‘I only work two hours a week – but my side hustle will pay off my mortgage’
Is your favourite jumper starting to bobble? Here’s a fabric shaver for £2.98. Bags cluttering in the corner? Try a door hanger for 89p. Or scared of slipping as you get out of the tub? This website can get you a handrail for £1.41.
Solving these small everyday bugbears, targeting so-called “pain points”, are the specialty of the low-cost, highly competitive world of fast online shopping. And this easy route to entrepreneurship is how Generation Z is entering the world of business.
These sellers use “dropshipping” services so that they never own the stock they are sending to their customer, removing the traditional risk that comes with shifting products. Instead, once an order has been placed, an online seller orders directly from a warehouse, usually in China. It is then sent directly to their customer, and they pocket a chunk of the margin.
The dropshipper’s job is to market the item, sending it to the top of searches and pushing it on social media. It can be done in a few hours a week, as a “side hustle” alongside a day job or else from a beach somewhere – anywhere with an internet connection.
Now thousands of young entrepreneurs are turning to dropshipping to set up businesses fast.
Venessa Parker, a 31-year-old from London, set up her own online shop in 2022, where some of her products are sourced through dropshipping.
“I had my own business selling products a few years ago, but it was so time consuming and materials were so expensive.
“But I was always interested in art and studied design at university, so I knew I had the skills. I decided to trust myself so in 2022 I started this business alongside my full-time job.
“I integrated my website with a couple dropshipping providers for the art prints, gifts and notepads. There is loads of stuff that I can list on there, which makes it a lot easier to focus on marketing and creating new stuff.
“The hardest part is setting it up, which took a lot of work at the beginning: checking the quality of the product, getting photos, working on getting people interested through social media. Now I just work a couple of hours a week on it.”
Ms Parker added that over the long term, she hopes that the business will generate enough income that it can pay off her mortgage. “But right now I am reinvesting everything back into the business to build it up. It would be nice to not be so reliant on my day job.”
Alex Hickson-Burr, who works full-time as a PR manager in Leeds, set up a candle company with his husband in 2020. The company made a name for itself during the pandemic with unusual concepts such as “The 2020 scent”, a candle with four layers replicating the scents of banana bread, followed by hand sanitiser, wood to symbolise the DIY craze and finally the smell of cheap aftershave in honour of Joe Exotic, the star of the pandemic Netflix hit “Tiger King”.
“We started to branch into dropshipping for merchandise,” he said. “The candles that sold really well for us, we started to print onto t-shirts and mugs. What we realised is that candles are our passion, what we are known for and something we craft ourselves, but obviously that requires a lot of time, effort and resources. Whereas the dropshipping is really simple because we could piggy back off the success of some of our candles.”
Over the past 18 months, the couple have moved away from their core candle business and focused more on dropshipping merchandise, as well as “white labelling” candles – selling their product to another company, which then rebrands it as their own.
“What we found is that we make a hell of a lot more profit doing that, even though our stuff is a passion project, drop shopping is just time efficient,” he said.
“The biggest thing is being plugged into trends, being aware of catchphrases and silly things on TikTok. You have to be quick to execute a design and get it drop-shipped as they tend to have a short cycle in terms of demand.”
But the high-speed nature of dropshipping can also open up dangers to online shoppers who are unable to spot red flags. The market is rife with scams, with some orders never arriving, or products that are so poorly made they either bear no resemblance to their advert or simply do not function.
Alison Lowe, a fashion business expert at the University of East London, said the industry struggled with tight quality control and transparency issues in manufacturing. “The dropshipper often will do very little to determine the environmental and social impact of the goods they are sourcing,” she said.
Jane Hawkes, a consumer expert, warned against blindly following social media adverts, especially for consumers who did not feel completely confident online. “Purchase only from trusted retailers and check reviews before you buy,” she said. “Watch out for any spelling mistakes or basic grammatical errors in any ads. Avoid any impulse purchases, take time to think and don’t fall into any time pressure sale tactics.”
Ms Hawkes added that paying with a credit card could also provide legal protection under the Consumer Credit Act. “Remember your rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 that any product should be of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described.”
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