Survey shows: For American consumers, e-commerce has become the most common “side hustle” choice

Survey Shows: For U.S. Consumers, E-commerce Has Become the Most Common “Side Hustle” Choice

SEO Title Survey: E-commerce Becomes America’s Most Common Side Hustle, How the Platform Economy Is Reshaping Digital Retail

Meta Description An Omnisend survey shows that 41% of Americans with side hustles make money through e-commerce, with Amazon, eBay, TikTok Shop, and Facebook Marketplace becoming the main channels. Consumer income pressure, the platform economy, and low-barrier reselling models are reshaping the global ecommerce and digital commerce ecosystem.

Section Categories Global E-commerce / Platform Economy / Consumer Behavior / Cross-Border Retail

Core Summary (Featured Snippet) Omnisend’s survey shows that in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia, e-commerce is the most common form of side hustle. In the United States, 41% of people with side hustles earn extra income through online sales or reselling goods, with 32% making more than $1,000 per month. Amazon, eBay, TikTok Shop, and Facebook Marketplace are the main platforms.

Main Text

Event Overview

A survey from Omnisend shows that e-commerce has become one of the most common side hustle options for American consumers. According to the study of the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia, in these four markets, selling or reselling goods online is the most common way for people with side hustles to increase their income.

In the United States, 28% of respondents said they had a side hustle or second source of income; among them, 41% make money by selling or reselling products through e-commerce. The survey also found that 32% of American e-commerce side hustlers earn more than $1,000 per month. Notably, these sellers are not necessarily full-time entrepreneurs: 63% started within the past year, and 41% spend less than 10 hours per week on it.

This means e-commerce is evolving from a traditional retail channel into a way for consumers to participate in the marketplace economy. It is both a shopping channel and an income supplement mechanism.

Market Background

What this survey reflects is not a change in a single platform, but rather one side of global ecommerce under shifting consumer conditions. Income pressure, rising living costs, and the demand for flexible work are prompting more consumers to try online selling with low barriers and low risk.

Compared with content creation, freelancing, or delivery work, e-commerce side hustles usually have lower startup costs and make it easier to turn idle inventory, secondhand goods, handmade items, or digital products into cash flow. For many ordinary households, this model does not require complex skills and does not depend on a fixed employment relationship, making it easier to enter.From the perspective of the consumer market, this trend shows that the boundaries of online shopping are changing: consumers are not only buying on platforms, but also selling on them. As the frequency of two-way participation in buying and selling increases, the role of platforms changes accordingly—they are not just retail distribution channels, but infrastructure for traffic, payments, logistics, and supply organization.

Platform and Brand Impact

The survey mentions that the channels most commonly used by U.S. side-hustle sellers include Amazon (64%), eBay (48%), TikTok Shop (43%), and Facebook Marketplace (35%). These data show that mainstream marketplace economy platforms have already become the preferred entry points for individual sellers and lightweight supply.

For platforms, the value of such users is reflected not only in transaction volume, but also in supply expansion and traffic activity. An increase in the number of individual sellers helps platforms maintain product variety and attract more price-sensitive consumers. At the same time, however, platforms also face more complex management challenges:

• A more fragmented supply structure
• Higher demands for product quality and authenticity review
• More dispersed fulfillment and after-sales pressure
• Stronger price competition and homogeneous supply

For brands, the expansion of side-hustle sellers and the resale market will continue to affect pricing systems and channel control. The growth of handmade, customized, secondhand, and digital products means consumers’ definition of “value” is changing: they are not necessarily pursuing new products, but placing more emphasis on price, uniqueness, and immediate availability.

For DTC brands and retail companies, the rise of the resale market will also bring a dual impact. On the one hand, brands can use the secondary market to expand exposure; on the other hand, unauthorized resale, price inversion, and inventory leakage will weaken brand pricing power. Therefore, more and more brands need to reassess product life cycles, inventory management, and the boundaries between official and unofficial channels.

Consumer Trend Analysis

What is most worth noting in this survey is not just “how many people have side hustles,” but “why consumers choose e-commerce as a side hustle.” From the results, consumers are more inclined to choose ways that require less time, faster startup, and lower risk to increase income.

This reflects several clear consumer trends:

1. Income diversification has become the norm More and more households no longer rely on a single source of income, and side hustles have become an important way to buffer consumption pressure.

2. Idle assets are circulating faster Secondhand, vintage, and no-longer-used goods are repriced and re-enter the market, driving resale and new retail to develop in parallel.

