10 Top Shopify Stores of 2021 to Take Inspiration

There are roughly 820,000 active Shopify Stores running right now.

Shopify has become the most sought-after platform for two primary reasons.

• It is easy to set up a Shopify Store.
• It can be started with minimum investment.

Yes, you can enter the trillion-dollar ecommerce industry with Shopify without getting into any technicalities of coding and programming. You can also make the best Shopify stores by looking into the success stories of top Shopify store owners.

For your ease, I have analyzed the top 10 Shopify stores of 2021 and identify thier reason for success so you can generate ideas for your ecommerce store.

1- Gymshark

2- Kylie Cosmetics

3- Fashion Nova

4- Luxy Hair

5- BestSelf Co.

6- All Bird

7- Bulletproof

8- Ugmonk

9- Tattly

10- Happiness Abscissa

Shopify has acquired the 2nd highest market share of the ecommerce software platform industry in the USA.

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If you want to penetrate the ecommerce sector, keep checking out our channel. We consistently publish guides and posts on our channel to train and teach enthusiast ecommerce entrepreneurs and dropshippers.

On our Facebook Community, the members are showing curiosities to look into some successful and top Shopify stores to take inspiration for their own business.

So this post is dedicated to enthusiast entrepreneur to take inspiration and ideas from the top Shopify stores in 2021.

We can assure you that by the end of this post, you will have a unique and constructive idea for your ecommerce and dropshipping business.

In this post, you will learn different types of marketing strategies and unorthodox actions to lead a successful Shopify store in 2021.

To make your business one of the most successful Shopify stores, we have analyzed the best Shopify stores and mention one major take away from following Shopify success stories that you can use in setting up your business.

Have a journal and take notes from the best Shopify stores to start a successful online business!

Best Shopify Stores of 2021 for Inspiration

Here I have also mentioned some key takeaways from these successful Shopify stores that you can adapt to create top Shopify dropshipping business.

1. GymShark

GymShark is a UK based fitness brand that manufactures and sells fitness apparel and accessories.

Started in 2012 in the garage of their founder Ban Francis and now it has become of the most famous fitness brand having over 3.3 million followers on Instagram from 131 countries.

Yearly growth of 200% in revenues helped the GymShark hit a turnover of $236 million in July 2019, up from $138 million in the previous year.

But what did Gymshark do to become one of the most successful Shopify stores?

GymShark goes with the strategy to make the community and engage with thier engaging blogging.

Their central blog becomes the hub of fitness to get inspiration for the bodybuilders. This engagement via blogging helps the brand to target the new and returning customer and merge them into their community.

Key Take away

1. 1. • Do not underestimate the power of blogging – it provides value to your customer.

2. Kylie Cosmetics

Kylie Jenner is now officially the youngest billionaire. It all happened when she started her online make up brand Kylie Cosmetics on Shopify.

Kylie Cosmetics launched a couple of years ago with a “lip kit,” and now it has been a $630 million worth of makeup.

Maybe most of the people do not find it a story to take inspiration (as she belongs to a family who is famous for being famous). However, from an entrepreneurial mindset, we have to look into the actions that she has done right because running a successful ecommerce business needs much more than being famous.

1. 1. • She took the consultancy of her mother, Kris Jenner (a businessperson), who handles the management of all of her businesses and owns 10% of shares.
      • Kylie Jenner is famous for her superficial lips that helped her to gain the 135+ million social media followers. The product she introduced, “Lip Kit,” instantly managed to gather the attention in her community and hit bullseyes in the relevancy area.

Key Take away

1. 1. • Never hesitate to take the consultancy in anything you do not have the expertise.
      • Create an active community then introduce the relevant product.

3. Fashion Nova

Fashion Nova – the most searched fashion brand in 2018, outranking Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Versace. (Source: Google Trends)

Fashion Nova’s first store was opened in 2006 at Panorama City. The ecommerce website launched in 2013 when its Instagram page had 60000 followers. Right now, it is reaching 19 million.

However, the online success of Fashion nova is based on two key points.

1. 1. • The right influencer
      • Reasonable price

“I believe that as long as we focus on giving the best product at the best price and getting it to our customer fast, we will continue to grow” – Said Richard Saghian, CEO Fashion Nova to WWD Journal.

Other than playing with the right prices, the major success comes with the leveraging the potential of social media platforms.

