Join the Sell Something Challenge

We live in the era of the side hustle. The passive revenue stream. The start-your-own-business movement. And there’s a reason: Selling online isn’t all that hard. Making online sales is no longer just for established businesses.

You can do it! You probably have at least one thing you’d like to sell. If not, don’t worry, we have some ideas for you.

And now is the perfect time – AWeber is running its Sell Something Challenge. Want to join?


Sign up for the challenge

We’ll teach you everything you need to know to make your first sale.

So read on and learn how to empower yourself with the knowledge that can change your future!

Why learn to sell online?

Well, other than the obvious — you get to make a little money — there are a few other benefits to knowing how to sell things online. You’ll:

  1. Earn passive income on the side
  2. Learn a new tech skill (and put it on your resume)
  3. Be able to quickly set up new revenue streams when you have ideas in the future
  4. Make more use out of your existing tools (like AWeber)

… which brings us to the details of the challenge.

The Sell Something Challenge

Sell Something Challenge

What is it: A free challenge running to give you the tools and knowledge to earn extra money.

What you’ll learn: How to use AWeber’s landing page builder and Ecommerce tools, along with how to develop ideas for digital products and how to set them up to sell and be fulfilled automatically – while you go do other things (sip a margarita on the beach, play with your kids, explore how to make cheese… whatever you’re into).

Ready to join? Sign up for the challenge now.

We’d love to hear your plans and to help you out in our Facebook community! Or tell a friend about how easy it was to set up your store. Who knows, you might help someone else get started selling online, too.

Why sell with AWeber?

There are three main reasons why you should sell with AWeber: simplicity, control, and low-cost.

Simple-to-use

AWeber offers over 100 page templates, integrations with Stripe and PayPal (for online payment processing), and a landing page builder that one marketer called “the easiest one I’ve ever used with all the functionality I need.” 

Quite simply, no matter how tech savvy you are, you can make a sales page in one day.

You’re in control

Promoting your product or service on a social media platform or listing site can be good for visibility. But, ultimately, you are subject to the rules and algorithms of whichever platform controls your listing. They can shut you down at any time, with no warning. However, with AWeber, your pages, your products, and your promotions are 100% in your control.

The lowest cost

You can set up your sales pages with any AWeber plan — that means getting up and running is completely free. Squeaky-clean, no-strings-attached, no credit card required, forever free

AWeber also won’t charge you an arm and a leg when you make your sales. You see, online listing sites often charge really high fees — up to 20% from your sale. That means either you’re giving up a cut or you’re passing the cost onto your purchaser. AWeber’s fees are the lowest in the industry at 1%, 0.6% if you have a Pro account (plus Stripe’s fees of 2.9% + 30¢ per charge).

So if you sell an ebook for $15, you’re walking away with $14.12. The same book sold elsewhere could leave you with only $12. The same book sold six times will get you $86.19 versus $72 ($14 difference!). High fees start to add up.

We’ve done the math. Selling online with AWeber Ecommerce is the best way to walk away with the most money in your pocket.

What to sell

The purpose of The Sell Something Challenge isn’t to start a business or even get your side-gig going — although it would be great if you did that eventually. The purpose is to learn how to sell online, easily and affordably without using marketplaces or listing sites.

So don’t overthink the first thing you sell. Start simple. Here are ten ideas that may help inspire you to sell something uniquely yours:

Sell something physical

  1. A tool in your garage you no longer use
  2. Used books
  3. Sketches, paintings, photography, etc.
  4. Resell used clothing or furniture from a thrift store

Note: If you sell something physical, pay close attention to when it’s sold and remove it from your page. This process currently can’t be automated.

Sell something digital

  1. An online course with your expert advice
  2. A digital book or short story
  3. Expert content given via blog or email

Sell services

  1. Freelance work like writing, editing, or design
  2. 1:1 consulting in your area of expertise
  3. Local physical services offered in your area

Whatever you decide to sell, give it a name, a short description, and a picture — either of the physical thing you’re selling or to represent what you’ll be doing.

For example, if you’re going to offer consulting services, use a headshot or search for a relevant stock photo in the AWeber image gallery or on Canva. Here’s one from Canva:

A search for "finance" in Canva.

Don’t forget to keep it simple for the challenge. We want to get you up and running — and even making a sale — today!

How to set up your sales page

Selling online involves two things: creating a sales page and marketing your product or service. Here we’ll cover creating your sales page. It only takes five simple steps to get a sales page up in AWeber (you can set up a free account if you don’t already have one).

1. Create a landing page

Click on “Landing Pages” in the side panel of your account and then click “Create landing page.” You can filter the templates by ecommerce or scroll to choose one (you don’t need an ecommerce-specific template to make a sale).

