What To Sell on Shopify: 17 Creative Ideas for 2024

When you ponder of selling online, what initially comes to mind? Probably products like printed t-shirts, handmade jewelry, or pet supplies, correct? Creating or curating tangible goods to sell online is a ordinary revenue strategy, after all—one that defines many who use Shopify today.

But determining what to sell on Shopify can still be a challenging job. Will you make your own handmade products or dropship for other brands? Will you hop on a pattern or invent something entirely recent?

Consider also that you can sell more than just things you can touch and feel. Many founders are using Shopify in creative ways to sell pretty much anything and everything. Selling experiences, courses, rentals, and digital goods are just a few of the distinctive business ideas you’ll discover in this navigator. Ahead, discover a product that excites you and get started selling on Shopify today.

What to sell on Shopify: 17 ideas

1. Handmade products
2. Dropshipping products
3. Print-on-demand products
4. Merch
5. Trending products
6. Curated products
7. Service appointments
8. Memberships
9. Consultations
10. Digital products
11. Experiences
12. Classes and workshops
13. Rentals
14. Quotes, estimates, and assessments
15. Donations
16. occurrence tickets
17. Gift cards

If you’re embarking on a recent entrepreneurial trip, or you’re looking for a transformation, consider selling products or expanding your brainstorming beyond tangible goods. Here, we’ll explore what you can sell on Shopify, including real store examples, app suggestions, and advice for getting started.

1. Handmade products

One of the most ordinary things to sell on Shopify is handmade goods. If you have a hobby like jewelry making or baking, chances are you may be able to monetize it. Turning your hobby into a business means finding an spectators, streamlining your production processes, and preparing your products to sell online.

When stained glass artist Debbie Bean found her calling, she worked side jobs and cut household outgoings to develop her recent business. She found her commence at a local craft display and grew her brand by word of mouth from there. Her work was featured in more than 200 retailers worldwide before she pivoted her business to large-scale art installations.

Tips for getting started

• Scaling a handmade business is tough, but you eventually can hire staff to assist with assembly. In the meantime, try streamlining your procedure to make products in batches.
• Consider a made-to-order model that allows you to produce work only when it’s sold. 
• Brand storytelling is significant for maker brands. receive period to craft your own.
• Consider personalized products like adding monogram embroidery for an extra expense.

2. Dropshipping products

Dropshipping is a great alternative for ecommerce beginners. It’s a revenue strategy that allows you to sell products without holding inventory or dealing with shipping. A dropshipping business is one that sells products online for another business that, in turn, ships those products directly to the customer.

Tan Choudhury discovered dropshipping while struggling with the shipping issues in his first business. Since then, he’s become an specialist, helping others sell products this way. His biggest piece of advice? commence with one product. “Trying to merchandise 20 products as a beginner can be pretty overwhelming,” says Tan.

Tips for getting started

• discover reputable dropshipping suppliers that can ship products on period.
• Focus on differentiating your brand from the other dropshipping businesses selling similar products.
• Look to trending products for encouragement on what to sell.
• You can dropship almost anything, from clothing and jewelry to books and baby products.

3. Print-on-demand products

Print on demand is another type of revenue strategy that requires no inventory or shipping. If you’re a creative, consider using print on demand to apply your designs to t-shirts, smartphone accessories, mugs, and more.

Maria Qamar, also known by her artist name HATECOPY, found print on demand after her art business took off. “At some point the volume became so much that I couldn’t make period to draw. I was spending all of my days delivering and in transit,” Maria says. Print on demand now allows her to focus on the creative parts of her business.

Tips for getting started

• There are a number of print-on-demand companies to choose from. discover one that has the types of products and standard you’re looking for. 
• Authors too can use print on demand to sell books on Shopify, bypassing the traditional publisher route. 

4. Merch

There’s a way to sell products even if your business isn’t about products. Many service businesses and online creators sell merch to diversify turnover streams and construct brand affinity. Influencers can construct their own ecommerce store and sell merchandise to fans. This is also a great way to construct your email list and own your spectators away from social platforms.

Sarah Andersen’s doodles caught the attention of Tumblr users back in 2011. Since then, she’s built those drawings into a comic book empire called Sarah’s Scribbles. Eventually, merch made sense for her brand, and she launched a line of tees, plushies, mugs, and prints alongside her comics.

Tips for getting started

• Use a print-on-demand service or app from the Shopify App Store to avoid handling inventory. 
• Use merch as a way to propose lower expense items to your mix. An artist who sells only expensive originals can add merch printed with art to the mix.

