10 Profitable Small Business Ideas to start Online – low investment

Covid-19 has shown us an unexpected lifestyle across the world. While people are scared to go outside to do shopping, some of the companies who are into online business, are en-cashing such opportunity now. We all know the current situation may take longer to improve. In this crisis, one might be thinking which is the low cost business ideas with high profits to start online. In this article we would provide 10 profitable small business ideas list to start online with low investment and expect high returns.

Also Read: 10 Profit making small business ideas with low investment

10 Profitable Small Business Ideas to start online with low investment


Here are the list of most profitable top 10 small business ideas to start with low investment in 2022.

1) Design, Print and Sell T Shirts online

2) Make money through Affiliate marketing

3) Start a blog in your niche

4) Create a website and offer online courses

5) Start online dial-a-plumber service in your city

6) Publish books and sell online

7) Open an online fashion boutique

8) Sell handmade customized goods

9) Create a killer App

10) Create YouTube Videos

Detailed View of Small Business Ideas to start online with low investment


Now let us jump into these top 10 small business ideas to start online with more details.

1) Design, Print and Sell T Shirts online


Small Business Ideas to start Online - designer t-shirtsThere is good demand for printed T-shirts. You need to be creative in this business.

You can check for print-on-demand T-shirts. Means someone would approach you for a specific quantity of T-shirts to be supplied with company logo or start-up name or theme they might be running. Based on this, you would design, print and supply T-shirts to them. You can follow below steps to start.

You can create a website to sell online or tie up with Amazon or any other ecommerce websites.

First, you need to focus on building a brand, then customers would follow automatically.

You can use good quality clothing for gaining customer trust.

Quick delivery with high quality work, is key for the success of this business.

2) Make money through Affiliate marketing


Generally, one need to have stock or inventory to do a business and sell them to customers. However, there is a way where you don’t need to maintain any inventory or own the products itself, but can sell the products and make money. This is affiliate marketing. This is how affiliate marking works.

You need to sign-up for affiliate marketing with Amazon or any other aggregator who are selling the products online.

You need to go thru the products and filter that have high traction and the ones where you have good knowledge about them.

You can do a small review on your own website or on social media sites with an affiliate link.

If your friends or customers like your review, they might be interested in buying the product. They would click the affiliate link and make the purchase. You would get commission on purchases made by them through such links. Such commission would range from 4% to 20% of the product value depending on the items which you are promoting. High commissions can be earned on electronic products. You may earn low products on FMCG goods or groceries. You may go mix of such products to ensure you attract the large number of customers.

Affiliate marketing is one of the most successful trending small business ideas in India.

3) Start a blog in your niche


You might be good in a particular subject, like financial planning or have sound knowledge on maths or science, etc. or you are very good in coding etc., You can start a blog in specific niche and earn money.

You can create a free website at wordpress.com or blogger.com. If you can afford approx. Rs 7,000 / USD 100, you can create your own website at siteground.com or godaddy.com which would be valid for 1 year. This cost would be for domain and hosting costs.

You can install WordPress software which can be done within a day. If you want any help, you can reach out to any WordPress developer or even reach out to me. There are other softwares like Joomla etc. but complex.

Start writing deep analysis articles on the subject you have chosen.

There are 3 monetization methods here:

i) You can do product reviews and keep affiliate link and earn money through affiliate marketing. I tested personally on one of my other websites and it works perfectly.

ii) You can apply for Google Adsense advertising and earn money through Ads. Once you get Adsense approval, you can start earning money. Even this method is a genuine way of earning money.

iii) You can approach advertisers in your niche area and advertise on your website and earn a monthly fixed amount. This method could be time consuming and may not work always. I tried on my other website, could get several advertisers in the initial years, but felt continuous chasing of sponsors are required.

Since location is not a constraint in this business, one can start this small business ideas from small towns and suitable for rural areas too.

4) Create a website and offer online courses


Are you good in the specific niche subject? It could be as a developer or teaching or any specialized knowledge about stock markets, you can try this online small business idea.

