If you’ve been considering starting an ecommerce business, you’ve likely come across Shopify at some point during your research. Shopify is one of the most popular website building platforms for ecommerce sites.
There are many ways to make money with Shopify. You can import products, use the dropshipping model, or even sell digital products like ebooks.
This article will highlight some Shopify success stories to motivate and inspire you. I will be showing you examples of entrepreneurs and brand owners who have managed to make a killing with Shopify – just to show you that success with Shopify is possible and within reach.
The short version: Some of the most successful Shopify entrepreneurs include The Ecom King and Marc Chapon. However, there are many others from all walks of life whose stories are highlighted in this article.
Read on for the full scoops.
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9 Shopify Success Stories to Inspire You
1. The Ecom King
Kamil Sattar, also known as The Ecom King, is a great example of a Shopify dropshipping success story.
Dropshipping is a type of ecommerce model that doesn’t require you to purchase inventory upfront. Instead, you sell the products on your site, and when an order comes in, you simply forward the order to the manufacturer, who then ships the product to the customer directly.
Kamil got started with dropshipping back in 2017, but he wasn’t successful at first. Behind every successful entrepreneur lies months or years of frustration, losing money, and pain, but if you can get through that part, you can succeed, just like Kamil did.
During the initial stages, Kamil lost a few thousand dollars. He didn’t know how to run ads successfully and was wasting money on them; he also spread himself out too thin by trying to sell too many products.
He didn’t come from riches, either. He was born into an immigrant family – his parents came from Pakistan, and money was never in abundance.
The Ecom King now has multiple streams of income – as should everyone – but his main source of income is still from dropshipping on Shopify.
He currently brings in around $245,000 in revenue every single month from his businesses, the main one being Shopify dropshipping. That is over $8,000 a day!
In profit, he brings in around $38,000 a month, which means he earns a nice six-figure income per year from dropshipping.
In fact, he was so successful that he was featured by Shopify itself. In the feature article, he gives the following tips on how to be successful with dropshipping:
- Understand that you only need $300-500 to start. You can try to go viral on TikTok, featuring your products there.
- Avoid copyrighted products, such as anything that has a copyrighted logo.
- Find a good supplier. Go beyond AliExpress and look on sites like USA Drop and Sprocket.
- Decide whether you want an evergreen niche store or a seasonal store, such as a site selling Christmas trees, which could make a killing in the months leading up to Christmas but not at other times of the year.
- Diversify your Shopify income with print on demand.
Kamil started in 2017, but he says that it’s not too late to start. In fact, people are always saying it’s too late to get started with Shopify dropshipping – they will be saying the same thing in five years from now, too, he claims.
He was pretty young when he started – just around 18 years old. That just comes to show that you are not too young or inexperienced to make it big on Shopify!
2. Nehorai Klein
You don’t even need to be of legal age to earn a nice income from Shopify dropshipping. Just look at Nehorai Klein, who started his business at 12 years of age!
At 14, he was earning a good income.
How did he do it?
He started by selling products to his classmates. His parents allowed him to get a credit card in exchange for the money he made from selling those products – it showed them that he had an entrepreneurial mindset and could be financially responsible.
He then used the credit card to start dropshipping print toner on eBay. However, after selling around 1,500 units, he decided to shift to Shopify and build his own site, because eBay was imposing too many restrictions on his business.
He now sells home decor, wallpaper, and other kinds of products for his “dream home” business on Shopify.
If a teenager who is just 14 years old can have a successful Shopify business, so can you. The only thing holding you back is your mind!
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3. Angelus Direct
Angelus Direct is a good example of how an established offline business can achieve success on Shopify as well. You don’t have to be a young entrepreneur doing dropshipping or print on demand to use Shopify.
Angelus Shoe Polish is a family-owned business selling shoe polish for over 100 years. The grandson of the family, who was more tech-savvy, came up with the idea of expanding the business to the online sphere.
