How to Make Money on Shopify in 2021? 4 Excellent Ways

Shopify is one of the leading e-commerce platforms, owning around 20% of the market with over $100 billion in total sales. Online sellers can easily set up and manage their online stores using their platform, which is very user-friendly, affordable and scalable.

According to Shopify’s data, their merchants run over 1 million stores in 175 countries, but you don’t necessarily have to run an e-commerce store to have a slice of the Shopify pie. 

Here are some excellent ways how to make money on Shopify in 2021:

Run your own e-commerce store

Shopify is the go-to platform for e-commerce sellers, adding a lot of value as it is rich in features at an affordable price. Their platform is simple and intuitive to use – you don’t need to be an expert to have a Shopify store. 

Their basic store plan starts at $29 with many add-ons available to customize and improve your store or you can upgrade to the Shopify Plus enterprise plan. 

In the Shopify app store, you can find applications that can add features to your store, enhancing your user experience, helping you become more profitable, and simplifying and optimizing the running of your store. Many of these apps are free or low cost.

This ability to integrate your Shopify store with many other apps and tools renders it simple to scale your store according to your needs. 

Aside from user experience, one of the most important things when running an e-commerce business is metric tracking. You can’t hope to optimize your store if you don’t understand how each area of your business is performing.

Integrating your store with a Shopify profit calculator, such as BeProfit Profit Tracker can help you track your business metrics, analyze expenses and optimize your profits in an easy, intuitive way. Data is presented visually in an interactive dashboard where you can pull customized reports.

As intuitive and feature-rich Shopify is, making money and becoming profitable also comes down to how you manage your store in everything from setting your prices to servicing your customers. The BeProfit Shopify calculator helps you make data-driven decisions so you know which areas of your store need improvement and more focus to optimize your profitability. For example, by integrating your marketing ad platforms with your BeProfit dashboard, you can easily analyze each marketing platforms’ return-on-investment (ROI) to see what’s working for you and what’s not.

Dropshipping with Shopify

Dropshipping is a popular online selling method whereby the dropshipper never has to hold stock, but instead acts as the go-between the supplier and the customer. As a dropshipper, you simply need to market, acquire the customer and provide customer support, while the supplier will ship the product directly to your customer.

These are some of the main benefits of dropshipping including:

• Minimal cash flow issues as you only pay supplier once the customer has paid you
• No need to purchase stock so minimal expenses such as COGs
• Low set-up fees
• Low overheads as no Shopify shipping, logistics or storage costs 
• Less risk as supplier has to deal with returns

The dropshipper is responsible for customer acquisition via marketing channels and an effective customer funnel, as well as customer support. It’s also crucial to source reliable suppliers as product quality, delivery reliability and returns policy can make or break your reputation as you are the storefront and customer point of contact.

One downside of being a dropshipper is that your profit margin may suffer if you don’t set the right pricing strategy. Since dropshippers typically get the same economies of scale as enjoyed by wholesalers, the profit margins may be thin. A profit margin calculator from the Shopify app store can help you analyze and determine the right price point based on your expenses and other key elements so that you can optimize your profit margins as a dropshipper. 

Become a Shopify developer

If you have technical skills, offering your services as a Shopify developer is an excellent way to make money in 2021. Although Shopify is a DIY e-commerce platform, there are many benefits to having a professional developer’s expertise, including:

• App development – the Shopify app store has thousands of apps that Shopify users can download and integrate with their store. As a Shopify app developer, your first step should be to choose a niche in which you want to operate. For example, at Become we decided to apply our expertise in business finance and developed the BeProfit Profit Tracker. By focusing on a niche, you can position yourself as a professional in that area. According to Shopify data, 87% of online merchants make use of third-party apps for their stores and by 2019 over 25.8 million apps had been installed by Shopify users. Since most of these come at a fee, you can make money if you develop a quality app targeting a niche need, so that you can rank in the app store and earn revenue. 
  
  
• Custom storefront – another way how to make money on Shopify is to develop custom storefronts for e-commerce sellers. Even though it’s not a complicated tool, some business owners don’t have the will or inclination to deal with the actual setup of their store, and prefer to stick with the business side of things. Also, if an online retailer prefers a custom storefront over one of Shopify’s templates, you can help them create a beautiful customized storefront. 
  
  

Shopify affiliation

Shopify has an extensive affiliate program, and as an affiliate you can earn on average $58 per merchant that joins Shopify on a paid plan using your unique affiliate link.

If you’re a content creator, influencer, entrepreneur or educator, or just anyone who has a relevant audience to refer to Shopify, you can benefit from the Shopify affiliate program. It’s free to join and there’s potential to develop a viable, strong revenue stream based on referral commissions earned. Shopify will help transition your referees from trial to paid plans, so that you can earn your fee. 

These are the criteria for becoming a Shopify affiliate:

• You own and operate a live website
• You already have a relevant audience of entrepreneurs
• You’re a content creator, publishing original content such as blog articles, videos, online courses, and so on
• You’re experienced with Shopify or similar e-commerce platforms

If you want to make money on Shopify without running an actual store and you meet these criteria, then becoming a Shopify affiliate is a winning way to do so.

Ready to make money on Shopify in 2021?

Whether you’re a seller, entrepreneur, marketer or technical person, you can find an opportunity to make money on Shopify. Focus on your strengths, keep tracking your profitability, and become another Shopify success story in 2021!