Social Media Communities

Social Media Platforms are some of the best business platforms on the internet. They work best for someone selling quick or small products. Almost any product can be sold through social media quickly than any other product listing service because most social media platforms have an active audience.

Social Media Platforms are websites that allow people to connect with one another mainly for social purposes.

  Examples of social media platforms are Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, Instagram, etc. 

Most products on social media are sold through, social media communities, which are the smaller groups made up of people with a common interest.

For example: someone starts a group, a group administrator, on a platform like Facebook, and the aim of that group is to connect people who are interested in buying or selling Expensive Used Weaves in Zimbabwe, and every time someone posts about expensive used weaves, almost everyone in the group sees what one user of the group has said about used weaves. 

That’s just an example of a social media community. There are many groups on social media platforms.

I’m sure you have been in at least on one social media platform group in your life time. If you have never used one, you can just search on google or any other search engine for a term like ‘groups on Facebook about entrepreneurs in my area’ or any of your interests, and you will be led to loads of results you can make use of.  

If you have products or services you are selling, you can search for groups meant for people in Zimbabwe, and specifically your area if available. (For usually the buyer and the seller might have to travel in order to meet up for the trade to take place, just google search for precautions to take before meeting anyone). 

Examples of social communities you could make use of:

Bid Sites Buy &Sell    

Bidding Wars BuyAndSellZimbabwe    

Bidding Wars (PurchaseMate - Buy $ Sell) Zimbabwe Buy and Sell    

‎Bidding Wars Zimbabwe Buying and Selling Zimbabwe 263  

Three steps to selling on a Social Media Platform

You have a product or service for sale (You want to reach a bigger audience through social search)

You join, or create a group and invite people interested in that kind of service or products

You make posts about your products

Classifieds

Classifieds refers to putting things into categories for easier identification according to their varying attributes or characteristics.

Selling or advertising through classifieds platforms

Classifieds would work best for you, if you already have a product or more that you’re selling, or you might be looking to broaden your business audience for your service, let say as a car mechanic you have been servicing cars for people in your area, or a freelance hairdresser plaiting people’s hair in your area, a tutor or whatever, and now you would like to find customers from a wider location, classifieds would make it for you to connect with anyone from other locations who searches for your kind of service.   

Online classifieds are a great way of getting a business audience easily. On a classifieds platform, your products or services can get in front of potential customers in a short space of time.

People looking for products and services visit classifieds in order to get in touch with the most suitable suppliers. Most likely, for more affordable things other than those available in their physical locations, or the things that are not at all accessible anywhere in their immediate areas. 

In order for that to happen, you have to find a reputable classifieds platform, making a post in the correct way that will make the platform’s audience find you, this can be done through using the right keywords,  keywords are just the main words that would at best describe your business.

Here are some of the goods or services you can list on a classifieds platform

Services

Cleaning

Body

Car Mechanics

Accounting

Rentals

Goods 

Electronic Goods 

Automobiles 

Clothing

Food

Farm Produce

Examples of the most visited classifieds websites you can list your products or services:

List of classifieds websites (Click To Visit)

Classifieds ZW

My Classifieds

Onwai

Smeaz

#Carry out a search for classifieds websites in your location.

Niche Store

I recommend that you go with the Niche Store Strategy for quicker gains in the market.

It is the best strategy for new payers in the market, and definitely the best small and successful E-commerce stores.

Niche (or specific market) refers to products, services, or interests that appeal to a small, specialized section of people.

The Idea Behind A Niche Store

You have less competition, (since you’re targeting a smaller, specific market, chances are that there is less or zero competition)

You will rank higher quickly on search engines, meaning people will come across your goods in small space of time. 

You will get loyal customers overtime, if the customers get attached to your products or services and feel that their expectations are met with what’s on offer, a return for more is quite obvious.

Here is a list of lessons on how to start a Niche Store 

How to Start a Successful Online Store (Hint: Nail Your Niche)

General Store vs Niche Store(Should You Build a Niche or General Store?)

What should you sell online (What Should You Sell Online?)

Good examples of niche stores you could take a look at:

Luxy Hair 

Cuppow 

E-commerce Services 

If you are not willing to go through the trouble of creating a store on your own, you might sell on an existing e-commerce service that allows you to post your products or services without you having         to create anything.

Good examples for you to do that will be:

Flexi Africa (local platform, knows your market very well, you can become a vendor on the website)(Become a vendor here)

Aliexpress (Become a seller)  

Amazon (Become a seller)

Local ‘bid’ sites

Another way to get buyers quickly if you have physical products is using local bid sites 

A good example for that is Econet’s Bid Buddie, the down side before I get into details about the platform is that you have to pay a service fee, though it’s just a tiny fee, just that free things on the internet are usually the best. Not that I really pay for anything.

