Are you looking for a few ecommerce business ideas to help you get started in the world of online business?
Ecommerce has become one of the most accessible ways to start a business these days. The sooner you get started, the more profitable you’ll be in the future.
In this post, we’ve listed several business ideas for ecommerce to give you an idea of what’s possible.
Profitable ecommerce business ideas
Here are the ecommerce-based business ideas we’ll be covering in this post:
- Online store
- Subscription boxes
- Handmade products
- Niche products
- Industrial B2B products
- Online courses
- Digital products
- Personalized products
- Reselling
- Affiliate marketing
1. Online store
This is the most common form of ecommerce and likely the one you’re most familiar with.
With an online store, you can sell just about any product, whether it’s physical products, handmade items, digital products or products you don’t even store on your own property.
Use Sellfy or Shopify to start an online store. These are all-in-one ecommerce platforms that come with just about everything you need to start an online store.
These are the best platforms to choose if you have your own inventory to sell, even if it’s digital or subscription based.
Shopify has plenty of add-ons you can install to sell subscriptions, but for the most part, Sellfy is best if you’re a beginner and looking to sell digital products and subscriptions.
Shopify is easy to use as well and is a fantastic choice for ecommerce stores that process their own orders and ship their own inventory.
And there are plenty of options to choose from if you don’t have your own inventory to sell:
- Print on demand – Sell your own branded merchandise but have a third-party service ship your orders.
- Dropshipping – Sell another business’ products in your own online store but have a third-party service ship your orders.
- Private labeling – Sell another business’ products in your own online store but with your branding. Typically, you’ll ship these products yourself, but some private labeling services offer dropshipping.
Print on demand
Print on demand (POD) is a very popular form of ecommerce.
It works like this: you choose a print-on-demand platform, then upload designs you want to sell on t-shirts, mugs and other products. You then set up an online store to process transactions for these products, and the POD service takes care of the printing and shipping process every time a customer places an order.
You only pay for the inventory you sell when you make a sale. You earn through profit margins, which most POD services allow you to configure yourself.
It’s a very popular ecommerce strategy among creators who want to sell their own merch, but it’s also an ecommerce business idea on its own.
Use a platform like Sellfy if you don’t already have a store to sell POD products from. Otherwise, a service like Gelato allows you to sell POD products from platforms like Shopify, eBay and Etsy.
Dropshipping
Dropshipping is another easy way to get into ecommerce when you don’t want to store and ship your own inventory.
With dropshipping, you sell products you’d sell if you had your own store, except a dropshipping service processes orders and ships the products for you.
They also process returns.
We recommend Spocket for dropshipping. They’re a dropshipping supplier that sells US and EU-based products, and they integrate with every major ecommerce platform.
Private labeling
Private labeling is another profitable ecommerce business idea that allows you to get your feet wet in certain niches without having to start from scratch.
With private labeling, you pick a product that’s manufactured by another company, except you put your own branding on the product instead.
You can do this with just about any product, but many entrepreneurs use this strategy to sell beauty and supplement products in the beauty industry as well as the health and wellness industry.
2. Subscription boxes
Subscription boxes are a hit in the ecommerce industry. They’ve grown in popularity over the last decade and continue to be popular.
Popular subscription boxes include Snack Crate, Universal Yums, Loot Crate, BarkBox, KitNipBox and Stitch Fix.
With subscription boxes, customers receive a box of products that belong to a certain niche in exchange for a monthly subscription fee.
Many subscription box services set up preferences customers can configure, but for the most part, customers don’t know what they’ll receive in each monthly box. That’s part of the fun.
Sellfy allows you to sell ecommerce-based products as subscriptions, so we recommend starting there If you want to get into the subscription box industry.
3. Handmade products
There’s a huge market for handmade products. Etsy’s entire marketplace is built around these types of products.
If you’re creative enough to be able to produce any type of handmade product, you can manufacture your own products and sell them on Etsy or your own online store.
Etsy is a marketplace, so it has a built-in customer base. However, it’s also used by other creators, so you’ll have a lot of competition to deal with. You’ll also need to give Etsy a cut of every sale you make.
