Podcast: Download (Duration: 13:41 — 16.0MB)

In this Family First Friday episode of the My Wife Quit Her Job podcast, I walk through the only four ecommerce platforms I would consider for a new online store: Shopify, Shift4Shop, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce. Each one wins for a different type of seller depending on budget, tech skill, product type, and how much you care about SEO and blogging.

My short-answer recommendation: pick Shopify if you want the safest, easiest choice and have money to burn on apps. Pick BigCommerce if you want a fuller feature set out of the box with better SEO. Pick Shift4Shop if you are in the US and want a powerful cart for essentially $14.50 a month. Pick WooCommerce if you are tech savvy and want the cheapest, most flexible setup on the planet.

Below is a full breakdown of each platform’s real strengths and weaknesses so you can pick without regretting it 12 months in.

Key takeaways

• Statista lists WooCommerce as the largest global ecommerce platform by market share, followed by Squarespace, Shopify, and Wix. Two of my top four (Shift4Shop and BigCommerce) do not even crack that list.
• Shopify’s real cost is apps: the average Shopify store uses 7 apps, and my course students pay several hundred dollars per month on recurring app fees on top of the base plan.
• Shift4Shop is effectively free ($14.50/month equivalent in credit card fees) once you process at least $500 in monthly payments through Shift4Payments.
• WooCommerce is the cheapest and most SEO-friendly option and can be launched for as little as $3, but you own all server maintenance, security, and updates.
• BigCommerce is priced by revenue tier ($29.99, $79, $299 per month) and includes features (no transaction fees, better SEO, better WordPress blog integration) that Shopify charges apps to replicate.

How to pick the best ecommerce platform for your online store

The best ecommerce platform for your online store depends on four inputs: your budget, your technical skill, the products you sell, and how much you care about SEO and blogging. There is no universal winner, which is why most “top 10 ecommerce platforms” listicles that just point at Shopify are useless.

Ignore raw market share when picking. Free platforms like WooCommerce dominate global usage because 90% of the sign-ups never make a sale, so the leaderboard is skewed by hobby stores that never take off.

Instead, match the platform to your real constraints. Every option below is a legitimate seven-figure cart in the right hands; the question is which one fits how you plan to run and grow your store.

Shopify: the safest ecommerce platform for most new sellers

Shopify is the safest ecommerce platform to recommend for most new sellers because it is easy to use, has the largest third-party app ecosystem, and has the most developer talent available for hire. The old saying applies: no one ever got fired for recommending Shopify.

The core Shopify product is deliberately bare-bones, which was a genius early strategy. It forced third parties to build the missing features into the App Store, which now has apps for essentially every feature you can imagine.

The downside is cost. The average Shopify store uses 7 apps, and each app is a monthly fee. Advanced discount rules can be $20 to $50 a month, video reviews another $50, and so on, and it adds up.

There are five other real Shopify weaknesses worth knowing before you sign up.

• Bad blogging platform. Shopify’s built-in blog is weak, which matters if you plan to build content-driven organic traffic.
• Transaction fees on non-Shopify payments. If you accept PayPal (which almost every store should for one-click checkout), Shopify’s transaction fee penalty can push your total payment cost near 5%.
• Poor international support. Countries outside the US, Canada, UK, Europe, and Singapore are largely unsupported.
• Suboptimal SEO URL structure. Shopify forces “collections” and “products” into your URLs and does not let you fully customize them.
• Product variant cap. Only 3 option types and 100 total variant combinations, which is a hard limit if you sell apparel, jewelry, or anything with many SKUs.

Real-world app example from Seller Summit 2023: Walmart Marketplace built a Shopify app that automatically imports your Shopify products into Walmart. It only works with Shopify because developers ship to Shopify first for the recurring revenue.

Shift4Shop: powerful ecommerce platform for $14.50 a month

Shift4Shop is the most feature-rich ecommerce platform you can run for under $15 a month, as long as you are in the US and can process at least $500 per month through Shift4Payments. Below that threshold the cart costs $29 a month; above it, the cart is free.

