Are you thinking about bringing your business online? If so, then there’s no better time to do so than now. E-commerce is wildly popular, and it’s only going to continue to take over. In particular, Shopify is an excellent choice for entrepreneurs and small business owners.
Millions of merchants use Shopify every day to make money. You can sell anything from homemade jewelry to art and digital products.
The great thing about Shopify is that it’s incredibly affordable and effortless to use. Even if you’re clueless about graphic design, its intuitive editor will guide you through the process of creating a storefront.
If you want to learn how to make money on Shopify, you’ve come to the perfect place. We’ll be going over all the different ways you can profit by using the platform, so stay tuned.
How to Make Money on Shopify
Shopify is very open-ended when it comes to what you can sell and how you can make money. In general, merchants can provide:
- Services
- Art
- Consumer products
- Digital products like ebooks
Yes, you can even sell services through a Shopify store. Let’s say that you’re a consultant offering guidance to young entrepreneurs. You’ll be able to set your rate for clients and handle all payment processing through Shopify.
Digital products are very much on the table too. That’s good news, as digital goods have some of the highest profit margins. If you want to sell ebooks, PDFs, or instructional videos, you’ll love using Shopify.
It’s crucial to decide what you’re going to sell before creating your store. If you don’t have a clue what you want to sell, then it’s time to do some product research.
Finding What to Sell
The last thing you want to do is impulsively pick products at random and start selling. Instead, you’ll need to take a very strategic approach to find your first products to market. Here are some of the most effective techniques you can use to find the hottest products.
Solving Pain Points
The ideal product solves a widespread problem. That’s the best way to maintain consistent sales, as there’s a real need for what you sell. But how do you identify a problem to solve? There are lots of ways.
For example, let’s say that you want to sell a product to medical workers. To solve one of their pain points, you can survey some local nurses. If you don’t want to hunt nurses down in person, you can turn to an online forum.
Ask them what plagues them the most during the day. Let them know that you want to design a product to make their lives easier.
More often than not, you’ll get lots of replies letting you know what challenges they face during the day. All of a sudden, you get nurses talking about how their EHR program slows them down. You can then use that information to develop a new product idea, such as a time-saving app or add-on to their program.
Market to Hobbyists
Hobbies are a goldmine for e-commerce stores. They also make great niches to focus on for your store. When people are enthusiastic about a hobby, they’re far more likely to spend money on related gear.
So if you’re brainstorming on what to sell, selecting a hobby is a great starting point.
If you settle on guitarists, then you can start selling guitar picks, pickups, pedals, and all sorts of gadgets and gizmos. Don’t just go with a run-of-the-mill product, though. Instead, develop a unique pick that can alter the guitarists’ tone or a pedal with a unique sound.
When hobbyists catch on to your products, they’re more likely to stay loyal to your brand.
Focusing on hobbies can help you come up with other products to sell too. If you’re targeting tennis players, then you don’t just have to sell tennis rackets. You can also sell balls, headbands, shoes, and tons of accessories.
Products Based on Your Experience and Passion
Finally, it would be best if you stuck to what you know when selecting products. If you aren’t passionate about tennis at all, then you shouldn’t sell tennis gear. Instead, pick a niche that genuinely appeals to you. It’s the age-old adage of doing what you love.
When you’re passionate about what you sell, it won’t feel like work to you. Not only that, but you’ll have a greater chance of coming up with something special. Since you care so much about what you create, your products will have a higher quality.
Consumers respond to passion. If you’re phoning it in with your products, it will be entirely obvious.
If you aren’t passionate about anything, you probably haven’t found what you truly love yet. You can do a bit of soul searching to discover products and niches that appeal to you. From there, you can develop a real passion for a specific market. That happens all the time, as business owners often start in one market and transition to another.
Stick to your gut, and try to develop what feels suitable for your niche. With the right amount of passion, you can create something that consumers can’t wait to buy.
The Different Ways to Monetize Shopify
Now that you know how to find what to sell, it’s time to make another essential decision. Shopify is diverse in how you can choose to make money on the platform. You don’t just have to go the traditional e-commerce route to do business. There’s also affiliate marketing, dropshipping, app development, and more. Let’s take an in-depth look at each method to learn more.
Traditional E-Commerce
The first and most obvious way to learn how to make money on Shopify is through e-commerce. Any user can quickly and easily create an online e-commerce store to sell products. Shopify will also handle all payment processing for you. When designing your store, you’ll be able to add all your products and display them in various ways. Image carousels are very popular for displaying numerous merchant products.
Do you already have a webpage for your business? Then you’re going to love the Shopify Lite plan. It allows you to embed a ‘Buy Now’ button on any website or blog page. That way, you can sell products and process payments through your existing pages.
Starting a Dropshipping Business
If standard e-commerce doesn’t sound appealing, you can hop on the dropshipping bandwagon. If you weren’t aware, dropshipping is a business model where you don’t manage any inventory. You don’t need a warehouse, and you won’t have to worry about shipping products to customers. Instead, you’ll use a third party for inventory management and shipping.