Fashion Nova went after for the renowned fashion icon to endorse their products on their social media channels.

Famous American Cardi B received $20000 monthly to endorse Fashion Nova on her Instagram with then 19 million followers.

Kylie Jenner’s single post in 2016 had added up $50000 in sales for the store.

Key Takeaway

1. 1. • Reaching out the right influencer with the relevant audience for your products and the competitive prices is the ultimate key to success.

4. Luxy Hair

The couple Alex Ikonn and Mimi own Luxy Hair, which is one of the top Shopify dropshipping stores.

The idea of becoming a hair-extension ecommerce retailer came to Alex when his wife could not find a hair extension. They just make a solution to their problem.

The surprising factor of their success was that their entire customer came via organic marketing (YouTube).

The couple started a YouTube channel – Luxy Hair – in 2010 to give tutorials about hairdos and built the community. They talked a lot of suppliers from China, and finally, they found one supplier from Alibaba, who is still their leading supplier.

Luxy Hair YouTube now has more than 3 million subscribers, with over 469 million views.

On asking about YouTube’s success, Alex mentioned two success factors of YouTube (organic marketing).

1. 1. 1. Give people value.
      2. Create a connection with the community.

To deliver their order, they use Shopify App Shipwire for fulfillment to take the burden off product deliveries.

Luxy Hair has managed to generate a 7-figure revenue annually. You can read the complete interview of Alex on his Shopify store’s success here.

Key Takeaway

1. 1. • Try to get a business idea from your daily life problem.
      • Offer value to your customer before the product.
      • The right content marketing could become your biggest salesperson.

5. Best Self Co.

Best Self Co. sells productive products and motivates people to make the most out of the day with big thinking and effective planning. The most famous work of this store is the Self Journal Planner to write down the day-to-day activity and plans.

Although selling the journal planners is not a novel idea, but their winning ingredient is their presentation and the content they used in the marketing.

First, they build a relevant community on Facebook and Instagram, then pitch the product with inspiring content and presentation that makes the viewer believe that having a planner would make them productive.

The website presentation is top-notch that could easily entice a viewer who comes with the intent of having a productive tool.

Key Take Away

1. 1. • The business presentation/website design should delineate the intent of the customer’s need.

6. All Birds

Former New Zealand soccer player Tim Brown and his partner Joey Zwillinger started this shoe brand back in 2016. The use of merino wool in footwear makes them the world’s most comfortable shoes (as said by Time Magazine), which helps All Birds to gain instant popularity.

The million-dollar came to the ex-footballer when he saw the gap of comfortable footwear manufacturing and material. He merged that need with his expertise in using merino wool.

The combination of good design, comfort, and eco-friendly material helps them to become a $1.4 billion sneaker company.

Key Takeaway

1. 1. • Always have a keen observation of the market you are associated with and try to fill out the market gap with your expertise.

7. Bulletproof

Famous nutrition author and entrepreneur Dave Asprey founded bluttelproof.com – energy food and supplement for better performance. The website is highly engaging, and the blog post tutorial on nutritious food is a perfect example of social engagement within the community.

The idea came to Dave Asprey when he was trekking in Tibet at – 10 °F, getting down on energy, he went to a local house where he had the yak butter tea that triggered the energy level in him.

The ingredients used in bulletproof products are the mixture of the latest research with ancient Ayurvedic and Chinese medication that is the USP of this brand.

The regular blog on nutrition and health has successfully managed to create a great community on its social media platforms that perform a significant role in the marketing and sales of bulletproof.

Key Takeaway

1. 1. • You must have a firm knowledge of your niche to keep your community engaged with multiple sorts of content.

8. Ugmonk 

If you think typography and minimalistic design cannot help in building a brand, then you must take some lessons from Jeff Sheldon, the founder of Ugmonk, an online t-shirt, and lifestyle product.

Ugmonk was started as a side hustle for Jeff that became a lifestyle brand over the years.

The motto of the company is to provide high-quality, unique items with modern aesthetic designs.

The store is operating in over 60 countries and shipped hundreds and thousands of products so far.

According to Jeff, the manufacturers played the most significant role in the success of Ugmonk. He suggested finding suppliers who are passionate to work on your project, guide you, and provide the best quality items.

To market the store, he outreached to be featured on blogging websites related to t-shirts and design. That’s where the Ugmonk got recognition and become one of the best Shopify stores to take inspiration.