The math: charging your own credit card $500 a month costs about 2.9% or $14.50 in processing fees. That gets you a cart that is more powerful out of the box than Shopify, with free built-in email marketing and support for eight-figure enterprise stores.

The biggest downside is the interface. Shift4Shop packs a huge feature set into one back end, which creates a steeper learning curve than Shopify. My teenage daughter picked it up in a weekend and launched her jewelry shop at renabee.com, so it is doable, but plan on the extra ramp time.

The other weakness is a small developer community. New integrations (like the Walmart Marketplace Shopify app I just mentioned) will land on Shift4Shop much later, if at all.

WooCommerce: the cheapest and most SEO-friendly ecommerce platform

WooCommerce is the cheapest and most SEO-friendly ecommerce platform because it is 100% free open-source software that runs on top of WordPress, which powers over 20% of the web and is still the best blogging platform on the planet. You can launch a real store for as little as $3 with a basic web host.

The catch is that you own everything. WooCommerce is just software, so you need a web host, and you are responsible for server maintenance, security patches, plugin updates, and recovery if you get hacked. Shopify and Shift4Shop handle all that for you.

The upside of ownership is real. You control the source code, you have zero platform gatekeepers, and you can sell products that hosted platforms will not touch. During the pandemic Shopify shut down a friend’s store for selling hand sanitizer at what Shopify decided was too high a price. Shopify also bans drugs and various chemicals from the platform, and their enforcement can be arbitrary.

WooCommerce also has excellent third-party developer support because it is the most-used cart in the world, so finding help is easy. If my 9- and 11-year-old kids can run their store at kidincharge.com on WooCommerce, most adults with an hour of patience can too.

BigCommerce: the best out-of-the-box ecommerce platform for growing stores

BigCommerce is the best out-of-the-box ecommerce platform for stores that want Shopify-level ease of use with more built-in features and better SEO. It combines the polish of Shopify with much of the depth of Shift4Shop, and it charges no transaction fees no matter which payment processor you use.

BigCommerce has one feature Shopify cannot match: a first-class WordPress integration that lets you run your BigCommerce store and a WordPress blog on the same domain. For content-driven brands that matters a lot, because your blog authority feeds your product pages.

Other real strengths: no product variant limits, better international support, superior analytics and reporting, and a much smaller app dependency than Shopify. The main weakness is a smaller developer ecosystem than Shopify, though still bigger than Shift4Shop.

Pricing is tiered by revenue, which is either a feature or a bug depending on your model.

The revenue-tier pricing hurts if you run a drop-shipping store with 5% net margins, because the flat fee is a bigger percentage of a small profit pool. For higher-margin private-label or branded products, it scales sensibly.

Ecommerce platforms compared side by side

Here is the side-by-side comparison of all four platforms on the dimensions that actually matter.

Which ecommerce platform should you actually pick?

Pick the platform that matches your specific constraint, and do not overthink it. The four scenarios below cover almost every new seller I meet.

Choose Shopify if you are new, not tech savvy, have budget for monthly app fees, and want the biggest developer ecosystem to grow into. You will pay more over time but the ramp is the fastest.

Choose BigCommerce if you want most of Shopify’s ease with fewer app dependencies, need PayPal without a transaction penalty, sell products with many variants, or want a real WordPress blog on the same domain.

Choose Shift4Shop if BigCommerce is out of budget, you live in the United States, and you can process $500 a month through Shift4Payments to unlock the free plan. It has the most functionality per dollar of any platform on this list.

Choose WooCommerce if you are tech savvy, want the cheapest possible start, care most about SEO and content, or sell products that hosted platforms restrict. Plan on owning security and maintenance in exchange for full control.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best ecommerce platform for beginners in 2023?

Shopify is the best ecommerce platform for beginners in 2023 because it has the shallowest learning curve, the largest app ecosystem, and the most developer talent available for hire. The tradeoff is monthly app fees that push the true cost well above the base $29 plan for most stores.

