5 Best Online Side hustles in the Philippines to Start this 2021

You go home on a Friday night after a long day at work. Typically, you’d make yourself a hot drink and binge watch your favorite Netflix series or do a three-hour gaming spree.

Does that sound like a perfect night for you? Honestly, sure. But when someone looks up ‘Online Side Hustles ideas to start in 2021’, they probably know better. 

You’re probably here right now because you know that you can do something more productive with your extra hours after work to bring you to a much better place a few weeks, months, or years from now.

If you’re looking for the best online side hustle ideas to kickstart your 2021 financial goals, then you’re at the right place.

What are online side hustles?

A side hustle, side gig, second job or “Raket”as they say, are common terms used by go-getters when they refer to any type of income-earning activities they do outside of their full-time job.

Side hustling is a way to provide supplemental income by taking another type of employment or venturing on a side business. 

Meanwhile, an online side hustle is taking sideline opportunities online.

For instance, if you’re working as a banker by day, you may do a side hustle at night as an online English tutor or as a freelance graphic designer. 

Why should you work on your online side hustles in the Philippines?

The COVID-19 Pandemic has greatly impacted not just the local economy, but also individual businesses and jobs.

Some may have experienced employee layoffs or furloughs.

These days, depending on just one day job or one source of income can be quite risky knowing everything is ambiguous.

An online side hustle can help give you another source of income or a back-up plan when things get rough. 

Not only has the pandemic brought most businesses online, but it has also caused a surge in internet user population.

As of 2021, 60% of the world’s population uses the internet. Meanwhile, the Philippines is  a very lucrative market for online side hustles.

Being one of the top internet users in the world with about 75 million active users as per ITA, you can definitely find a lot of opportunities online in the Philippine market alone. 

An online side hustle can be your best bet to earn extra income, weather a financial storm, or even breakthrough into financial freedom.

In this blog, we walk you through five online hustle ideas to start this 2021.

1. Do Freelancing Work Online

Freelancing is a form of self-employment where you take job opportunities on a per-project based setup.

Unlike your full-time job, freelancing can give you more flexibility and more control over your time.

As an online freelancer, you offer services online and usually earn money on a per milestone or a per hour basis. 

Freelancing can be a great way to monetize the skills that you already have, or other skill sets that you may develop a bit further.

Do note that unlike your full-time employment where you can be paid to go on  training programs, side hustles may not offer that learning curve luxury.

Thus, it’s best to start on skills that you already have knowledge and skills at. 

The Philippines has a very lucrative market for freelancing in different markets.

If you’re good at Web Development, you can be a Web Designer, Programmer, Web developer.

The world of Digital marketing has an ever-growing need for Filipino SEO, social media marketing, digital PR specialists. 

Teaching opportunities are apparent in the Philippine market as seen in surge of demands for online tutors. You can also monetize your skills on Multimedia arts by graphic designing or video editing. 

You may find some of these job opportunity listings in freelance platforms such as Upwork, Freelancer Ph, Craiglist Ph or OnlineJobs PH.

2. Venture into Online Reselling or Drop shipping

If you’re business-savvy and you have an eye for spotting lucrative deals, then buying and selling online may be a great side hustle choice for you.

With most brick-and-mortar businesses shutting down due to the pandemic, we have seen a surge in ecommerce this 2021.

Online sales platforms such as OLX, Shoppee, Lazada, or eBay PH have almost anything that you can think of. From RTWs, to kitchenware and electronic devices- you can find them all in these online platforms. 

Online Buying and Selling

One way to make the most out of this opportunity is to spot cheap deals or catch items during seasonal sales.

Then, you may resell them on your own website or on different platforms at a higher price point, of course.

The catch is to package them with better sales and marketing strategies such as social media promotions, Facebook Ads, or Google Ads to be able to sell them at a higher value.

Depending on your niche of choice, you can also find other unique, great deals offline such as in antique shops, thrift stores, and garage sales.

Then, you can bring them to online marketplaces for buyers that are looking for products in those niches. 

Where I can sell online in the Philippines?

Selling online can be done in different ways. You sell items on your own website using different website building and hosting tools such as Squarespace, Shopify, or Go Daddy.

You can also opt to list your items on already existing ecommerce platforms such as Lazada, Shoppee, or eBay Ph.

Doing online reselling as a side hustle can be an efficient choice since most ecommerce platforms make it easy for buyers to do product research, track their sales, and list items. 

Dropshipping

If you don’t want to have a physical inventory of your items, you can venture into drop shipping instead through websites such as Dropify by Lazada or Alidropship by Alibaba.

Dropshipping allows you to list items (from a third-person supplier) in your personal website without having to manage your own inventory. 

Once these items are marked for orders, your supplier takes care of the shipping activities for you.

The downside, however, of drop shipping is that, obviously, you can’t have full control of your inventory, supply chain and product quality.

Moreover, since you don’t have to take care of your overhead, the returns could be low, and so is the profit margin. 

