Online businesses are a brilliant option for anyone in need of extra income. The internet is a platform with endless possibilities, so why not use this to your advantage and create a source of income for yourself? Sounds good, right? There are lots of things to benefit from having an online business.
- Extra income
- Convenient
- Simple
- Less costs
Online businesses sure are convenient. You won’t have to set up a location for your business or pay rent, which means you’ll have to pay less costs. It’s a much simpler process considering you won’t have to get yourself a big warehouse and hire people to do inventory, in fact you can do inventory at home yourself.
If you want to start your very own online business, then here’s a handy list of the top 10 best online business ideas in the Philippines!
Online Business Ideas in the Philippines
1. Dropshipping
Dropshipping is an excellent choice to start your online business. It has low entry cost and takes less than one day to start and operate your business. By dropshipping, you are buying products from another store or manufacturer and selling it at a higher price to your customers, except you don’t have to manage the stock or inventory because the product will be directly shipped to your customer.
Costs
Depending on the product you plan on dropshipping, the costs you will have to spend will vary. Since you don’t have the stocks on hand, you will only pay the manufacturer when a customer orders from your site or platform.
Another advantage of dropshipping is you won’t have to spend on packaging. The manufacturer or seller you are getting your products from will be entirely responsible for the packaging of their products.
How do I start dropshipping?
First, you will have to decide on what you want to sell to your customers. It’s best to pick a business niche first. It’s easier to target a specific audience and cater to their preferences than a large, general group of people. Not only does it reduce your costs and risk rate, it also makes your job easier to handle.
Second, pick a platform to dropship on. The most popular dropshipping platforms are Shopee and Lazada, but you could even create your own website for people to buy from using Shopify, Woocommerce or Wix.
Witht the booming industry of ecommerce in the Philippines, many local started offering dropshipping to local Filipinos. This is a great opportunity since you don’t have to stock alot of products or require a big amount of capital to start your online business.
BilisBenta is one of the new service providers of dropshipping. There dropshiping is available in Shopee and Lazada. They provide a wide range of catalog to choose from. You don’t have to worry about stocks, all you have to do is focus on marketing your store.
Check there website and you can register here.
2. Reselling
With Shopee, Lazada and Facebook Marketplace, reselling has never been easier! You don’t need a gigantic storage to keep inventory. It can even be the corner of your room. The best thing about reselling products with an online business is that you have less costs because you don’t have to pay rent or hire employees. You can do every step on your own and your business will still propel upwards.
How do I resell products?
To resell products online, you will need to find a manufacturer first. Buying directly from a manufacturer will reduce your costs and you’ll be able to offer the cheapest price on the market. When reselling on platforms like Shopee and Lazada, people are always looking for the most reasonable price before pressing the checkout button.
The number one rule to reselling is presentation. Why should they buy this product from you when there are other resellers? Customers will always check to see if you’re reliable and legit, so keep your product photos clean and professional if you want the best possible results, especially on Facebook marketplace.
What products should I resell?
You can resell pretty much anything and everything. These can be food, toiletries, beauty products, cleaning products, etc. It’s best to resell necessities because people always buy necessities. These are things that people cannot live without such as food and medicine. Especially with the pandemic, lots of people regularly buy these products:
- Masks
- Face shields
- Alcohol
- Soap
- Hand sanitizer
- Canned goods
- Toilet paper
Your online business does not have to be restricted to just one type of product, you can be a one-stop shop. It’s actually much more convenient for you and your customers because you would be providing your customers with a variety of products and your customers won’t have to pay an extra shipping fee for products in other stores, therefore increasing your customer likeability and are more likely to buy from your store again.
Costs
Since there are a wide variety of products you could offer, it’s hard to tell how much you would be spending on them. However, the costs for packaging may range from P1,500 to P2,500.
For packaging, you’ll need to buy bubble wrap, boxes, plastics, packaging tape, etc. If you’re planning on spending extra for personalized stickers and packaging, it may cost more than P3,000, but these personalized stickers could be made at home and adds a nice touch to your deliveries.
You can use Facebook Marketplace to list your products. There are alot of active buyers on facebook, but be wary with dealing on facebook. Always transact with caution and as much as possible do your due diligent that your dealing with a legitimate buyer or seller.
3. Freelancing
This is one of the best online businesses for people who don’t have much to do at home. The advantages of freelancing is you can work wherever and whenever you want, turn it into a side job and earn just as much as your primary job. Yes, this online business will also take a bit more effort to do, but don’t worry because you could be doing what you love while earning money.
How do I start freelancing?
First, you’ll have to decide on what services to offer. Most freelancing is talent or skill-based, so you can offer services you’re actually good at. The most popular freelance services these days are:
- Logo design
- Marketing content
- Video editing
- Website design
- SEO article writing
- Voice acting
It doesn’t really matter what skill or talent you want to offer. It just has to be deliverable through the internet. Through freelancing, you can help others boost their business and get paid by doing what you love.
Next, you’ll have to pick a platform to provide your services. This could be platforms like Fiverr or Upwork. You can even create your own website and offer your services there or take advantage of social media and provide services through Facebook or Instagram. Whatever works best for you!
4. Tutorial Services
There are many parents willing to pay for their children’s education. You could assist children in their studies and get paid by thousands. This is an ideal online business for students who want to get extra income. If you’re a teacher, you could provide professional services to students. If you’re a college student, you can help highschoolers get through their studies. If you’re a highschooler, you can help elementary students with simpler lessons.
Education is not the only tutorial service you can provide, there are other options too like making your very own master course for a hobby.
How can I start tutoring?
You could offer tutorial services on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, then let them schedule appointments for Zoom meetings or make your own website and offer your services there.