Is WooCommerce really free?

WooCommerce the software is 100% free, but you have to pay for a web host to run it (from about $3 to $30 per month) and you are responsible for security, backups, and plugin updates. Add-on plugins for advanced features often cost extra, though the free defaults cover most stores.

Does Shopify charge extra fees for using PayPal?

Yes. If you accept PayPal on Shopify without using Shopify Payments as your primary processor, Shopify adds a transaction fee on every PayPal order. Combined with PayPal’s own fee, the total payment cost can approach 5%, which is high enough that many Shopify stores skip PayPal despite the one-click checkout benefit.

What is the cheapest ecommerce platform that can support a real store?

WooCommerce is the cheapest legitimate ecommerce platform because the cart software is free and you only pay for hosting, which can be as little as $3 per month. Shift4Shop is the cheapest hosted (fully managed) option at an effective $14.50 per month for US sellers who process $500 monthly through Shift4Payments.

Which ecommerce platform has the best SEO?

WooCommerce has the best SEO because it runs on WordPress, which is the strongest blogging and content platform on the web. BigCommerce is second because it also integrates cleanly with WordPress for content, and Shopify is weakest because it forces non-editable URL structures like /collections/ and /products/.

Can I sell products with many variants on Shopify?

Not comfortably. Shopify limits products to 3 option types and 100 total variant combinations, which is a hard cap for apparel, jewelry, or anything with size, color, and style options. BigCommerce, Shift4Shop, and WooCommerce all support unlimited variants, so pick one of those for variant-heavy catalogs.

Which ecommerce platform is best for drop shipping?

Shopify has the deepest drop-shipping app ecosystem, but BigCommerce’s revenue-tiered pricing can eat a bigger percentage of thin drop-shipping margins on small stores. Shift4Shop and WooCommerce both work well if you want lower fixed costs, provided you are comfortable with less specialized drop-shipping tooling.

Ready To Get Serious About Starting An Online Business?

If you are really considering starting your own online business, then you have to check out my free mini course on How To Create A Niche Online Store In 5 Easy Steps.

In this 6 day mini course, I reveal the steps that my wife and I took to earn 100 thousand dollars in the span of just a year. Best of all, it's absolutely free!

Podcast: Download (Duration: 11:56 — 13.9MB)

In this Family First Friday episode of the My Wife Quit Her Job podcast, I break down seven psychological copywriting tricks that ecommerce stores (including mine) use to lift open rates, click rates, and conversion rates. Each one is a documented cognitive bias, and each one can be added to a Shopify product page, an Amazon listing, or a Klaviyo email in under an hour.

I have been selling handkerchiefs online for over 15 years at BumblebeeLinens.com. The tactics below are what I actually use in my subject lines, product descriptions, and post-purchase flows, and I have watched them move revenue on a $1M+ store.

Below are the seven biases, an example of each in real ecommerce copy, and how to plug them into your own store today.

Key takeaways

• The Zeigarnik effect (people remember and finish interrupted tasks) turns your email subject lines into cliffhangers that drive opens.
• Anchoring bias makes a $2,000 mattress feel cheap when the copy leads with $10K to $15K, which is why you should list products high-to-low on category pages.
• A well-placed decoy price grew one magazine’s subscription revenue from $8,000 to $12,000 by pushing 84% of buyers to the top tier.
• Bandwagon bias plus reviews lift conversion 115% for shoppers who interact with reviews, per Market Tailor data.
• The Speakeasy Effect: write like a fifth grader. Simple words test as more trustworthy and valuable than SAT vocabulary.

What is psychological copywriting in ecommerce?

Psychological copywriting in ecommerce is the deliberate use of documented cognitive biases (like anchoring, the bandwagon effect, and the Zeigarnik effect) in your product pages, ads, and emails to influence how shoppers perceive value, urgency, and social proof. The techniques are old (most were named by academic psychologists decades ago) but they are especially effective on Shopify stores and Amazon listings because they scale across every visitor.

