SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A new study on the future of work conducted by simple e-commerce platform Selz uncovers the extent to which consumers are seeking out greater personal fulfillment and financial freedom by using technology to set up a side business.
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Titled “The Side Business Phenomena,” the research surveyed working-age adults in the U.S., Australia and the UK and found that an average of 16 percent were actively engaged in a side business, spending an average of 14.5 hours per week doing so. Side business entrepreneurs earn an average $24.5K per year in additional income, while 12 percent of the respondents add more than $75K to their annual income.
Martin Rushe, CEO at Selz, said, “Our research clearly shows that attitudes to work-life are changing. People are demanding much more flexibility around how they work and what they do — and that flexibility is valued as highly as money. People are tired of the daily grind, and personal entrepreneurialism is the emerging solution.”
When questioned about motivations to start a side business, the most frequent answer (57 percent) was: to make more money. But money is clearly not the only reason, with 45 percent specifying to do something that I love as their secondary reason. Geographically, the results are nuanced. In the U.S., the main driver is money; in the UK, it’s love; and in Australia, it was a tie between these two reasons.
And it’s technology, in particular e-commerce software, that is helping to drive this transformation, with 17 percent of side business owners providing a service or product that is exclusively online and 46 percent opting to mix online and offline channels.
Side businesses also operate across a wide range of industries, with services as the most popular at 33 percent and specifically technology and business services following with an aggregate 28 percent of all operations. In terms of what people are doing as their side business, 89 percent operate as suppliers of services or physical goods while 11 percent have a product that is purely digital.
“Technology is zeroing the time and the risks involved in setting up a side business,” Rushe continued. “With Selz, for example, people can be up and running with a business in hours, with access to all the leading-edge tools used by big business, but at a fraction of the cost.”
For more details on the Side Business Phenomena findings, download the free study at https://selz.com/blog/side-business/, or access the Side Business Phenomena infographic which visualizes the results in more detail at https://selz.com/blog/the-side-business-infographic/.
For more information about Selz, please visit https://selz.com/. Follow the company on Twitter @selz, Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/selzdotcom and LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/selz-com.
About Selz
Selz is an e-commerce platform for entrepreneurs that radically simplifies the business of selling online, providing a beautiful buying and customer management experience across all Web formats and social media channels.
The value proposition is a zero-cost entry to Seriously Simple Selling — a complete system for managing orders, processing and receiving payments, and building relationships with customers. Customers can set up a fully functioning e-commerce operation in just a few minutes with no coding required. 50,000 artists, service providers, creators and developers are already using Selz to sell digital and physical items and services from their website, blog or social media outlet.
Selz is privately held, headquartered in San Francisco and Australia. For more information about Selz, please visit https://selz.com/.
All brand names and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
Tags: e-commerce, online selling, small business, retail, e-tail, side business, entrepreneur, solopreneur, future of work, micro entrepreneur, side hustle, gig economy, moonlighting, freelancer, business owners
