15 Successful Shopify Stores for Your Inspiration (2024)
The most successful Shopify stores leave a great first impression. Still, making your online business profitable takes more than just appealing visuals.
We selected 15 top stores and found what makes them stand out.
From great web design, targeted product selection, and solid marketing strategies to clear values and attitude – let’s see what the best Shopify stores have in common and how these characteristics can help you boost your business.
1. Allbirds
With a net revenue of $182.1 million in Q1-Q3 2023, Allbirds is one of the most successful Shopify stores.
The football player Tim Brown and the engineer Joey Zwillinger founded the footwear company with a strong emphasis on consciousness.
From the product pages to the 90% recycled cardboard packages, Allbird’s Shopify website reinforces that message, highlighting the brand’s identity with images displaying a blend of great design, sustainability, and comfort.
The Our Sustainable Practices page states the company’s values, which are backed on every product page with information on the environmental impact of every product.
2. Negative Apparel
Negative Apparel is a Pakistani business dedicated to helping women feel comfortable and confident.
Its Shopify website structure highlights the apparel brand message of inclusivity, as the main menu contains only four sub-menus – Women, Plus Size, Accessories, and Kids – with a significant site space dedicated to the plus-size segment.
Additional stores, such as Negative Underwear, follow the same message of comfort and inclusivity, with sections dedicated, for instance, to nursing bras for nurturing mothers.
The company’s marketing strategy doesn’t limit itself to the brand’s Shopify store – Negative Apparel has a strong presence on social media, including Facebook, Instagram, X, Snapchat, YouTube, and TikTok, compensating searchability and SEO issues with the brand name in search engines.
3. Taylor Stitch
Taylor Stitch embodies brand values that offer classic clothing with a modern twist for men. Their message is – vintage, traditional, but cool.
The company emphasizes values and aesthetics that are coherent with its target audience. That includes discrete color palettes full of gray and brownish tones, a mixed appeal to outdoor and urban styles, and affordability associated with durability.
Additionally, Taylor Stitch highlights the use of quality natural and recycled materials.
The brand invests in creating connections with target customers. First-time buyers receive a 20% discount, while loyal customers earn credits with each purchase. The workshop section encourages community participation with crowdfunding.
The brand tone is tuned to its audience – you can read the message in its customer support (chat, message text, and email): We’d love to engage in some good old-fashioned conversation.
Notably, the company’s social brand focuses on its demographics – it’s active on X (with updated logos), Instagram, Facebook, Spotify, and even Reddit and Pinterest, but absent on TikTok.
4. Gymshark
Ben Francis, along with friends, created Gymshark in 2012 as a screen-printing garage business while they were still in college.
The group crafted and printed workout apparel and developed an influencer marketing strategy with a strong emphasis on social networks before it became a common practice.
What makes Gymshark one of the most successful Shopify stores is its dedicated approach to community building, which is effectively managed through Shopify resources and various social platforms.
Its influencer marketing connects significant personalities to a like-minded group of fitness enthusiasts. At the same time, the company learns from interactions with the customer base, tailoring products to meet their actual needs.
5. Stumptown Coffee Roasters
Stumptown Coffee Roasters distributes ethically and sustainably sourced coffee from Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Honduras, and Indonesia.
Active since 1999, the company has physical stores in the US in Portland, New York, Los Angeles, and Tokyo, Japan.
Their Shopify online store is part of a successful omnichannel marketing strategy. Stumptown Coffee Roasters gives an immersive experience through their website and social channels, with informative content such as brew guides, subscription plans to your favorite blend with free shipping, and a quiz to find the perfect coffee.
Stumptown Coffee Roasters also offers wholesale options for resalers and coffee shops.
The Shopify store owners highlight their sustainable and ethical principles everywhere – from product descriptions to photography, educational content, and social media posts.
Coffee lovers will find a pleasant experience, purchasing with a clean conscience from true connoisseurs.
6. Hiut Denim Co.
Based in Cardigan, Wales, Hiut Denim is a great example of Shopify success in the fashion industry.
The company capitalizes on the city’s tradition in jeans manufacturing.