There are lots of benefits to using this model. Since you don’t deal with inventory, you’ll have more free time to focus on marketing. Not only that, but it’s far cheaper to start selling online through dropshipping.
You won’t need to have a warehouse or employees to handle your products. You don’t need to work with a shipping carrier either.
So what can you sell through dropshipping? Just about anything! There’s no limit on what you can sell by using this model. Of course, you won’t need drop shipping to sell services or digital products. Yet, for everything else, it’s a fantastic way to sell products online.
By default, Shopify stores don’t have dropshipping capabilities. You can do drop shipping through Shopify, but you’ll need to use an app to do it. While there are many dropshipping apps out there, we recommend using Spocket.
Affiliate Marketing
Our next step in learning how to make money on Shopify is through affiliate marketing. Believe it or not, but you can make money on Shopify without selling anything at all.
Shopify has a bustling affiliate program that you can sign up for at any time. All you need to do to make money is refer other users to sign up for Shopify.
If you have a relatively robust following on social media, you’re likely to become an affiliate marketing superstar. There’s a reason why major companies compete over the top social media influencers. The more people you can advertise a Shopify plan to, the more conversions that you’ll get. So if you don’t have any products to sell but have a vast network, affiliate marketing can be your way to make money.
Monetizing Social Media
Affiliate marketing isn’t the only way to take advantage of a large social media following. You can make quite a bit of money on Shopify by monetizing your social media followers. To do so, all you need is Shopify’s intro-level plan, Shopify Lite.
At only $9 a month, you’ll be able to embed a ‘Buy Now’ button on your Facebook and Instagram posts.
If your business already has a vast social media presence, it’s time to start putting them to work for you. Now your posts can turn into potential sales by adding a simple button. Shopify Lite will also allow you to process payments through your social media pages. It’s an excellent plan for businesses that already have established followings.
The Best Techniques for Making Money on Shopify
Having a successful merchant store involves a lot more than setting up a storefront. Once you choose which path to take, it’s time to start getting the word out about what you do. There are also some best practices to employ for your storefront. Here are some reliable techniques you can use:
- Do robust market research. The competition online is fierce as more and more people turn to e-commerce. Your most potent weapon to stay relevant is market research. It would be best if you found out who your customers are and how they think when shopping. Market research will help you get into the minds of your customers. Also, make sure that you employ competitive pricing. Check out some competing stores and see how much they charge for the same products.
- Provide clear images and snappy product descriptions. If your product photos are out of focus and from a mile away, you’re not doing yourself any favors. Make sure that you take clear, close-up images of each product. Use bright lighting and stylish angles. Also, include a detailed yet succinct product description. Let your customer know why the product is so valuable and what it can do for them.
- Diversify your marketing efforts. Don’t settle for only using one marketing technique. Instead, try and use as many as you can. Facebook Ads and Google Ads are effective and relatively inexpensive. You can also try user forums and pages like Reddit to promote your products.
- Provide outstanding customer service. If you’re serious about gaining loyalty from your customers, then you’ll need to go above and beyond with your service. That’s one of the top factors that will keep customers coming back over and over. A real-time chat function can work wonders for this purpose. Make sure that you have a way to answer customer questions promptly.
Using Spocket for Dropshipping on Shopify
Spocket is an app that you can easily download through the Shopify App Store. It boasts fantastic reviews, and there’s a 14-day free trial available for new users. So why is Spocket so spectacular?
There are lots of reasons why, but one of the biggest is the discounted products. You can make higher profits by selling discounted items through Spocket. These are all high-quality items too.
Spocket also provides you with an excellent selection of distributors. There are suppliers in the US, EU, Canada, Australia, and more. That’s fantastic news for dropshippers, as more suppliers mean quicker shipping times. That’s crucial for any dropshipping business. The faster shipping you have, the more money that you’ll make overall.
Other essential features of Spocket include:
- 24/7 premium chat support with a 2-minute average response time
- Hundreds of suppliers around the globe
- Discounted products
- Real-time inventory updates
- Automated order processing
- Affordable Standard plan at $24 a month
As you can see, Spocket has a ton of unique features. If you want to make the most profit dropshipping, then you should try out Spocket. To get started dropshipping with Spocket follow this link here.
How to Make Money on Shopify ( quick video )
Try Shopify for free.
If you are interested in Shopify and want to try it out, Shopify is offering a 14-day free trial here. The free trial is great because you get to see how Shopify works before committing to one of their monthly programs. If you decide to start the free trial, you can pick up right where you left off when you switch to the monthly plan. If you’re looking to grow or start your online business, this is an excellent opportunity to try Shopify.
In Summary
We’ve gone over a lot so far, so let’s review. There are many ways that you can learn how to make money on Shopify. You can start an e-commerce store, do dropshipping, or join the affiliate program. As long as you think long and hard about what to sell, market it appropriately, and provide outstanding service, the money will start rolling in. If your interested in dropshipping check out our guide at this link.
If you want to see a list of our top recommended Shopify apps visit this link here.
