7 eCommerce Success Stories to Inspire You
Nowadays, the eCommerce industry keeps growing exponentially. Both businesses and individuals are looking to increase their sales online, knowing the potential of its market size. In the past year, specifically as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, the eCommerce industry has seen an instrumental expansion. This resulted in emerging numerous eCommerce success stories.
Dropshipping plays a major role in the eCommerce industry now. With this business model, everyone has the opportunity to become a millionaire and become successful while working from home. To help you understand the benefits of eCommerce and the dropshipping model as a whole as well as be up to date with the dropshipping trends, we prepared 7 eCommerce success stories to inspire you in 2021. Each eCommerce is one of a kind – it talks about the unique opportunities that the eCommerce industry brings, both for the traditional and dropshipping business models.
Some of the mentioned companies are successfully operating by adopting the dropshipping business model, while others have online stores where they sell unique branded products using the traditional eCommerce model. We have decided to share these eCommerce success stories here as proof that anyone can succeed in the eCommerce industry if they set their mind to it.
Oleg & Stacy
Let’s begin by explaining how this Lithuanian couple started off by selling used clothes, then switched to dropshipping luxury products and apparel. One of the many dropshipping success stories of BrandsGateway, Oleg and Stacy, started by selling their used clothes to earn an extra monthly income. Later they found out about the many clothing suppliers offering their dropshipping services. So, it became clear that this profitable business can actually expand.
This is how they found BrandsGateway and were immediately drawn to its dropshipping service and the benefits it offers. Selling on various marketplaces is their specialty, exposing thousands of branded clothes to all kinds of audiences. They use Shopify and some of its useful tools to increase visibility. Moreover, visual social media such as Pinterest and Instagram are yet another technique they use to attract more customers.
Their best advice to beginner dropshippers is to choose the most user-friendly platforms to sell on. According to Oleg, these are easy to navigate through, the monthly costs aren’t as expensive as some marketplaces, and users can start with specific product categories. If you’re wondering about how much you need to spend on your store, the answer is simple. Oleg claims that the most important thing you need to achieve success in the dropshipping industry is time. The financial part, is of course, important. However, quality research and niche exploration is the best thing to do in order to succeed in this business.
According to them, selling used excess luxury clothing and accessories online is what gave them the idea of selling more. They learned as they went, even though Oleg already had some experience in eCommerce. Dropshipping was the next step, opening their online store and choosing BrandsGateway as their reliable supplier. Upon reviewing the various companies offering dropshipping luxury clothes, BrandsGateway was their top choice. Today, they make over $10.000 per month and are looking to expand globally, since there’s no limit on where you can ship the products you sell with BrandsGateway.
Eric Bandholz
Beardbrand is another example of inspirational eCommerce success stories and how people take advantage of the eCommerce industry. They started as a YouTube channel and then decided to start a blog. Focusing on beard care products and content, Eric and his team soon realized how much people are actually in need of useful information about male grooming and beard care products. Even though they started selling their own products seven years ago, they had no idea that Beardbrand would soon start bringing in thousands of dollars on a daily basis. What happened in the meantime? The famous daily newspaper – the New York Times, made a story about Eric’s blog. This gave Eric the idea of capitalizing on this market opportunity.
Creating a small community for beard care and having a faithful, loyal audience is what reminded him of gaining financial benefits. If you’re already talking about these products, why not start selling them? Quickly working together on creating new beard care products, the team managed to deploy one on their blog, just one day before the article got published. Even though it hasn’t helped them much, it was enough, to begin with. Their sense of sincerity is what brought Beardbrand tons of success. Among the most interesting topics, they write about grooming and care, travel, and lifestyle.
Their best advice for people getting to join the eCommerce landscape is to focus on the sole purpose of the products, and remind yourself why you built them in the first place. Eric and his team now sell this rare niche merchandise like crazy, earning over $20.000 per day. They are looking to stand firmly as the “kings of beard care products” simply by offering honest information and advice for the male community. Sometimes, believing and telling your customers why you sell what you sell is just about enough to earn decent profits and become a part of the most amazing eCommerce success stories.
MixedMade
Sometimes, the solution is right in front of you, even though you can’t see it. MixedMade is the perfect success story of how two people met and while brainstorming, skipped the “sell unique product” part. No one in their right mind would think of combining chili flakes with raw honey. In the world of cuisine, they already have and use spicy food. However, Casey Elsass and Morgen Newman risked everything to create and start selling this interesting food combination, and are now part of the ‘successful entrepreneurs’ world.
They tested the product so many times, until getting it right and wrap it in a modern, minimalist jar with chili pepper in it. Customers got so intrigued by it, they almost feel sorry about opening and testing this daring food combination. The most interesting information about this business idea? In less than a year, they made over $165.000 in sales. Knowing how well the product sells, Morgen and Casey thought of expanding this idea into a serious business.
Thus, looking to focus on the culinary (cooking/kitchen) niche, these geniuses rebranded into an online store, now called Bushwick Kitchen. What happened that made them continue selling more daring food combinations? The simplicity of the idea, knowing you’ve got two ingredients no one has tried before. Naturally, you’d like to test it out and see how the audience will accept it. In this case, it’s worked pretty well, according to the figures. Bushwick Kitchen now successfully sells other similar products, becoming a well-known brand with a successful story behind it. This is the perfect example of combining various products, selling them as something completely new, invoking curiosity among the many potential customers.