Screen shot showing where to create a landing page in AWeber's platform

A popular template is the “Simple Product Sale.” Click “Choose” on the template to copy the page into your drafts.

In the AWeber dashboard, online store templates for ecommerce including an ebook offer and a simple product sale.

2. Add sale details

Add the name, description, and imagery representing whatever you’ve decided to sell. You should always include a picture, especially if you’re selling a physical product.

Keep the description relevant to the size of what you’re selling. For example, you may want to lay out what someone will learn throughout a several-weeks-long course. But if you’re reselling something from your house, a picture and a short description is plenty.

3. Add a sale button

Drag and drop the ecommerce element from the left onto your sales page. This will give you a button (though there may already be one on your template). Update the button’s text. For example, you could say “Buy now – $15” or “Get Your Course.”

4. Connect to Stripe

To charge for your product or service, you’ll need to connect to a Stripe account. When you’ve selected your ecommerce button, you should see a prompt to connect Stripe. If you don’t already have a Stripe account, don’t worry. You can set one up in about five minutes.

Popup in AWeber's platform showing how to connect to Stripe

Once Stripe is connected, you can create new products, subscriptions, payment plans and prices directly in AWeber. No need to switch back-and-forth to multiple tabs.

5. Configure sale button settings

Add a “product” to your button (a digital product or service is also called a product). Give it a name, price, and decide whether you’ll charge just once, or offer a subscription or payment plan.

configure sale button settings in AWeber's platform

Under “Tag automation,” tag anyone who purchases with something like ebook-sale. Then you can track and market to who you sold to later.

Under Automation in the ecommerce tool in AWeber, you can add tags like ebook-sale when someone purchases the product.

Review the order form and double check that the prices and description match what you’re selling.

You can choose to show a receipt after the sale or redirect to another page. If you redirect, you can show a thank you page or send purchasers to a landing page that contains the content they’ve bought (like a digital book or course).

6. Review and publish

Check your page’s title and preview the page to make sure it looks like you want it to. Then click “Save and exit” and then “Publish” to make your page live on the web (yep, it’s really a live sales page at this point!)

A GIF of Jimmy Fallon dancing.

If you want a custom domain — exampleproduct.com instead of mypage.aweb.com/p/1283…— you can buy one directly from your AWeber dashboard. Buy and connect your new domain on your landing page’s settings.

That’s it! You now have a fully functioning sales page that you can share online or offline. It’s time to put “web designer” on your list of skill sets.

Sales page ​​templates

Want to see a few options for the templates that can get you up and running right now? Scan through these five for some inspiration and click on any to copy it directly into your account.

Online course

The page template for an online course. Click to copy it into your AWeber account.

Ebook offer

Book page template for an online store. Includes options to buy in paperback or on kindle. Click to copy it into your AWeber account.

Product sale

A product page template offering three pictures, prices, and buy now buttons. Click to copy it into your AWeber account.

Services

A services page template with cleaning services as an example. Click to copy it into your AWeber account.

Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding page template for an online store. Includes donate button, description prompts, and an image.

Subscription

Subscription page template for an online store. Includes three subscription tiers, join buttons, and prices.

Click “Ecommerce” on the left when you’re choosing a template to see all the options, or check out our public template gallery.

How to make the sale (marketing 101)

Now that you have your sales page set up, it’s time to work on actually making that first sale. It’s time for some marketing

Marketing comes down to two things:

  1. Who would want to buy my thing?
  2. Where do they learn about new products and services?

There are four easy ways to start your sales journey, depending on the time and resources you have to spend. Try these tactics to make your first sale:

Tell your friends and family

As you’re starting your sales journey, the people who love you are likely to be on board with helping out. Ask your closest connections if they’ll support you by buying your thing, especially if it’s fairly affordable and useful for them.

Find buyers on social media

If you have an existing audience on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, or anywhere else, promote your new product to them. Give a quick pitch on the benefits, uses, and how their lives will definitely be better after they buy your product.

If you don’t have an existing social media audience — or not one that’s used to being sold to — it’s time to start.

If you’re comfortable creating videos, I recommend starting with TikTok or YouTube and cross-promoting your videos. Get on screen and work to truly educate your audience about what you’re selling and the reasons they should buy it.

Not cool with video? That’s OK. Instead, try some Facebook groups, LinkedIn, or even Twitter threads. The key here is to search for people who could benefit from what you sell. Try finding popular posts and add answers or smart comments to them.

For example, let’s say you sell a course about building a cabinet. Find the woodworking community by searching for “woodworking,” “DIY,” “home design,” etc. Then find popular posts about building things and say something like “It took me just two days to build my own cabinet. So I made a course on how to do it.” (Add a picture of your cabinet and a link to your course.)