For education, you could tutor students through Zoom or Google Meet. It’s important that you get your schedule straight first to avoid any appointments from clashing.
For master courses, these can be tutorials for hobbies like knitting, cooking, writing, painting, operating a machine, driving, etc. What other great, profitable platform is there where you can post DIY hobby tutorial videos other than YouTube? You can profit loads from YouTube, therefore it is a great online business.
5. Blogging
Through blogging, you can earn by signing up for AdSense, also known as Google Ads. Depending on the type of ad, Google will pay you whenever someone views or clicks on an ad on your website. There is also another way to profit from blogging, which is through affiliate marketing.
How do I start blogging?
First, you’ll need something to blog about. It could be about your life, experiences in other countries, informational how-to articles (like this one), food reviews, etc. You’re going to need content to bring in ad clickers.
Ads are not the only thing you can monetize. You can also put affiliate links on your site and earn commission every time someone purchases a product from the affiliate link.
When blogging for profit, your priority should be content that will bring in viewers, so that they would click on links and ads.
6. Social Media Marketing and Branding
This online business has been gaining lots of popularity. There are many Filipinos benefiting from social media and its ability to spread news quickly. This could be a fun way to profit because you can advertise and do marketing for a brand online then get paid for it!
How do I start social media marketing and branding?
Through social media marketing and branding, you could be promoting both yourself and the brand you are trying to advertise. All you need is a creative mind. The brand you are trying to advertise could be your own business or someone else’s.
To start social media marketing and branding you need to know how to engage with your target audience to effectively encourage them to buy a service or product from the brand you are advertising. You need to have a general idea of what would intrigue them and lead them to buy from the brand.
There are many businesses out there who need publicity and want to improve their online presence. You could be hired to make marketing content for them. A good online business would be to create a firm or website that offers social media marketing services if you’re good at creating this type of content.
However, this isn’t the only way to market a brand. You could also create content throughout every social media platform like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, etc.
The only cost here is time, effort and internet, but marketing is a relatively high-profit online business that almost anyone can do.
7. Arts and Crafts
The Philippines is a country of culture and talent. If art is your thing, then consider selling them online. People love interior decor for their houses and they would pay thousands for a painting of their favorite plant. You could even paint a jar and they would buy it. If you’re good at digital art, try making it for other people at a price.
Art is not restricted to drawings or paintings. There also exists the art of crafts. There are all kinds of crafts from paper to clay. You can sell your handmade crafts online. Popular crafts these days are macrame wall art, nordic table decor, jewelry, stickers, pottery, etc.
Arts and crafts come in every shape, color and form, but nonetheless, you can sell any of these online.
Famous online platforms for selling arts and crafts are Facebook Marketplace, Etsy, Instagram and Shopee.
Costs
Depending on what arts and crafts you make, the cost for materials may range from P1,000 to P4,000. Art is a bit of an expensive hobby, but you can easily turn that into profit. Packaging like bubble wrap, boxes, personalized stickers, etc. would usually cost P1,500 to P2,500.
8. E-Commerce
E-commerce has made such a huge impact in the retail industry. It provided a lot of opportunities and helped even small online businesses simplify and improve their productivity, provide better customer service and efficient delivery process.
BaseRetail platforms like Zalora, Shopee, and Lazada are among the leading E-commerce platforms in the Philippines, which opened an avenue of opportunities to many Filipinos in helping them achieve their dreams.
But in case if you have a small retail business, you can take it only using hosted e-commerce platform like Shopify and Wix. These two platforms is one of the easiest to create your online store. Shopify plan starts at $29 per month and you can increase to higher tier plan base on your business needs.
9. Print-On-Demand
Printing business has gained popularity. Since a lot of people engage in doing online business, printing companies are more needed than ever. From sticker labels, printed packaging, personalized tumblers, gift tags, wooden chopping boards, and hair brushes to name a few.
This is a great online business where you won’t have to worry about your stocks. You only buy stock when a customer places an order because it’s print-on-demand.
With the rise of online businesses since the pandemic, people are always looking for companies to print their personalized stickers and boxes. You could be the one to help boost their business and profit from it!
Leverage dropshipping with POD using Printify. Its one of the leading POD providers withe different suppliers around the world. You can be sure that your order will arrive the fastest depending on your supplier location. You’ll only pay when you receive order and no recurring subscription.
Once you have the design and mock product, you can start promoting using facebook ads or tiktok ads to get immediate sales and feedback.
Costs
Depending on what products you plan on printing, you might have to spend on various machines and materials such as printers, laser engravers, sticker cutting machines, etc.
Printers will need materials such as ink and paper. With laser engravers, you’ll need the product you are going to engrave whether it be a metal water bottle or a piece of wood. Laser engravers also have exhaustible parts and will cost you a bit much depending on the brand you get.
Overall, you might have to spend as much as P3,500 to P10,000 on machines and materials, but of course, your profit will be higher.
10. Consultation Services
Consultation services provide expert advice in a specific market. They help provide objectives and ideas in creating a new business, analyze the finances, train and teach employees, identify problems and perform necessary changes, supplement staff, save businesses, etc. They evaluate and identify the strengths and weaknesses of a company and construct a plan to help the business grow and boost efficiency.
If you’re a professional in these fields, try selling your advice to people online. You could be saving a business and profit at the same time! A win-win situation.
Related: Top 10 Best Passive Income in the Philippines [2021]
Conclusion
Just like any traditional business, online business also involves risk so you might lose money or succeed and with a little bit of luck. If your just starting out, I recommend that you read and watch tutorials first before diving into any kind of business. Lastly, do register your business on DTI and BIR to make it legal and be protected. I have a simple guide how to register your business in DTI.