The mistake most ecommerce operators make is thinking their copy has to describe features. What actually converts is copy that speaks to the emotional lens the shopper is already looking through, then closes the loop with a specific action.

Below are the seven biases I use most often, in the order I would layer them into a new store.

1. The Zeigarnik effect: use cliffhangers in email subject lines

The Zeigarnik effect is the tendency for people to remember and want to finish interrupted or incomplete tasks, and you can use it in ecommerce email by turning your subject line into a cliffhanger the reader has to open the email to resolve. The bias is named after Soviet psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik, who found the brain maintains cognitive tension until a task is complete.

The Netflix binge is the everyday version. You stay up until 2 AM finishing a series because the cliffhanger at the end of each episode leaves your brain unable to let it go.

In an email, a subject line like “This is the craziest deal we’ve ever offered” creates the same tension. The reader has to open to find out what the deal is, then you resolve the tension inside with the offer and a click-through to see more.

2. Anchoring bias: lead with a high price to make yours feel cheap

Anchoring bias makes people rely too heavily on the first piece of information they receive (the “anchor”) when they make decisions, which is why every strikethrough MSRP price you see on Amazon is deliberate. The anchor sets the reference point, and everything after it feels cheap by comparison.

The clearest ecommerce example is a mattress pitch I got recently. The copy opened with “$10,000 to $15,000 for a luxury mattress from a big-name brand,” then presented the actual product at $2,000. After the anchor, $2,000 read as a bargain, even though $2,000 is still a lot for a mattress.

This is also why you should always sort your online store’s category pages from high to low price. Shoppers land on the highest-priced item first, then everything they scroll through afterwards feels progressively more affordable.

3. The decoy effect: add a bait tier to push people to the premium option

The decoy effect adds a strategically bad option to your pricing table so a nearby option looks obviously better, and it is one of the highest-leverage moves you can make on a pricing page. The Economist’s magazine case study is the textbook example.

Here is what actually happened when they added the decoy.

The print-only tier at the same price as web + print made web + print look like a no-brainer, and revenue jumped 50%. The decoy itself never has to sell; it just makes the target option obviously superior.

4. Storytelling: sell the story behind the product, not the product

Storytelling works in ecommerce copy because purchases are rarely logical and stories are the fastest path to the emotional part of the decision. On the podcast I told the story of buying a baby sling in a store that had a dozen options.

The one we bought was 2x more expensive than any other on the market, and we bought it because the sales clerk told us its designer was a 70-year-old Japanese man who wanted children but couldn’t have them due to his wife’s infertility, so he devoted his life to designing baby carriers. She then pointed to the attention-to-detail features in the product that matched the story. We fell for it because the story made the sling feel meaningful, not just functional.

Every product page can do the same thing. The founder story, the sourcing story, the design story, the customer story: any of them will outperform a bullet list of specs on a comparable-price product.

5. Bandwagon bias: show that everyone else is already buying

Bandwagon bias makes people want to do what other people are already doing, which is why “join 121,000 shoppers who switched to reusable handkerchiefs to save the environment” outperforms “buy our reusable handkerchiefs.” The desire to conform and avoid feeling left out is one of the strongest forces in consumer behavior.

The tactical version is stacking reviews, testimonials, and shout-outs everywhere on the product page. According to Market Tailor, shoppers who interact with reviews are 115% more likely to convert than shoppers who don’t, and the effect gets stronger as review count rises.

The email version is showing the raw number: “Over 121,000 shoppers can’t be wrong.” Numbers, especially specific ones, land harder than vague social claims like “loved by thousands.”

6. Confirmation bias: mirror the reader’s existing beliefs

Confirmation bias makes people seek and remember information that confirms what they already believe, which means the most persuasive ecommerce copy sounds like the reader’s own inner monologue. When your copy says out loud what the reader is already thinking, the reader trusts you and buys.

