40 Best Shopify Business Ideas You Can Start (2023)

Matt grew up in the DC area and always loved drawing and illustration, but it took a back seat to more “grown-up” pursuits when he first went to college (only to then drop out and join the workforce). Meredith went to school in DC, and after running into each other at various concerts and DJ sets eventually started dating. It was around this time that Meredith found some old illustrations Matt had done and encouraged him to go back to school and get his graphic design degree. She was already well-established as a software engineer, but Matt was still trying to figure out what he wanted to do professionally.

Three years later, after a move up to Baltimore and armed with a hard-earned degree, Matt started working for other people as a designer...and hated it. Around this time the two started their first brand, Ex-Boyfriend, as a weekend hobby, making trinkets like duct tape wallets and wrist cuffs out of recycled beer cans and selling them on Etsy. This eventually grew into a small collection of graphic tees. While Matt is an excellent technician who can execute design concepts well, Meredith is the art director and ideas person who comes up with 99% of the concepts that eventually become our designs.

As our order volume started to grow, we pivoted to focus more on the apparel, since we could outsource the printing and fulfillment of those, whereas the other items we were selling at the time were very high-touch and labor-intensive.

Ten years ago, my husband and I were working in an office set-up. Due to a mix of struggles experienced, my husband and I decided to quit our job and transition into freelancing. The transition phase was difficult since we didn't have the facilities needed like a computer and internet connection. We worked in an internet cafe for the first month of our freelancing career until we bought our personal computer and had our internet connection.

We had experience downtime in our new career at first, but we grow and learn from our mistakes as we go along. Freelancing changed the quality of our lives, our family, and so with our marriage. We embrace these benefits to realize that if mothers can work at home, they can earn while taking care of their family.

Another thing is the overseas workers. They have been working far from their family to make a living. Those who are exhausted and feel unproductive because of many circumstances like long hours of commute eat a lot of their time, endangering their work-life balance. These are a few of our realizations why we come up with putting Filipino Virtual Assistance. Because we know how difficult it is to work far from our family, we want to empower Filipino families, one freelancer at a time. We want to provide our graduates an avenue to earn dollars at their homes' comfort, without the hassle of traffic, toxicity of the environment, and an excellent opportunity for those who never got the chance to go to College.

Back in 2013, I had already discovered my passion - personal development - and had realized writing is the best way to express myself. So I combined these and started a self-improvement blog.

Starting the blog was the best decision and not giving up on it over the years (even when no traffic or money was coming in) was what helped me move forward.

It was first just a hobby and I knew nothing about blogging. Over the years, after publishing a ton of content, gaining traffic, learning about SEO, email marketing, social media, and all the ways to monetize a blog, it became a real business.

Hello, this is Vishal Goswami, an eCommerce consultant and founder of Friction Studio, a Shopify Agency. At Friction Studio, we believe in making commerce better for everyone. That is, we help you sell in a frictionless manner.

This venture of Friction Studio has been a roller coaster ride. It reminds me how back in the days, I had started this agency with just $100, and we are making $10k/month on average today. It feels excellent to cater to big brands in the industry and onboard Shopify plus merchants. Today, I feel privileged to be creating a significant impact in the eCommerce ecosystem and helping merchants ease their selling journey.

I’m Uri, and I like to think of myself as an eCommerce enthusiast. I’ve started four businesses in my short career, two of which were massive failures (learning opportunities) and two that I consider relative successes and still operate today!

By the end of 2021, Adjust Media grossed just under $1M. It feels surreal to say that, but it wouldn’t be possible without our team.

I was unhappily working in marketing for a Fortune 500 insurance company when I started looking at ways to create a new income stream. I became interested in ecommerce and invested in a course to learn more. I compiled a list of keywords for products that had decent search volume and not terribly competitive to rank for in organic search. I used Long Tail Pro to get ideas--I had so many when I first started!