Azura Runway
This one is among the dropshipping success stories. Sam Wood is an Australian entrepreneur, who took advantage of BrandsGateway’s world of opportunities and expanded his line of products to sell on his successful dropshipping site – Azura Runway. He sells all of our products on various marketplaces and platforms across Australia, focusing on this market due to having a decent knowledge of the market. Since we are Sam’s first dropshipping supplier ever since he started this business, he’s been making over $44.000 per month. By selling the more exclusive clothing, Azura Runway often makes around $2400 from a single item sale.
Sam realized that the discounts we offer versus the financial power of Australia’s population are the perfect equation of earning big, which is why he contacted us in the first place. His advice to new dropshippers is the simplest yet. According to Sam, ‘if people do it the right way and be at least 1% successful, they will earn a lot’. No matter the situation happening right now, with the decrease in the economy, high-ticket products will always sell because they are always in demand. No matter if it’s a world war or a global pandemic happening, they want to look good nevertheless. Again, even Sam agrees about Shopify’s ease of access, making it the best place to start selling high luxury products.
To him, it’s essential to focus on the audience you’re targeting, to identify and define the people buying luxury products. Nowadays, it’s much easier than 50 years ago, because the living standards have increased all over the planet. Another great piece of advice by Sam meant for beginner dropshippers concerns taking advantage of the marketplaces. Most importantly, using BrandsGateway’s profit margins and calculating your potential profits compared to those of your competitors, will get you more sales and the ability to test the prices on various marketplaces.
Dollar Shave Club
Michael Dubin is a genius in the world of entrepreneurs. By offering products for just $1, he managed to sell his company for a staggering $1 billion years later. By reading this story, you’ll realize how something so simple became so successful, and how you couldn’t think of it earlier. Still, it can serve as a catalyst for when you’ll be thinking about the next best thing. What made Michael successful and made him retire earlier than the rest of us?
Michael founded Dollar Shave Club in 2011. It’s a subscription site, where customers register, subscribe for $5 (used to be $1) per month and then receive high-quality razors by mail. At first, it doesn’t seem like a great idea. However, offering a good-smelling shaving foam or any other accessory every once in a while quickly spread the word about this great subscription service. Another great thing is that Michael’s Dollar Shave Club didn’t have any competition. No other site offered the same service and even if they did, they wouldn’t think of the freebies in the first place. This is what made them stand out from the rest.
Five years later, in 2016, the famous company Unilever bought his company for $1 billion. These unique features are what made the company so successful. Using people’s habits and taking care of them for a symbolic sum is a genius marketing technique, seen by a handful of eCommerce entrepreneurs. Today, the Dollar Shave Club is still largely popular in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. They have over 3 million subscribers, out of which about 20 percent are women.
Diamond Candles
Among the most awesome eCommerce success stories which created successful entrepreneurs is selling unique candles. Diamond Candles was at the beginning of trying to make it big, when Justin Winter, the co-founder, decided to use social media to his advantage. These candles are unique because of the different types of rings that they hide within them. The element of surprise and curiosity is what made Winter generate income.
At first, Diamond Candles lacked the marketing budget to promote itself as a serious company. Then, they decided to make it more visually appealing. The solution was the use of popular social media like Facebook to promote what they sell. Today, the business has almost a million fans, as the product itself is highly popular as a gift.
Combining different marketing techniques such as eye-catching imagery and the ‘surprise’ factor, as well as offering a truly unique product, soon brought the founders Justin Winter and Brenda Cayton popularity and well-earned acclaim. These entrepreneurs claim they haven’t spend a single dollar on paid advertising so far. That is something that makes the story even more admiring among beginners in the eCommerce industry.
Leesa
The last of the eCommerce success stories focus on mattresses. It generates over $1 million in sales per month, with over $30 million worth of merchandise sold back in 2015. Again, what’s so special about this product?
David Wolfe is the person responsible for making these mattresses so popular and sought for. Redesigning the mattress and reinventing the sleeping experience are the two main factors why David succeeded in the eCommerce industry.
Namely, customers will get a 3-layer mattress, made of 100% foam. In case you need to pack it up, you can fold it to fit in a large luggage bag. Hundreds of thousands of people have seen the difference with Leesa. Their customers claim they have improved their quality of sleep over time.
Summary
If you’re still looking to become successful, it’s never a bad idea to become inspired by those that have made it big already. After all, it can only provide you with more insights or a place to start. However, the main reason behind these eCommerce success stories is for you to learn that it’s wrong to give up. Millions of eCommerce business owners face these problems on a daily basis until they earn more the following month. Remember to stay consistent, research as often as you think you should, and stay informed of the latest dropshipping news.
Learn more
- How to create an ‘About Us’ page for your online store?
- How to create a newsletter for your dropshipping store?
About the Author
Kristina Gjorgievska
Kristina, Head of Content at BrandsGateway. Eternal inspiration: The Doors music and lyrics, Bernardo Bertolucci's timeless “Stealing Beauty”, and the dynamic and meditative Ashtanga Yoga.
