Solid article. I'll definitely have to check out Amazon Merch, but for now I have an e-commerce shop, www.SeeAndBeFitness.com. It is far from passive, but I'm hoping that when volume picks up I'll be able to shift more of the logistics to a fulfillment center.
I've been a landlord with rental properties, but owning real estate is far from passive unless you've built a management company to maintain the properties and deal with tenant issues.
Perhaps the most passive income stream I have is stock dividends. I'm invested pretty heavily in a few stocks that pay 3%+ in annual dividends. While dividend stocks may not grow as fast as those that don't pay out earnings as dividends, the value still tends to appreciate pretty well and the dividends allow me to reinvest the money or diversify into other investments.
Hey @digitaldruid checked out your site, very clever business you got there. If your into it I'd love to interview you on my Youtube Channel or even share your story on one of my Side Hustle Tuesday episodes. If you have any interest reach out to me, same name at gmail.
I'm also a landlord I just have one rental property. In the past I managed it myself but this time around I was getting all section 8 applicants and didn't wanna deal with the state myself so hired a property management company. When things are going smooth your paying for nothing but when things get hectic man is it a savior.
I managed the place myself for 4 years and never had more issues than just a leaky faucet cartridge. This time around however I've had burst pipes, tree removal, a breakin where all my downstairs windows got smashed. It's been well worth it having someone else manage it.
Thanks for checking it out! I'll hit you up later on. Would love to be hosting on your show, though it may need to be something we do in August when a few marketing programs get going.... that being said, perhaps we can do a before and after talk since there's been tons to learn along the way.
I don't think Merch should be considered passive income.
It might have been a while ago but is too competitive to be considered that now.
Passive income is when you put in money (or time) and see a consistent return on that without having to work. Merch is close but shouldn't be looked at as passive.
I think there's very few hustles or businesses that truly qualify as passive income. I would say Merch is about as passive as it gets. You upload a design and your done, from then on it's up there for eternity to sell. No need to ship, no handling returns, no need to take payments. Sure it's competitive but what isnt
I just think that the passive side is going to degrade as more people use it and more people are actively marketing their shirts. So I guess I would say it's passive for now.
I've never really gotten into external marketing of my shirts. Sure I could post them on Pinterst or INstagram but IMHO that pales in comparison to the power of Amazon searches so I rarely bother much, plus I don't have huge followings in all the niches I make shirts for. Sure Amazon Merch is more compettiive now than it was in 2015 and will probably continue to become more competitive but it's a numbers game. If you continue making shirts and understand SEO in regards to Amazon's search algorithm and if you know some of the hacks to kind of gain BSR and trick the system you can do pretty well even today.
You will have to teach me some of the hacks to get BSR on Merch shirts, I don't know that one :-)
Before my business partner passed away one of my plans was to leverage the Proven Audience Formula training I am going through to "launch" shirts on Amazon. Basically, for a few bucks I could kick start each shirt while building a niche relevant audience to launch more shirts to in the future.
Now I don't have the time but I think it is a very good way to grow a business out of Merch. Still might do it in the future, we will see :-)
Yeah I suppose some of my methods aren't exactly magic. Personally I would rather buy one of my shirts than run FB ads, in my experience it's Amazing what buying a shirt will do. First off it gives your shirt a BSR score which I don't believe it will even have one prior to a sale. Not only that but I often notice after I purchase a shirt I tend to get a few organic sales to follow.
Another method I don't personally utilize but which works is dropshipping your tee shirts on Amazon to customers on other platforms ie put up a listing on eBay or Etsy or Gumroad and use Amazon to fulfill those orders. Its kind of a grey area but I believe if you use the slower shipping and not the 2 day prime your within TOS. This is basically the same strategy as buying your own shirts but doesn't cost anything and can be done on a larger scale.
Another thing I've done in the past is send my shirts to influencers. Without even paying influencers just sending them a free shirt I got a couple to wear my shirt during videos or on Snapchat and it really blew up sales of one of my shirts.
Buying it is one way to do it and I have noticed the same thing. I am mad that I can't run Amazon giveaways on my shirts, a lot of shirts I can but none of my own for some reason. That would be the magic trick :-)
I remember back in the day when it wasn't a cardinal sin to ship out your ebay items several days after it sold. I changed my handling time when I went to Ibiza and turned my store on mid way through and was on the beach watching how much I sold. Those were the days :) By the time I came back I had over 100 things to pack and ship. That was least fun part about it, haha.
Yeah I remember as a teenager first getting started on eBay back in the days when you actually had to send a cashiers check and wait for them to receive it before they would ship. Oh how things have changed now that we expect things in two days.