My business is a small, mostly passive income stream and I’m okay with that. There is so much more I could be doing with my store, but right now I am loving the extra income stream that allows me to work part-time at my day job and spend more time with my infant daughter.

A bunch of keywords in the dollhouse miniatures space fit the bill. I used Long Tail Pro and looked for keywords that were competitive--which on there is a score in the twenties or low thirties. I also wanted them to have at least 2,000 searches per month. This is not a ton, but five keywords with that search volume that are not that competitive can lead to a decent number of organic traffic if you build your site the right way. My advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is to find a niche with a nice handful of keywords you can rank for with quality content and a nice backlinking strategy. Don’t try to be number one for some saturated keyword that has a million searches a month. Go for keywords where you stand a chance of ranking--this is usually so-called long tail keywords that are really phrases--for example, “wooden dollhouse furniture” instead of just “dollhouse.”

Growing up, I went to private school and was very blessed that my parents cared about my education. Somewhere around 9th grade, my perspective on the education system changed. I realized through books and YouTube videos that the life trajectory of a lot of the people I looked up to, was not aligned with what I wanted in life.

I was never a fan of what was taught in schools. Instead of religiously following what was being taught in high school, I self-educated in business, personal development, and leadership. When I was fifteen, I tried out various online businesses. I failed miserably at first. At this time I was very much into Fitness and I tried to sell training and diet plans. I managed to sell a few plans to my classmates for like $50, but it never really amounted to anything and most importantly it wasn't scalable.

After that, I tried stock trading and the likes. That too didn’t really work for me. One day I stumbled across SMMA. I was so intrigued by the concept, so I went ALL IN. I didn’t care what people thought. I was going to make it big here. I needed some proof of concept, so I convinced my dad to make me run his restaurant's Facebook Ads. I watched 100’s of videos and read tons of blogs, to know how to run successful ads and we were both pretty stoked about the results.

I knew it was the right business for me, but it was not all gold and green forests. In fact, at the start of my “agency journey,” it was so hard getting my feet on the ground and getting my first few clients after my dad.

There are so many project examples but an interesting one in the early years was a portable vacuum to clean up dog poop when you walk your day. It was called the “Vacapoo”

My father has a big background in manufacturing rugs because he worked from 12 years old till now on this industry in Crevillent, so he knows the product, the processes, the suppliers and the people who run this business in our town of 27,000 inhabitants.

I studied computer engineering in the early 2000s and loved the online world. I knew then that the near-future of commerce will be the World Wide Web and eCommerce will be exploding in the next few years. I remember my first orders on Amazon.com from Spain or eBay in the first years… books and other products traveling about several weeks till arriving home…

So the fusion of the Internet and the rug world was clear, then Mundoalfombra.com was created. The experts in rugs and carpets arrived in the online world. Products manufactured in the same town with direct serving, great quality, short delivery times in Spain and Portugal, good prices, exceptional customer support and good relationship with suppliers. The experience in the offline world was shipped to online with a new company. From the old grand-grandfather ́s company experience, born in 1890, to a new opening, and from natural fiber rugs to hundreds of different models and fibers.

I started Southern Elegance right after my son was born as a hobby. Initially, I made a bunch of random bath and body products in addition to the candles. When I decided to get serious, I looked at everything and decided to just focus on one product and chose candles because they had the potential to be the most profitable. I chose a niche that I could speak authentically about. My ideal customer was easy to identify because it was basically me. (But, don't use that a marketing strategy. It just happened to work in this case) I was born and raised in the South. I LOVE living here and couldn't imagine living anywhere else. I created a company around all the things that I love to do.

Choose your partners carefully and trust your gut. I made very bad decisions by going against what I thought I should do and listening to “experts” and lost a ton of money.

I was working in education at the time and I absolutely hated it. One day walked into work and quit my job to make candle making a full-time career. I had absolutely no background in sales, manufacturing, marketing or anything business-related. I basically had no clue as to how it was going to work or if this was even a viable plan. Everything was a learning curve, and I spent hours learning a new skill then implementing it.

