Are you an e-commerce entrepreneur in the making? Success in business, whether it’s online or offline, comes from modeling. What is modeling, you ask? Well, modeling describes looking at a functioning business or entrepreneur and repeating the same actions they take. By modeling their actions and behaviors, you are likely to position yourself to experience the same level of success.
e-Commerce is a growing business model, and it’s the way that retail is moving all around the world. Global brick-and-mortar sales are slowing as more people turn to online sources to do their shopping. With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, more consumers are making the switch to buying online to mitigate their risk of going out in public.
e-Commerce accounted for more than $3.5-trillion in global sales in 2019, with revenues expected to rise in 2020 significantly.
So, how does an entrepreneur take advantage of e-commerce to start a business and make a profit?
Shopify is an excellent platform to start your e-commerce career. Shopify is the backbone of online business, with more than 800,000 merchants using it to make a living in over 170 countries.
Statistics show that more than a billion people bought from a Shopify store in the last year, with more than $14 billion of sales accrued in Q4 2018, which is an increase of $4.9 billion, year-on-year.
Opening a Shopify store is easy, and it’s no surprise that its such a popular platform for e-commerce. In this article, we’ll look at the ten most successful Shopify stores online and unpack what makes them leaders in their niche.
Freshly Picked
When starting your Shopify store, it’s essential to select a niche you can dominate. Selling products in a niche where you have specialized knowledge you can share with an audience will build your authority on the topic, especially if you provide your visitors with top-quality content.
An example of choosing a niche within a niche and driving it to success is with Freshly Picked. This site sounds more like a fresh food grocer app than a children’s shoe store. However, after browsing around the site, it’s clear that Freshly Picked is a kiddy’s shoe store.
The founder of the site, Susan Petersen, wanted to dispel the myth that parents shouldn’t worry about the quality of their children’s shows. Most parents are under the mistaken impression that kids grow so quickly, buying them shows with specialized soles is a waste of money.
However, Susan Petersen disagrees. Susan states that its critical kids wear shoes with soft soles as they develop. Soft soles help the child learn to balance and control movement. Wearing clunky kiddy’s shoes limits the possible development of the child, and it was Petersen’s goal to change parents’ minds on the topic.
What started as a side project is now a thriving online business with customers from all corners of the globe. Susan’s baby moccasins are a hit with parents and kids. She started the site with money she got from selling scrap aluminum, and a whole lot of hard work.
Today, Freshly Picked is a multi-million-dollar website, and she even got a spot on shark tank, where she got an offer for her business that eventually fell through. However, Freshly Picked is still selling baby moccasins by the boatload, and some of her clients include the likes of celebrities such as Mila Kunis, Jessica Alba, and Kim Kardashian.
Freshly Picked gets a significant portion of its success from intelligent SEO strategies, and plenty of time making the site a valuable resource. The site ranks for over 10,000-keywords, ensuring that it’s a leader in the niche.
Freshly Picked is an example of a niche site that’s a success. It proves that you can take any product, even moccasins for babies, and turn it into a success with the right strategy and hard work.
Death Wish Coffee
This brand is an example of how to take a highly competitive market and create a niche that lets you stand out from the crowd. Death Wish Coffee market its product as the strongest coffee on the planet. The design of the site is big, bold, and clean – much like the claims on the coffee.
The simplistic look and feel of the site amplify the bold character of the brand, giving authenticity to its claims. We enjoyed the big, bold red text that warns the prospect about the addictive nature of the coffee. This marketing tactic subconsciously screams at you to try the product.
This site also gets a gold star for the way it places the call-to-action right in front of you from the minute you land on the site. Most people who visit the website are there to buy coffee, not play around with any accessories, or read blogs on their favorite espresso varieties.
Death Wish does it right, and they set themselves apart from the competition in a very noisy marketplace.
Miracle
If you’re looking for the best in hypo-allergenic linen, then the Miracle range of pillowcases, bedsheets, and towels is a standout and a great example of a clean Shopify experience.
