What We Can Learn from The Top 100 Shopify Stores

How many of you have been running their Shopify store for a while now, and have tried many things, but nothing seems to be working?

You’ve tried writing a couple of blog posts to get Shopify traffic and run a few Facebook ads, but they didn’t give you the kind of ROIs usually written up in many articles and success stories.

Have you even wondered whether it’s all a lie?

Has anybody actually succeeded on Shopify? What if it’s a huge dream factory that entices people to jump into it without a real possibility to make big money?

Trust me – I understand where all those doubts are coming from.

The truth is, It’s possible. There are thousands of Shopify stores that have succeeded, generating 6-, 7- or even 8 figures and beyond of revenue on their stores.

Ecommerce success relies on many factors, including hard work, persistency, and differentiation. If you do the same things as everyone else, it’s not a differentiation. Find your market and make your offers irresistible to them by solving their problems in a way that your competitors can’t.

I have selected a few takeaways from successful Shopify store owners that hopefully will inspire you to achieve an ecommerce greatness.

Cathryn and Allen, the owners of BestSelf Co. - a company that sells productivity products – believe that building an email list contributes most to their success.

The main method they used was writing epic content and encouraging people to opt-in to their email list using content upgrades. It worked extremely well.

Editor note: If you’re having trouble building your email list, consider using this tactic (it’s still very powerful today.)

Chris Peters, the founder of Quadlock, tells new store owners to get focused on selling products instead of obsessing over beautiful themes.

Average websites perform well – there’s no need to make it magically beautiful if you can’t afford to. Start with something standard, start selling your product, track everything you do, and optimize from there.

David Wolfe, the person behind the mattress company Leesa, advises new store owners to focus on two things – building a high-quality product and customer experience.

Did it work?

In its first full month, Leesa did $800,000 in sales.

Editor note: Many of the most successful store owners use the whole entourage of tools to collect customers’ data and then analyze it and improve the customer journey. In my opinion, as a marketer and business owner, I think that’s one of the most important ingredients for success.

Let’s break down some of the key areas you want to consider when running your ecommerce:

The most successful Shopify stores sell products falling into the following industries:

• Apparel
• Vape Supplies
• Assorted
• Sunglasses
• Cosmetics
• Electronics
• Jewelry
• Deal site, etc

Most of them use the .com domain

Popular tools you will need to run a successful Shopify store

After you purchase your domain, set up your homepage, product pages, more information pages, check out page, and finally get your store up and running, this is when the real work comes.

I’m talking about the technology stack that needs to be integrated on your site; this includes the help desk feature, live chat, e-mail service provider, call tracking, and (if you’re really a ninja) an exit-intent feature.

Among the most popular tools on Shopify are Google Analytics, Facebook pixel, and Cloudflare. Many of the top 100 stores also use Campaign Monitor, Klaviyo, and Hotjar.

Some other neat tools you may not have heard of:

• MailChimp: A transactional email API
• Yotpo: Reviews and loyalty programs
• JustUno: AI-visitor conversion tool
• Talkable: Referral marketing
• Privy: Conversion optimization tool. If you’ve ever seen “Spin to Win” or other popups, and flyouts, it’s Privy.

Here are a few of the most successful companies you can explore for yourself:

• Gfuel: An energy drink labelled as the “official drink of eSports”. Est. revenue $10-50m.
• Cymatics: Music production presets and tools. Est. revenue $1-10m.
• Huel: An eco-conscious meal substitute. Est. revenue $1-10m.
• Zinus: Mattresses and bedframes. Est. revenue $10-50m.
• Vital Proteins: Collagen bars. Est revenue $50-$100m.
• Buffy: DTC sheets. Est. revenue $10-$50m.
• Figs: Medical apparel, rethinking scrubs. Est. revenue $10-50m.
• Lovepop: Pop-up cards. Est. revenue $10-50m.

Success can come to anyone on Shopify. All successful Shopify store owners are just like you, people who had a dream and decided to chase for it.

The only difference is that they worked super hard to make it work.

And hopefully, after reading this article, you will get inspired to make your Shopify store work and succeed.