10 Brilliant Shopify Success Stories [+Tips for Entrepreneurs]

“Are there any Shopify success stories?”

“Can you really make money with a Shopify store?”

Many entrepreneurs ask these questions. It’s okay to be skeptical: ecommerce is hard, and most online stores fail.

But here’s the truth:

Many people have succeeded on Shopify. Their stores are generating tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenues every month.

And there’s a lot we can learn from these Shopify success stories. So get comfy, we’re about to share with you lots of valuable insights and practical tips.

In this post, we’ll cover:

• Facts about Shopify stores

• Shopify success stories

• Takeaways for entrepreneurs

Shopify Success: Facts

Have you come across Shopify success stories claiming to make millions in a couple of months? Many are legit, but they often create the impression that making millions is a piece of cake.

While you might be lucky and strike gold quickly (and hopefuly you will!), let’s be real: many people still fail, even despite a lot of effort.

Let’s do a quick reality check:

• Success rate of Shopify stores is about 15%

• Average ecommerce success rate: less than 20%

• Average revenue per customer for Shopify is $92

• Average conversion rate for Shopify is 1.4% (20% of stores have a 3.2% rate or more)

• Most Shopify stores fail due to a lack of effective conversion tactics

[Sources: Shopify, Deloitte, and Littledata studies on Shopify conversion, and revenue]

These numbers tell us this:

Many Shopify shops fail, often due to a lack of targeted strategy and planning.

But…

The revenue is there for the ones willing to put in hard work.

Like Ben Francis, the owner of Gymshark, who has build one of the most prominent Shopify success stories and now shares advice with entrepreneurs:

And here are more mini case studies of Shopify success stories from small and mid-sized businesses:

Shopify Success Stories

• Asphalte: €25 million/year

• Partake Foods: <$5 Million/year

• Chubbies: $45 million/year

• Holo Taco: <$5 Million/year

• Maison Balzac: <$5 Million/year

• Allbirds: $305 million/year

• Madsen Cycles: $5 million/year

• Beardbrand: $7 million/year

• WP Standard: $5 million/year

• Blume: <$5 Million/year

1. Asphalte (€25 million/year)

Brand Story

When Asphalte was founded in 2016, the brand chose an unusual business model: pre-order. Asphalte’s team decided to make clothes solely based on the preferences of customers, without charging them upfront.

Recipe for Success 🏆

Excellent product quality and a customer-centric culture centered around the pre-order model.

The brand’s products are long-lasting, which improves customer satisfaction and reduces environmental impact. To ensure the highest quality, Asphalte collaborates with the best manufacturers and cuts out the middlemen.

Also, Asphalte relies on customer feedback to create products. So, people become collaborators and contribute to creating high-quality clothing they actually want to buy. Website surveys ensure that the flow of feedback stays consistent.

Takeaway

Use customer feedback to create or change your products or services. Asphalte’s founders focused on getting people products they wanted instead of chasing the highest margins.

As for the Shopify contribution, it allowed Asphalte to create a good-looking website with a visitor survey section powered by Typeform. To drive visitors to the surveys, the brand uses gorgeous popup designs on the homepage and product pages.

2. Partake Foods (<$5 Million/year)

Brand Story

Denise Woodard had a hard time finding healthy snacks for her daughter who was diagnosed with severe food allergies. Frustrated by the lack of options, she decided to start her own packaged goods company, but was rejected by 86 investors (!)

After finally securing the investment and building a Shopify store, Woodard saw her business take off. Her website has a range of delicious snacks, which she made herself along with a product developer. The performance: $4M+ in revenues (10-fold revenue increase in 2020 alone).

Recipe for Success 🏆

Woodard advises focusing on two things: 1) building a quality product and 2) creating and nurturing an email list.

After Woodard created a range of allergen-free cookies, she focused on marketing her Shopify store online with Google ads, social media ads, and email.

In a recent interview with Shopify, Woodard mentioned that she underestimated email as a channel for business growth. Building and nurturing an email list is key to continuous growth, said Woodard, as it helped educate customers and to keep in touch with them.

Takeaway

Have a plan to build and nurture your email list. Online advertising is good for product and brand awareness, but onsite email capture tools are a must to collect emails from website visitors. Email popups are excellent tools, especially when they contain discounts.

Here are some top-rated email capture tools if you're interested.

Partake Foods uses website pop up ads, too. To encourage visitors to subscribe, the brand offers 15% off plus useful content. Here’s one campaign they ran:

3. Chubbies ($45 million/year)

Brand Story

Chubbies is a premium apparel brand founded with a simple goal: spread the love for men’s retro shorts. The founders of Chubbies associate them with the traditional lazy weekends of their youth, which inspired them to “sell this lifestyle.”

Before starting a Shopify store, Chubbies created a brand communication strategy focused on a fun, laid-back and informal style. The strategy struck a chord with target customers, as Chubbies collected 1.5 million emails, 1.6+ million Facebook likes, and a 50% YoY growth.