He told Shopify that he started with Google Ads, Shopify, and social media, and he is now raking in over 10,000 orders a month for his business, using the foundation his family business provided him. The offline orders are still coming in on top of those 10,000 monthly online orders, so the family business is doing pretty well.
Actually, he started with another platform, not Shopify. However, the website looked pretty bad and orders were just not coming in.
It was only after he switched to Shopify that things started picking up. He helped drive traffic by sponsoring influencers on Instagram, creating YouTube videos, and using Google Ads with the help of a Google Ads expert.
He now has over 400,000 followers on Instagram (@AngelusDirect) and more followers on other social media platforms. His recommendation to other entrepreneurs interested in getting started with ecommerce is to get started with social media right away, so you have time to build up a following.
He also says that you must have patience and not overload yourself by taking on too much at once. The site now basically runs itself, in his words, but it did take a lot of hard work and dedication to get there.
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4. Distil Union
One possible business model is to launch your own products on Shopify. One advantage of this method compared to dropshipping is that you have more control over the products, shipping, and design.
You also have a greater chance of standing out, and there is more scalability.
Distil Union was founded by Lindsay Windham and Nate Justiss, a couple who were designers for large corporations. However, they wanted to design and launch their own products, and that is exactly what they did in 2011-2012 with their new store.
They launch new products on Kickstarter and collect preorders on Shopify so that as soon as the products launch, they can send it out to customers who have preordered them.
One thing they love about Shopify is that it is easy to find apps in the Shopify App Store that help them offer better customer service and drive more sales.
5. The Calgary Public Library
Just in case you thought that nonprofits couldn’t successfully use Shopify, here is a success story from The Calgary Public Library.
It got into Shopify while looking for a way to process donations using more advanced technology. It was able to customize its Shopify pages to process its donations instead of selling actual products.
As the website advanced, it started selling books that were popular with the community.
The Calgary Public Library Shopify store now sells all sorts of products, including mugs, clothing, hair pins, and gift cards. You can also donate.
It tries to support vendors from Calgary and support the local community.
Either way, when you buy a product in the store, you will support the library, its programs, and the community.
It started by setting up links from its main site to Shopify and also directing people from print materials to its Shopify store. It also received a grant from Google Ads and used ads on Google to direct people to the Shopify store.
The library recommends using Shopify Gurus. As a nonprofit, it didn’t have access to expensive programmers.
It also uses a variety of apps and add-ons available from Shopify. Finally, it stresses that the majority of purchases on its Shopify store are actually donations, so you don’t even need to sell products to achieve success with Shopify.
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6. Rafael Cintron
Rafael Cintron is a young entrepreneur from Puerto Rico. By the time he was just 22 years old, he had built a seven figure internet business using the dropshipping model.
His journey started when he was hired as a freelancer to work on someone else’s Shopify store. During that time, he learned a lot about ecommerce in general and Shopify and dropshipping in particular, and he realized he could set up his own store and achieve success.
One of his tips is to work with private suppliers, at least when you get big enough to do so. Otherwise, you might end up dealing with suppliers who are not reliable or who don’t stick around, which means you might have to end up canceling orders or have a popular product out of stock.
7. Fraternal Ties
Fraternal Ties is a good example of a site that was launched “by mistake” and which is now doing extremely well.
The site sells neckties and other merchandise that contain the emblems and logos of masonic, cryptic, and other exclusive organizations and fraternities.
According to founder John Paul Gomez, who posted a comment on Reddit in a thread that asked people for their Shopify success stories, he never planned this business. It came about when he ordered a custom necktie but received two.
He auctioned off the extra one on eBay and used the proceeds from the auction to create even more neckties.
The auction had a $0.99 starting price but ended up selling for $100. The founder moved the business to WordPress and eventually Shopify.
