Are you selling anything online?

[Hugo Oliveira]

About 8 years ago, I ran some paid Facebook ads to sell my mom’s handmade crafts, and I actually got a decent return. But I know the whole paid ads ecosystem has changed a lot since then, and I haven’t tried anything recently.

Lately, I’ve been observing how some people are selling products or courses without even needing a big audience. They simply run ads that lead to a beautiful landing page—and that’s it. They're making sales.

Others have relatively small followings (like 5k–10k followers) and are already promoting their own products or courses.

I’ve also noticed some artists (like video editors) selling very simple products—like a specific technique they use, or a color grading preset pack—for $20 or less, and I imagine they sell a lot due to volume.

I find the whole world of online sales fascinating, especially because it seems to offer good potential with relatively low investment. I don’t believe in “get rich quick” schemes, but I do believe there’s a real possibility of building passive income through this kind of work.

Another thing I find interesting is the use of AI tools to create products—like eBooks, courses, images, and more. Of course, I believe everything still requires intention and thought. There’s no magic button that creates valuable content on its own.

So, I’m curious:
– What’s your general opinion on all of this?
– Do you currently sell (or have you sold) anything online?
– Are you familiar with marketing structures like paid ads, landing page design, etc.?

[SwiftQuill]

I'm new to this world but I plan on starting a side hustle in a couple of months. As for marketing, I've used LinkedIns marketing tools once and I found them very confusing.

As for courses, I'm thinking of creating high quality courses on some programming languages, and other IT skills I possess. But I have to say I'm concerned. Nowadays the online course market is hyper saturated. There already is a shit ton of courses available for any topic. I do worry if I spend a lot of time making a high quality course, only to end up in the 10th+ page on Udemy (no one is going to find that shit). 

I'm very interested in researching this topic further though so feel free to ping me or something if you make any progress in this thread.

[The Caretaker]

Yes, but not on a big scale.

I have a few visual assets packs for video games, from which I have only one that sells quite a few copies a month. And a video game on Steam that is very niche and was mostly my learning project.

From everything I've tried, I really, really like YouTube and an ok with Reddit for promotion. YouTube for storytelling potential, and Reddit for how engaging and brutal the community is.

So right now I am on a journey of developing my next game and promoting it through my own YouTube + streams, discord servers, and so on.

Again, can't say that I am very experienced with that, but 2 big things I've noticed are that it is almost impossible for me to care about low low-effort platform like Twitter/YT Shorts, even tho some game developers made an entire fortune through it. And it reaaaaaly hard to promote a shitty product. The visual asset pack I am talking about had 0 promotion outside the organic traffic from the platform, but has sales to this day.

[Michael569]

Yeah totally doable for a side income although it takes a lot of manual work updating listings regularly and storing the Items 

My wife has a side hussle of reselling second hand clothes online and on good months she can make some decent money although not all months are great.

But it takes long hours repairing, tailoring, taking pictures in good lighting. Then you have people constantly negotiating prices giving you ridiculous offers. She enjoys it because she likes fashion and gets to source some really amazing vintage pieces but as a sole income it just barely covers her main monthly expenses so it can be hard to scale into something bigger.

Depends on what you sell also. The competition nowadays is pretty huge too so if it is something you genuinely are passionate about or a niche are where you go out of your way to source things, that could potentially work. 

Edited May 11 by Michael569