You won’t have these restrictions if you sell handmade products from your own website, but you also won’t have access to Etsy’s massive customer base.
Even so, handmade products offer a fantastic way for creative types to get into ecommerce.
4. Niche products
This is more of a business model for ecommerce than an ecommerce method itself. That’s because this business idea is more about the types of products you sell and less about how you sell those products.
With that said, this ecommerce business idea involves selling a very specific product that solves a very specific problem.
Flex Tape is a good example of this.
It’s a brand of industrial tape that’s marketed as being able to seal underwater leaks from cracks in glass, plastic and other materials.
Duct tape is water resistant and softens over time, which allowed Flex Tape to come crashing onto the market and advertise itself as being completely waterproof.
This is an example of a brand who developed their own niche product, but you don’t necessarily need to manufacture your own products in order to use this idea.
You can also find niche products to sell from dropshipping and private labeling suppliers.
5. Industrial B2B products
Businesses rely on a lot of products from other businesses in order to operate. From office products and industrial products to things like digital services, there’s a lot of money to be made when you only sell products to other businesses.
This is why a lot of ecommerce businesses are entirely based around selling products to other businesses.
You can use dropshipping and private labeling with a service like this, but for the most part, selling B2B products, especially industrial B2B products will come at a cost before those profits start coming in.
You’ll need to purchase inventory and likely a commercial space to store that inventory and ship it. You may even need to hire staff to help process orders as many businesses prefer to order in bulk.
This is one of the most ambitious ecommerce business ideas on this list, but it’s likely one of the most profitable if you can attract customers within a specific target market.
6. Online courses
Ecommerce isn’t just about selling physical products that need to be shipped out to customers. It can also include digital products, like online courses!
If you’re in a niche you can teach, you can start an ecommerce business that’s based around online courses. In fact, one of the most effective ways to start an online business is to teach what you know in live webinars and online courses.
Some consumers even prefer to learn from online courses since they’re cheaper than traditional schooling and they can learn at their own pace.
We recommend Thinkific for entrepreneurs who are interested in launching their own online courses.
This platform hosts your courses for you and even allows you to process transactions from your very own course website.
It has a drag-and-drop course builder as well as course templates you can use if you don’t want to create courses from scratch.
You can upload videos, add text, upload worksheets and other resources for students to download, and even create quizzes.
7. Digital products
Speaking of digital products, a great startup business idea for an ecommerce store is starting one for digital products.
Here are examples of digital products:
- Art prints
- Ebooks
- Photos
- Videos
- Audio files
- Fonts
- Adobe presets
- Final Cut Pro plugins
- Printable journals
- Printable worksheets
- Printable resources, like nutrition plans
- Presentation templates
- Website themes and templates
- Plugins for different applications
- Video game mods
- Apps
- Icon sets
- Printable coloring sheets
Sellfy has features designed specifically for entrepreneurs who are interested in selling digital products and subscriptions, so we recommend starting there if you want to sell digital products of your own.
Certain types of digital products have marketplaces. For example, if you want to sell stock photos, fonts, presets/plugins for Adobe applications and Final Cut Pro, and even things like WordPress themes and plugins, you can sell them on the Envato marketplace.
You can self-publish ebooks (and print books) on marketplaces like Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
8. Personalized products
You can charge more for products if you personalize them.
Some of the most common examples of personalization exist on Etsy where customers are able to personalize handmade products, such as wedding gifts, jewelry and pet items.
If you sell a printable resource, you can have a consultation with a potential customer and create a personalized resource for them, such as a personalized meal plan based on your customers’ lifestyle, food restrictions and health goals.
Setting up personalization can be as simple as inserting a few dropbox menus for customers to configure on your product page or as complex as having your customer fill out a request for consultation form.
9. Reselling
Reselling is another interesting business model, one a lot of new entrepreneurs use to get their feet wet in ecommerce.
It mainly involves acquiring used inventory and, quite literally, reselling it. Think of it as thrift stores online.
