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So, you’ve decided to get started in the world of e-commerce and you’re ready to make a name for yourself. There’s just one problem – you don’t know what to sell on Shopify.
Fair enough.
It’s one thing to decide to enter the e-commerce world. But it’s another to choose what to sell once you’re there. If you’re looking for inspiration to sell on Shopify, you have come to the right place!
In this article, we’ll explore some of the most successful Shopify brands and why their products stand out. We’ve also included some key takeaways from each brand that you can apply to your own business. Ready to get inspired? Let’s go!
In short, you can sell almost anything on Shopify. Therefore, deciding what to sell on Shopify largely depends on your particular interests and expertise.
The most popular Shopify industries include fashion, jewelry/accessories, beauty products, toys, books, food and beverage, home care products, and furniture. Many merchants are also using Shopify to sell digital products, subscriptions, and services.
As you can see, Shopify allows you to sell whatever you can imagine. Your imagination is the limit. Thus, deciding what to sell on Shopify depends on the products and services you’re familiar with and how you can manage them.
Generally speaking, you can’t sell illegal, controlled, or prohibited products, including firearms and ammunition, controlled pharmaceutical products, gambling services, fireworks, or anything deemed “risky” (use your imagination there!).
Anyone!
People from all walks of life and corners of the globe sell on Shopify. Some choose to sell on Shopify as a side gig. Others make selling on Shopify a full-time endeavor. Shopify also allows you to sell online as an alternative to your physical point of sales. For instance, physical shops can build a simple site and incorporate Shopify POS to integrate their physical and online stores.
Best of all, you don’t need any e-commerce experience to sell on Shopify. You can get started relatively quickly without any coding or web design experience. Even better, you don’t need a large upfront investment – even those on a shoestring budget can get started selling online with Shopify.
The key question is, what to sell on Shopify?
So, if you’re wondering what to sell on Shopify, there are two ways you can find inspiration.
First, consider your experience and knowledge. You may have experience in dealing with a specific type of product. Thus, you can focus your e-commerce efforts on this kind of product. For example, if you have retail experience with cosmetics, your online store can concentrate on these products.
Second, you can decide what to sell based on what other successful brands are currently doing. In essence, you can figure out what to sell on Shopify by doing some benchmarking. Benchmarking consists of studying current market leaders to distill their best practices. From there, you can build your e-commerce site.
Please bear in mind this isn’t about copying other successful brands and stores, as doing so will probably get you nowhere. The aim is to observe their best practices to give yourself a good head start.
Let’s look at eight successful brands to help you find inspiration in what to sell on Shopify.
ColourPop Cosmetics is a brand focused on delivering innovative cosmetic products to customers of all ages. While the brand’s main focus is a younger demographic, it caters to women everywhere. As a result, it has a broad appeal.
ColourPop leverages free shipping and product bundles to upsell its customers. For instance, ColourPop offers a “Buy 3, Get 1 Free” promotion. This approach helps great products mesh with attractive promotions.
Keys to this brand’s success:
Main lesson:
Using product bundles and free shipping promotions helps upsell customers. Consequently, this approach helps improve revenue and profitability.
Gymshark has become one of the most popular brands in the sports fashion industry. On the whole, Gymshark’s success lies in its attractive products aimed at both men and women.
What’s more, influencers of all types actively promote Gymshark’s products across social media. Nevertheless, there’s more to Gymshark’s success than meets the eye.
Keys to this brand’s success:
Main lesson:
Gymshark’s site uses collections to facilitate searching. The site divides its products into three main groups: men, women, and accessories. However, the site also displays specific collections as you scroll, enticing your customers to browse groups of items instead of individual ones. Plus, free shipping on a minimum $75 purchase helps upsell customers.
Fangamer sells products based on video games. In particular, this brand creates custom products based on the game titles it licenses. Therefore, customers can get t-shirts, hoodies, mousepads, mugs, stickers, and more based on their favorite video games. Also, this site offers a wide array of products. Ultimately, customers have a substantial selection of products to purchase.
Keys to this brand’s success:
Main lesson:
Fangamer is a great example of how you can use multiple strategies to leverage your products. Fangamer’s main value proposition is customization. Also, this brand organizes its products to view them based on type and title. Lastly, customers can subscribe to their newsletter to get a heads-up on promotions and product releases.
Allbirds is a footwear brand aimed at active individuals. Particularly, this brand promotes its products as environmentally friendly and extremely comfortable. More specifically, Allbirds’ sustainability angle aims to leverage storytelling.
