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Shopify merchants can now create orders and accept credit card payments through the Shopify Admin, making it easier to sell wholesale, take orders over the phone, and more.

Order creation was designed for businesses that need the flexibility to create custom orders. This new tool makes it easy to build orders in Shopify using existing products, new line items, one-time discounts, and customizable shipping rates.

What if I told you that you can put yourself in a better position to succeed by simply sharing your time, either once a week or once a month, with other like-minded and motivated individuals?

Jim Rohn, author and motivational speaker, tells us that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. Are the people you spend the most time with helping you with your personal development and business’ growth? This is where participating in and being a part of a mastermind group can improve that. 

In this article, I'm going to go over what a mastermind group is, how it can benefit you and your business, and how to form one, step-by-step.

Ecommerce has revolutionized how artisans and makers sell their handmade items. It has become increasingly easier for creative DIY entrepreneurs to build and grow a handmade goods business, from scratch, online.

Still, as creatives and makers, it’s easy to forget about the business-side of, well, your business! Merchants that create their own products by hand are much more invested in their product. They pour their heart, soul and energy into each and every item they produce.

Some artisans might not see the business opportunity or the opportunity to make a living or side-income from their passion. While others, see the opportunity to build a real brand from their creations, not just selling one-off products.

I recently had the chance to talk with four handmade goods merchants: Coralie, who sells handmade jewelry at Coralie Reiter Jewelry, Robin, who sells modern leather goods at Fitzy, Sahnda, who sells soft sole baby shoes at Sahnda Marie Kids, and Valerie, who sells leather goods with her husband Geoffrey at Walnut Studiolo. I asked them about their passion, how they turned their passion into an online store, and how they managed the marketing and business side of their company, all while creating their products by hand.

It's killing you.

The phrase “Do something you love, and you’ll never work another day in your life,” although poetic and inspiring, isn’t always accurate for entrepreneurs. Studies show that the long days with little downtime ultimately end up taking a toll on your health, relationships, and productivity. 

If you work on your own business full time, work-life balance is extremely important. If you work 9-5 and run your own business on the side, work-life balance is critical.

With the announcement of Twitter’s acquisition of Periscope, a lot of business owners and marketers have been scrambling to figure out the best way to use this new platform to grow their business.

If you’re unfamiliar with Periscope, it’s an app (presently only for iOS) that allows you to live stream video to strangers and your Twitter followers from your phone or tablet. Viewers can comment and “heart” live streams as they watch, to interact with the broadcaster.

Alternatively, Meerkat, another similar live streaming app for phones and tablets, has also taken the internet by storm.

Periscope and Meerkat are not new opportunities to sell your products like you have been doing on Facebook or Pinterest. These new mobile live streaming tools provide a different opportunity to build your ecommerce business and create relationships with your customers. I’ll explain why this is important in this blog post.

Pinterest and Shopify have partnered to make it easy for businesses to sell their products on Pinterest using Buyable Pins. This new type of Pin — announced earlier today — includes a “Buy it” button that lets consumers checkout and pay for products they discover on Pinterest using Apple Pay or their credit card.  

If you’re struggling to understand how to use social media for your ecommerce business in a way that grows your audience, keeps your audience engaged and drives sales and traffic back to your website, don’t fret.

Here are 10 inspiring examples of social media done right, across different popular platforms, by different ecommerce businesses. You can apply these examples immediately into your own social media plan of attack to help you achieve results such as growth and engagement. Be sure to check out the 5 free bonus examples of social media done right by ecommerce businesses to give you even more ideas to start using in your social media strategy.

Farbod and Kyle are two close friends living in New York City. They both love food, and share an affinity for spice. But every time they went out to eat together, they realized that one thing was always missing—the special ingredient for everything—sriracha.

In this customer spotlight, we dig in to the process behind manufacturing a unique product, getting featured on massive online blogs, as well as the pains along the way of building Sriracha2Go.

I know first hand how difficult it is to work a day job and still manage to be a “sidepreneur”. There is a significant lack of time to run an ecommerce business while working a 9 to 5, and you still need to commit yourself first to your employer.

I’m here to tell you that the good news is that it’s very much possible to grow and create a successful ecommerce business on the side. Many others before you have done it and I’m going to show you how you can, too.

Video is insanely popular, yet using video is still one of the most under-utilized ecommerce strategies. We've talked about the importance of product photography in the past, but great product photos are table stakes at this point. If you want to take your ecommerce business to the next level and blow past your competition, you can't afford to ignore the power of incorporating video into your mix.

A love for typography and minimalistic design is all it took for designer Jeff Sheldon to get started on a life-changing path.  

A designer by day, and entrepreneur by night—Jeff has been able to build an online t-shirt, and lifestyle product empire over the past few years.

In this customer spotlight, we catch up with Jeff and learn more about the growth and development of Ugmonk.