Its marketing strategy is frank, honest, and clear – Hiut wears its origins proudly with two slogans – Made in Wales and Do one thing well.
Hiut Denim Co. offers quality, sustainable jeans and additional merch, like yearbooks and posters.
The brand’s commitment to sustainability shows up in initiatives such as the striking No Wash Club, where Hiut encourages people to avoid washing their jeans as long as possible. The challenge goes as far as advocating six months without washing.
Hiut also offers custom jeans – shoppers can choose the fabric, style, V-fit, waist, and leg length – but that customization comes at a price, usually exceeding $250.
7. ColourPop
ColourPop is a vibrant make-up brand with a colorful Shopify store and active social media channels, boosted by influencer marketing, contests, and giveaways.
Within five years, the brand achieved impressive growth by sharing Instagram profiles and pictures of influencers and others displaying their products.
Their pink website is straightforward, and all collections and product categories are easy to find and navigate. There are almost no product pictures with models on the website.
Instead, the huge brand following on Instagram displays ColourPop items in daily use. That makes the brand accessible and appealing to an amplified audience within several demographics and ages.
The company collaborates with giant brands, including Disney, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Naruto, and Sailor Moon, in addition to a submenu of selected influencers.
This makes partnering with ColourPop something highly desired by influencers, potentially increasing their popularity.
Last but not least, the brand offers vegan products and quite affordable options, with gift packs starting from $10 and specialized value sets.
8. Rebecca Minkoff
Rebecca Minkoff’s Shopify site describes the brand as a leader in accessible luxury handbags, accessories, and apparel.
The brand initially started by selling leather handbags but later expanded its line to include shoes, accessories, clothing, and even fragrances.
Rebecca Minkoff’s designs blend urban luxury with a hint of laid-back, rock’n’roll attitude. The brand caters to women drawn to its elegant yet bold product lines.
This unique Shopify store offers mid-priced products that will satisfy those looking for a step up in quality and style. For example, knitted sweatshirts starting from $88.
The brand is present on various social channels, including Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, TikTok, and Pinterest, with tailored content for each platform.
Their YouTube channel, for instance, brings not only unboxing videos but also content reinforcing the brand’s vision to empower women. This includes advice on building long-term success with fashion design, health tips, strategies for pivoting a career after having children, and much more.
9. Steve Madden
Steve Madden is a retail company that has been functioning since 1990. Its uniquely designed Shopify website is classy, mixing stylish photography reminiscent of fashion magazines with handpicked fonts and palettes.
If it weren’t for the obvious promotion banner at the top and a similar structure to other successful Shopify stores, it would be hard to tell that Steve Madden’s site was designed using a website builder from templates.
In addition to standard menus and sections such as Women’s shoes and Men’s, Steve Madden’s Shopify store adds many thematic menus and submenus (not always 100% fitting, though) to encourage customers to purchase matching or related products.
The section What to wear, for instance, showcases product selections for a range of occasions, from weddings and honeymoons to cities and university game day outfits.
Steve Madden’s website makes the most of Shopify apps, adding sections in the footer for a Store Locator, Site Map and Terms, and relevant information sections, including Sustainability policies, Investor relations, and Careers.
The company also shares relevant content adapted to its audience on various social channels, including Facebook, X, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, and TikTok.
10. Chubbies
Chubbies is one of the most original Shopify store examples. Their USP (unique selling proposition) was challenging standard men’s fashion with relaxed shorts, polos, aloha shirts, pants, and their original chubbsies – one-piece garments combining a pair of shorts with a hoodie.
The brand bets on a casual, almost irreverent product line, offering comfort and fun for any situation.
Their strengths lie in vibrant collections with lots of pink, teal, and bright blue. Tropical patterns with geometric forms, flamingos, Mexican freestyle fighter masks, or roosters embrace an outdated, post-70s style, making it fun.
However, these products aren’t for everyone’s taste, and Chubbies also offers casual collections with more discreet colors, including beige, khaki, gray, and brownish variations.
Some denim, corduroy, or chino shorts are well-suited for a golf course or casual meetings.
Chubbies complement their Shopify stores with social channels on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. Their social strategy is focused more on entertaining and funny content in association with occasional product showcasing.