With very limited resources, (basically no money) I went to the school of Google and Youtube. I took some online classes on Branding and Wholesaling. I hired a business coach and I literally hit the streets selling. For the first year, I would sell my candles at any Church function, fair, festival, school bazaar… I did not care. I sold candles outside in the middle of the summer and the dead of winter. I also sold on any and every online platform that would accept me. Etsy, Amazon, Faire, Modalyst, Houzz, etc. All the money I made went back into building the brand, I was lucky to have a husband to pay the bills but it was tight financially. When I finally felt comfortable I approached stores to carry my products. And we slowly built a base of stores to sustain the company.

During the summer of 2013, my co-founders (Rob Williams & Stephen Moseley) and I were discussing all the great things our hometown of Nashville had to offer, especially in the way of small-batch, handmade gifts and treats. But, there was no one-stop shop to get all of these items (you had to run around town or attend certain farmers markets or festivals).

Lo and behold, we actually hit the 200 mark our first month. The local media covered what we were doing and sales jumped to 600 for the second month and then 1,000 or month three (well beyond our original goal!).

Could we come up with a way to consolidate all of these local, small businesses making awesome products under one roof?

My online entrepreneurial journey started when I was 21 and my then girlfriend was pregnant with our first child. That was almost 17 years ago. I was working a minimum wage customer service job, had no post high school education, and knew that I needed to make big changes in order to provide a better life for my family. It’s been a long journey that’s seen its share of ups & downs, with times where I literally wasn’t sure how I would be able to feed my family the next day. Somehow, it worked out, and I always knew the sacrifices would pay off if I stuck with it.

Most recently, my role was VP, Audience Development at CBS Interactive. During my 6 1/2 years at CBS, we grew from the #13 Comscore property to #6. That’s an elite group: Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon, Microsoft and then CBSi. Prior to my role at CBSi, I ran audience growth at a startup called Clicker, which was acquired by CBS for a nine-figure sum. That was quite a learning experience.

The entrepreneurial spirit in me was calling the entire time I was at CBS Interactive. I never expected to be there for as long as I was, but incentives in the form of stock options that hadn’t vested and a big paycheck helped keep me around. That and I also enjoyed the learning experience, challenges of working on the biggest internet properties, and working for the CEO, who’s been a great mentor to me. But, my time had come. CBSi was running like a well-oiled machine and the excitement was no longer there for me. I needed to work on something that was meaningful to me again. I was also a partner in a content arbitrage business at that time with yearly revenues of around $7.5 million at its peak. That helped make the decision to leave easier. This was, of course, non-conflicting to my work at CBS.

Cuffstyle LLC was founded by myself, Jason, Chris, and Carl.

Carl came up with the original concept while trying to solve a very simple problem he was having. He loved playing acoustic guitar, but shirt sleeves always seemed to get in the way while he was strumming. He would typically fold his shirt cuff up just enough to keep it out of the way, but the cuff would constantly fall back down while he was playing. He wanted a way to keep the cuff held back, and he thought cufflinks would do the trick. Unfortunately, he didn’t own any French cuff shirts, so he started to improvise, and thus the idea was born.

All in all, we believe the key to success in business is not being skilled in any specific technical area, but rather being skilled at networking, managing, and motivating people.

In 2008, I started working as a freelancer for a locksmith company and I learned the job quickly. One day, I decided that I would like to open my own business, so I started my locksmith business. Through that, I gained valuable experience and learned how to advertise and get leads.

I decided one day after I received an offer to sell the business that I would look into advertising for something similar to emergency service advertising. That's how I came up with the idea to open a towing company.

Never stop investing in your business - both in your processes, tools, and in your people. It’s important to keep your reputation in good standing too. And never stop investing in yourself.

