Since its foundation twenty years ago, Shopify has established itself as one of the world’s most successful ecommerce platforms. It provides start-ups and enterprise businesses alike with a solution to simplify the process of running an online store of any size. Online retailers of all kinds use the platform: D2C, B2B, small and local, large and international, stores that sell on a subscription basis - if you want to sell online, you can likely do it on Shopify.
In this article we're looking at some examples of successful Shopify stores and we’ve picked some of the brands with the most popular Shopify stores in 2024. From household names and breakout brands to some of the world’s hottest musicians, you might be surprised to find who's on our list of top Shopify stores.
Gymshark's story was the big success of 2020 and in the years since, the brand has become one of the world's biggest Shopify stores. Started by student Ben Francis, the gym apparel company has gone from Ben personally sending out orders in jiffy bags from his garage, to being valued at $1.4 billion in 10 years. Fewer than 25 UK companies have ever achieved this – and only eight since 2001.
The brand replatformed onto Shopify Plus from Magento after a disastrous Black Friday, and has not looked back since. The business continues to grow month on month with a recently-opened flagship store on London's Regent Street, and shows no signs of slowing down through 2023 and beyond. As well as being a cool Shopify store, it's a great example of a superb site on the platform.
They've recently moved to a headless ecommerce model too, using Shopify with the Contentful CMS for a more flexible store.
Launched in 2015, Huel (Human Fuel) is one of the UK's biggest success stories as we move into 2024. It provides nutritionally complete food - starting in powder form originally, the brand has expanded its portfolio to cover hot food pouches and pots, vitamin drinks, snack bars, pre-mixed drinks and even clothing, and continues to grow from strength to strength.
It uses the Shopify platform to deliver its nutrient-rich products to customers in a growing number of territories, showing the scalability of the platform and how it can cope with a huge number of orders without any issues. It's one of the most popular Shopify stores and has a lovely minimalist aesthetic. A great Shopify store.
3. Absolute Collagen
Absolute Collagen was founded in 2017 by entrepreneur Maxine Laceby, and its award-winning liquid collagen supplements have seen huge success in the UK and beyond.
In 2022 the brand was placed fourth on the Sunday Times Hundred list which features Britain’s fastest-growing private companies. It also featured in 2023's list, coming in at 35, maintaining over 100% annual growth. As well as this, it has won numerous awards including GQ’s ‘Top 7 Best New Grooming Products in the World’ and ‘Best New Beauty Supplement’ at the CEW Awards.
In 2022 we started working with Absolute Collagen and have helped boost their results further, with a brand-new Shopify store, new subscription portal with Recharge, and integrated SEO strategy which increased traffic by 9% and transactions by 47%. You can check out our case study here.
4. Condor Cycles
Condor Cycles is London’s premium cycle retailer with a heritage dating back to 1948. We partnered with the brand to reimagine its ecommerce presence on Shopify 2.0, for a premium image, enhanced functionality, leaner and faster store, and more sales.
Read more about how we worked with Condor in our project overview.
5. allbirds
The idea behind allbirds was to create an entirely new category of shoes inspired by natural materials, with an ongoing mantra to create better things in a better way. A native of New Zealand, Tim Brown was well versed in the magical qualities of merino wool. Inherently curious, he began asking himself why such a remarkable, sustainable resource was virtually absent in the footwear industry. And with that spirit of wonder, the Allbirds journey began.
This Shopify store does a superb job of telling the brand's story, showcasing the products, expressing the values of sustainability that are so important to the brand, and keeps things simple with an easily navigable site.
Beardbrand was launched in 2012 after Founder Eric Bandholz attended a beard competition. He began the company as a way to unite men with beards (urban beardsmen) and build a community. Starting with a blog, YouTube channel and Tumblr blog, the company grew and then launched its store on the Shopify platform.
It continues to be a superb example of a successful Shopify store and goes from strength to strength, becoming the go-to brand for grooming products for men, having expanded beyond beard products, with a range that includes beard, hair, body and fragrances. The brand has also leaned into the sustainability angle with a section on re-using its product containers and celebrating the dents and dings you gather like battle scars on the aluminium bottles and jars.
7. Beefcake Swimwear
Mel Wells took more than two years to craft and launch Beefcake Swimwear, a line of sustainable and ethically made suits inspired by 1920s fashion. These thoughtfully produced, androgynous pieces are manufactured by people making a living wage in Portland, Oregon.
In a nice touch that you rarely see in shops, Mel has openly shared how the cost of making a piece for Beefcake Swimwear breaks down.
The ever-popular drinks brand launched on the Shopify platform with collections covering accessories and apparel across the different teams and events sponsored by the brand. This is the place to get your Red Bull merch in 2024 and is a lovely Shopify store example.
9. Wild Deodorant
You've probably seen the ads by now. This brand went stratospheric in 2022 after we designed and launched their subscription-based Shopify store and their ubiquity only continued through 2023. The sustainable deodorant brand has struck a chord with a huge audience thanks to its refillable aluminium containers, ever-changing range of scents, easy-to-use subscription model, great sense of humour and environmentally friendly philosophy. It's inspired a whole load of imitators but remains the original and best, with memorable marketing and an ever-evolving range of scents and collaborations.
