store is a great idea
If managing the logistics and warehousing of products are topics that are difficult for you to handle, then it makes sense to consider starting a dropshipping store.

Under a dropshipping model, a third party produces, stores, and ships your products on your behalf, you only need to handle marketing and customer service.

Your dropshipping supplier could either be local or overseas, but important is that the supplier must be one that can deliver high quality products and main customer delight; else you might put your business’s reputation at risk.

A Shopify development company can customize for you Shopify apps such as Oberlo that can connect you with suppliers to import products into your own store while streamlining order fulfillment.

Dropshipping also works where you become a distributor of a third party’s products, absorb the marketing costs and sell the products with some margin, but little branding of your own. The returns here are limited, but if you are able to put some innovative thinking into the model, you can achieve a higher return on investment.

– Source products from different suppliers, and build a product assortment that serves a specific niche.
– Work with a Shopify development company that can combine quality content and high end technology skills to build a scalable online store for you.
– Target an underserved region.
– Identify new audience for your products.



Consider opening a print-on-demand business
A print-on-demand business is also a good choice if you want to work from home. Here again you are not required to hold any inventory at home, or manage delivery of stock or shipping to customers. You basically operate as a front of a print-on-demand service provider who white labels his services to you and you in turn off them to your customers.

The products that you can sell are books, t-shirts, hats, backpacks, blankets, pillows, mugs, glasses, caps, gloves, shoes, hoodies, phone cases, watches, and many more.

You can cater either to the general public, or to a specific niche – pet owners, vegans, animal lovers, geeks, foodies or other communities.



Sell your expertise or core skill
Services are easier to sell than products, but you need to be careful about managing your time.

If you are a professional such as a language expert, a designer, a finance expert, or a marketer then you can offer freelancing services to your clients while working from home. There might be occasional travel involved.

You can also set up an online store with the help of a Shopify development company where you can set up appointments and bookings and collect fees online.

Common service-based home business mostly comprise tutoring, house cleaning, freelance writing, personal training, virtual assistance, dog-walking, marketing and designing.

These businesses rely a lot on networking and word of mouth referrals. Even if you have a small number of high-quality clients, they can be enough to support you when you are working from home.



Bundle your services into a product
This is a great idea. Rather than selling your services purely on the basis of time, skill and effort, it will be more remunerative if you productize your services and create digital or physical products that package up your expertise, and streamline or complement the service you offer.

Using this approach you can cater to your current customer base or even find a new customer in the same space. Some innovative ideas to productize your services are courses, designs, licensable assets, downloadable reports, digital templates, merchandise, eBooks and many more.

All these productized services are basically digital media that have been packaged as products and no physical inventory is required to be put anywhere in the house.

Off course a Shopify development company can help you sell these products digitally using the Digital Downloads or SendOwl app.



Grow an audience you can monetize
You can use social media channels such as YouTube, Instagram or create a blog or a podcast to grow your online audience gradually and monetize it.

You can also become an affiliate by selling products or services of third parties for a commission or accepting payment for sponsored posts to give offer a chance to brands to connect with your audience.

Building a loyal audience requires focus, consistency and lots of hard work. How much you can monetize your audience also depends upon the niche that you serve. Today there are various guides available in the market that can help you grow and monetize your audience.



Consider buying an eCommerce business
Think of buying an eCommerce business as it might be a good option to operate when you are working from home. Prices for an eCommerce business depend on a variety of factors, from total revenue generated, profit potential, available assets, and more.

Shopify offers Exchange, a marketplace for buying and selling ecommerce stores. Here you can go through the listings of businesses that suit your budget, level of experience, and needs.

Conclusion
It is not difficult to find a home business idea these days since technology is omnipresent and you can easily hire a Shopify web development company to build your online store.

If you are careful, you can make the best use of this opportunity to start small, grow nimbly, and invest carefully into your business.