Now, the business has a regular customer who regularly makes a $10,000 order. According to the founder, it doesn’t even have a standard business plan – he’s just having fun and dabbling in products he likes, but he is seeing success.
What are the takeaways from this success story?
The first lesson is that you don’t need a lot of money to start.
The more important lesson, however, is to find your niche and do something that you love. Find products that you enjoy selling – a niche you are interested in – and you will be more likely to see success.
Fraternal Ties is a very niche site, selling neckties that only people belonging to certain fringe organizations would be interested in. That’s how it can sell those products at top prices.
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8. Irwin Dominguez
Irwin Dominguez is an entrepreneur from San Diego who took his Shopify business from $0 to $1 million in just eight months.
He says that he got started after he saw the success his friend had achieved with ecommerce. He didn’t even do much research or have a plan.
He just started a Shopify store, added a few dropshipping products, and that was it. That is how he started, and he eventually became successful.
Of course, in the process of learning by doing, he must have come across various obstacles, but it’s all a journey and a learning process.
Irwin used to be a local consultant who helped plastic surgeons and landscapers find new clients, but his new Shopify business allows him to travel while earning money, something that he loves doing. He is living his life!
He got his first order just three days after launching his site, but he wasn’t actually too excited by that first sale, because he had spent a lot of money on Facebook Ads. Nowadays, he still uses Facebook Ads to drive most of his traffic.
As of now, he currently averages around $10,000 in revenue per day, but his record was around $30,000 in revenue on a single day.
He warns, though, that you should expect highs and lows. In every business, there will be slow times and good times, but you shouldn’t allow the slow times to get to you.
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9. Marc Chapon
Marc Chapon made $178,492 in just three months by dropshipping US and EU products. Marc had studied restaurant and hotel management, a course that gave him some foundational knowledge in marketing and business.
However, he decided to use that marketing knowledge to dabble in ecommerce instead of working in hospitality management, and he started making $60,000 a month in just under a year. His record was making $10,000 in just one day!
He says that when he started, he learned a lot from the internet. While there were many scams and get rich quick schemes, there was also a lot of quality information out there for free.
One interesting thing that he said was that you can’t believe all the rich quick gurus who say that you don’t need any investment at all to make it big. While it’s technically possible, you should be rational – you can’t expect to make money without investing something.
Nevertheless, he says, you only need around $1,000 to start a successful ecommerce business. If you have more, that’s better, but a thousand bucks should be enough for the basics, in his opinion.
In fact, while he himself set aside $5,000 for investing in his business, he only really needed the first $1,000 to break even. And, once you break even, you can start investing the new revenue you earn into your business.
Marc says that there is no good or bad niche. The niche you should choose should be one that you are passionate about.
Like I already wrote before, sell things that you love, and you will have a greater chance of success. If you work in a niche you have no interest in at all, it will be hard to find the motivation to really spend the time and money you need to make your new business a success.
Besides, when you choose a niche you are passionate about, you will have a head start compared to other people in that niche who don’t know much about the product. You have knowledge about it, know what people want, and can help people get what they are looking for.
However, he also says that the niche he chose (dog food products) was trending. If you choose a niche you are passionate about but which is not trending, it will be harder to make sales.
Not only that, but it shouldn’t be a passing trend. I think a good example of a passing fad would be fidget spinners; another would be hand sanitizer.
Both are still purchased, but not quite as much as they were in the prime of the hype around them.
Marc has been so successful that he decided to launch a course on Spocket Academy to teach others how to achieve success with dropshipping as well.
Wrapping It Up
Hopefully, these success stories have given you enough inspiration and shown you that anyone can achieve success with Shopify, regardless of the business model you plan on using.
It’s important to realize that the definition of success can vary. For you, it might be an extra $1,000 a month to help you pay your bills or put yourself through school.
Therefore, set a goal for yourself and try to reach it. Make a business plan, identify a niche, and get started – you will learn and improve in the process, so you don’t have to have the perfect plan to start.