This technique consists in creating a narrative around products. As such, products don’t merely exist to fill a need. Products go through an entire journey leading up to the end consumer.
Keys to this brand’s success:
Main lesson:
Your brand can deliver its value proposition around a story. This story should highlight your target customers’ lifestyles. So, don’t be afraid to tell the story behind your brand and products – your customers will love being part of a product’s singular journey.
Bulletproof is a supplement brand that caters to a specific market niche: keto-based products for individuals with a healthy lifestyle. As such, this brand creates an all-around experience by offering its consumers an entire lifestyle experience.
Specifically, the site provides tips, recipes, and guides on adopting a healthy lifestyle. Consequently, Bulletproof aims to create an integral customer experience centered around its products.
Keys to this brand’s success:
Main lesson:
Bulletproof clearly communicates how its products can help its customers achieve their goals. If you’re considering food or supplement products, strive to share how your products can help your target customers achieve their aims. Moreover, don’t be afraid to implement a blog to give your customers added value to the products they purchase.
Cettire is a luxury fashion brand that provides customers with access to exclusive design products. This brand is predominantly aimed at women though it divides its catalog into men, women, children, and designers.
It offers exclusive access to collections as well as discount products, and its website incorporates a video showcase right on the homepage. This feature is an immediate attention-grabber.
Keys to this brand’s success:
Main lesson:
Luxury brands have to play the role. Therefore, a clean and uncluttered site helps drive home luxury brands’ upscale approach. Also, the site highlights new arrivals, featured designers, and discounted products – customers can easily begin browsing the most popular items on the site.
UntilGone offers a wide arrange of technological products within the home electronics category. It provides items until quantities run out. The site showcases “featured” products atop the homepage, which automatically draws customers’ attention to specific items while displaying more featured items as they scroll down the page.
Also, UntilGone uses a subscription service to give customers notice of the latest deals.
Keys to this brand’s success:
Main lesson:
When displaying a lot of products and deals on your homepage, it’s important to not clutter the page too much, while also showing your customers everything they need to see.
One of the best ways to do this is by carefully laying the products out and leaving spaces between product columns and rows. Also, using a color scheme that’s easy on the eyes is crucial – your customers will be spending a lot of time browsing your products.
Bajaao is an online shop dedicated to musical instruments and sound equipment. The sire mostly focuses on offering top brands at lower prices along with its own line of products. As such, the brand caters to various customer types giving them a wide range of products.
The overall site uses a carousel display to show its most important offers, and also features direct access to its YouTube channel. Utilizing social media as a marketing tactic works well for this brand.
Keys to this brand’s success:
Main lesson:
Bajaao looks to offer a combination of its own products and top brands. As such, the brand employs a large product catalog. It can get away with this by organizing products according to categories and featuring best-selling products on the homepage.
When you find the right e-commerce strategy for you, you might be concerned about becoming profitable. No matter what you decide to sell on Shopify, PickyStory can help you to generate more revenue from every customer.
As you can see from the list of successful Shopify brands, one of the most common themes between these businesses is the use of product deals, bundles, and promotions.
PickyStory makes it easy to create bundles and deals that you can display throughout your store to encourage your customers to buy more. Choose from a range of discount options for specific products, including tiered discounts for sets of products. Deals can be fully customized to suit your brand, and can be added as pop-ups, to collections, on product pages, or pretty much anywhere else you like.
In short, PickyStory is the key you need to leverage the most profitable approach the successful brands in this article have employed. When you choose what to sell on Shopify, you can confidently turn to PickyStory to help boost your average order value (AOV) and store revenue.
Now that you’ve gotten some inspiration, the time has come to choose what to sell on Shopify. Shopify allows you to sell (almost) anything you can think of. Thus, your final decision boils down to focusing on products you know well. We have given you the lowdown on which products and strategies work well on Shopify.
So, what are you waiting for?
Shopify makes setting up an online store quick and painless. You don’t need a substantial upfront investment. You can build a brand-new site, from scratch, with as little as $29 a month. Then, great apps such as PickyStory will help you make the brand and site of your dreams!
If you’re looking for more Shopify tips and recommendations, check out the PickyStory blog.
Good Luck!
PickyStory helps e-commerce merchants to collect hidden revenue by selling products together. PickyStory offers a variety of deals like Bundle Products, Combo Products, Bundle Builder, Kits, Looks, and Coupons.
© 2023 PickyStory
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