That's my one beef with eBay. I like saving money buying used, however it's incredibly frustrating how long some ebay sellers take to ship. I saw a Blue Nessie microphone so I contacted the guy and said hey I'll buy this item if you can gurantee me you'll ship it out within two days, otherwise I'd prefer to just go to Target and buy it.
The guy promises me he'll ship it within two days. I wait about 3-4 days goes by no tracking number. I message him, I'm like hey bro, if you havn't shipped already please just refund me and I'll go buy this at Target. He winds up uploading a fake tracking number, then still doesn't ship for another 3-4 days.
Anything that's time sensitive or not a steal I kind of just avoid ebay for that very reason.
Yeah, I know how you feel. I mainly sell on facebook now. I avoid ebay like the plague. I wish there was a used market on Steemit..... hmmm.. someone should get on that idea ...... :D
I had actually thought about starting an ecom store or marketplace that only accepted Steem, I still think it would be a cool idea but I have a lot on my plate at the moment and while Steem and Steemit are great it's admittedly kind of a limited audience so just can't bring myself to invest the time right now.
I think it's pretty passive because if you were to stop doing you would still earn a little or if you were to take a holiday you would still be earning money from it. Also you could do it from anywhere in the world which doesn't really make it passive but would be pretty cool to have that kind of freedom.
I totally agree in terms of ecommerce, affiliate marketing, consulting and various other online hustles, and outside of completely passive investing I think Amazon Merch is about as passive as it gets.
Passive income is income resulting from cash flow received on a regular basis, requiring minimal to no effort by the recipient to maintain it.
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service categorizes income into three broad types, active income, passive income, and portfolio income.[1] It defines passive income as only coming from two sources: rental activity or "trade or business activities in which you do not materially participate."[2][3] Other financial and government institutions also recognize it as an income obtained as a result of capital growth or in relation to negative gearing. Passive income is usually taxable.
Yeah the technical definition is pretty boring basically dividends, however I think the term passive income has a different meaning in Entrepreneur circles. I think the consensus is generally seperating time from money, there's obviously different degrees of how passive something is.
To me Amazon Merch is passive because I can spend a couple weeks uploading a few hundred designs and then literally never login to my account ever again and I'll have money comming in.
What is your definition of passive income?
Do you have any passive income comming? And if so what's your hustle?
Solid article. I'll definitely have to check out Amazon Merch, but for now I have an e-commerce shop, www.SeeAndBeFitness.com. It is far from passive, but I'm hoping that when volume picks up I'll be able to shift more of the logistics to a fulfillment center.
I've been a landlord with rental properties, but owning real estate is far from passive unless you've built a management company to maintain the properties and deal with tenant issues.
Perhaps the most passive income stream I have is stock dividends. I'm invested pretty heavily in a few stocks that pay 3%+ in annual dividends. While dividend stocks may not grow as fast as those that don't pay out earnings as dividends, the value still tends to appreciate pretty well and the dividends allow me to reinvest the money or diversify into other investments.
Hey @digitaldruid checked out your site, very clever business you got there. If your into it I'd love to interview you on my Youtube Channel or even share your story on one of my Side Hustle Tuesday episodes. If you have any interest reach out to me, same name at gmail.
I'm also a landlord I just have one rental property. In the past I managed it myself but this time around I was getting all section 8 applicants and didn't wanna deal with the state myself so hired a property management company. When things are going smooth your paying for nothing but when things get hectic man is it a savior.
I managed the place myself for 4 years and never had more issues than just a leaky faucet cartridge. This time around however I've had burst pipes, tree removal, a breakin where all my downstairs windows got smashed. It's been well worth it having someone else manage it.
Thanks for checking it out! I'll hit you up later on. Would love to be hosting on your show, though it may need to be something we do in August when a few marketing programs get going.... that being said, perhaps we can do a before and after talk since there's been tons to learn along the way.
Yeah for sure man hit me up
I don't think Merch should be considered passive income.
It might have been a while ago but is too competitive to be considered that now.
Passive income is when you put in money (or time) and see a consistent return on that without having to work. Merch is close but shouldn't be looked at as passive.
I think there's very few hustles or businesses that truly qualify as passive income. I would say Merch is about as passive as it gets. You upload a design and your done, from then on it's up there for eternity to sell. No need to ship, no handling returns, no need to take payments. Sure it's competitive but what isnt
Ya, I can buy that :-)
I just think that the passive side is going to degrade as more people use it and more people are actively marketing their shirts. So I guess I would say it's passive for now.
I've never really gotten into external marketing of my shirts. Sure I could post them on Pinterst or INstagram but IMHO that pales in comparison to the power of Amazon searches so I rarely bother much, plus I don't have huge followings in all the niches I make shirts for. Sure Amazon Merch is more compettiive now than it was in 2015 and will probably continue to become more competitive but it's a numbers game. If you continue making shirts and understand SEO in regards to Amazon's search algorithm and if you know some of the hacks to kind of gain BSR and trick the system you can do pretty well even today.
