With fast-growing technology and an increasing number of serious illnesses in recent years, online shopping has become more popular than ever. Consequently, many retailers are switching from brick-and-mortar shopping to eCommerce, which is easily accessible to millions of online shoppers worldwide. As one of the best eCommerce platforms in the market, Shopify is obviously a good source to earn bread and butter online. But the question is, how to make money on Shopify? Is there any way to make money online fast?

In today’s article, LitExtension – The #1 Shopping Cart Migration Expert will address the age-old question of how to make money on Shopify by providing the details regarding:

Without further ado, let’s dive into it!


What is Shopify?

Before we learn how to make money on Shopify, we must first understand the platform’s fundamentals. So, what exactly is Shopify?

Shopify is a well-known SaaS (software-as-a-service) eCommerce solution that provides online shoppers with an easy start and no technical expertise required during the store-building process. Enter the eCommerce game in 2004, Shopify has thrived ever since and is now hosting about 4 million live websites.

This hosted eCommerce platform allows you to create every online store, from the most simple to complex ones, without any hassle. You can start by utilizing Shopify free trial, and upgrade to premium plans if you are ready to join the game.

Shopify eCommerce platform
Shopify eCommerce platform

At the moment, users can take advantage of the 3-day free trial to learn how Shopify works and build their store in a demo environment. The amazing thing is not over yet. You can even extend your testing time by 3 months more for only 1$ each! It’s such a fantastic way to lower your risk, especially when you are new to eCommerce.

Shopify's special $1 deal

Do you want to build an online store from scratch but know nothing about Shopify? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered from A to Z!

If you want to know the picture of Shopify in an intuitive way before finding possible answers on how to make money on Shopify, click on this Shopify detailed review for more information.

Want to migrate to Shopify?

If you want to move your store to Shopify, LitExtension assures a seamless and accurate migration experience with the utmost security.


How To Make Money On Shopify: 7 Proven Ideas

After learning everything there is to know about Shopify, let’s move on to the most crucial part when we answer the nail-biting question “How to make money on Shopify?”. Scroll down below for amazing business ideas to profit from this platform.

#1. Create a Shopify Store

The very first answer to “How to make money on Shopify” is to create an eCommerce store and sell something. As previously stated, it’s quite simple to build up one using Shopify. Right after you finish creating a Shopify account, there will be a detailed step-by-step guide (from picking an eye-catching theme on Shopify Theme Store to setting up suitable payment & shipping methods) to ensure that your store is ready to onboard in a blink of an eye.

You can sell almost anything on Shopify, both physical and digital products, providing that your items are valuable for users and legally accepted. Shopify allows you to manually add each listing after a few simple steps, or import a list of several products using CSV. files to speed up the process. After that, you can fill in the product information, including the title, description, images, videos, and so on. It’s also easy to add product variations (up to 3 variants) quickly and easily.

If you have yet to come up with a product idea, scroll down below for some amazing options. Or, if you want a complete guide to start your business, you can refer to our guide on how to sell digital products on Shopify!

Sell Digital Products and Downloads

Digital products are intangible assets that can not be physically consumed and are only distributed online. They exist in various forms, from streamable files (such as MP3, video, and podcasts) to downloadable ones (templates, plugins, e-books) and even NFTs (non-fungible tokens).

You can sell your digital products over and over again and there is no limitation on how many items you can sell. You don’t need to worry about high overhead costs or the necessity to replenish inventory. The investment in digital products is generally low, except for special products like apps, themes, games, or software that require a team of professionals and a monetary investment.

As one of the best platforms to sell digital products, you can make money on Shopify with this non-typical type of goods.

How to make money on shopify example the lux len
The Lux Len – a one-stop-shop for photography tools, courses, and so on

If you take interest in the digital field, start with the most profitable products including educational products, licenses to use your digital assets, site memberships, or digital templates or tools… It’s worth noting that you must connect to a third-party app to provide a download link to your customers and disable shipping for these digital products as well.

✧ Want to find out the most lucrative digital products to sell online? Click on the link to find out the best digital products to sell on your Shopify store.

Start a Shopify Thrift Store

With the emergence of ‘green living’ which refers to an ideal way of life aimed at sustainability, thrifting has become a new phenomenon in the eCommerce industry. According to Shopify, a thrift store owner can make up to 6000$ a month by selling old-but-gold kinds of stuff, so why won’t you? It can possibly be your proper answer to how to make money on Shopify!