11. Kylie Cosmetics
Kylie Cosmetics is a Shopify store example of professionalism and curated design. Shopify’s templates and apps are on full display, from carefully picked color palettes and typography to geolocation, currency conversion, and a points program for attracting potential customers.
Kylie Jenner founded the brand with the promise of selling the same products she used when creating her looks – vegan, eco-friendly, and cruelty-free.
The eCommerce store offers makeup and skincare products. It also has a dedicated baby products line, including cosmetics like shampoos and moisturizers, hooded towels, travel cases, and kits to make parents’ lives easier.
Kylie runs regular flash sales where makeup and accessories sell out within minutes, announced and boosted by social proof and influencer marketing from social media:
- Their Instagram profile, with a whopping 25.3 million followers, showcases products via posts and uses reels and guides to display their cosmetics in actual use.
- A similar strategy boosts their TikTok profile, with over 3.5 million followers, and their X account, which has over 1.2 million followers but lost traction after the network rebranding.
12. Blume
Blume was created by Taran and Bunny Ghatrora, focusing on young women’s health, self-care, and well-being.
The company proposes shifting the focus from perfect skin to healthy skin, addressing challenges such as periods, acne, and other body changes after puberty.
Blume’s marketing strategy is built on mixed promotional and educational content across social media (especially Instagram and TikTok). This approach provides strong social proof via testimonials and reviews.
Product development is always informed by customer feedback.
The brand message is always present in every communication channel, emphasizing natural and sustainable products that make a difference in real issues young women face.
Blume’s Shopify store is built with a pinkish and pastel color palette, friendly typography, and heavy usage of the Shopify platform apps. The products are displayed with customer-star reviews, prices, and short descriptions.
They’re organized in only two menus without categories – Shop Products and Gift Shop. The remaining menu space is occupied by sections trying to enhance interaction with the customer base, including a quiz, blog, and Our Story section.
13. Hismile
The Australian brand Hismile runs a popular Shopify shop with products for teeth-whitening. The product line includes a few selected items, including a stain concealer, whitening toothpaste, strips, and powder, plus some accessories like toothbrushes.
The website uses Shopify’s geolocation and currency apps for pages in Australia, New Zealand, the US, the UK, Europe, and Canada, plus an International page.
Hismile is one of the most modern-looking Shopify brands on this list, with web design capabilities that compete with top-tier website builders with an edge on aesthetics like Squarespace.
Quick Tip
Would you like to compare several platforms for creating online stores, including Shopify vs Squarespace vs Wix?
Check our blog for detailed comparisons like Shopify vs Squarespace or Wix vs Shopify.
With bold, attention-grabbing colors associated with attractive discounts and influencer marketing, this top Shopify store surpassed $130 million in sales.
Some of its associated influencers include Kylie Jenner, owner of the already-mentioned Kylie Cosmetics – another of the successful stores using Shopify.
14. Asphalte
This French Shopify store has one of our list’s clearest value propositions, stated right below the fold. Asphalte offers men and women:
… clothes that look good, last a long time, and are fairly priced – all thanks to your valuable input.
That summarizes Asphalte’s successful brand story – the company originated from customer feedback, aiming to design and offer affordable, quality, and well-designed apparel.
Asphalte clearly shows how the feedback process relates to product design. Their system works via the following steps: questionnaire, prototype, preordering campaign, production, and delivery.
The company boosts its marketing strategy with plenty of announcements of new products in the pipeline for pre-ordering – all with guaranteed returns and exchanges. That, associated with the feedback system, means less waste and more customer satisfaction.
Asphalte’s website – and products – are superbly designed. Large pictures covering the whole page section display products in daily use. They reflect the target audience with refined, elegant, modern colors and items.
The company’s social media engagement is smaller than other successful Shopify sites, with a focus on promotional product videos and posts. Asphalte emphasizes its on-site notification system, which is seamlessly integrated with its pre-order mechanism.
15. Fashion Nova
No list of the most successful Shopify stores would be complete without Fashion Nova. However, we added it at the end with reservations. Although most of its strategies have been profitable so far, concerns have been raised about their lack of sustainability and ethical issues.
