Sell a physical product on Amazon or eBay.
The formula is pretty straightforward.
1. Research products on Amazon that people buy. Use the Best Seller tab to see top products in each category. Make sure they are lightweight, non-electronic items that sell for $20-40$.
2. Find out how much you can source a similar product through Alibaba or a simple Google search. You want at least a 50%GP (100% markup)
3. Contact several suppliers and get quotes for initial sample buys. Samples will cost between $50-$100 depending on the item, but it essential to see the quality of the product.
4. Sell your sample to a customer via Amazon or eBay. Get feedback from customer and if you get a positive review make an initial order. Note: Most supplier will try to say their MOQ is 500-2,000 pcs, but they are most always negotiable. Buy 50 units and you are on your way.
5. Once you get serious, Amazon FBA is critical to ramping up your sales. Set up a professional seller account, ship your product to their FBA warehouses and let them do all the work.
It takes a bit of work up front, but it is truly a way to make a solid side income for as little as $500 in start up costs. I have heard several stories of people making upwards of $100,000 in profit per month.
Good Luck
*Update*
Really excited to see all the interest in my post! Thanks to everyone who upvoted and contacted me to express their enthusiasm. Due to your feedback, I will expound upon areas of my original post that deserve more details. Please see below:
1. Researching products on Amazon should be done in extensive detail before you decide to purchase a large order. By using category tabs and Best Seller Rankings (BSR) of products you can learn a lot about the competitiveness of the market. By using FBA Toolkit you can see sales volume of potential products to estimate the market potential. Based on the amount of sellers, you must decide whether you want to go for a small piece of a large and competitive market, or a large piece of a smaller and less competitive market.
Example of competitive market–Top seller has a 100-500 BSR rank in the category, 1,000+ reviews with several secondary sellers in the 500-1,000 BSR rank with 500-100 reviews.
Example of less competitive market–Top seller has a 500-3,000 BSR rank in the category, 500-100 reviews with a few secondary sellers in the 5,000-100,000 BSR rank.
Insight : In many cases, the market in which you compete is just as important as your product.