Here is an example from my own wedding-handkerchief line. “Congratulations on your engagement. This is an incredibly exciting time in your life and we understand how important it is for you to have the perfect wedding you’ve always dreamed of. We also understand how complex planning a wedding can be, and you want to have a lasting keepsake of your special day.” Every sentence mirrors what a bride is already feeling.

The tactic is empathy at scale. Interview your customers, listen for the exact words they use, and put those words back into the copy. The closer your language matches theirs, the more your product feels custom-built for them.

7. Action bias: tell people what happens if they don’t buy

Action bias is the human preference for taking action over sitting still, and you can use it in ecommerce copy by naming the specific cost of inaction alongside the specific reward of buying now. People buy to escape a status quo they don’t like, so surface that status quo in the copy.

Example, from my own book launch: “Are you tired of spending 40 hours a week at a job you don’t like? Wouldn’t you rather be spending your time with your loved ones or actually doing what you want? Order The Family First Entrepreneur and learn how to achieve financial freedom right now.” The pain of the current situation and the release of the purchase are both named in the same block.

Time-boxed bonuses layer on top (“if you order right now you’ll also receive…”). The urgency comes from the bonuses expiring, not from a fake countdown clock.

Bonus: the Speakeasy Effect and why you should write like a fifth grader

The Speakeasy Effect is the finding that words that are easy to say and understand test as more trustworthy and more valuable, which is why big vocabulary in ecommerce copy quietly hurts sales. If you have to reach for a thesaurus, your reader has to reach for a dictionary, and every second they spend translating is a second they aren’t buying.

The rule of thumb: write for a fifth-grade reading level. Short sentences. Common words. Concrete examples. Every complexity you strip out is a small trust deposit.

The counterintuitive part is that this applies at every price point, not just budget brands. Luxury brands sell better with simple copy too, because plain language reads as confident rather than desperate to impress.

How to layer these copywriting techniques on your ecommerce store

Layer these copywriting techniques on your ecommerce store in the order that matches the buyer’s journey: anchoring and decoy on the pricing page, storytelling and confirmation bias on the product page, bandwagon proof throughout, Zeigarnik in your email subject lines, and action bias in the final call to action.

Do not try to install all seven at once. Ship one bias per week and measure the delta on your top-three product pages so you know which biases are doing the work.

Also, be honest. Every one of these tactics still requires a real product that solves a real problem for a real customer. Psychology multiplies a good offer and it exposes a bad one.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Zeigarnik effect in copywriting?

The Zeigarnik effect is the tendency for people to remember and want to complete unfinished tasks, and in copywriting it is used to create cliffhangers in email subject lines and headlines that force the reader to click through to resolve the tension. It is named after Soviet psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik, who identified it in the 1920s.

Does anchoring bias really work on ecommerce product pages?

Yes. Anchoring bias is the reason strikethrough MSRP prices, “was/now” formatting, and premium-to-budget product sort orders exist. When shoppers see the higher price first, every lower price after it registers as a better value, and the effect works even when the shopper knows they are being anchored.

What is the decoy effect in pricing?

The decoy effect is a pricing tactic where a strategically bad third option is added to a pricing page to make one of the other options look obviously superior. The Economist magazine study showed a 50% revenue lift by adding a print-only tier at the same price as web + print, which pushed 84% of buyers to the premium bundle.

How do I use storytelling in an ecommerce product description?

Use storytelling in an ecommerce product description by opening with a specific person, moment, or origin story that gives the product emotional meaning, then tying that story to a concrete product detail (materials, attention to craftsmanship, design choice). The story sells the emotional part of the purchase; the detail confirms the story is real.

What is bandwagon bias in marketing?

Bandwagon bias in marketing is the tendency for people to buy what other people are already buying because they want to conform and avoid feeling left out. Stacking review counts, customer testimonials, purchase-count claims (“Join 121,000 shoppers”), and social proof widgets are the practical ways ecommerce stores trigger it.

Why should I write ecommerce copy at a fifth-grade level?