Check out how we worked with Wild to get them transactional online and watch our interview with Co-Founder, Charlie Bowes-Lyon.
Rocket Dog produces laid back, funky women's footwear, from pumps and heels to sneakers and wedges, for fashion conscious females. From a start up in the late 90s to a globally recognised footwear brand, the company needed a secure, robust and scalable platform to facilitate this huge growth - the result? An example of a successful Shopify store that's taken the world by storm.
The site has a lovely aesthetic and uses product imagery in a really simple but effective way.
London’s eclectic streetwear brand uses bold colours and a 90s fashion aesthetic in its clothing and onsite imagery. It's been going for over 20 years and its ever-evolving collections, collaborations and spirit of non-conformity demanded a platform like Shopify to keep up with its ideas and offerings. We migrated the brand from Magento when they needed a more robust platform and created one of Shopify's top stores in the process, if we do say so ourselves.
12. Tropic Skincare
Launched by Susie Ma after her appearance on 'The Apprentice', Tropic Skincare has gone from strength to strength and is one of the UK's fastest-growing skincare brands. It's a great example of a Shopify store that entices users to explore, draws people in to the products and makes it really easy to buy or become an ambassador to sell products on behalf of the brand.
We worked with Tropic on their marketing strategy, delivering amazing revenue results and also helped co-ordinate a live shopping experience which saw over 15,000 people tune in with over 1,100 products sold.
This site beautifully shows the detail and care that goes into the handmade and personalised, 100% leather satchels. With worldwide delivery built into the online store, it’s a pleasure to buy from them, wherever you are on the planet. With four UK-based bricks and mortar stores, this is a great example of a successful retail business that has gone global by combining high street shopping with ecommerce.
Kim Kardashian's Shopify store is relatively sparse and minimal, with lots of white space. It does incorporate some video content further down the homepage which it uses to tap into the conscious-consumer's focus on cruelty-free, vegan and 'clean formulas'. It's one of Shopify's top sellers and a great example of a store that does commerce well without making it over-complicated. A Recharge integration has enabled subscriptions on this store for people who want to set a replanishment schedule for their products.
The global fashion brand makes use of big, beautiful imagery to really showcase their wares. It's one of the most popular Shopify stores, in no small part to the superb visuals. A neatly integrated rewards system helps turn customers into ambassadors by giving them points for activity like following on social, creating an account, spending more with the brand and writing online reviews.
16. Triangl
This online-only bikini brand is effortlessly cool, minimalist, and both retro and contemporary at the same time. Using a mixture of great product shots and beautiful lifestyle photography, it sells the concept, aspiration and product equally effortlessly. It's recently expanded to include men's swimwear too.
17. Naja
Naja is an eco-conscious underwear brand that is all about empowering women through a desire to make the world a better place. Its Shopify store has a straightforward nav, great product shots and the ethos of the brand runs throughout.
18. Bremont
This British-made watch site oozes luxury. From high-class product shots, imagery showing the products being handmade and high-quality video, the site experience is one that looks high-end at every step of the journey. Talking of the journey, the About page really sells the story of the brand, how it came to be and what it represents.
Victoria Beckham founded her eponymous fashion label in 2008. It has since become the voice of modern minimalism, celebrated for its versatility, strong sense of sophistication, and effortless approach to wardrobing women for every part of their lives. Certainly one of the biggest names on the platform, this is also an example of a great Shopify store. As you might expect, it makes great use of video and still photography to showcase the range of clothes, bags, shoes and accessories. The site also links through to Victoria Beckham Beauty, a beauty, skincare and fragrance store, also on the Shopify platform.
20. Haus
A contempory furniture store based in East London, Haus chose Shopify as the platform to use for trading online. With an easy-to-use nav on the left of the site, the prodcuts sell themselves through photography that shows them in situ to really bring them to life in the mind (and home) of the customer.
21. Dr Squatch
Dr Squatch has performed stupendously well in the past couple of years, with its sense of humour coming through in its brilliantly funny adverts. A 'mystery offer' pop-up encourages users to part with their email address on arrival, and the site does a great job of displaying products in a rich, vibrant way, while communicating the brand's ethos. A subscription option makes pricing attractive for the customer while helping lock in recurring revenue for the company.
22. Mattel
Split into sections for corporate, parents and collectors, this site does a great job of catering for different audiences with its dizzying array of toys, gifts and playsets. You can then choose to shop by the age of the child and by your budget to help you cut through the noise quickly. We suspect the success of the Barbie film in 2023 helped bump up their revenue figures, and luckily the Shopify platform has no issue handling the millions of extra site visitors!
'A lifestyle movement inspired by London’s culture and emerging music scenes.' Nicce has one of the most popular Shopify stores - it challenges the exclusivity of street style, bringing contemporary, clean-cut and minimal designs to a global community via the global platform that is Shopify.
At the time of writing, the site was enveloped in animated snowflakes that drift across a winter scene, allowing you to buy albums, clothes, bags, coasters, hats, notebooks and all manner of merch. It's a nice looking site with everything a Swiftie could dream of.
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