Miracle uses antimicrobial silver infusions in all its linens and bathroom materials. This form of protective silver fights off bugs in the home. Viruses, bacteria, and fungi stand no chance of spreading on your sheets.
The antimicrobial point is an example of a selling edge to have in the current environmental and health conditions facing the world in 2020. Miracle is also another example of a clean and effective Shopify store design.
The minimalistic experience on offer doesn’t confuse the shopper with necessary pages or content they don’t need. The soft blue and white tones throughout the theme provide a clean but comfortable feel to the site that makes you think about the sleep experience.
The site also remains remarkably functional despite its user-friendly appearance. Next to the brand’s tagline, you’ll notice the “Shop Now” button, and three tabs at the top of the page, leading you to each of the three product offerings.
When you scroll down, you come across “Shop Now” buttons. You’ll also find a showcase of product benefits, and a 100% satisfaction guarantee, with the promise of a refund.
We also like the way the CTAs take the prospect to a specific buying page designed for the selected product. You also can look at other related customer reviews of the product you’re interested in purchasing.
When you’re shopping, the site will launch a pop-up prompting you for your email address. It’s an excellent strategy for improving conversion. The site provides you with an immediate 10% discount if you hand over your information.
If you abandon your cart, the system sends you another pop-up reminding of the companies free return policy and offers you a 15$ discount on your order. Once they have you in their mailing list, expect them to communicate frequently.
YouFoodz
This Shopify store is fast becoming one of our favorites. In todays health climate, no-one wants to go to the grocery store if you don’t have to. Instead of spending hours in lines at the store, and on trains to the supermarket, click on YouFoodz.
The online food industry is a booming $3.5-billion marketplace, and with the onset of COVID-19, you can bet that that figure will grow by a significant amount in 2020 and beyond. YouFoodz in a Brisbane-based food delivery company that caters to locations all around Australia.
Head Chef Christian Andrew saw growth rates of nearly 4,000% in 2018/2019, and they expect to double that in 2020. The company claims it receives more than 200,000-unique monthly visitors, making it the most prominent online food delivery service in Australia.
YouFoodz claims its secret to its success comes from the robust referral program that brings it a steady stream of new customers from across Australia. Almost 10% of its monthly business comes from referrals, with that number growing more by the day in 2020.
The Great Cookie
This Shopify store is an example of how you truly can make it selling anything you love online. Created by chefs with love for sweet confectionaries, The Great Cookie is a cookie-lovers paradise, with images of delicious treat strewn all over the site.
The site is colorful and piques your interest immediately. The theme of the site exemplifies the products, with a cartoonish, child-like fun to it that makes the experience of ordering a pleasure. The simplistic design of the site is another similarity to the others on this list, with only two tabs available on the home page.
You have the option of choosing “Category” or “Occasion.” Selecting the category option allows you to meander through the delicacies on offer, while the occasion tab leads to to a custom ordering process.
Our favorite function of the site was the pop-up that arrives as you land on the occasion tab, giving you the option of ordering a cake. The site’s attention to detail shows an understanding of what customers want, analyzing metrics of orders to learn why people use the site.
Ventana Surfboard Supplies
The surf industry is a niche market dominated by large surf brands like Billabong and Quiksilver. However, amidst all the competition from multi-billion-dollar corporates, Ventana Surfboard Supplies manages to thrive. Ventana Supplies knows its target market, and exclusively markets its offerings towards surfers.
Brown is the leading color on display here, emulating the brown water of the sandbar breaks along the Californian coastline, from Trestles to Steamer Lane. Ventana Supplies offers custom-built surfboards, made from reclaimed wood.
This design is organic and eco-friendly, compared to the toxic EPS and PU surfboards made by other manufacturers. The image carousel on the home page takes you through the manufacturing stages of a surfboard, giving you an insight into a story of the creation of each board.
The whole experience seems authentic and high-quality.