You should write ecommerce copy at a fifth-grade level because simple, easy-to-read words test as more trustworthy and more valuable than complex vocabulary, thanks to the Speakeasy Effect. Big words slow the reader down and read as trying too hard, both of which hurt conversion regardless of your price point.

Are these copywriting tricks manipulative?

These copywriting tricks amplify how a real product is perceived, so they are manipulative only if the underlying product does not deliver. Applied to a product that genuinely solves the customer’s problem, they help the right shopper make a purchase they will be happy with; applied to a bad product, they accelerate refunds and negative reviews.

Ready To Get Serious About Starting An Online Business?

If you are really considering starting your own online business, then you have to check out my free mini course on How To Create A Niche Online Store In 5 Easy Steps.

In this 6 day mini course, I reveal the steps that my wife and I took to earn 100 thousand dollars in the span of just a year. Best of all, it's absolutely free!

Podcast: Download (Duration: 15:37 — 18.2MB)

The seven ecommerce trends that matter most in 2023 are personalized email segmentation, SMS marketing, omnichannel selling, mobile-first store design, social commerce on Instagram and TikTok, AI for recommendations and support, and a comeback of direct mail. Ignore any of the seven and you will lose share to competitors who are already using them.

In this Family First Friday episode of the My Wife Quit Her Job podcast, I walk through each of these shifts using real numbers from my own seven-figure handkerchief store at Bumblebee Linens. You will see the exact customer buckets I use to segment my email list, the SMS engagement numbers I am seeing right now, and the specific AI tools that already run pieces of my store on autopilot.

Below is the full playbook, with every trend, the data behind it, and how I actually use it in my own business.

Key takeaways

• Segment your email list into four customer buckets and treat each one differently. Getting a second sale is 65% easier than getting the first.
• SMS marketing has 98% open rates and 36% click rates. My store gets 10x the engagement over email.
• Sell in as many places as possible. 70% of Amazon shoppers Google the brand before they buy, so you still need your own website.
• Design your store mobile-first. On Bumblebee Linens, 76% of traffic is mobile.
• Social commerce is real revenue. 35% of Instagram users will buy on the platform this year and one seller I know does millions selling katana swords on TikTok.
• AI can automate 70% of your customer service calls, personalize recommendations, optimize inventory, and run your ads through Google Performance Max.
• Direct mail is back. Response rates are 5x to 9x higher than other channels, and my last postcard campaign returned 16.47x on ad spend.

How personalized email segmentation works for ecommerce in 2023

Personalized email marketing means splitting your customer list into buckets based on purchase behavior, then sending each bucket a different message at a different discount level. At Bumblebee Linens I use four buckets: never-buyers, one-time buyers, brand enthusiasts, and whales.

Never-buyers get the deepest discounts because the goal is a first purchase at any size. Once someone buys once, they are 65% more likely to buy again, so I stop discounting hard and start cross-selling and offering loyalty perks.

Brand enthusiasts, who buy semi-regularly but at small basket sizes, get more frequent emails, curated bundles, and cross-sell suggestions based on what they already own. Whales, the top spenders, get a dedicated rep who calls them on the phone and custom-sourced products on request.

Which ecommerce tool automates email segmentation

Klaviyo is the tool I use to automate this entire segmentation flow because it tracks which products a customer viewed, what they bought, their purchase frequency, and their predicted lifetime value. Once you build your segments and email sequences one time, the whole system runs on autopilot.

A concrete example from my store: I sell matching cocktail, tea, and dinner napkins. If a customer buys cocktail napkins but not the matching dinner size, Klaviyo automatically emails them to complete the set.

Same for hankies. If a customer buys a specific style, Klaviyo recommends similar hankies without me touching anything. That kind of automation is where the personalization trend actually gets its return.

Why SMS marketing is the highest-ROI channel for ecommerce right now

SMS marketing beats every other channel on engagement because 98% of texts get opened and 36% get clicked. Last year 62% of consumers subscribed to receive texts from businesses, and that number is growing 12% year over year.