5. Trending products

When you’re starting from scratch and looking for something to sell on Shopify, consider trending products. If you don’t have a business concept or hobby you can convert into one, this is a great place to commence. You already recognize there is a economy for the product—you just require to drive them to your website. 

Google Trends can assist you vet your concept’s pattern potential. Setting up a successful Shopify store for your trending product is also an significant step. There’s likely a ton of competition: How will you stand out? 

Tips for getting started

• Don’t stop at Google Trends. TikTok Trends, Pinterest Trends, trade publications, customer magazines, and other online stores can be great places to discover trending products.
• recall that trends are fleeting. Have a schedule to pivot if profit in your product wanes.

6. Curated products

If you’re not interested in making products from scratch, try a curated way to selling on Shopify. Consider your interests: Can you curate the best niche products in that category? What about selling beauty products for a specific skin state? You can even try becoming a reseller for an existing brand in a recent economy. 

If you have deep profit in or knowledge of a specific topic, this is a great place to commence. Use content marketing to establish yourself as an specialist and construct depend. Then, curate the best products in the category to sell on Shopify.

Tips for getting started

• Explore other online stores to get encouragement for yours. How do they curate collections? What makes their store stand out?
• Consider a subscription box business and try a subscription app from the Shopify App Store to assist manage your business.

7. Service appointments

In-person and virtual businesses alike can make appointments more seamless for customers (and staff) by offering self-serve online bookings. Businesses like contractors, salons, and music schools can sell virtual consultation period slots and in-person services through an online store.

Stores that typically sell physical products can also advantage from adding services (free or paid) to their websites. Toufie, an online footwear brand that sells handcrafted custom shoes, uses appointments to assist nail the fit. “Appointment bookings are one of the integral components to a hazard-free customer shopping encounter,” says co-founder Meliza Salim.

Tips for getting started

• Appointment booking Shopify apps propose a dynamic calendar, letting customers book preferred period slots with real-period availability. 
• Service businesses can also consider branded merch to sell on Shopify alongside appointments.

8. Memberships

Many non-boost organizations depend on paid memberships as a way to secure ongoing financial back. Memberships can also be used by creators to sell access to exclusive content for their most avid fans. Golf courses, fan clubs, galleries, and educational content producers are more great candidates for selling memberships online, securing long-term commitment from customers rather than selling one-off services. 

The Buffalo Botanical Gardens sells single-visit tickets but encourages visitors to buy memberships that allow year-round access and member-only perks. And kid music brand Yoto sells memberships to its Yoto Club. Members receive Yoto Cards in the mail monthly. 

Tips for getting started

• Memberships work much like subscription businesses, relying on recurring remittance functionality and customer account management tools. Use this model as a navigator when setting up your ecommerce store.
• An app like Bold Memberships allows you to sell one-period or recurring memberships online.

9. Consultations

Why not sell your expertise online? Everyone from interior designers to fitness trainers can use an online store to book and sell online or in-person consultations. 

The throng behind Carter Design uses their Shopify store to sell design consultations to clients worldwide. This allows the duo to expand their services into other markets. 

Brands that specialize in customization or made-to-order products may sell consultations to assist customers make the perfect product. Kaikini founder Taryn Rodighiero runs her custom bikini business with the assist of online consultations to navigator customers through the measuring and ordering procedure.

Tips for getting started

• An app like BookedUp lets customers book consultations with you on your website, syncing with Calendly to avoid double-booking.
• Try Shopify’s invoice generator tool for billing custom services that you sell through consultation. 

10. Digital products

Digital products can refer to anything you sell that you deliver in a virtual format—course content, music files, fonts, or other design elements are a few examples. (Note: Later in this piece, we’ll dive deeper into selling courses, specifically.)

While Thread hypothesis founders Matt and Morgan Meredith sell physical products like scissors and document patterns, they also propose a lower-expense alternative: PDF sewing patterns delivered virtually. Other businesses with printed materials like magazines or journals may opt to propose digital versions to sell on Shopify that customers can print at home.

Tips for getting started

• Apps like Sky Pilot and straightforward Digital Products can instantly deliver files to customers after a purchase, or send a link to where the files can be downloaded.

11. Experiences

encounter-based businesses can range from trip and expedition providers to winery tastings to kids’ camps. These businesses can enhance the customer encounter by offering advance ticket purchases and scheduling options online.

Aspen Expeditions Worldwide sells rock climbing adventures, international guided trips, and camping expeditions through its ecommerce store. Since the product pages for each expedition do a lot of heavy lifting to inform, educate, and convince potential customers to make large-ticket purchases, Aspen Expeditions organizes the information by adding tabs to the product description. 