Bid Buddie is one of Econet’s e-commerce platform, which is an online auction. On Bid Buddie you can sell almost any kinds of goods, from thing that you no longer need, or things you already have for sale. 

Buyers are the ‘bidders’, these are customers who compete to put place the highest price for the products that are for sale.   

You can get started with with selling on the platform through downloading and installing the Bid Buddie application on this link.

Don’t Have Anything To Sell On An E-commerce Store?

Here’s a strategy named drop-shipping meant for entrepreneurs who do not yet have products or services of their own to sell. It’s Called Drop-shipping.

What is drop-shipping?

Drop-shipping is a selling method where an online-store doesn’t keep, or at times have the products that are for sale in their stock (stock – where shops keep products). The store lists the products for sale, giving as much details as possible, pictures, weight, whatever necessary detail.

 Figure : Snippet Extracted From Movie Scarface 

When the store sells the product, it purchases the item from the original product seller and has it sent 

directly to a customer.

The store has a mark-up set on the original price from which profits will be realized, for example, the customer pays, ZW$49.99cents to the store, then the store gets the product for ZW$39.99 from the original seller and leaving out ZW$10.00 as their profit.

On the internet, on an online store, the store never sees or handles the product.

In Steps Here’s How Drop-shipping Works 

Customer buys product from your store

You forward order details to the supplier and make payment

  (You look for supplier on huge e-commerce stores like Amazon, Alibaba, Buy China, E-Bay,    

and More according to your what you’re serving)

The original seller sends the goods to the customer directly

 Figure : Illustration By Oberlo 

Steps On How to start a drop-shipping store learn here 

Decide your product

Create an e-commerce store

Add Product Inventory (Photos of the product, and full information of the product)

Start Marketing

E-Commerce Store

E-Commerce (electronic commerce).

E-commerce is a process of buying and selling of products or services, transferring money and data over the internet. This allows people to do business with no barrier of distance and time.

Much of e-commerce is carried out through what are called Online-Stores where the store runner displays the goods or services that are up for trade.

Examples Of An E-commerce Store 

An individual purchases a book on the internet. A government employee reserves a hotel room over the internet. Your uncle’s business orders computers through the internet.

Examples of things you can sell on an e-commerce store

Electronic Goods

E-books

Cellphones

Body

Lotions

Deodorants

Fashion

Men’s Clothing

Women’s Clothing 

The goods you can sell on the platform could be second hand items or new depending on what you have.

How E-commerce Works 

Figure : How an e-commerce store works

You might be thinking, I don’t have anything to sell. Well, there are ways to get things to sell for free. I will show you below a way in which you can start an online store and make it without having a single product to your name. 

And if you don’t have money to buy an e-commerce store plan from web builders. I will also show you ways for you to get around for free.

But if you have a product or service you are selling, you could just jump into starting an e-commerce store:

How to start an E-commerce Store

(1) You find an E-Commerce Store Builder. (An Online Software which lets you build your very own online store without needing advanced tech-skills, or coding knowledge).

(2) Get a domain name for you store (Build Trust With Your Customers)

(3) Pick your E-commerce Templates (Design): You can make your site look good without being a design expert, or touching a code.

(4) Add Your Products: The main things you need to add a product are!

(Pictures of Products, Name, Price, Category, Weight,  Files for downloadable products)  

(5) Add Payment Method: Find out where your customers are from in Zimbabwe the common payment gateway is Paynow, but you still have to put gateways that available world widely, just in case you come across international buyers, (Don’t pick a payment method without working on your store’s needs)

Are you ready to get started or have something that needs to be sold from an Online-Store?

Here are five platforms to set up your store

(You can set up your store free on some of the services) 

Ecwid 

Shopify

Hipkart 

Magnento

Facebook Store 

Aliexpress Store Plugin (If you have money to invest you could just get this plugin, it has everything readily set up) 

Tip

If you’re going to start an e-commerce store, it will be wiser to smaller range of products, something you can become an expert at, that as time goes on you can have an audience that trusts you. 

I would even recommend that you sell a single product on your store. There are huge online stores that are well established, and so many smaller stores.

But in case you’re selling a unique range of products, that isn’t available anywhere on the market, you can just go ahead and get started with the traditional way.