Thrift stores are commonly known as retailers that sell out secondhand clothes or household items at reasonable prices. These items remain in fairly workable condition, undamaged, and bear the mark of their ages. There are many reasons why more people, especially teenagers, go thrifting these days. It helps to reduce textile waste, curate a one-of-a-kind wardrobe, and score high-quality goods at low prices.

how to make money on Shopify with thrift shops
Adored Vintage – A successful vintage clothing store on Shopify
Follow these suggestions if you are about to start a Shopify store for thrift items:
  • Offer fair prices:

Keep your prices neither too high nor too low to maintain your brand image. Besides, carefully categorize your inventory for the holiday sales, such as the upcoming BFCM.

  • Focus on the presentation:

With an eye-catching theme and excellent presentation, you can tell a story out of the items and picture your clients in. Do not just post boring pictures of your clothes. Style an entire outfit with suitable accessories instead to demonstrate how certain items go together.

  • Draw attention to unique items:

Many shoppers come to your online store looking for vintage things. Make sure you take full advantage of this chance by setting aside a portion for the vintage items. The more appealing these items are, the more likely you will be able to convert them into loyal customers.

  • Collect high-quality products:

The clients come to you and spend their hard-earn money on old-but-gold stuff, so it’s important to prioritize the quality of your items.

✧ Did you know that Shopify allows you to manage your store in a logical way for 100% FREE? Check out Shopify collections and learn more about its amazing applications.

Bring Your Store Online With Shopify POS

If you already have a brick-and-mortar shop, you can increase your sales volume by bringing it online with the Shopify Point of Sales (POS). This is a user-friendly POS software with top-of-class features that allows store owners to sell from anywhere, both online and in person. It permits your offline store and online one to sync together. Therefore, it’s easier to track orders, customers, and inventory on different sales channels.

How to make more money on Shopify with Shopify POS
Shopify POS

Even if you don’t intend to enlarge your business to eCommerce sales yet, you are still able to make use of the Shopify POS hardware system to run your brick-and-mortar store more efficiently.

Let’s see what you can benefit from the Shopify POS system:
  • Easy store management:

You are able to add unlimited products, group them automatically and create product variants based on size, material, or color. As mentioned above, it also allows you to track your inventory easily and manage the sales of each staff.

  • Useful customer management:

Shopify POS system allows you to create and customize your customer profile effectively. With a complete buying history of each customer, you can categorize them easily; which is extremely helpful when it comes to holiday sales campaigns.

  • Seamless checkout:

Shopify POS system comes with a customizable “smart grid” system that speeds up the checkout process. It also allows you to quickly access any product in the inventory and add special discount codes upon checkout.

Shopify POS smart grid
Shopify POS smart grid
  • Detailed report and analytics:

With the Shopify POS system, you will have a comprehensive insight into your business, including retail sales, cash flow, finance, and discount.

✧ Check out our detailed Shopify POS analysis for more information regarding how to set up and fully utilize its features.

Sell Your Service

One incredible thing about this platform is that Shopify does not limit you on what you can sell in your store. If you are freelancing, make your services look more professional by putting them on a Shopify store. No matter who you are, you can always profit from Shopify, providing that you get a good marketing strategy to reach out to a large audience.

how to make money on Shopify by selling your freelance service
Petsfolio – A Shopify store about pet caring services

Shopify Migration

#2. Start a Shopify Dropshipping Business

If the above ideas have yet to clear up your nerve on how to make money on Shopify, then dropshipping might be able to! Dropshipping is a special business type that the owners don’t have to purchase and keep any product in stock at all. Instead, they purchase the inventory from a manufacturer at a wholesale charge and the orders will be fulfilled to the customer at a more profitable price.

With no fear of warehouse rental or unsold inventory, it’s obvious that dropshipping soon becomes one of the most popular business types nowadays. Many think of it as a pertinent answer for how to make money on Shopify without any money.

Shopify Dropshipping Stores
MooShe Socks – a successful Dropshipping store on Shopify

✧ To make sure that dropshipping is worthwhile your effort, check out its benefits and challenges here.

If you are about to kickstart your dropshipping business, Shopify is definitely an ideal choice. As a powerful eCommerce platform, Shopify has almost everything you need. It allows you to connect with the world’s leading dropshipping providers and integrate with other social media platforms (such as Instagram, Pinterest, or Facebook Ads) to promote your products.