Hello! My name is Stephen Layton and I am one of the founding members of The Good Scoop located in the greater Sacramento region. We make all of our own ice cream in house using fresh local and all-natural ingredients.

Some of our best selling and most popular flavors include our banana, rosewater, lavender, and salted cookies and cream. We use fresh seasonally available ingredients, so we use peaches in the summertime and apples in the fall. Some of our more interesting flavors include horchata, honey wasabi, peppermint bark, and olive oil.

Hello readers! I’m Crystal, the one-woman show running TCB Designs, Florida. I’m a 43-year-old mom that has been blessed to wake up every day and do what I love.

Over the years I have added smaller items that are perfect for unique gift ideas and stocking stuffers like our ceramic car coasters, personalized tape measures, and memorial ornaments. Adding these smaller items boosted sales greatly, especially around the holidays. This last Christmas season (November through December 2021) sales totaled just over $20k.

We started Highway Robery (roe-bur-ree)..get it? - a sustainable robe company based in Austin, TX, making colorful kimono-style robes, and we’re doing a new twist on an old standard.

Hey, I’m Jordyn and I’m the owner of Jordyn Alison Designs. My intentions with my products are to bring joy to your daily life as well as help connect you with others.

As of February 2020, I’m currently averaging $3,000 a month. I know this number could (and will) be better but for now, I’m really content with this!

My name is David Tile. I own and operate a Content Writing Service, under the banner Article-Writing.co.

We don’t consider ourselves a content marketing firm. But a firm dedicated to the business of writing. Project management offers most often attached to marketing agencies. We work against marketing briefs delivering content on time and under budget.

Marc Andre is the creator of Loaded Landscapes, a blogging website specializing in travel, wildlife, and landscape photography. He also offers Lightroom presets and Lightroom training.

He previously built & sold 3 photography-related websites - that used to sell digital products to other photographers.

The journey with Loaded Landscapes began in 2012. Marc wanted to upgrade from a point-and-shoot camera to a nice DSLR. So, he set himself a challenge to see if he could raise the $5k to start a photography-related side hustle.

Over the following six years, Marc increased the size of his company, added more products, and launched two more websites centered around photography. This helped him generate more than a million dollars in revenue.

Read the full story on sidehustlenation.com ➜

Hi, my name is Greg Hayes. I’m the CEO and co-founder of Branch Office Furniture, but you can just call us “Branch.” We’re taking a new approach to the office furniture industry, selling our line of desks, chairs, and other essentials directly to businesses and saving them thousands of dollars along the way.

With Branch, we’ve brought together the best of both worlds. We saw an opportunity to produce high-end office furniture and sell it directly to our clients, applying D2C principles to an antiquated B2B industry littered with middlemen. The result is a series of desks, ergonomic chairs, storage products, and conference furniture sold at between one-third and one-half of the price of comparable quality products, with space design, delivery and installation included. We also offer a trade-in program, so you can add and exchange furniture as your team grows and needs change. Since launching our first products in Q1 of 2019, we’ve done over $1M in sales, including nearly $400k last month!

I’m Evan and I started Plain Jane with my college roommate, Duane Dennis.

Within 5 months of starting to sell, we’re now generating more than $20K a month in sales. We have customers in 47 states and we’re in more than 12 retail locations.

Hi, my name is Sam and I am the founder of Kiwi Sizing, which is an e-commerce plugin that helps online clothing businesses better manage their size charts and helps their customers purchase the right size.

This product started just as a side project. After launching in March of 2018, it brought in around 10k by the end of the year, which was a pretty good source for my travel funds at the time and motivated me to continue investing my time in the project. It did 80k in 2019, 250k in 2020, and we are now doing over 36k/month with an average of roughly 5% MoM growth.

My name is Olawale Awani, I started an online printing business to help small businesses have access to professional design and print services using a technology platform (website and social media accounts). The primary products and services are customized printed products, marketing materials, and promotional items.