Recipe for Success 🏆

Active social media marketing, constant engagement with fans, and an awesome brand voice make Chubbies a Shopify success story.

The brand uses quirky social media campaigns that also promote user-generated content. Their campaigns target male college students who like a laid back lifestyle, and actively engage with their posts.

The positive, playful, and youthful brand image is also brilliantly reflected through the website. Eventually, the brand started calling their followers Chubsters and Chubster Nation, which promotes a fun sense of community.

Takeaway

Build communities around your brand with creative social media marketing. Chubbies created campaigns featuring pop culture references, influencers, and contests, and were able to get 1.6M Facebook followers, 576K Instagram followers, and 94K Twitter followers.

Combined with excellent customer service, Chubbies has created a truly loyal following and sense of community. This strategy is crucial, as loyal customers are likely to recommend brands to others (68%) and spend more (57%).

4. Holo Taco (<$5 Million/year)

Brand Story

Holo Taco is a two-year-old nail polish brand. Started by a YouTuber Cristine Rotenberg (aka Simply Nailogical), it was inspired by her love for holographic nail polish. That’s why most Holo Taco products are colorful holographic polishes.

Rotenberg used her YouTube channel to spread brand awareness, so the launch was an anticipated event. She sold out the first collection (and many subsequent ones) within an hour, scoring high reviews for each product.

Recipe for Success 🏆

Commitment to brand values and strong brand identity.

Being a known YouTuber, Rotenberg was offered partnerships by big nail polish companies, which, according to her, prioritized profits over quality. So, she refused and took her time developing Holo Taco and launching the store.

The results were vegan, cruelty-free, produced in the US, and affordable (priced at $13) products – just what Rotenberg promised her followers. They in turn appreciated the strong commitment and responded with unbelievable social media engagement.

Shopify’s role in this success story is also prominent. The platform allowed Rotenberg to realize her vision of a vibrant, sleek, playful and colorful online store (see the screenshot below).

Takeaway

Focus on quality instead of quantity. Although Rotenberg could have had the financial backing of large companies, she turned them down because it would have interfered with her brand vision and values.

Staying true to what she promised her YouTube followers was the right choice. Now, despite being so young, Holo Taco is already a big ecommerce success story.

Now, Rotenberg's products are mentioned in prominent media outlets, including Today and Vogue.

5. Maison Balzac (<$5 Million/year)

Brand Story

Maison Balzac started out with five scented candles. The small range didn’t bother Elise Pioch, who wanted to explore product designs after working in fashion for 12 years. Run as a one-woman operation, the brand gradually expanded to homeware products, which are made in collaboration with craftspeople.

Now, Maison Balzac is a team of five. Pioch stays true to her original vision: products are created together with creatives from all over the world. The company continues its steady growth in the luxury homeware niche, selling candles, perfumes, and furniture.

Recipe for Success 🏆

Do something you love. Pioch left her job to explore product design, which was something she truly loved. This interest allowed her to be extremely personal with her products and always get inspiration for work.

Pioch approaches business growth the same way. In The Grace Tales interview, she said she follows her instinct and demand from customers. Taking big jumps or investments isn’t her priority, because it would impact her human, genuine approach to growth.

Takeaway

Be personal with your customers. Pioch says that being personal with her products, website, and social media helped her attract like-minded people. Those individuals were truly interested in her brand, so they supported her business.

6. Allbirds ($305 million/year)

Brand Story

Allbirds began with one purpose: create a running shoe that’s both comfortable and has a small carbon footprint. To achieve this goal, the company uses planet-friendly materials such as eucalyptus tree fibers and merino wool.

Now, Allbirds is a $1.4 billion sneaker company while only selling about half a dozen of products. Despite the limited range, the brand’s products are super popular, especially among environmentally conscious customers.

Recipe for Success 🏆

Strong brand differentiation and direct-to-consumer business model.

The founders of Allbirds studied the market and understood how to differentiate their new brand. From the very early days as a crowdfunded project, the startup prioritized sustainability as the main difference from the rest of the market players.

The direct-to-consumer model allowed the business to control manufacturing and reduce prices by avoiding middlemen. Also, it enabled Allbirds to move faster and have a closer relationship with customers.

Takeaway

Allbirds used sustainability to differentiate itself in a highly competitive and crowded market. This strategy helped the brand to appeal to an emerging group of customers who were environmentally conscious.

Indeed, sustainability has reached a tipping point: 80% of shoppers value environmental responsibility and sustainability. Over 70% also claim to be willing to pay extra for environmentally responsible brands.

7. Madsen Cycles ($5 million/year)

Brand Story

After visiting relatives in Denmark, Jared Madsen was impressed by the country’s bike culture. He decided to design a bike to make cycling more accessible for families in the US, too. That’s how the “Bucket Bike” was born in 2008.