It’s easy to start dropshipping with Shopify, as it has everything you need! Just type in “dropshipping” or “dropshipping app” in the search bar of the Shopify App Store. There will be thousands of choices to choose from. Pick one that best suits your requirements and niche, “Add app” to your store and be ready to rock the game!

Shopify drop shipping apps
Dropshipping apps on Shopify App Store
The process of a dropshipping business on Shopify can be summed up as follows:
  • The customers visit your online store and place an order
  • Your Shopify store automatically sends the order information to your dropshipping supplier
  • Your dropshipping supplier handles the fulfillment process, from packaging stuff and delivering it away to your customer.

If you want to learn A to Z about dropshipping, browse our following guidelines and start your dream business today!

#3. Sell POD Products

If you have yet to find your own answer on how to make money on Shopify, don’t worry! We still have many great ideas to help you capitalize on this amazing platform.

Print-on-demand (POD), like dropshipping, has become a phenomenon in the eCommerce industry in recent years. They are of the same nature and neither require any inventory cost or storage at all.

The biggest difference between POD and dropshipping is that each and every POD product is unique to the business. Basically, POD business owners will work with white-label suppliers, customize the items with their business-owned designs and sell out the products on a per-order basis.

The most advantageous part of owning a POD business is that there will be no need for inventory at all! Whenever a customer places an order on your online store and makes the payment, the POD supplier applies a small charge, produces the product, and ships it over to the customer’s address. Sounds simple and profitable at the same time, isn’t it?

✧ If you want to get the point of a POD business, such as how to start one, or find out what are the best POD products, click on the links for more information.

POD products vary in a wide range of selections, from clothing items, mugs, gift cards, books, to towels and accessories.

how to make money on shopify with pod clothing store
The Feminist Vibe – A well-known Shopify POD clothing store

Start Your Own Clothing Line With Shopify POD

When it comes to the most popular things to sell and earn from Shopify, clothing comes on top of the list. Fashion helps us to express our true colors to the world, and no one denies the chance to look beautiful every day.

However, clothing is a fast-paced industry that requires owners to have good taste, set trends, and stand out from the crowd. It’s not to mention the fact you will have a lot on your plate. Finding trusted clothing suppliers, hiring your own tailors, and preparing a strong cash flow to store unsold inventory are among the daunting tasks that can scare anyone away.

With Shopify POD applications such as Printful or Printify, owning a clothing business is no longer a major issue. Printful and Printfy make it possible to monetize your creativity and wipe most tasks off your plate. Simply connect your Shopify store with POD apps, choose the clothing items you want to apply your masterpiece on, then upload your design.

Printful POD app on Shopify
Printful is a popular app among POD businesses

Sell POD accessories

Accessories is also a promising field to launch your POD business. No matter what niche you choose (pet accessories or luxury ones, etc.), you can still make use of 100+ beautifully-designed themes and over 6000 apps and integrations to break through with your online store. In case you’re feeling overwhelmed by the sheer number of apps available, this best Shopify app recommendation will make things easier.

#4. Become a Shopify Partner

Have you found your own way to shed the light on how to make money on Shopify? If not, below are some possible ways to do it.

Believe it or not, you are able to profit from Shopify without making a single sale! All you need to do is join the Shopify Partner Program, help online merchants succeed with their businesses in various ways, and earn a lot of money from Shopify.

how to make money on Shopify with Shopify Partner Program
Shopify Partner Program

Some of the most common ways to profit from this partner program are: to assist with merchant problems, become an affiliate, create apps or assist other merchants to migrate stores to Shopify.

Join the Shopify Affiliate Program

With Shopify Affiliate Program, you can use your voice to inspire online merchants or entrepreneurs all over the world to Shopify. The more subscriptions you bring to the fold for Shopify, the more commission you’ll earn.

However, bear in mind that in this scenario, having a sizable digital following is essential for success. If you already have a large and passionate follower base, you are more likely to convert and make money from Shopify. Vice versa, if you are starting from scratch, it might not be a good idea to follow.

How to make money on Shopify with Shopify Affiliate program
Shopify Affiliate Program

If you are interested in becoming a Shopify affiliate, click here for more information.

