I do a lot a lot of jerky and dry rub sales online which, I will post a Facebook and online store link in the end of the post. I've been selling to friends and family for about 6 months and when other veterans in various states started asking how to purchase, I decided to get serious, register an LLC, purchase 2 more smokers and start buckling down and getting serious. My online sales have been going for a week and so far so good. I've been having to smoke at least 9 lbs a day to keep up with orders. I started years ago at a friends BBQ restraint here on the NJ coast at a resort town and because I can't work due to my combat injury my only option is to be self employed. NJ before that I've worked in kitchens on and off my entire life and always enjoyed it for the most part, but BBQ is a whole other animal. People are amazed when they really see what goes into smoking jerky. I've found ways to cut down on my marinading time and the key to making any money at all is buying things wholesale as I stated before. A store may sell a 3 lb eye of round for 18 dollars, where I'm getting a 9 lb cut for 30. It's a fine balance between producing the best quality you can without going overboard and going in the hole. At the moment, I have two flavors of jerky out called Bee Sting which is a sweet taste of honey followed by a nice amount of heat using home made hot sauce that I call white lightning. The other is teriyaki. I will have 3 main flavors with some other batches thrown into the mix every month but I'm not going to overstretch myself by offering too many choices at once. The local sales which aren't too intensive, consist of small order for people are the dry rubs, pulled pork, brisket and my signature item, which is pig candy. My rub is a blend of salty, spicy sweet with brown sugar, coffee grounds and a few other items. It's rubbed onto thick cut bacon that I smoke then slice myself, baked at 325 while rotating the racks for about 20 mins. The end result is a caramelized, sticky sweet and salty piece of bacon that people go absolutely insane for. I have one person who wants to buy 5 lbs at a time. Shipping isn't an option with the pig candy, but everyone online is begging for some so I decided to jar and sell my rubs and give them instructions on how to do it at home. Here's a link to the online store. It's not much at the moment, but it's a safe and secure way to sell which is most important for the time being. I use Square for debit and credit orders and they recently came out with the online store version which is free to use.
https://squareup.com/store/pinebarrensbbq