No matter how you promote on social media, don’t forget that everyone can tell if you’re making a sales pitch only. So be authentic, helpful, friendly, and engaging.

Send an email

Whether you have a list of thousands from another venture or just your own personal contact list, you can use email marketing to send people to your sales page. Figure out who on your list will be interested in what you offer, and send a short promotional email letting them know what you’re selling.

Pay for an ad

It might seem crazy to pay first before earning any money. But you can actually set up some pretty affordable advertising with Facebook Lead ads. And if you sell something fairly expensive, it can pay off.

Selling an artistic creation like a painting or sculpture for hundreds of dollars? You might want to try just $5-10 in Facebook Lead ads to get your beautiful piece in front of more eyes. It’s quite easy to find your audience here, too.

Keep pushing towards your first sale, and track what you learn along the way. When it’s time to make sale #2 – or 2,000 – you’ll have the information you learned in this challenge to assist you.

Additional resources

How to Sell Online with Ecommerce Landing Pages

Grow Your Income with Subscriptions & Payment Plans

5 Steps to Promote and Sell Online Courses

Landing Page Template Gallery

10 Best Ecommerce Tools to Sell More with Email Marketing

Get started now

The best time to learn to sell online is today. Start now with a free AWeber account. Connect Stripe, pick a template, and make a sale today! Don’t forget to tell us how it went in the Facebook community.

10 Comments

  1. sarwoto

    8/28/2021 3:05 am

    I’ve never had an online sale, and am interested in Aweber. I don’t have one and don’t know what stripe is.

    Can I get an explanation of stripe and other explanations?

    thanks

  2. Kelsey Johnson

    8/30/2021 11:35 am

    Stripe is an online payment processing tool for businesses. Using AWeber, you can set up a page with a “Buy” button on it, and it will connect to Stripe to actually charge when someone clicks on it.

    You can create a Stripe account and a page in AWeber for free to try it out. Here’s a step-by-step guide on getting set up.

  3. Anna

    9/2/2021 1:50 pm

    Hi, What if I cant have a Stripe account in my country? I have already wrote to them but no answer.

  4. Kelsey Johnson

    9/3/2021 11:13 am

    Hi Anna. We understand Stripe doesn’t work everywhere. If you can set up an AWeber page with a PayPal button and make a sale that way, we’ll still send you your free month! Simply send us an email at help@aweber.com with proof of your sale.

  5. Summer

    9/11/2021 6:41 pm

    I want to try out with Strip and also want to add my PayPal account. Can it be done. Thank you.

  6. Kelsey Johnson

    9/13/2021 3:40 pm

    Yes, you can connect Stripe and create a payment button on your page. You can also connect PayPal via our integration or simply add a PayPal button to your page, too. You’ll complete the Sell Something Challenge if someone pays you with the Stripe link, but your first PayPal sale is just as exciting!

  7. Lia

    9/2/2022 10:11 pm

    Hi Kelsey, I may be interested in doing this challenge but am a little ambivalent around how much time it will require. I usually stay away from challenges as they tend to feel too overwhelming but this is something I need to feel more confident with and it may be helpful to get me started. Like very slowly and a tiny step at a time. But wondered how the challenge is structured and how much work in involved.

    It’d be great if you could provide a little more info aroudn this, for example at the beginning of the page here, it says the challenge runs for 30 days, if that’s the case how often are there tastks etc to achieve and what are the expectations? etc. Basically it’d be great to know a bit more about how it is structured and how much time would be involved.

  8. Kelsey Johnson

    9/6/2022 11:08 am

    Hi Leah,

    Thanks for asking! This is a fairly simple challenge in terms of “steps.” If you sign up, you’ll get 5 days of instructions via email on deciding what to sell, putting together a sales page (which is quite simple with AWeber), and promoting it in order to actually make the sale. The intention is to gain confidence in making online sales and learning a bit about marketing.

    If you do make a sale by September 30, we’ll give you a free month of AWeber Pro. If not, nothing happens! We hope you continue to learn more about ecommerce and eventually are able to sell online, and we’ll help you out as much as possible with additional resources throughout the year.

    Please let me know if you have any other questions.

  9. Sandra Peoples

    9/7/2022 8:55 pm

    I would like to know how do I deliver what I have sole, like say a course. Do I have to upload the content someplace else?

  10. Kelsey Johnson

    9/8/2022 9:58 am

    Hi Sandra,

    Great question! Yes, if you created a written or video course, you would upload it somewhere else. The simplest free option for uploading is Google Drive. You can then share links to the content in emails after someone signs up.