On my own store I see click-through rates between 15% and 20% on SMS, which is roughly 10 times what my email list delivers. Most consumers are already subscribed to one to five business text lists for shipping notifications, promo codes, and reservation reminders.

Only 55% of businesses use SMS today, but adoption is growing at 27% year over year. If you are not on it yet, the window to grab attention before the channel gets saturated is closing.

Why omnichannel selling is non-negotiable in 2023

Omnichannel selling means listing your products in every place a customer might look for them, because different shoppers have permanent preferences you cannot control. Some people only buy on Amazon, some prefer Etsy, some go to their favorite boutique, and some Google directly.

Do not design a channel strategy based on where you personally shop. Sell on Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and your own site, and use plugins that push your Shopify catalog to Amazon, eBay, and Walmart with synced inventory at the push of a button.

Also, 70% of Amazon shoppers will Google the brand before they buy, because Amazon has become a breeding ground for counterfeits and cheap Chinese junk. If they cannot find a real brand website behind the Amazon listing, they will bounce.

Why your own website still matters when you sell on Amazon

Your own website matters because it is the only property you own, the only place you collect customer data, and the trust signal Amazon shoppers now expect before they hit buy. Selling only on Amazon, eBay, or Etsy is easy in the beginning, which is exactly why it attracts fierce competition and race-to-the-bottom pricing.

The counterintuitive rule of ecommerce is that easy paths get commoditized fast. Anything hard, like operating your own store, running your own email list, and shipping internationally, has a smaller field and higher margins.

Do not stop selling on marketplaces. Add your own store on top, and consider offering internationally, because products that are hyper-competitive in the US often sell easily in Canada or Australia, and Australian buyers tend not to blink at high shipping costs.

Why every ecommerce store must be designed mobile-first

Every ecommerce store must be designed mobile-first because that is where the majority of shopping traffic now lives. On Bumblebee Linens, 76% of visitors come from a mobile phone, and my number is actually low because a large chunk of my customers are over 55.

On this blog, 68% of visits come from mobile. Despite the numbers being obvious for years, most sellers still design for desktop first, then squeeze the layout onto phones as an afterthought.

Two quick fixes make a big difference. Test your checkout on your own phone regularly, because most sellers never do. And use services like PayPal that auto-import the customer’s address so they can check out in one tap, because typing on a phone is where a huge share of mobile carts get abandoned.

How social commerce on Instagram and TikTok drives real ecommerce sales

Social commerce is the act of selling directly inside Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Amazon Live rather than driving traffic back to your website, and it is producing real revenue for ecommerce sellers today. 35% of Instagram users will make a purchase on the platform this year.

TikTok is even more effective. Two out of three users are likely to buy something while on the platform, 50% have bought something after watching a TikTok live, and TikTok users are twice as likely as users of traditional social platforms to recommend a product they discovered on the app.

Concrete examples: a colleague of mine sells millions of dollars a year in katana swords on TikTok alone. My friend Tiffany Ivanovski of Emma Lou’s Boutique does tens of millions per year selling live on Facebook, going live every single day. Amazon Live is doing the same thing inside Amazon.

How ecommerce sellers are using AI in 2023

Ecommerce sellers are using AI in five specific ways in 2023: personalized product recommendations, customer-service chatbots, inventory demand forecasting, dynamic pricing, and automated ad campaigns like Google Performance Max and Facebook Advantage+ Shopping. Each one takes work off your plate.

On my store the chatbot alone handles about 70% of inbound customer questions because the top two questions (“where is my order?” and “when will it ship?”) are perfectly suited to a bot querying our database. AI also predicts demand for our imports, which helps me plan two- to four-month sourcing lead times without being naturally organized.

For ads, I am running Google Performance Max campaigns where I feed Google my product feed and Google’s models decide who sees which product. I have been getting a 3x return on ad spend on Facebook Advantage+ Shopping campaigns without refreshing creative constantly.

