More than ever people are looking for businesses that thrive in recession. With big tech layoffs, AI and automation taking over many sectors of employment and rising costs of living it’s easy to see why.
A recent Gallop poll showed that people are dissatisfied in their jobs, too. So even without threat to employment, people are looking elsewhere for their own well being and happiness. According to the poll only 15% of workers are engaged at work. This means that 85% are unhappy in their jobs or with their bosses.
So what is the answer for broken workers and broken systems that no longer support long term job security? Perhaps it’s businesses that thrive in recession; online businesses to be more specific.
Businesses That Thrive In Recession
Traditional jobs are in decline, so even if you like your job you may soon be given the push; particularly if your job can be replaced with automation or moved online.
The chart below shows e-commerce business versus traditional store sales. As you can see, there’s a massive increase in e-commerce sales and a steady decline in traditional sales.
This is only set to continue and speed up especially over recent years of lockdowns and pandemic responses. Many traditional stores are closing or have closed already.
Businesses That Thrive In Recession
Whenever there’s a recession there’s a shift from the traditional economy to the digital economy. This is all the more apparent today (in 2022). So if you’re looking for a recession proof business, your best bet is to look online for some kind of digital business.
There’s many online business models which you can use to generate an income from anywhere. All you need is a laptop and internet connection. Print on demand, e-commerce stores, affiliate businesses and drop shipping businesses are just a few of the possibilities. Since more people are shopping online, it makes sense to provide some kind of service online to future proof an income source.
Businesses That Thrive In Recession: Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular online business models. In affiliate marketing, products can be sold online by third party referring “affiliates”. The affiliate receives a commission based on referral sales they make. Because you don’t need any products of your own to become an affiliate, it makes it one of the most accessible business models available. Plus you can become an affiliate for pretty much any product you can find online; providing you can find an affiliate program connected with the product.
Amazon, for example has an affiliate program which anyone can join. By joining an affiliate program and promoting your unique affiliate link, your sales are tracked back to you and you are rewarded for the referral. You don’t have to personally handle products or services yourself and therefore your only concern is whatever marketing strategy you use to connect customers to products through your unique identifying link (affiliate link).
This can be done is several ways such as blogging, video, using paid advertising platforms or social media. See also affiliate marketing promotion methods.
Best Affiliate Businesses To Choose
There’s huge choice in affiliate marketing products and services. The success you have is dependent on a number of factors including your promotion methods and the products/services you choose to promote. Some of the best products to promote are business tools and services which help affiliates themselves.
For example, Aweber is a business tool used by affiliates to build email lists. From their lists they can promote their products. An email autoresponder is one of the best tools you can invest in when building an online business.
Therefore it makes sense to promote it because it’s highly sought after and highly valuable. Products such as autoresponders also give affiliates a recurring income when they generate a sale because software products charge a recurring fee and many of them pay affiliates recurring commissions.
High Ticket Affiliate Products
High ticket affiliate marketing products are also a good idea if you decide to sell other people’s products online. Most affiliate products you might find on Amazon, for example, are valued at below $100. As such you’ll only earn between 1-10% of that as a referral partner. This means you’ll need to sell a lot of products in order to make your online business profitable.
However, with high ticket products you stand to make a much larger commission on each sale. Take this flying hovercraft for example which sells for $190,000! As an affiliate for this product you could earn 8% of this if you refer a sale! That’s $15,200 in commission for a single sale. While most people can’t afford this kind of purchase, especially during a recession, people do buy such items.
Business training courses, tools and software are good things to sell during a recession because more people are looking for a means to make a living online. This makes an online business one of the best recession proof businesses you can invest in.
Access a free video series to learn more about how to start a recession proof business from scratch.