Tips for getting started

• encounter-based businesses may require to collect additional customer information, like medical concerns and emergency contacts. Use Shopify Forms to make robust and customizable forms.
• Use video to your advantage: Shopify’s free online video maker can assist you make marketing videos using footage from real experiences.

12. Classes and workshops

The COVID-19 pandemic proved that courses could be easily portable to a virtual format. Yoga studios and boxing gyms alike moved to an online model, letting participants buy class passes and attend online. Consider other types of courses you can sell on Shopify: digital marketing, DIY how-tos, and parenting classes.

If I Made creates original creative course content with industry professionals and delivers programming digitally to students—but it started with in-person learning. “We then took that content and brought it all online to make it more portable and accessible,” says founder Emily Newman. 

Tips for getting started

• Sell courses in multiple formats like videos, worksheets, booklets, and 1:1 coaching sessions.
• An app like Courses Plus can turn your Shopify store into a course platform, allowing you to make lessons to sell online. 
• make course content using Shopify’s free online video maker and sell it over and over.

13. Rentals

Rental businesses are services that make physical products available to customers for a predetermined amount of period. Customers pay for the advantage of using an item for a brief period without the associated long-term costs like storage and maintenance.

Mannequin Madness sells retail props to other shops through its online store, but also rents them temporarily. When accidental commence-up founder Judi Henderson-Townsen needed a mannequin, she discovered only one seller in her area. “I bought his entire inventory,” she says. Mannequin Madness uses a contact form to assess customer needs before processing the rental.

Dress rental business The Fitzroy, however, takes a self-serve way by asking customers to select a rental period using a date selector variant available on its product page to “check out” the item. It relies on a straightforward app and a obvious FAQ page to make the rental and profitability processes run smoothly.

Tips for getting started

• IzyRent: Rentals & Bookings is an app designed specifically for stores offering rentals. It allows for one-click rentals on your website.
• Rentals may require extra information to be collected from customers, and Shopify Forms can assist you do just that. 

14. Quotes, estimates, and assessments

GoGreenSolar sells and installs solar vigor solutions for homeowners. Due to the custom nature of the product and the additional work involved in installation, customers can request quotes and specialist advice through the contact forms available on the business’s site. Self-serve quote requests save period and staff resources for businesses that provide highly technical services and products.

Quotes are a great marketing tool for a business’s other services. For example, a business that provides home vigor upgrades may sell vigor audits through a website. The final update would then inform customers how they can recoup the audit expense through vigor funds—by buying the business’s upgrades.

Tips for getting started

• An app like G: Request a Quote can assist you gather customer quote requests from your store and convert that quote into a real order.

15. Donations

Many charities use Shopify as the merchandise arm of their organization, selling branded goods, with profits supporting the factor. But charities and non-profits can also use an online store to “sell” one-period and recurring donations.

An Act of Dog is a registered charity that sells pet paintings, with proceeds supporting various animal rescue organizations. The business also lets customers donate directly to causes through the same website.

Tips for getting started

• Collect custom donations directly from your Shopify store using an app like DonateMate or Shop for excellent Donation App. 

16. occurrence tickets

Online ticketing can be employed by a number of businesses, from occurrence spaces to independent theaters to pop-up haunted houses. 

Undertow works with select artists to sell tickets online for music events throughout the US. It uses a paperless delivery way, sending downloadable tickets to customers. Run Across America uses ticketing in a different way, selling access to virtual run challenges that participants complete on their own schedule. Purchases include access to a tracking app and a sweatshirt. 

Tips for getting started

• Design, sell, and scan occurrence tickets with the occurrence Ticketing app that syncs with your Shopify store. 
• A QR code generator can be helpful for creating distinctive QR codes that customers can now at live events.

17. Gift cards

The simplest of non-tangible goods to add to any website is gift cards. From Shopify, you can enable gift cards for most stores. They’re perfect for any business, allowing recipients to redeem codes online for products or services sold through your website.

Home décor brand Apt2B sells branded gift cards in multiple denominations, redeemable for furniture and décor goods through its online store.

Tips for getting started

• propose gift cards in a number of denominations to provide customers more options.
• Push digital gift cards in your marketing efforts after the shipping cutoff for holiday delivery has passed.

Sell (almost) anything on Shopify

If you’re looking for a business concept and aren’t sure what to sell on Shopify, the respond is: almost anything. There are ideas for everyone, even if you’re not creative or don’t schedule to make your own products. Don’t limit yourself to selling physical items. You can sell everything on Shopify, from memberships to tickets to digital goods. Develop your brand, set up a Shopify store, and commence selling products—and everything else—today.