10 Online Business Opportunities You Can Start During Lockdown

The global lockdown has brought about disruptions across the world and is fast casing an unprecedented economic meltdown. A lot of companies and businesses have closed shop due to this global pandemic.

According to Albert Einstein, “In the midst of every crisis, lies great opportunity”. Although physical interactions have been halted, online transactions aren’t. This offers you a rare opportunity to venture into online entrepreneurship.

Just like every other form of business, online entrepreneurship requires time, dedication and investment. It’s not a get rich quick scheme, it’s a real business built with an online presence. To succeed, you’ll need to learn the basics, unlearn and relearn, that’s the secret.

Having said that, I’ll be sharing with you the 10 business opportunities that you can start during this lockdown. Importantly, I will recommend you take your time to research more about these business ideas before going into it.

1. E-commerce Store

With most retail stores closing shop, online retail is becoming the booming business during this period. Where most people are under lockdown, they can easily place orders online and get their products delivered to their doorstep.

An e-commerce platform (Shopify or WordPress) is a software solution that allows businesses to create online stores. With this, you can sell products or services to people by utilising delivery services to transport products to customers.

The key to success in this business is to drive enough traffic to your store. You can drive traffic to your store by using Google, Facebook, Instagram etc. However, your choice of traffic depends on the type of product that you’re selling.

With your e-commerce store, you can sell almost anything and everything there is to sell. However, you need to carry out research to know the trending products and your potential market.

2. Delivery Services

Delivery service is one of the most profitable business opportunities that you can start during this lockdown. With minimal movement, a lot of people need to transport essential goods from one place to another.

To start this business, you need a very minimal capital, especially if you already have a bike, or vehicle, starting a delivery service is a very attainable goal. This is a good time to join professional delivery services that have so far stepped up to ensure efficient supply for both businesses and households.

You might choose to specialise in a specific type of delivery such as, delivering food or choose to deliver all kinds of packages.

3. Digital Marketing

The importance of starting a digital marketing business cannot be overemphasized. They have been a surge in online purchase during this lockdown period. With less physical interactions, brands are seeking quality traffic, awareness and exposure. Now is the best time to venture into digital marketing to help businesses establish an authoritative online presence.

Equipped with savvy and analytical business skills as a digital marketer, you will be responsible for developing, implementing and managing marketing campaigns that promote a company’s products or services as well as enhancing website traffic and acquiring customers.

4. Become a Vlogger / YouTuber

The number of people looking for Youtube videos has also increased exponentially during this period. However, most of those searches are looking to learn something. If you can start up your tutorial on Youtube, you’ll surely get a good return on your investment.

In case you’re wondering what vlogging (video blogging) is a practice of capturing and sharing vlogs that typically feature a vlogger shooting themselves doing varying activities. Through clicks and views as well as advertisements, vloggers are able to make good money.

Importantly, just like every other business, it is not a get rich quick scheme. Howbeit, it is very lucrative, but in the long run.

5. Affiliate Marketing

Overtime affiliate marketing has proven to be one of the best ways to make money online. Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting a company’s or other people’s products.

With this type of business, you don’t have to develop any products yourself, what you need is a site to sell other people’s products and receive a commission for each sale you make.

6. Virtual Assistant

With both employers and employees staying indoors, the services of a virtual assistant are growing in popularity. Almost every small and medium scale business needs help in running their day-to-day administrative tasks this period.

And what’s timely about this is that even with the lockdown, you can offer such services from a remote location. As a virtual assistant, you can offer services offered by a traditional assistant such as paying bills, scheduling appointments or managing expense repayments.

7. Website Development

With most businesses looking for an online presence, now is the time to start your website development business. Website developing involves writing web design programs in a variety of computer languages, such as HTML or JavaScript Creating.

Becoming a web developer in such a crisis that is pushing most companies to become digital can be pretty lucrative, however, you will need to learn how to code.  And the best part is that you’re not tied down to one location hence you can work from anywhere.

8. Professional Freelancer

The present state has created opportunities for people who want to make a living freelancing in their chosen field. One can choose to venture into writing or graphic design among other fields.

No matter what field business is operating, many companies tend to utilise freelancers. Businesses are practically in search of writers, programmers, designers, accountants among others.

9. Business Consulting

Many businesses are now operating remotely, and this being a new and abrupt arrangement, there will be a need for new expertise.

A number of processes have been automated and companies are promptly seeking new methods and business models to fit the adjustment. Right from helping businesses going digital, to running marketing campaigns and giving advice on the required IT tools, as a consultant you have plenty to do. You will aid your clients with designing a business model or marketing plan and also determine which marketing techniques to use and how to use them at a time like this.

10. Dropshipping

Dropshipping is another lucrative business opportunity that you can dive into this period. It is simply an online business model where you get to sell products that you do not actually own. Instead, when your customer places an order, your chosen supplier ships the products directly to your customer.