Spend money to make money.
It would be interesting to see the total amounts of how much these millions of influencers spend trying to be influencers, including all the products they buy through their own links in a "get high off your own supply" scenario. I suspect that for the majority of the influencers, they aren't going to come close to breaking even with their earnings. With a couple hundred million people trying to be influencers, and only about 10% of them earning over 500 dollars a year, the rest are just a mass of consumers, right?.
You have to spend money to make money." is the most accurate phrase I have ever heard. I use to try and do things for the least amount of money and for some people that may be Okay.. but in reality it's incredibly hard and could ruin your chances at success. Here are a few things I think you should not bootstrap or try and buy for pennies.
Your web development. Please do not spend low amounts of money on this unless you can develop yourself at an intermediate level. You can shop around for a good bargain but don't look for dollars on the penny. A website is crucial to your business and in most cases your website is your business in terms of ecommerce stores. A website isn't just a visual thing there is also background technical aspects that come into play that can ruin your business and is the reason why you should put the money forward for a good developer(s).Hosting. DO NOT! waste money on hosting. You can purchase a baby plan from hostgator or whatever at the beginning but once you see your business gaining traction online (even if it's only been a month) please reinvest some of your hard earned money into upgrading your plan appropriate to your websites growth. The last thing you want is your website crashing at 1000 users with them all browsing your store, at the checkout or good forbid going through the payment process this can kill a business. Think about it, have you ever been at the checkout and the website is slow and you end up thinking "fuck it" and don't end up purchasing what you wanted? I sure have.
Employees. If you have employees. Hire the right employees for the right amount. We have all seen videos of the UPS people tossing packages out of the trucks, ruining merchandise. This is all due to them not being paid enough for the tiring work they do. Obviously shipping is non your fault, but this example relates to those who have small boutiques or brick and mortar stalls. Don't hire the lazy, apathetic stoner for 9 bucks an hour, instead hire the ambitious, hardworking college student who won except anything lower than 13 bucks and hour.some times you might spend but you wouldn't earn, you just have to be patient.There are plenty more but these are the most important ones.