We currently service about 5,000 active customers with an average $25,000 monthly revenue and a net profit of 20% margin. We have a monthly order fulfillment of about 500 orders monthly with 10 employees and about two dedicated to phone support.

We’re Lucas Walker and Riley Wallbank, and we are from Toronto. We make all natural dog treats with our company Treats Happen.

One of our biggest learnings is that we aren’t just an e-commerce company, we’re a brand. Many people who want to start a business look to be direct to consumer through their own website. We look to be available on as many profitable channels as possible.

Hello, my name is Mohit Tater and I am the CEO and founder of BlackBook Investments. We buy and operate profitable internet businesses and also help others invest in these businesses.

In 2021 alone, we have deployed over $2m of investor capital into buying profitable Internet businesses and we are looking to double that in 2022.

I’m Colin, and I started Stencil Stop in 2015. We manufacture and sell different types of stencils, including custom stencils, which are some of our best-sellers. Our custom mylar stencils are super durable and reusable and are great for quickly painting a company’s brand, text, or designs on almost any outdoor or indoor surface. Custom layered stencils have become a go-to product for people looking to create multicolored, detailed images or logos.

Today we earn around $100K per month in revenue and are continuing to grow quickly by expanding our product lines and manufacturing capabilities, as well as by solidifying our brand’s visuals and message.

Hello! My name is Roger Parent, and I started a digital marketing agency in 2014. We primarily focus on search marketing (paid search & SEO) in the active & healthy lifestyle e-commerce market. That sounds boring though. What we do is help scale the hell out of businesses and change the lives of entrepreneurs who in most instances are struggling to crack the nut that is digital marketing. We’re not afraid to use unconventional means provided measurable results follow.

We’ve scaled the agency to now over $330k/month in revenue, with our eyes set on $416k ($5mm) in 2022. The goal is to grow to $30mm before I turn 40 years old (2029)!

My name is Nick and I’m the founder of Qoders Family. Qoders Family is a family of different services & products all dealing with different aspects of website building.

Other than that we have multiple free WordPress Plugins that have been downloaded more than a few hundred thousand times, and a coffee blog, which is my current passion project. What can I say? I love drinking coffee!

Hi, Dane Jensen here, my business partner Noah and I run Sock Club. Our flagship product is socks of course. We started Sock Club as a monthly subscription where we would deliver a pair of unique socks to our customers every month. As we’ve grown we’ve developed a manufacturing supply chain here in the United States. Having the ability to make our own socks made it possible to enter the new market of custom socks. Now making custom socks is 90% of our business and the subscription 10%. Last year we did $12M+ in revenue and we plan to do more than that this year.

I am Nikolay Piriankov, the Founder and CEO of Taylor & Hart. We are an award-winning, disruptive e-tailer of custom-designed, ethical engagement rings, wedding rings, and fine jewellery, that capture your story. Our online platform, processes, and brand democratises bespoke jewellery, allowing us to offer this service at scale. Taylor & Hart's vision is to reconnect customers with the original purpose of jewellery - a personalised product that tells a unique story.

Recently we closed a seed round of £1M. The London based Garage Soho, an early stage investor and brand builder also supported us in the last round.

Oh My Balm was founded two years ago and we make kitchen-crafted all-natural body products. Our tagline is “Two Mom’s Making it Real.”

We promote them through our marketing, as they work on several different projects that create a life of prosperity for African women and their families. You can find more about them here. The other charity that is close to our hearts is Behind The Scenes, which provides financial support to entertainment technology industry professionals if they, or their immediate dependent family, are seriously ill or injured. We make a body butter, “Crew,” and we give a portion of the proceeds of every tin sold to BTS. This got us mention in several entertainment industry magazines.

Bonjour! My name is Anthony Rosemond. I'm a Parisian chef & founder of Pastreez, an online French bakery.

We’ve sold over 1 million macarons to this date, with only a team of two.