Still, you can learn how to overcome these challenges and create something sustainable in the long run.
Fashion Nova surpassed $1 billion in annual sales with unbeatable prices, including whole collections under the $5 price tag.
The company’s receipt for profitability differs from other examples on this list. Instead of focusing on niches moved by sustainable and modern movements, Fashion Nova targets young shoppers who are always eager for new trends and affordability.
The shop’s marketing strategy focuses heavily on Instagram, with more than 21 million followers in Q4 2023.
Both the store and social media pages are full of pictures of models in stunning and luxurious settings, such as the Greek Islands and the Alps.
To expand its reach even more, Fashion Nova offers collections for multiple audiences, from women and men to kids.
As a nod to inclusivity, the brand created a Plus+Curve collection, following the same aesthetics as its women’s collection.
The strong social media presence, product affordability, and inclusivity are lessons you can apply to your Shopify store.
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What Makes a Successful Shopify Store: Key Takeaways
We selected key characteristics from the top Shopify stores discussed before. Learn from the booming companies and implement the best strategies for your own business.
- The best Shopify websites are easy to navigate and well-designed. Not all stores should follow the same structure – your consumer base and product line will guide the best design choices. Many products require well-organized categories, while other strategies, like Hiut Denim and Stumptown Coffee Roasters, benefit more from focusing on a few options.
- Use social media to capitalize on user-generated content. Share posts and reels of customers using your products and collect reviews, like ColourPop, Blume, and Kylie Cosmetics.
- Define your niche and stick to it. Successful Shopify Stores like Taylor Stitch and Gymshark don’t try to sell to everyone. Instead, they focus on delivering what their niches need and want. They make themselves active in their audience’s preferred channels and use the appropriate language, tone, and visual branding.
- Don’t be afraid of innovating or subverting expectations – some of the most successful Shopify stores, such as Chubbies, took a common niche – men’s comfort clothes – and transformed it into a different concept. Chubbies sell comfort and fun, not just men’s shorts.
- Embrace ethical values and sustainable practices and apply them in every aspect of your own business – from product creation to web design; make a stand for a better and fairer world for this and the next generations. It’s worth remembering that an ever-increasing share of eco-conscious consumers are willing to pay more for items meeting their sustainability criteria.
Successful Shopify Stores FAQ
What percentage of Shopify stores are successful?
Around 5% to 10% of Shopify stores are able to break even and profit.
What is the highest-paid Shopify store?
Allbirds is consistently reported as the highest-paid and most successful Shopify store, with a net revenue of $182.1 million in the first nine months of 2023.
Can a Shopify store be successful?
Yes. Worldwide and local brands choose Shopify as their preferred platform to build an eCommerce website due to its ease of use, consistency, variety and quality of eCommerce features, and professionalism.
That includes Allbirds, Asphalte, Hiut Denim Co., Kylie Cosmetics, Rebecca Minkoff, Steve Madden, Stumptown Coffee Roasters, and Taylor Stitch, to mention a few.
Do Shopify stores still make money?
Shopify stores capable of applying consistent marketing efforts are very successful and make money.
Many great Shopify stores sell apparel, but some of the most profitable eCommerce stores, like Gymshark and Hismile, focus on other sectors, such as Fitness and Health.
How profitable is a Shopify store?
Individual online store profits and monthly sales data are not always publicly available and are usually estimated.
As per official and public data, Shopify generated about $5.6 billion during the whole of 2022. As of June 2023, more than half of that was generated by over 500,000 apparel stores, followed by about 220,000 home and garden stores.
To Summarize
There are endless niches, diverse markets, and eCommerce businesses targeting them, but the most successful Shopify stores – whether offering beauty products or selling backpacks – have similar characteristics and approaches to reach them:
- Great store design and customer experience with high-quality images.
- Strong and coherent brand identity.
- The brand’s products answer to a specific niche demand or problem.
- Investment in customer engagement with a tailored brand communication style across various channels.
- Awareness of concerns such as social responsibility, sustainability, and inclusivity.
Now it’s time to build your own success story and create a great Shopify store. Count on Printify to support you in your eCommerce journey.
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Written by
Andris Mucenieks
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