3. Sell your Craft Online

Whoever says money and passion could never go together is obviously a bummer and an unhappy worker.

The John and Jane Doe’s of the world of financial success know for sure that you simply can’t go on forever doing something that you don’t love and believe in.

You must at least have a creative outlet, or an opportunity to monetize what you actually love doing. If you’re a great artist, photographer, musician, or videographer, you can sell your craft online as a side hustle.

Instead of storing them all in your basement or hard drive you can share them with the world.

You don’t have to be a prominent painter, a professional photographer, or a music artist with a record label. You can sell your craft online and get paid in royalties every time someone purchases or downloads them

If you’re a photographer who takes stunning photos of nature, skyscrapers, or anything under the sun, you can list them in websites like iStock, Shutterstock, or Etsy.

If you’re a skilled musician, you can get your music licensed and then upload it on platforms such as Spotify or iStock Studio. 

Somewhere out there, somebody needs those stunning video shootages. You can have them monetized in  Shutterstock, Vimeo, VideoHive, or even YouTube.

4. Become a Vlogger

Speaking about passion, a side hustle can also be an opportunity to bring out those artistahin skills. Kidding!

Seriously, there’s a great bubble that needs to be popped around the whole idea of being a vlogger.

We’d be the first, and hopefully not the last to tell you that anyone can be a vlogger- including you, especially if you have the abilities to do so.

Uploading content on popular vlogging platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch isn’t just limited to popular celebrities and influential stars.

Vlogging is all about sharing your ideas, talents and skills to anyone who may need, appreciate, or gain value from it. 

You can vlog about a bunch of different things. The best way to decide on your vlog niche is definitely your skills, interests, and abilities.

If you’re passionate about travelling, you can make a travel vlog just like I did. If you’re knowledgeable in tech or finance for example, you can make literacy vlogs where you can talk about your experiences and knowledge online.

You can even make a tutorial channel for a wide range of different topics- from cooking famous Pinoy dishes to doing your own makeup for different occasions. 

If you consider yourself as a seasoned gamer with a fun personality, you can start a streaming channel using Facebook Live or Twitch.

You can earn money in vlogging through subscriptions, sponsorships, AdSense, Affiliate links, or even by promoting your own merchandise.

Earning money while doing the things that you love is definitely a breather from your nine-to-five. 

5. Start a Blog

There’s a reason why blogs don’t die through time. This age-old marketing technique still stands as the one of the most effective online marketing strategies used by different professionals, influencers, and businesses. 

Blogging refers to self-published writing content with photographs and other media tools.

Blogging is one of the best online side hustles. That is why I blog!

A blog is something that you’re reading as we speak.

Since you’ve made it this far to the article, you’re probably either A. bored A.F, or B. you’re actually learning something along the course of this blog.

Blogging is a great way to share your ideas online if you’re a good writer or if you’re skilled at something.

For instance, if you’re working as a real estate agent, you can start up a blog to answer different questions that many people in the real estate industry are finding answers for.

You can write about “How to Buy the Right Property”, or “How to Invest in Real Estate”. 

I’ve featured one of the most known bloggers about real-estate in the ph, you can check out more here: Learn from Bloggers: Meet Ken Bajar, Founder of the Real-Estate-Blog PH.

Why should I start Blogging as a Side Hustle?

So why should you do blogging as a side income? What monetary benefits can blogging give you?

The thing about blogging is that you get way more advantages than just the thought of driving traffic into your website. 

Blogging helps you gain credibility as a professional or a business owner.

As you drive traffic into your website, people will learn from your blogs while you get the visibility that you need to support your job as a real estate agent or to bring people to your ecommerce website.

Blogs allow for an in-depth explanation about your products or your primary line of work.

When people actually find your content relevant, you can keep an email database of your readers so they can be updated with your latest deals.

But more than that, you can actually earn money as you blog.

If you choose to also do a buy-and-sell side hustle, publishing blog posts in your website is also a great way to generate traffic and hopefully turn those readers into product buyers.

Aside from that, you can earn money while blogging through Advertising. When other business owners want to publish ads on your website, you can get payments from Google and the advertisers themselves.

You can also earn money through Affiliate marketing by way of earning commissions and referral money as people click into your affiliate links.

Here at John Fisalbon, we aim to provide you people with the best resources about content creation, digital marketing and blogging.

If you want to know more blogging and how it has changed my life, you can read my story here.

Let’s Wrap it Up

In the end, a side hustle could just be a side income and nothing else- or it could be a venture that could allow you to eventually be confident enough to say that you can quit your day job and still have the financial freedom to support your needs.

Eventually, online side hustles can just be more than an additional income stream.

It could also be an opportunity to discover what you really love doing while enjoying financial freedom at the same time.

Working on your online side hustles can be a challenging feat especially when you don’t know where to begin.

However, having the right goals, mindset, and knowledge about side hustle opportunities that suit your skill set is all you need to kickstart your side hustling journey.

So skip the binge watching and gaming today and play the game of Your Life instead.