More than half of Shopify customers are women. Here you'll find inspiring stories from businesses run by female ecommerce entrepreneurs.
Celebrating women-owned businesses at Shopify
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Girls Chronically Rock
Royal Soaps
Nonna Live
Partake Foods
Relieves
Phenomenal
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Entrepreneurship and business startups are booming across all industries, with 53% of Shopify store owners identifying as women.
Despite this, women still face certain challenges when trying to succeed as ecommerce entrepreneurs . One of the most obvious is the bias in financing: men are twice as likely as women to receive financing from banks.
A less obvious challenge is the systemic one. For example, family responsibilities often fall more on women than on men.
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But it’s not all bad news. Despite the statistics, many female entrepreneurs have thrived and continue to do so. In honor of Women’s History Month, we’re highlighting some ecommerce entrepreneurs who have inspired us with their resilience, tenacity, and impact.
From household names like Phenomenal canada phone numbers list Woman to an authentic Italian nonna teaching virtual cooking classes, these are the faces of entrepreneurship at its best.
1. Girls Chronically Rock
Girls Chronically Rock photo
Twelve years ago, Keisha Greaves received a diagnosis that radically changed the course of her life. After suddenly collapsing in the supermarket, a visit to the neurologist revealed she had girdle muscular dystrophy, threatening to derail her dreams of a career in fashion.
“There’s no treatment, there’s no cure,” Keisha says. “And I started to shut down. I never said I had muscular dystrophy, because I felt like saying it out loud made it real.” But with the support of the disability community, she decided to continue down the path of fashion entrepreneurship.
Keisha created a blog and then opened an online store selling high-quality t-shirts with inspiring messages for the Black disabled community. As her new business grew, she moved her store to Shopify to better manage orders. “As it started to grow, I thought, ‘It’s time to have a professional website. It’s time to make my dreams come true. ’”
Now, in addition to being a clothing designer, she has become a motivational speaker for the black disabled community, sharing her story at schools and on disability panels.
“I talk to young kids regularly,” she says. “I tell them, ‘You can achieve and do anything you put your mind to.'”
2. Royal Soaps
Royal Soaps photography
Katie Carson didn't set out to become a YouTube star. She's another ecommerce entrepreneur who simply loved making handmade soaps out of her parents' home in Texas. After taking a soap-making class at age 16, she became obsessed.
She filled her days making fragrant, colorful handmade soaps with catchy names like unicorn frappuccino and pineapple flamingo.
“I just loved it,” she says. “I talked to my parents and said, ‘I think this is something I want to continue doing.’” She set up her online store, Royalty Soaps, first on Etsy and then on Shopify when it got too big, and soon became a soap influencer on YouTube.
After going viral with her soap making videos on multiple occasions, she now has nearly 900,000 subscribers on the platform, and her home soap making business has grown from just her to a team of 10 people.
Her YouTube strategy continues to drive interest in her brand. “Every time we post a video, we see an increase in sales. I’m still amazed and so grateful that people are entertained by what I produce,” she says. “I think everyone likes you to be yourself, both on camera and off.”
3. Nonna Live
Nonna Nerina records a virtual pasta making class.
Before the pandemic hit her small town near Rome, 84-year-old grandmother Nerina was teaching intimate cooking classes with her granddaughter, Chiara. This charismatic duo enjoyed sharing Nonna’s pasta-making traditions and stories of ancient Italy with intrepid tourists, who came in droves for Nonna’s classes.
One of those tourists was Brent Freeman of Stealth Ventures, who never forgot the experience. When the pandemic affected local tourism, Brent helped Nonna and Chiara turn their business into a livestream.
In less than two hours, she created her ecommerce site on Shopify, Nonna Live . Now, Nonna reaches a huge global audience of food lovers, and has been featured on Today, Good Morning America , and Eating Well (to name a few). In addition to her public and private virtual classes, Nonna Live also sells her favorite cooking supplies and ingredients.