Learn the best of e-commerce strategy here: Niche Store Strategy

Trading

Forex 

E-commerce 

Classifieds 

Social Media Communities 

Trading Stocks 

Trading simply means an exchange of goods or services. Goods are merchandise or possessions such as clothing, furniture, food, etc. 

Sorry, for goods, I just had to give a definition.  

And services is the action of helping or doing work for someone.

For example: Haircuts, medical check ups, car repairs etc.

How trade or the exchange works

Anything from this book you will do to earn an income will involve trading in some way, but for the sake of simpler classification, this part to means ways of earning an income on the internet that are, on the web, directly called trading.

Here’s a list of the trades you can start working on the internet that require the least possible financial investment on your part.

Trading Forex

Forex is an abbreviation for the term Foreign Currency Exchange Market. 

Forex trading means buying, and, or selling a currency (a currency is a medium, or a way of exchange).  

The Foreign Market is an over-the-counter, (a counter like in a store), market which the foreign currencies of the world are exchanged. It is the relationship of value, between one currency, vs another.

Trading Forex online is normally done through a broker which is a website which allows exchanges to go through.

How you can earn income through Forex Trading:

The strategy for forex trading for end users is simple. You buy your foreign currencies at a lower price and sell at a higher price. 

You earn an income when;

Let’s say you have $100.00 on your trading account

The current exchange rate of the EURO vs the US$ is 1.25. (Meaning for a single Euro, €1.00, you get 1.25 US Dollars, $1.25cents).

The Euro rises versus the United States Dollar from 1.25 to 1.26 

Being in the profit or $0.01 you carry out the trade. 

You change your €80.00 to $100.80cents, your profit is $0.80 cents. 

From my example, you might think the profits are too low, but these trades take place several times a day, and there is huge chance for you to earn a respectable income daily from carrying out trades. 

Here’s what someone with experience in the trade had to say on forex trading forum:

 Figure : Extracted From iHarare

Here are the well known forex trading platforms I recommend for you to use: 

Website Minimum Deposit Payment Methods    

MT4 App

US$0 Credit Cards    

Just Forex

US$0.5

BTC, Payoneer, Credit Cards    

IQ Option

US$10 BTC, Payoneer, Credit Cards    

Markets.com

US$100 Credit Cards  

Links to lessons for Forex Trading Beginners 

Please just take the lessons to avoid the mistakes that others have came across. Forex Trading has a reputation for being a risky business and some who have done it before say, ‘it takes time and effort in order for you to understand the market’.

 Here’s what Mazai from the same forum had to say:

 Figure : Extracted from iHarare

However, that should not discourage you because making gains in the trade is a reality.  

Learn as much as you can before you can deposit any money, in order for you to avoid loses. But also avoid the mistake of researching a lot and doing nothing in the end. Remember to assess in brief, and get started. Get started! 

Learn more here if you would like to profit from forex trading.

I). Firstly, about forex trading

II). Secondly, about the website you’ve chosen to focus your trades.

I’m sure a loss in any little amount of money would make anyone want to quit.

Here’s how you can find some of the best lessons’

Note the web is full of free $0.00 lessons on almost anything, so just remember to always search for what you want to know.

Links to People and Communities in Carrying Out Forex Trades 

Forex Trading Zimbabwe 

Forex Trading School – Zimbabwe

Note you can always search for communities that relevant to you on your social media accounts.

BTC (BitCoin)

BTC (Bitcoin) is a digital currency and peer to peer payment system. Bitcoin came around in 2009 and has been used quite a lot in world for carrying out different trades.

Figure : Bitcoin Logo - Google Images

Bitcoins are kept in a wallet just you would do with your money, a times,  but a digital wallet. The common way of getting to own Bitcoin is through purchasing from other people who own the currency, or from earning in some other way you would just like with money. 

The other way is quite complicated, and requires loads of technical knowledge in the digital field, and at times investment in the technical equipment. It’s called Bitcoin Mining. If you’re interested in Bitcoin Mining you can always google search how it is done.  

Bitcoin’s, value can be measured in formal currencies. For example 1BTC is equals to US$10.000.00.

Bitcoins can be acquired in smaller amounts, or fractions like ¼ of a 1BTC, that will be BTC0.250, meaning the price money will be US$2.500.00.

How to trade through BTC 

When trading in BTC, to make profits, usually you will be taking advantage of the rapid changes in prices.

Figure : Bitcoin Price Chart 18 November By Cryptocurrency

You can note the rapid changes in prices on the bitcoin price chart that the price is changing from time to time, in the space of two weeks getting to a low of US$7.300 and getting to a high of over US$9.500.