Gymshark
Created by Instagram influencers that wanted to dominate the fitness industry, Gymshark is one of the leading fitness apparel brands in the world. Focusing on girls and guys with unbelievable bodies, Gymshark is an excellent example of a Shopify store driven by influencer marketing and sponsorship branding.
Gymshark works with top influencers on Instagram, sponsoring them in return for them using the brand in their social videos. It’s a fantastic marketing strategy for building awareness of a brand quickly. The fitness world is competitive, and sponsorships are only for the elite fitness models in the industry.
By associating the Gymshark brand as a premium sponsor, the company gained a foothold in a very competitive marketplace – Not bad for a group of teenagers. The brand is another example of taking your passion and marketing it into a brand or product that people find useful in their lives.
Everyone wants to be fit, and everyone wants to model fit people. By harnessing social media and using it to drive traffic to the Shopify store, Gymshark built a goldmine that keeps getting bigger every year.
The home page only features 3-drop down menus, with options for gender preferences. The CTA “Explore” button on the page stands out, attracting your attention if you’re a first-time visitor to the site. We like the way the site integrates its Instagram feed at the foot of the page, allowing you to shop the styles in the post.
The entire feel of the site pushes the prospect into a sales funnel from the moment they arrive on the home page. We like the organic movement through the website, and it’s easy to see why it’s such a successful brand.
Carbon Beauty
This Shopify store is an excellent example of a brand that built its reputation in a very competitive space. Cosmetics and beauty products are a hot ticket item, and creating a site in this niche to the level of Carbon Beauty takes some serious hard work.
Carbon Beauty sells specialist fragrances, shampoos, and makeup targeted at a youthful audience. The name “Carbon” Beauty gives a futuristic feel to the brand, and it’s not surprising to see this site gets over 50,000 unique visitors every month.
The playful and colorful design of the site offers a user-friendly navigation experience, with all the products easily accessed from the tabs on the home page. Carbon Beauty is another example of a clean and simple website that’s highly functional.
Carbon Beauty provides an interactive user experience, loaded with plenty of animations and diverse user experience.
Kylie Cosmetics
Kylie Cosmetics is the baby of Kylie Jenner, and it’s in the top 500 Shopify stores globally. Kylie is one of the original Instagram influencers, and she successfully drew on her fame to build a cosmetics empire – good for her.
The soft pink color in the background sets the feminine tone as soon as you land on the home page. The site embodies Kylie’s claim to fame, which is her lips. There’s plenty of glam shots of her wearing her signature lipstick.
The site offers a clean user experience, with dedicated buttons and easy navigation. Kylie understands what her fans want – because they all want to be her. This understanding gives her an edge to create a site that resonates with her audience. Go with what you know and what you’re passionate about, and the internet is your oyster.
Karina Elle
This Instagram influencer has more than a million followers, and like Kylie, she’s an excellent example of a beauty that knows how to monetize her fame. Karina used her brand to launch one of the most successful stores on Shopify. Titled after her name, Karina Elle has a clean design on the site, with a natural feel and look.
The visitor gets a quick look at Karina in a pose as they land on the home page, with the background video making the imagery and text pop.
Karina is another example of how influencers can sell anything online, and all they need is a simple Shopify storefront. It’s encouraging to know that you can model this success using the same tools they use to build their brand.
Is Your Shopify Store the Next Huge Success?
The best part about building your online store using Shopify is that it’s a proven platform for success. There are thousands of examples of people that make a good living from a Shopify store. You don’t need to be a big brand or a celebrity to make it work; all you need is plenty of dedication to achieving your goals, and a strategy.
Combine those factors with plenty of hard work, and you’ll eventually turn the corner with a profitable and popular e-commerce store. With the way the world is moving online, setting up an e-commerce store is an affordable way to create a business and offers you low barriers to entry.
Take massive action on your dreams of success, because no one is going to push you towards success. However, by modeling the examples in this article, you position yourself to emulate the same results.
Inspired? Get started with Shopify with a 90-day free trial.