You can resell used items as is or restore them a little. This could be as simple as washing them to remove dirt and debris or fully taking them apart to clean them, repair them and replace any broken parts.
You can resell just about any item consumers want. You’ll either receive less than what the original owner paid for the item or more. It depends on how common the item is these days.
Most resellers sell their products on marketplaces like eBay. Consumers are able to leave reviews for entire eBay profiles, not just individual products. This can help you establish a good reputation for reselling since it can be difficult to convince consumers to buy used products online.
10. Affiliate marketing
Some ecommerce businesses don’t process their own orders. Some don’t manufacture their own products.
Others don’t sell their own products at all.
Affiliate marketing is mostly known as a business model for blogs and online creators to use to promote products in their content and earn revenue.
However, it can also be an ecommerce business model if you target a specific niche that has a lot of products for you to promote.
For example, while Amazon affiliate marketing isn’t as profitable as it used to be, many ecommerce businesses are built around it.
They’ll create what looks to be an online store like usual, except every product they promote is actually an Amazon product, and the “Purchase” button features their affiliate link.
And in case you’re not aware, affiliate marketing is an ecommerce business model where you promote another business’ product and receive a commission on each sale you make for that business.
Where to start with ecommerce
When you first get started with ecommerce, it’s easy to get distracted by all of the online stores who are doing well selling this product or that. Naturally, your instinct is to look up the best-selling products and choose something from that list.
However, if a product is already selling well, it likely has a lot of competition for consumers to sift through. You’d need a killer digital marketing strategy to get ahead.
What you should do instead is choose a niche, then go from there.
Don’t think of what you want to sell. Choose a topic and a customer base, then choose your product.
Going this route will allow you to perform research on your target market in order to understand what types of products they purchase or would be willing to purchase.
You may even be able to grow your audience by creating content for your niche so that when you do launch your product, you have an eager customer base ready to purchase it.
Ecommerce business ideas FAQ
Which ecommerce business is most profitable?
Ecommerce businesses who sell B2B products or their own manufactured niche products are likely most profitable.
Businesses buy in bulk (you can even require them to), so you’ll never have small orders in your store.
And if you’re able to come up with your own product that solves a specific problem in an established niche (think Flex Tape in the DIY niche), your marketing will rely entirely on the fact that your product has little to no competition, so customers will have no choice but to give your brand a try.
What is the cheapest ecommerce business to start?
Dropshipping and print on demand are the cheapest ecommerce businesses to start.
All these businesses require is somewhere for you to sell your products. This can even be Etsy, so you may not even need to build a dedicated ecommerce website.
Dropshipping and print on demand suppliers process orders for you, so you don’t need to buy and store inventory yourself.
Plus, you only pay for the inventory you sell when you make a sale. You earn revenue by choosing suitable profit margins for your products, so you still get to keep some of the money you make from each sale.
What is the best ecommerce business to start?
The best ecommerce business to start is one you’re capable of starting in a niche that needs your product.
Selling B2B products may be the most profitable ecommerce business model out there, but can you afford to purchase that much inventory as a startup? Can you afford to hire the staff required to process that much inventory?
Pick a niche to target, then go through our list of business ideas to see which business type would suit your niche best.
What is the most successful ecommerce business?
This should come as no shock to you, but Amazon is the most successful ecommerce business in the world.
Its revenue was $143.31 billion in the first quarter of 2024, and it has a market cap of $1.88 trillion.
The company was founded in 1994 and was originally an online book store.
The company has plenty of subsidiaries and services these days, so it has a lot of different ways to make money beyond sales from its ecommerce store.
During the 48-hour Prime Day event of 2024, Amazon sold over 200 million items.
Final thoughts
When most people think of ecommerce, they think of selling physical products via an online store. Then having to deal with buying and storing stock, shipping, logistics, and all of that.
But the ecommerce landscape is so much larger. And there are easier ways to get a foothold in the space such as print on demand and dropshipping.
Then there are things like online courses and digital products. You can monetize your knowledge. It’s worth a lot. Maybe even more so in the age of AI.
