Company

While chapstick and lip balm may not be something you’d immediately consider when looking for a business opportunity, the growing interest in natural lip care makes this necessity a viable product idea. In this post, we'll walk you through an easy recipe to create your own natural lip balm and teach you how to market and sell your new product online, in-store, and everywhere in between.

Getting onto Shark Tank isn't just an opportunity to pitch to a panel of well-known investors, but the chance to earn valuable connections, exposure, and an impressive milestone in your company's story.

On this episode of Shopify Masters, you’ll learn from a husband and wife entrepreneur team about how they prepared to pitch to Shark Tank investors.

Hanna Lim and Mark Lim are the founders of Lollaland: makers of modern infant/toddler goods that are both functional and fun.

For four young strangers who came together by chance, leaving their stable lives behind to bet it all on building a YouTube channel full time...didn't go over well with their friends and family.

But because of that choice, these guys have gone from living on a mutual friend’s couch in Montreal, Canada to getting their own place in Venice Beach, California while travelling the world to create content for a fast-growing fanbase of over 310,000 subscribers.

Their unique brand of videos have made headlines on major media outlets like Buzzfeed and Fox News. They became friends with the Prime Minister of Canada and other hard-to-meet celebrities. And they've exploded in popularity thanks to a partnership with Snapchat.

All of their wins and amazing stories come down to a philosophy and a movement that they've dubbed the "Yes Theory". And it's what's helped them succeed in their quest to live out their dreams as full-time creators.

Bots have evolved beyond their chatbot origins, communicating with us through voice, learning and adapting to our needs, and even talking among themselves. Check out our list of 8 bots, bot integrations, and automation tools that work with your Shopify store to help you get more done without actually cloning yourself.

Physical, digital or service-based products? You've got a lot of options when it comes to what you sell online.

But what are the pros and cons of each?

In this episode of Shopify Masters, you’ll learn from an entrepreneur who started a service-based business then transitioned to selling digital products and now to launching physical products—all to the same market.

Eric Miller is the founder of UX Kits: a store that sells beautiful assets for creative professionals. Find out what he learned from selling tangible and intangible products, and what you need to consider beyond the high margins of digital downloads.

We like to think we’re rational people making rational decisions.

We pore over the data in our analytics dashboards, looking for trends among our customers. We carefully weigh the pros and cons of our own purchase decisions, arriving neatly at a logical choice.

Right? Wrong.

The truth is that the human brain is incredibly complex, contextual and emotional. There are dozens and dozens of cognitive biases, for example, influencing every decision you and your customers make.

Here’s everything you need to know about some of the most common biases (and how to use them to your advantage).

When does a sneaker become more than a sneaker? What makes a consumer choose one seemingly identical gown or coat or swimsuit over another? Emotion. Branding at its best, speaks to its intended audience like a BFF – it, like, really gets you. And in fashion, it stands up for you, becoming the outward-facing expression of your personality.

For small brands and emerging designers, widespread logo recognition is an unattainable (or at least very far-away) goal. But branding is more than a logo. It encompasses values, voice, and design choices that run like a continuous thread through product and packaging and online presence. Good branding is storytelling – a consistent and continuous message, weaving meaning into every piece.

How do your nail branding for your own fashion brand? 14 experts weighed in on the discussion.

Successful entrepreneurs, or professionals in any field, aren’t made overnight: It takes them years of effort, of trial and error, to amass all the experience and knowledge that got them where they are today.

These people who have “been there and done that” offer one of the most understated resources entrepreneurs can benefit from: mentorship.

A good mentor can help you avoid common mistakes early on, solve troublesome problems, and offer up valuable connections and advice, while helping you realize your full potential as a person.

Here's how to work with mentors on your entrepreneurial journey, and where to start your search for one.

Optimizing your supply chain for speed and efficiency is a challenge on its own. But when you're selling food with an expiration date, it gets a lot more complicated. 

In this episode of Shopify Masters, you’ll learn from an entrepreneur who has learned how to wrangle multiple vendors and suppliers together in a timely fashion to run his perishable food-based supply chain.

Cameron Sheldrake is the founder of Off The Cob Chips: tortilla chips made with real sweet corn.

When you’re starting out with your business, you’re doing it all: fulfilling orders, responding to customers, managing your social media, and so much more.

But while we pursue entrepreneurship for many reasons, having less time in our lives isn’t one of them.

That’s why the first “employee” many ecommerce entrepreneurs hire is a virtual assistant: someone who can take on the daily tasks and processes that are important for running your business, but not necessarily focused on growing it.

If you’re experiencing stress and the other “good problems” that come with success, it might be time for you to consider hiring your own virtual assistant and get back some of those hours in your day.

Today, we take a moment—amid the exhilarating madness of our days as entrepreneurs, dreamers, and Shopifyers—to mark a milestone in the history of our movement.

Shopify now powers over 500,000 online stores.

Selling in person with Shopify has never been easier.

Beautiful, simple, and secure, Shopify’s first in-house designed hardware—our new Chip & Swipe Reader—is now shipping in the U.S.

In April, we unveiled our latest addition to the Shopify POS hardware family, and started shipping pre-orders in July. Now, we’re excited to announce that the Chip & Swipe Reader is available to all U.S. Shopify merchants.