You can create a website that offers online courses on such niche subject. E.g. courseera.org or edx.org or onlinestudies.com

Put up proper plan and create courses in such subject.

Offer free plans to attract customers.

Offer small paid plans during initial months and later move to paid plans. You can provide certifications in paid plans to attract customers.

You may like: 50 Online Business Ideas – low investment – high returns

5) Start online dial-a-plumber service in your city


Plumbing is one of the evergreen business in developing countries where there could be continuous construction or infra projects running in many cities. Dial-a-plumbing service is one of the best small business ideas to start online in such cities.

You can create a website or start online plumber service on any local directories in your city.

You can appoint 10-20 plumbers to start with and based on your business growth, you can increase this count

Whoever require plumbing service would visit site or dial the number which you have provided and place a request.

You would appoint someone for that request and take care of plumbing service.

6) Publish books and sell online


If you are good in a particular subject and good in writing, you can publish a book and sell them online.

You need to select a particular topic on which you want to write a book. Hot trending topics could be a good. Here are few killer titles of the books. There are given as samples to understand better.

i) How to invest in stock markets and double or triple your money in medium to long term (Strategies reveleased)

ii) Top 10 Engineering colleges in India?

iii) How to be successful as a manager

iv) How to understand and respond to your teenage children

Create a small plan on what you want to cover in this book and start writing in a disciplined way.

Get this proof reading with experts before you publish for printing.

Publish the book and sell online on portals like Amazon etc., You can also sell such books by creating your own portal, but website branding needs to be done.

You can repeat this process by publishing new books on a regular basis.

7) Online Fashion boutique


If you are passionate about fashion, online fashion boutique could be one of the best low investment small business ideas. Fashion boutique can have dresses, shoes, swimwear, design caps, T-shirts, ethnic wear etc.,

You can select what items should be part of your online fashion boutique store.

Create a website for this online fashion store.

Start creating a few designer items, take pictures and start posting them on the website with a price tag.

Show your creativity instead of simply posting the pictures. You can use traditional wear, latest trends, western style, sarees, etc. to attract the large number of customers.

You can share them on social media to gain popularity and for quick sales.

8) Sell handmade customized goods / gifts


If you are good in handmade gifts, customized goods etc., you can start this business.  I could see one of our friends started miniature dolls and earning handsome money. In such business one would be charged for Rs 20,000 / USD 300 to create a family miniature doll of 4 members. Here are some samples about handmade / customized goods or gifts.

i) Personalized man’s wallet

ii) Personalized classic gift pack containing chocolates etc.,

iii) Customized moonlight lamp

iv) LED bottles or photo calendar

v) Personalized man caricature

vi) 3D Mosaic pillow

You can create a FB page and post the pictures as samples. You can also create a website and post the pictures of your artwork. Customer can order over FB page / website and you can earn money.

This is one of the creative small business ideas in India.

9) Create a killer App


Today you are seeing many mobile apps that are ruling. It could be a payment apps like Paytm or Google Pay etc., However the competition is very high in that area. However, there is a low completion in many areas like entertainment (e.g. tiktok), online courses (e.g. courseera.org), communities app (bringing communities together etc,). You can create a killer app by choosing a particular area which you are passionate about.

Also Read: Top 10 Most Profitable Evergreen Business Ideas to start in 2022

10) Create YouTube Videos


If you are passionate about the creation of videos, you can try YouTube videos to make money online.

You need to create videos in any particular subject which you are passionate about.

You can start uploading them on YouTube on a regular basis

You an apply for YouTube partnership. While it is a painful process to get approval. You need to have patience here.

YouTube would place ads on your videos and you start earning money.

Youtube Videos is one of the most successful small business ideas from home.

Which are the most successful small businesses?


Most successful small businesses would depend on which business you have selected. One should pick-up current trending business and the business which you are passionate about.

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One comment

  1. Hello Suresh, These all ideas are best for start online business. People can easily start this business with low money. Very informative article for all of us. I like it!

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