Key Takeaway

1. 1. • Find reliable suppliers and manufacturers to source your product.

9. Tattly

Tattly is another business that was started as a side hobby and went on to sold 2.6 million items in 2015.

Tina Roth Eisenberg, a graphic designer, turned entrepreneur, get the idea of this business when her daughter came home with a ridiculous temporary tattoo in 2011.

In search of a supplier, she gets the help of her designer friend for the manufacturing process, and the business gets started.

Following the year-over-year success of Tattly, Tina started a pop-up store (fake temporary tattoo shop) to promote her business.

Tattly sales are now over $10 million.

Key Takeaway

1. 1. • Grow your personal relationship in your field to get help whenever you need it.
      • Inspiration for ideas could come from anywhere, so keep thinking out of the box.

10. Happiness Abscissa

Happiness Abscissa has a quintessential store design to spark curiosity in viewers at first sight. Its unique design helps this store to be featured in multiple best Shopify store lists.

The “Ha” in their design reflects the happy elements when a person sees it.

According to them,

The Ha is a subjective scale that incorporates neurobiologic and sensory elements that can be optimized to improve one’s sense of wellbeing.

Well, you will notice a cheerful and enjoyable vibe when you visit their website.

It was started in a collaboration between Emilio (Neurologist) and Ann (Psychiatrist), to sell pleasant scents in the form of soaps and perfumes. These scents are transferred through the amygdala that influences an instant increase in happiness.

Key Takeaway

1. 1. • Design your website that supports your store’s overall theme.

How to Find Best Shopify Stores 2021

When we try to find the best Shopify stores, for example, we usually go to the Shopify success stories page. On this page, you can find some interesting stories that might give some ideas about your online business, the critical Shopify to use, and how to run a Shopify successfully.

You can filter the stories in your niche by using the filter.

However, to find the best Shopify stores, you can search via Shopify IP. There are multiple free tools available online where you submit an IP and get information about all the sites on that IP.

For our work, we use the most tool IP database tool MYIP.MS.

Here is how you can find the best Shopify Stores of 2021:

1. Look Out for Shopify IP

Write the search query “Shopify IP” on Google, and you will get the IP 23.227.38.32.

2. Go to MYIP.MS, enter Shopify IP and click Whois Lookup

Shopify’s complete information will come right in front of you.

3. Click ‘other sites on IP’

4. Check out the list by website rating

Here are the best Shopify stores 2021 listed down based on the global rating.

FAQs for Top Shopify Stores

Q:1 What big companies use Shopify?

This list may give you a shock when you find out what kind of companies use Shopify.

1. 1. • Tesla Motors
      • Kylie Cosmetics
      • Red Bull
      • Herschel Supply Co.
      • Lakers Store
      • Oreo

Q: 2 What can I sell on Shopify?

There are millions of products that you can sell from thousands of niches. To understand what to sell online, here are two guides for you to understand to get a profitable niche and trending product to sell.

1. 1. 1. 725+ Profitable Niche
      2. Trending products to sell in 2021

What are the most successful Shopify stores?

Q:3 Should I use Shopify?

Yes, you should, if you want to get into the ecommerce industry comprehensively without any technical knowledge. Here is the step-by-step guide to set up a Shopify Store.

Q: 4 Can you make money with Shopify?

Several entrepreneurs are running a successful Shopify store and generating significant revenues. On our channel, we run a series of episodes – Shopify Diaries – in which we scale a Shopify store and share our techniques on how to scale up a Shopify business.

Q: 5 Can you have two Shopify Stores?

You can only have one shop on one admin login. To sell different products from another domain, you need to have another shop. However, you can use the same email address for different shops.

Q:6 Are Shopify stores successful/profitable?

Shopify is one of the most profitable ecommerce platforms. The merchants on Shopify are selling in billions of dollars. More than 800,000 merchants are on this platform, and Shopify reported a total of $55 billion in sales for its all merchant in May 2018.

Wrapping Up

What we realize after going through the fantastic journey of top Shopify stores that every business went to a different path that leads them to success. They even use different channels to make sales. However, the one thing that is common in every case is also the primary factor of ecommerce success.

That is – the right community!

All you need is to build a strong community first and build your brand around it.

We know to make the primary audience is tough, but some social media tools such as Facebook Audience Insights makes it much easier to find a relevant audience.