You will have to teach me some of the hacks to get BSR on Merch shirts, I don't know that one :-)
Before my business partner passed away one of my plans was to leverage the Proven Audience Formula training I am going through to "launch" shirts on Amazon. Basically, for a few bucks I could kick start each shirt while building a niche relevant audience to launch more shirts to in the future.
Now I don't have the time but I think it is a very good way to grow a business out of Merch. Still might do it in the future, we will see :-)
Yeah I suppose some of my methods aren't exactly magic. Personally I would rather buy one of my shirts than run FB ads, in my experience it's Amazing what buying a shirt will do. First off it gives your shirt a BSR score which I don't believe it will even have one prior to a sale. Not only that but I often notice after I purchase a shirt I tend to get a few organic sales to follow.
Another method I don't personally utilize but which works is dropshipping your tee shirts on Amazon to customers on other platforms ie put up a listing on eBay or Etsy or Gumroad and use Amazon to fulfill those orders. Its kind of a grey area but I believe if you use the slower shipping and not the 2 day prime your within TOS. This is basically the same strategy as buying your own shirts but doesn't cost anything and can be done on a larger scale.
Another thing I've done in the past is send my shirts to influencers. Without even paying influencers just sending them a free shirt I got a couple to wear my shirt during videos or on Snapchat and it really blew up sales of one of my shirts.
Buying it is one way to do it and I have noticed the same thing. I am mad that I can't run Amazon giveaways on my shirts, a lot of shirts I can but none of my own for some reason. That would be the magic trick :-)
Sending them to influencers is a great idea.
I remember back in the day when it wasn't a cardinal sin to ship out your ebay items several days after it sold. I changed my handling time when I went to Ibiza and turned my store on mid way through and was on the beach watching how much I sold. Those were the days :) By the time I came back I had over 100 things to pack and ship. That was least fun part about it, haha.
Yeah I remember as a teenager first getting started on eBay back in the days when you actually had to send a cashiers check and wait for them to receive it before they would ship. Oh how things have changed now that we expect things in two days.
That's my one beef with eBay. I like saving money buying used, however it's incredibly frustrating how long some ebay sellers take to ship. I saw a Blue Nessie microphone so I contacted the guy and said hey I'll buy this item if you can gurantee me you'll ship it out within two days, otherwise I'd prefer to just go to Target and buy it.
The guy promises me he'll ship it within two days. I wait about 3-4 days goes by no tracking number. I message him, I'm like hey bro, if you havn't shipped already please just refund me and I'll go buy this at Target. He winds up uploading a fake tracking number, then still doesn't ship for another 3-4 days.
Anything that's time sensitive or not a steal I kind of just avoid ebay for that very reason.
Yeah, I know how you feel. I mainly sell on facebook now. I avoid ebay like the plague. I wish there was a used market on Steemit..... hmmm.. someone should get on that idea ...... :D
I had actually thought about starting an ecom store or marketplace that only accepted Steem, I still think it would be a cool idea but I have a lot on my plate at the moment and while Steem and Steemit are great it's admittedly kind of a limited audience so just can't bring myself to invest the time right now.
Yeah, who knows you could always do it if (when) steemit grows!
I think it's pretty passive because if you were to stop doing you would still earn a little or if you were to take a holiday you would still be earning money from it. Also you could do it from anywhere in the world which doesn't really make it passive but would be pretty cool to have that kind of freedom.
I totally agree in terms of ecommerce, affiliate marketing, consulting and various other online hustles, and outside of completely passive investing I think Amazon Merch is about as passive as it gets.
Passive income is income resulting from cash flow received on a regular basis, requiring minimal to no effort by the recipient to maintain it.
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service categorizes income into three broad types, active income, passive income, and portfolio income.[1] It defines passive income as only coming from two sources: rental activity or "trade or business activities in which you do not materially participate."[2][3] Other financial and government institutions also recognize it as an income obtained as a result of capital growth or in relation to negative gearing. Passive income is usually taxable.
Yeah the technical definition is pretty boring basically dividends, however I think the term passive income has a different meaning in Entrepreneur circles. I think the consensus is generally seperating time from money, there's obviously different degrees of how passive something is.
To me Amazon Merch is passive because I can spend a couple weeks uploading a few hundred designs and then literally never login to my account ever again and I'll have money comming in.
I didn't know anything about this, but sounds interesting. Thanks for sharing.
Release the Kraken! You got a 8.00% upvote from @seakraken courtesy of @rulesforrebels!