Become a Shopify Expert

If your Shopify store succeeds already, you can become a Shopify expert and earn money by helping other store owners in building and scaling their businesses. It could range from assisting with store design to planning marketing campaigns, product photography, and optimizing SEO indicators.

As a Shopify expert, you are accessible to special deals on extra tools that general merchants don’t. Additionally, one out of three merchants will contact a Shopify expert every six months, according to Shopify, so this could be a great source of income that you should not overlook.

Create Shopify Apps

How to make money on Shopify if you are both good at coding and familiar with the platform? Then go create your own Shopify App on Shopify App Store, or assist worldwide merchants in generating custom applications. Visit the Shopify Developers Platform for more details regarding how to bring your idea to life and earn regular revenue from Shopify App Store.

Shopify App Store
Shopify App Store

Migrate stores to Shopify

With this option, you are able to earn recurring revenue by helping online merchants migrate their stores from other commerce platforms to Shopify. To make the most out of this idea, provide your clients with a dependable, customizable, and user-friendly solution for re-platforming and growing their businesses.

Let’s take LitExtension, one of the most trusted shopping cart migration experts as an example. In the past ten years, LitExtension has provided stress-free, fast, and accurate cart-to-cart migration services to over 100.000 customers from all over the world.

✧ Try out our free Demo Migration to get an idea of our service and see if it is well worth your investment.

#5. Build and Flip Shopify Store

Growing a Shopify store and flipping it away is another profitable method to make money on Shopify. It’s like growing a tree and harvesting the fruits to sell for money, but multiples in profits. The more effort you put into your store, the more you are likely to make out of it.

Before selling the store away, you could make the profit even higher by linking to social media presences and investing in marketing efforts. All data of your Shopify store (including traffic and income statistics) will be pulled directly from Shopify and clearly shown on the exchange marketplaces.

#6. Other Ideas to Make Money on Shopify

We’ve guided you through five amazing ways – five possible answers for how to make money on Shopify. If none of them suits your needs and wants, there are still some practical ideas to sort out the age-old question, “How to make money on Shopify?”.

Monetize Your Social Media

If you have a large number of loyal social media followers, you can turn them into a revenue stream with Shopify. There are numerous applications available on Shopify App Market that allow you to easily connect your Shopify store to various social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, or Tiktok.

With shoppable social posts, you can approach new sources of potential customers. It has become more and more convenient recently since social commerce enabled your customers to pay within existing platforms.

how to make money on Shopify by monetizing your social media channels
Shoppable posts on Instagram

Turn Your Shopify Experience Into Products

Aside from being a Shopify expert, you could turn your platform familiarity and success experience with Shopify into money. Create a blog that specialized in Shopify tips and tricks, make a Youtube tutorial series, or more professionally, create training courses… With that, you can offer the thing you have and thing that other needs at the same time! No doubt this is a good answer to how to make money on Shopify.

Remember to think out of the box and be as creative as you can. So long as you put your heart and soul into your work, you can make good ‘products’ and earn much from them.


How To Make Money On Shopify: 5 Tips For A Successful Business

When it comes to how to make money on Shopify, there are many things to take into account other than just building a Shopify store. No matter what method you choose to make money out of this platform, it’s still important to attract traffic to your store, drive leads and convert them to sales.

#1. Display Your Products/Services Clearly

Before customers decide to spend their hard-earned money on your products, they want to know everything about your products. For example, the benefits customers may receive, and whether or not your products are capable of solving their problems.

To convert your store visitors to paying customers, your products and services should be clearly described. Use sharp, stylish photos and provide as much information about your products in a way that captures your customers’ attention. Let them know if there are any additional measurements, color and size variations, or special features.

tips on how to make money on shopify
Suta – a well-displayed Shopify store

If possible, add a “Support” button or a FAQ (frequently asked questions) section to your store. It aids in minimizing any confusion occurred during your customer’s transaction.

#2. Do Market Research

Bear in mind that there will be a lot of competitors due to the fast-paced development of both Shopify and the eCommerce industry (as many as those finding the answers to how to make money on Shopify). Therefore, it’s crucial to conduct market research to learn about your customer’s insight. What do the customers find in online stores like yours? Do your product meets their needs? Make sure you know these answers well before making any plans.

people conducting market research
Conduct market research carefully and frequently

Additionally, it’s also critical to price your product competitively. Investigate your competitors’ price strategies, compare them to yours and determine whether you should charge more or less. If possible, strike the right balance between being competitive and profitable.