The strategy for trading BTC is buying BTC when the dollar exchange rate is low and selling it when the exchange rate is high. Just as you would do in Forex Trading  (though I feel trading in BTC is less risky than Forex Trading).

For example you buy a fraction of BTC 0.040 when the price for one Bitcoin is US$10.000.0. Meaning you would have paid US$400.00.

(BTC0.040 x US$10.000.00 = US$40.00)

Then you wait for the price of BTC to change to a higher price and the you sell to grow your BTC or take the profit from the trade.

Let’s say the price of BTC rises to US$12.000.00 due to the natural changes on the Bitcoin Market, and you decide to sell your BTC0.040 at the current price, meaning you will make, US$80.00, as your profit.

(BTC0.040 x US$10.000.00 = US$48.00).

Note: there are trading fees deducted by your wallet holder. But the fees are reasonably low.

Figure : Chart Credit Statista.com

There is always an open market for Bitcoin on the internet, people at varying times are in need of the currency, so there won’t be worries about finding a buyer when you would like to sell your Bitcoins. 

You can create a Bitcoin Wallet on one of these websites, and as well carry out the trades (please, constantly check using search engines the Bitcoin Price to know when to carry out trades).

Recommended websites to trade Bitcoins

 Website Minimum Deposit Payment Methods    

Local Bitcoins You buy with what you have (YBWWYH) BTC, Payoneer, Credit Cards    

IQ Option $10.00 BTC, Payoneer, Credit Cards    

OlympTrade $10.00 BTC, Payoneer, Credit Cards    

ExpertOption $10.00 BTC, Payoneer, Credit Cards  

Remember to deposit $10 or a higher amount. 

There are no guarantees when trading in currencies, your your money can go up as well as down in value. If you feel you can do it, I recommend you learn much about your market. 

My tips when working with these sites for good results

Fill in your profile, make it’s free grammatical errors, fill every field of the profile or bio form to your your best ability

Give it your all on every bid that you make

      (3) Work with one bidding website and master it

      (4) Progress might be slow in the first months, so don’t give up after your few attempts on essay bidding

Bidding websites that will pay you via payment methods that are available in Zimbabwe

List of bidding sites you can sign up on now and start making bids:

1) Study Bay Payment Methods: (Payoneer, Credit Cards)

2) Bid4papers Payment Methods: (Credit Cards)

3) Essay Supply Payment Methods: (Credit Cards)

How To Get Started On Academic Writing

 How to get started:

You register at the writing website

Pass the grammar test (normally made up of 15 multiple choice questions), the formatting styles test, and write a sample essay on a given topic.

Upload your essay and educational certification 

Wait to for an account approval, given you have passed the tests 

How it works 

Select Writing Project (From your work dashboard)

Upload the work 

Get Paid

Here are three ‘legitimate’ Academic Writing websites you can sign up on and start working as soon as possible

Website Payment Methods    

Writerbay Payoneer, Credit Cards    

Writing Creek Credit Cards    

Writers Department Credit Cards  

Writerbay 

Freelance Writing Jobs for professional authors.

Looking for authors who are proficient in their respective fields and who can deliver high-quality papers

Registration form: Writerbay.

Writing Creek 

Offers online writing jobs for freelance writers. Experts wanted!

Register: Writing Creek 

Writersdepartment

At Writers-department the usual pay is $10 – 15 per written double spaced page

Register: Writersdepartment

Writers Work

Writers Work connects anyone interested in writing, with the companies that need them desperately. There are thousands of writing jobs that are available on Writers Work, and available also are, training, tools, and support you need to the best writing jobs. 

Sign up: Writers Work Here

Essay or Article – Bidding Websites

The other kinds of websites you can check out if you would like to pursue web-writing as a way of earning an extra income are what I can call Essay bidding sites. 

 On Essay Bidding website a person who would like to have an essay or article written posts their request with the full details concerning the work,  

For example: “I would like someone to write me an essay about my dog,” the person sets their budget, which is money that they would like to pay you, and the bidders, who are the writers, at any level, submit their bids.

For example: You would respond to the post bid proposal saying, “I would like to work on your essay, and you give reasons why they should choose you over other bidders to work on their essay, and you can negotiate expect them to pay when you’re done with the work”.

For your own safety, to avoid getting scammed, recommended or legitimate, websites often have clients deposit their money into their account on the website to make sure the writer gets paid once the process of submitting the work to the client is completed. And once you are granted a project by the person, the project is taken away from the list of jobs that are available. 

My tips when working with these sites for good results;