Are Shopify stores profitable for beginners? and can you still do it in 2021?
Yes, Shopify can be profitable and is a great way to start making money online. But, there are a lot of factors like your product, marketing, returns, refunds, etc that influence the profitability of a Shopify store
So, you might be a blogger, freelancer or some random guy who is completely new to the online money-making space. Whatever you may be, Don’t worry, I will help you decide whether or not you should start a Shopify store this year.
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Are Shopify Stores Profitable?
Shopify Stores can be Used in 2 Ways
Before I list down the factors that affect the profitability of Shopify stores. There are 2 ways by which Shopify owners make money. They are –
1. Selling Your Own Products
People sell products that are made or designed by them. This is a great way to make money if you already have an offline business selling different kinds of stuff.
The product can be anything, ranging from T-shirts to just Greeting cards.
Here, you have to literally build your own brand from scratch. Unique products that are not there in the market can be really awesome.
Or, if you are a famous person, you could build a brand much easier.
For example: If you follow MKBHD(a Tech Youtuber), he has a store that has his own branded T-shirts.
Or you would have definitely heard about the Egg that broke Instagram’s record for the most amount of likes. When they became famous, That person behind the page started a Shopify store!
But, When you use this method, you would need to store and ship the products to the customers yourself.
Related Article – How To Start a Dropshipping Business With No Money?
2. Dropshipping
Dropshipping is how most people make money out of Shopify. Many online businesses have gone to make sales worth millions by just dropshipping.
If you don’t know what dropshipping is and want to start a dropshipping store for free, Be sure to check out this article.
Since you do not possess any item that you sell, there is no need to worry about shipping and other kinds of stuff.
Which One Should You Choose?
Dropshipping would be a better choice for you if you do not own a product yourself.
Dropshipping when done right can replace your 9-5 job easily. It has helped thousands of people to earn a full-time income and make a living on their own.
Related Article – Is WordPress Good for Ecommerce?
Factors affecting the Profitability of Shopify Stores
There are basically many factors that can influence a store’s profitability. They are :
1. Choosing The Right Product
The product that you are selling is the most important factor for a Profitable Shopify store. If the product isn’t good enough, No one will buy your product.
For Example: If you are selling a T-shirt which is pretty much available everywhere, You won’t succeed with that product.
If the product is something that’s unique and somehow solves an existing problem, it has a higher chance of succeeding.
I normally look at the following factors when selecting a product
- Solves an existing problem
- Is unique and cannot be found in places like Amazon and Target.
- Eye-catching products that make you go “WOW”.
2. Promoting it to The Right Audience
Generally, most people use Facebook Ads to generate traffic to their Shopify store. The highly targeted nature of Facebook Ads helps the store owners to reach the products to the right customers.
But, If you do not target the right audience, you probably won’t reach anywhere. Targeting doesn’t always have to be done using Facebook ads. There are other free methods like using Instagram and other Social media.
Moreover, Facebook Ads is right now very much saturated with dropshipping products and I would rather look for other ad networks. Some of them are Google and Snapchat.
3. The Perfect Price
Product pricing does have a big impact on the profitability of your Shopify Store. Once you have found a winning product, you have to price it accordingly where it isn’t that expensive nor is it too cheap.
If you are selling a low-ticket product, you should be making around a $20 profit per product(Average without marketing costs). However, This may not be the case all the time.
But, if you are selling a high-ticket product, you can surely profit a lot more.
Related Article – How to Start Dropshipping Without Shopify (The Ultimate Guide)
4. The Shipping Time
Shipping time is a great problem for Shopify users. Delivering your product at a faster rate is always appreciated by customers.
So, you should make sure that you use a good delivery partner for this.
If you are dropshipping, use a good supplier. Aliexpress is the most used wholesaler by most people.
They are a good place to start your dropshipping career. However, it is really hard to scale once you become successful with your product. Moreover, some of their products take more than a month to arrive.
So, it’s always better to look for other great dropshipping suppliers that offers fast shipping.
5. Customer Service
Customer service is of great importance in any eCommerce store. People look for after-sales service, refund, replacement guarantees before they order from your store.
So, make sure you specify all the services that you can perform and all that you can’t in the legal pages.
Customer service is also one of the factors why most people would purchase from you over and over again. So, if you screw that part of your store, it will be really hard.
Customer service can be outsourced to freelancers but please do make sure that you trust that person before you give it to them. This is because I have seen some businesses collapse due to their bad customer service.
6. Trustable
Why do most people buy from Amazon, eBay and others?
Yes, Customers trust them. They provide quality products as well takes care of the after-sales service.
So, That’s exactly what you need to do. You need to build trust within your customers, so that they may return to your Shopify store to buy more.
Some ways to build trust are:-
- Include all the legal pages like Return policy, terms and conditions, Shipping policy etc.
- Add an about me/us page with full details( Address, photo, Number, etc) . Let them know that you are a real person and not some internet scammer.
- Provide good product descriptions
- Add an FAQ page.
- Your Store should not look like all the other ordinary Shopify stores. A lot of people now know about Shopify and Dropshipping and some do not like ordering from those sites. And if they see your store and if it looks like most of the other online stores on the internet, they may not trust you. Consider using a different theme or if you can ask a freelancer to design a store for you.
Related Article – How To Scale Your eCommerce Business Using Fiverr?
What Should You Do?
Shopify Stores are definitely Profitable if you take the above things into consideration and build a store accordingly.
There is a 14-Day Free Trial available on Shopify and you could easily make sales in the first 14-days of starting your store, if you follow a perfect strategy.
Once you make some sales within the first 14 days, you can easily upgrade to the basic plan on Shopify.
Even if you don’t make any sales within the first 14 days, try for a little longer by paying for the basic plan.
Conclusion – Are Shopify Stores Profitable?
Building profitable businesses online takes time. Let it be a blog, an affiliate marketing website, an online store, or anything, it all takes time.
Failure is also a part of this. Before I started this blog, I have failed countless times. This blog is, in fact, my Fourth one. Every time I fail, I look back and see where I went wrong. Then I would again repeat the process.
Literally speaking, It took me 2 years, to fully understand each of the concepts and techniques. And that’s how you build a business.
Just make sure that You Never Quit when you need something badly.
Hope I helped.
Peace!