Fast forward to 2024, Madsen Cycles is a top US cargo bike manufacturer with a Shopify store. Thousands of families now enjoy delightful experiences with Bucket Bikes, thanks to their practical design.

Recipe for Success 🏆

Having a unique product, the brand prioritized social media marketing as a way to grow. Besides creating quality, engaging content, Madsen Cycles also promoted customer-generated content to increase credibility.

Now, the brand uses the Instafeed app to showcase social media content on the Shopify store. Visitors can see the latest user-generated content, which creates greater trust between them and the brand.

Takeaway

Promote user-generated content in your social media marketing. Over 90% of marketers say that customers trust this content more than brand-generated content.

Madsen Cycle’s social media profiles are an excellent example of this strategy. More than one-third of content published on the brand’s Instagram page is user-generated.

Here’s one as an example—look at those comments!

8. Beardbrand ($7 million/year)

Brand Story

What to do when your employer prohibits you from growing a beard? Well, Eric Bandholz decided to quit. After giving up his job as a financial advisor, he started creating articles and videos about beard care, with a plan to start a business.

After visiting beard and mustache championships, Bandholz realized there was an underserved group of customers who didn’t have any care products available. Fast forward to today, Beardbrand is a Shopify success story with $7M annual revenue.

Recipe for Success 🏆

Bandholz saw an opportunity for business after spending time engaging with the target audience. He knew they needed proper tools to care for their beards and end the negative stereotypes about beardsmen being lazy or unkempt.

Since he had no money for large-scale production at the beginning, Bandholz started creating Shopify blogs and videos himself. Later, he even created a Beardsman Quiz to help men choose care products for their type of beard.

Takeaway

Don’t just assume something about your target customers, ask them with a quiz. Bandholz did an amazing job visiting beard and mustache championships and learning more about his target group. The visits helped him discover a need for specific products that no brand fulfilled.

A genuine desire to help men take better care of their beards helped Beardbrand become a go-to source of information for the “bearded” community (direct is the main traffic source for top Shopify stores).

You can do the same: learn about your target market, survey them with quizzes, and recommend products that fit their needs. Check out Beardbrand’s blog for great content examples, too.

9. WP Standard ($5 million/year)

Brand Story

This Shopify success story started in 2009 when Ryan Barr founded WP Standard. Despite having just a few hundred dollars in his pocket, he wanted to sell leather guitar cases. As a guitar player himself, he knew many others would appreciate this product, too.

Fast forward to 2024, WP Standard is a seven-figure ecommerce business selling backpacks, totes, wallets, and accessories. The brand’s products are also available in popular clothing apps and retail stores.

Recipe for Success 🏆

Burr’s advice for fellow business owners is to use lead generation tools to build a successful Shopify store. He himself uses Klaviyo and lead capture popups to build an email list.

Takeaway

Find a small profitable niche for your Shopify business. Burr found one because he played guitar, so tap into your hobbies and interests, too. Your unique knowledge of those hobbies might give you ideas to find a profitable niche.

Similar to other Shopify success stories, WP Standard grows because of effective email list building strategies. Indeed, building one as soon as possible is a must, so use email capture tools as soon as you have your store up and running.

10. Blume (<$5 Million/year)

Brand Story

Blume sells skin, body, and period care products made from renewable sources. It was started in 2018 by two sisters, Taran and Bunny Ghatrora, who sought to provide girls with access to quality care and education about their bodies.

The sisters originally called their brand Ellebox, and they sold third-party products. But then they decided to rebrand and focus on specific products and reach Gen Z customers. The business model changed, too, as the founders chose to make their own products.

Recipe for Success 🏆

The brand’s founders discovered that Gen Z customers (aged 16 to 27 in 2024) wanted to switch to cruelty-free, clean, and vegan wellness and beauty products.

According to Taran, Blume switched to Shopify to get access to great analytics tools and increase customer engagement and lifetime value. She recommends a loyalty program, a social proof, a referral program, and a customer review app for all Shopify store owners.

Takeaway

Focus on solving the problems of your target customers. Blume began as a subscription service that served various customer groups, but then focused on Gen Z customers: they switched to vegan, eco-friendly skincare, and went on a mission to de-stigmatize female health topics.

Learn more: How Blume engages website visitors

Shopify Success Stories: Final Thoughts

Can you be successful on Shopify?

Yes.

After all, Shopify success stories are everywhere.

Besides showing that Shopify is worth it, the stories tell us another thing: There’s a lot more to becoming a successful Shopify store than just building a site.

These Shopify success stories point out several success predictors:

• Building and nurturing an email list

• Using conversion and growth tools

• Staying true to brand values and mission

• Putting customer experience above everything

• Having a strong presence on social media platforms

Let me give you a recommendation –

Try our onsite marketing platform Wisepops and take care of the first two success predictors right away. We helped many Shopify stores (including Asphalte, Blume, and Maison Balzac) achieve marketing and sales goals, and we’d love for you to join them.

Here’s to you becoming a Shopify success story!