Hi Mack,
To introduce myself, I'm a digital marketing strategist with International Wholesale Inc. I have a bit of experience in selling and buying online. More importantly, I've been where you're at in my life. I have a disabled schizophrenic mother and a one-time drug-addicted brother. All this while my father was not in our lives and I was the oldest, the one my family depended on (this was a few years back).
I will tell you a bit about how small things to scrape money here and there may help you, as I am an expert in online marketing.
If I were you, or if I knew what I know now back when I was in my situation, I would first use buy/sell phone-based applications like OfferUp, 5 Miles, and LetGo (both available on apple store and play store) to sell items around the house. You simply post a pic of any item laying around your house and put how much. But TRY TO POST THE IMAGE OF THE PRODUCT/ITEM IN AN ATTRACTIVE MANNER. I cannot emphasize this enough. This should be true whether you display the product on phone-based applications, on social media, or on your ecommerce platform.
For instance, lets say I have an old laptop. I would first clean it and make it look shiny. Then I would make sure that I would have, for example, a nice sparkling Christmas bag beside it (to insinuate to your customers that they can buy it as a gift). So when you actually take a pic of your item, make sure it's as enticing as possible, with nice colors, contrast colors, sparkling things, etc.
Besides just selling everyday items around your house, you can also buy things wholesale, and resell them retail. You can also check out dollardays.com and koleimports.com (no affiliation with these sites). Here you can look for deals, and buy bulk. Then resell. Buy a case/pallet of nice, attractive laptop cases for example, or iPad covers, and then resell them on your ecommerce platform, on OfferUp, LetGo, 5 Miles, and other buy/sell phone based applications.You can also sell them on Facebook groups which I talk about below (you should also promote your ecommerce platform on ALL these phone-based applications and across ALL relevant social media platforms. This would drive more traffic to your ecommerce platform, or in the case of some apps, they can just contact you directly through the app or social media platform).
But you could do MORE with phone/based applications and Facebook groups. What I do now (my father owns a computer store I help market), I look for deals online. For example, I look for iphones with cracked screens that are offered for very little. I buy them, fix them, and resell them on the same platform or elsewhere. You don't need to know how to fix phones to do this. You simply need to spot deals and get them, then resell. You may need just a bit of capital in the beginning, but believe me it's worth it. You can also spot deals on Facebook groups. Facebook groups is a huge one and I talk about this next.
Next, is Facebook buy/sell groups. Mack, this is a HUGE factor for selling and you could consider this my 'dirty little secret' of selling and driving traffic to my ecommerce platforms.. You must, you must, join as many Facebook buy/sell groups as possible. Make sure that they're around your area. For example, if you live in Detroit, search for 'buy sell detroit' and go to the 'groups' tab and request to join as many buy/sell groups in your area as possible. So when you post every day items on the phone-based applications, you also post them to these groups. You can get absolutely HUGE exposure from sharing your items to facebook groups. Here's an excellenttt video to prime you on selling through facebook groups:
Link hidden: Login to viewHere's his entire subscription on selling through facebook (keep in mind that all his strategies apply to ecommerce, not just brick-and-mortar businesses):
Link hidden: Login to viewBut you could also join other relevant buy/sell groups NOT in your area and use these groups to promote items that are on your site since you'd obviously have a drop-shipping program. You can join buysell groups all over the country. You're allowed to join up to 300 fb groups. USE THEM ALL lol.
Next, you should make your ecommerce platform as simple, engaging, and enticing as possible. Here, you could work on designing it in the beginning. But more importantly, you need to do two things before you sell anything on your ecommerce platform. You need to know WHAT category of products you're gonna sell, and WHO you're gonna sell to. If you cant figure these things out, then don't start promoting your ecommerce platform just yet. In conjunction with your ecommerce, you can do the above items on selling everyday items or reselling wholesale bulk items, or finding deals and reselling them. And you could slowly figure out your product category and target market later. Regardless, an ecommerce platform MUST be one of your channels. And you can do many things to promote your products once you figure out what you're gonna sell.
After that, you should find out where your target market is online and promote on those platforms. The people you're selling to, are they on facebook, twitter, tumblr, flickr? Find out and create an account for every relevant social media platform. Later on, when you have a budget, use adwords and PPC campaigns. Or even better, Facebook ads to drive traffic to your site.
Anyways, I think that's a bit more than you asked for lol but I hope some of it helped. Take it one step at a time and have faith. Start small and work your way up. When you start small, you slowly figure out what works and what doesn't work. This way you don't have to put all your carrots into one basket and risk losing everything. All in all, you're on the right track. You have the right mindset and the appropriate intrinsic (and extrinsic) motivations.
Good luck and let me know if I could help in any way!
Best,
Abe
