Ecommerce Entrepreneurship Grows as Unemployment Rises

April 20, 2020 4 min read

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The recent rise in unemployment in America has been staggering, and there are few companies that haven’t been impacted. Although in ecommerce, some brands are reporting sales similar to the highs of Black Friday, as quarantined consumers continue spending more online. Niches experiencing spikes include exercise equipment, kitchenware, athleisure and health supplements. So if you are newly out of work, it’s worth considering there are solutions-providers making it increasingly possible to start an online brand overnight. 

Related: 4 Strategies to Help Your Ecommerce Business Recover

The Ecommerce Option

What many don’t understand is the process of turning an idea into an actual online store with sales flowing in. Nick Peroni, the founder of Ecom Empires, believes growing an online store can be straightforward. In this video, he details exactly how he scaled an ecommerce store to more than $21,000 in revenue in three weeks. 

Like Peroni, many leaders in the ecommerce industry are stepping up to provide the necessary tools, data and resources to enable those recently laid off to start anew.

How to Get Started in Ecommerce

Nathan Resnick, the founder of Sourcify, launched its Product Sourcing School to teach people everything they need to know about bringing their own products to market. In a recent email conversation, Resnick shared that Sourcify has seen a 30 percent increase in signups and is providing new users with an action-takers scholarship to help those in need.

And that kind of stewardship is very much in demand. When you think about manufacturing a product, so many questions come up: How do I find a reliable factory? How do I ensure quality control? How do I import my products? 

Others in the ecommerce industry are extending free trials and offering major discounts for people to learn how to sell products online. As an example, Shopify, which hosts hundreds of thousands of online stores, recently extended its free trial from 30 days to 90 days.

Chase Hero, the creator of the Watchers community, extended an offer to join his Ecommerce Launchpad for only $1 to support people during this difficult period. He tells me not only are many of their brands seeing a significant uptick in sales during this time, but ad costs on Facebook and Google are more affordable than before.

This creates the perfect storm for a first-time founder to launch their own company, because in ecommerce, your main costs are goods sold and ad expenses. Now you can acquire customers in a more prudent manner while bringing your own products to life effectively.

Other ecommerce service providers, like third-party logistics company ShipBob, are providing real-time data on shipping trends. Using the ecommerce companies that use their fulfillment centers, they are able to categorize these products into niches like beauty and fitness to see which ones are trending.

As their data shows, fitness sales from their customers has grown by more than 51 percent month over month, whereas their jewelry customers are down 39 percent over the same stretch.

Related: COVID-19 Will Fuel the Next Wave of Innovation

Now Is the Time….

If you’re on the path to starting your own ecommerce business, it’s important to look at current data to analyze which category you should really focus on. Though we will hopefully restore normalcy in the long run, if you are looking for income that will supplement your unemployment, it’s important to make sure you’re starting a brand in a category that is seeing a sales spike.

History has shown that recessions are the base upon which fortunes can be made. These days, ecommerce can be that foundation, especially now that we have (and can easily access) all the tools needed to start.