There’s a couple of businesses you can run from a laptop which require nothing else. You can simply set up advertising, send people to products, and cash in. You don’t have to personally own anything in order to sell, and you can sell globally, which makes this imminently scalable. Before I share these two concepts I’m going to show you a business you can start with a laptop from ebay with very little capital.
Business You Can Start With A Laptop
This business you can start with a laptop but you will also need to have an address. This is an ebay business idea I have successfully used to buy and sell for profit on ebay. It also falls into the category of businesses you can run from a laptop, but you also need handle products and deal with customers. If you want to skip this section, scroll down to the scalable business model I will share later in this article.
Ebay is a great resource and an easy way to profit from a business you can start with a laptop. You also need to have somewhere to send and collect products from and an ebay account.
Start by visiting a website called bargainchecker.com. Bargain checker allows you to find items on ebay which have been badly listed. By doing this you find items which are getting less than their fair share of views and bids. If you find an item which is listed for much less than its worth, you know you have a winner. Don’t bid on this item just yet, sign up to an account called auctionsniper.com and let auctionsniper do your bidding. This is so you don’t start a bidding war with other bidders or push up the price and alert them to your interest.
Businesses You Can Run From A Laptop – What To Search For
Use bargain checker to search for items which:
- Are easy to post out with little postage costs
- Are lightweight and valuable
This tends to lead to small digital and electronic devices. Although I also found some bargain clothing by searching for brand names such as berghaus, g-star and Levis. Also try Nike, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hillfiger etc. You can also search for electric company names like panasonic, tom tom, sony, samsung, apple, macbook etc. Or actual items such as diamond, diving watch, laptop , jewellery or watch brands like omega, apple, macbook, rolex etc. There are literally milllions of items floating around on ebay which never even get seen. These items can be picked up and resold for profit, if you know how to find them.
See my full article on this strategy here: how to start a profitable ebay business.
Businesses You Can Run From A Laptop
After a while of using this business model, I realised there must be a better business model. I wanted to learn about businesses you can run from a laptop, but didn’t need to deal with customers or products. My front room was full of stuff from ebay, charity shops and car boot sales. I had multiple listings going on ebay all the time and I had to continually email back and forth to potential customers with questions. It was time heavy and I felt it wasn’t going to be the best business model. I wanted something with more freedom attached – something which could run without me!
I was looking for businesses you can run from a laptop but that was also automated and scalable.
Two business models which offer this are drop shipping and affiliate marketing. Both models are businesses you can run from a laptop but not only that, they also offer built in scalability.
The ability to scale up a business, without having to massively change your activities, is what makes these business models so attractive.
Businesses You Can Run From A Laptop – Automation
Yes automation is the future, not only for the big companies and massive corporations, but for small business owners too. By choosing a business model which has built in automation, you are future proofing it and choosing a model which has built in freedom.
Systems which can deliver products without you being in the ‘loop’ can be scaled up. Digital products are one of these kinds of business models. With a clever business model known as affiliate marketing, anyone can promote other people’s products over the internet and earn commissions based on the sales they generate.
For example take a digital downloadable product. You can access downloadable products from sites like Amazon and Netflix and pay to have access to them. Nothing is sent physically, everything is done automatically. Affiliate marketing is basically the ability to be on the other side of this payment platform. Affiliates promote and sell digital products to earn commissions based on their sales.
Drop shipping companies offer a similar automation for online marketers. The drop shipping companies do all the customer relations work and the actual distribution of products. The marketers simply send qualified leads to the drop shipping website and earn commissions based on the sales. It’s much the same model for affiliate marketing too. Product owners deliver products automatically over the internet. Due to the low cost involved in this, and the fact that digital products are cheap to create and store, affiliate marketers can pocket 40% of their cost.
This means they can set up automated advertisements for products around the world, and earn commissions based on the sales they generate. Both drop shipping and affiliate marketing are businesses you can run from a laptop. But more than that, they are also businesses you can start around existing employment, and build up over time and scale, too.
Businesses You Can Run From A Laptop – Start An Online Business
Start your own online business with the tools and training you need here. You can access a digital training website, a range of high ticket products to promote, access a push and play website and a ready made sales funnel you can use to generate online sales. You will also be able to access other online entrepreneurs and your own personal mentor to help you along your online journey.