#3. Promote Your Store

To stand out from the rest and reach out to more potential customers, you should plan suitable marketing strategies for your store. From social media channels, Search Engine Optimizer (SEO) & Pay-per-click (PPC) to content and email marketing. You need to understand their pros and cons to find out the best methods to promote your online store.

#4. Offer Great Customer Service

Acquiring new buyers is good, but keeping loyal customers is more important. According to Pareto Principle (The 80/20 Rule), 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your loyal purchasers.

a shop assistant talking with her customer
Great customer services make your customers stay with you

Consequently, it’s crucial to give out excellent customer service right from the start. Make it easy for customers to contact you from the very first step of the buying journey, and be responsive to any questions. If possible, integrate a live chat tool into your site to interact with customers in real time. Or else, put your contact details in a visible section on your website, and provide them with detailed FAQs.

#5. Be Proactive & Flexible

Although you’ve conducted detailed market research and believe that you know what your customer what, their actions might be different or change over time. Keep up-to-date with market trends and be flexible to adjust your store, price, or marketing strategy. You can make use of your store analytics or interview your customers to gather data and make meaningful changes.


How To Make Money On Shopify: Is Shopify Still Profitable?

It’s crystal clear that online retail is a good source to earn money, but why Shopify? Is Shopify still profitable? Scroll down below and you will find out the reasons why Shopify is superior to other eCommerce platforms.

#1. Easy to Use

If you are finding an eCommerce platform that provides a quick and easy getting started, Shopify is a perfect choice. There is no hosting or domain registration needed, and no technical skills required as well. All you have to do is register a Shopify account, answer a few questions about your online business, add some products, and you are good to go!

Shopify Admin Dashboard is quite user-friendly and straightforward. It’s super easy to adjust and manage the store right off the bat.

Shopify Dashboard
Shopify Dashboard

#2. Fast Loading Time

This might be the reason why many people are still wandering to find out the answer to how to make money on Shopify: Shopify comes at a fast page loading speed.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that Shopify provides the fastest average page speed among eCommerce solutions. It only takes about 309 milliseconds to load Shopify pages on average! That’s faster than the loading time of 500 milliseconds that Google recommends. Shopify also offers a free online image resizer. It allows you to minimize the image size and keep your site at a good loading pace.

Shopify page speed
Shopify Loading Time

#3. Superb Customer Service

Shopify support team is available 24/7 by email, phone, and live chat and provides high-quality customer service that is both informative and quick response. It’s not to mention the Help Center that is easily accessible and sufficient for any support needs, from video tutorials to webinars, and an active community that is highly responsive to your concerns. You can also take advantage of their free online business courses with the essential knowledge to run a successful online business.

#4. Mobile Friendly

With over 90% of the world population owning a mobile phone, it’s imperative that your eCommerce store is mobile-friendly. Fortunately, Shopify themes (both free and paid) are mobile responsive. They look great no matter what devices are used to access them. Additionally, you can easily manage your store via Shopify App on mobile devices.

shopify review: Why choose Shopify
Reasons why you should go with Shopify

Want to migrate to Shopify?

If you are intending to migrate to Shopify, LitExtension offers a great migration service that helps you transfer your data from the current eCommerce platform to a new one accurately, and painlessly with utmost security.


How To Make Money On Shopify: FAQs

[sp_easyaccordion id=”46410″]


Final Words

Whether you already have a Shopify store, plan on migrating cart to cart with Shopify as the destination, or are just putting your first step into the eCommerce field, the nerve-racking question “How to make money on Shopify” bothers everyone equally.

We do hope that after keeping up at this length, you’ve learned why Shopify outshines its eCommerce rivals and picked out some suitable Shopify business ideas to make money from this amazing platform. Whatever idea you choose to implement, make sure you put everything together, physically and mentally.

In case you prefer Shopify and planning to move away from your current platform, LitExtension – the #1 Shopping Cart Migration Expert is more than happy to assist with your request! With 10+ years of experience in platform migration and 200.000+ successfully migrated stores, LitExtension provides a seamless and accurate re-platforming experience.

Contact LitExtension expert in case you need further assistance. And don’t forget to check out our LitExtension blog and join our Facebook community to get more tips on how to make money on Shopify as well as other eCommerce platforms.

KEEP READING...

You may also like