3. Preference for lightweight operations is strengthening 41% of U.S. e-commerce side-hustle sellers spend less than 10 hours per week, indicating that many participants are not pursuing scale, but instead see it as a flexible source of supplemental income.4. Platform trust takes precedence over independent websites Most side-hustle sellers choose Amazon, eBay, TikTok Shop, and Facebook Marketplace, showing that consumers rely more on the traffic, payment, and trust mechanisms of established platforms.

This also means that future competition in digital retail will increasingly revolve around “who can lower the barrier to entry, and who can improve transaction certainty,” rather than simply competing for a certain category or a certain ad placement.

Regional Market Impact

#### North America The survey results for the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia are similar, indicating that side-hustle e-commerce is not unique to the U.S., but is instead a relatively common way to supplement income in English-speaking markets. In North America, the platform infrastructure of Amazon, eBay, and Facebook Marketplace is mature, supporting the expansion of lightweight individual sellers.

#### Europe UK data is close to that of the U.S., suggesting that cost-of-living pressures and the need for flexible income are also present in Europe’s mature markets. For European consumers, secondhand and resale culture is more readily accepted, and platforms face higher demands for localized fulfillment and cross-border compliance.

#### Asia Although this survey did not cover major Asian markets, regional trends suggest that Asian consumers are more receptive to mobile shopping, content-driven conversion, and social commerce. If similar side-hustle models spread further, platforms are more likely to integrate social content, payments, and fulfillment more deeply into a single ecosystem.

#### Middle East The Middle East market has strong digital consumption growth and a strong willingness for individual entrepreneurship; lightweight online selling has the potential to combine with social platforms, instant payments, and local logistics. However, trust mechanisms and fulfillment speed remain key constraints.

#### Latin America Latin American consumers are relatively familiar with secondhand transactions, price-sensitive products, and mobile ordering, making side-hustle e-commerce highly compatible with the local marketplace economy. Payment availability and logistics costs remain the main factors affecting the speed of expansion.

#### Africa In some African markets, mobile payments and social platforms are often the entry point for online transactions. If side-hustle e-commerce continues to grow, the most important factor will not be the number of products, but whether payment, delivery, and platform trust infrastructure can improve in step.

Future Trends

• From this survey, it can be inferred that e-commerce side hustles will not merely be a temporary phenomenon, but will continue to be embedded in the structure of global ecommerce. Several directions worth watching in the future include:- Platforms will place greater emphasis on lightweight seller ecosystems: lowering listing barriers, optimizing seller tools, and simplifying settlement processes will all become important ways for platforms to compete for supply.
• Fulfillment and cost control will become more critical: when seller scale is small and orders are dispersed, the unit cost of ecommerce logistics is more likely to rise.
• The payment experience will affect conversion efficiency: low-value, high-frequency transactions, individual sellers, and multi-platform operations all require higher payment settlement speed and stronger risk control.
• Brands will pay more attention to the secondary market: especially in fashion, home goods, electronics, and digital products, brands need to manage resale impacts more systematically.
• The boundary between content platforms and trading platforms will continue to blur: the inclusion of TikTok Shop shows that the integration of content-driven discovery and closed-loop transactions is still strengthening.

More importantly, this trend shows that future digital commerce is not just about “who sells more,” but about “who can turn more ordinary consumers into participants.” Platforms, brands, logistics providers, and payment companies all need to design products and services for users who are more distributed, more asset-light, and have more diverse income sources.

Key Takeaways

• E-commerce is evolving from a pure consumption channel into an important way for consumers to supplement their income.
• Amazon, eBay, TikTok Shop, and Facebook Marketplace are the main entry points for side-hustle sellers.
• Side-hustle sellers are generally lightweight, indicating that the platform economy is absorbing a large amount of non-professional supply.
• The popularity of secondhand, handmade, and digital products reflects a redefinition of value and flexibility among consumers.
• For brands, the resale market is both an opportunity and a source of channel and pricing management pressure.

Suggested Tags #globalecommerce #crossborderretail #digitalcommerce #onlineshopping #consumertrends #marketplaceeconomy #ecommercelogistics #retailtechnology #digitalretail #globalmarketplaces

Relevant Markets North America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa

Relevant Platforms Amazon, eBay, TikTok Shop, Facebook Marketplace

Source URL https://chainstoreage.com/survey-e-commerce-most-common-side-hustle-americans## SEO Description Omnisend survey shows that e-commerce has become one of the most common side hustles for U.S. consumers. The article analyzes how Amazon, eBay, TikTok Shop, and Facebook Marketplace attract light sellers, and explores consumer income pressures, the platform economy, and structural changes in global ecommerce.