Why direct mail marketing is making a comeback for ecommerce

Direct mail marketing is making a comeback because email and paid ads have both saturated, while postcards feel personal and get cut through. 70% of consumers say direct mail feels more personal than online advertising, 54% actively want mail from brands they like, and 42% read or scan every piece they receive.

Direct mail response rates run 5 to 9 times higher than other advertising channels, and 62% of consumers who react to a piece of direct mail end up making a purchase. Those numbers are dramatically better than the industry averages you see on paid social.

At Bumblebee Linens we recently ran a postcard campaign that returned 16.47x on ad spend. If you have a customer list and you are only reaching them by email, adding one printed postcard cycle per year is one of the highest-ROI moves you can make.

Frequently asked questions

What are the biggest ecommerce trends for 2023?

The biggest ecommerce trends for 2023 are personalized email segmentation, SMS marketing, omnichannel selling across your own site plus marketplaces, mobile-first store design, social commerce on Instagram and TikTok, AI for recommendations and support, and a comeback of direct mail marketing.

How much lift does SMS marketing give ecommerce stores?

SMS marketing gets 98% open rates and 36% click-through rates, roughly 10 times the engagement of email in my own store’s data. Business SMS adoption is growing at 27% year over year and consumer opt-ins are growing 12% year over year.

Do I really need my own website if I sell on Amazon?

Yes, because 70% of Amazon shoppers Google the brand before they buy, and Amazon hides your customer data. Your own site is the only property you own, the only place you build a real email list, and the trust signal that stops brand-conscious buyers from bouncing.

What percentage of ecommerce traffic is mobile?

On Bumblebee Linens, 76% of traffic comes from a mobile phone, and my number is on the low side because a big share of my customers are over 55. On the My Wife Quit Her Job blog, 68% of visits come from mobile.

How are ecommerce sellers using AI right now?

Sellers are using AI for personalized product recommendations, customer-service chatbots that handle 70% of common questions, demand forecasting for inventory, dynamic price testing, and automated ad campaigns like Google Performance Max and Facebook Advantage+ Shopping.

Is direct mail marketing worth it for ecommerce in 2023?

Yes. Direct mail response rates run 5 to 9 times higher than digital advertising channels, 62% of consumers who react to a piece of direct mail end up buying, and my last postcard campaign at Bumblebee Linens returned 16.47x on ad spend.

What is the best tool for automating ecommerce email segmentation?

Klaviyo is the tool I use at Bumblebee Linens because it tracks browsing behavior, purchase history, order frequency, and predicted lifetime value, then triggers automated flows like cross-sell reminders and lapsed-buyer wins. Once your segments and flows are built one time, the system runs on autopilot.

Ready To Get Serious About Starting An Online Business?

If you are really considering starting your own online business, then you have to check out my free mini course on How To Create A Niche Online Store In 5 Easy Steps.

In this 6 day mini course, I reveal the steps that my wife and I took to earn 100 thousand dollars in the span of just a year. Best of all, it's absolutely free!

Podcast: Download (Duration: 14:41 — 17.1MB)

The eight outdated ecommerce strategies you should stop doing in 2023 are: relying on a single platform for all your sales, AliExpress dropshipping, paying for Amazon Automation services, running Amazon giveaways or soliciting reviews, using public rebate sites, over-spending on customer acquisition while ignoring existing customers, going all-in on paid ads instead of content, and picking whatever product is easy instead of what has a real moat.

In this Family First Friday episode of the My Wife Quit Her Job podcast, I go through each of these dead or dying tactics and explain why they no longer work, using real examples from my own store at Bumblebee Linens and from friends who lived through the pain. If you are just starting out and consuming ecommerce advice on YouTube, Google, or TikTok, most of what you are reading was written when these tactics still worked and never got updated.

Below is the full list, with what to do instead of each dead tactic.

Key takeaways

• Stop relying on Amazon, eBay, or Etsy as your only sales channel. Diversify, and always own your own website.
• Stop dropshipping from AliExpress. Shipping is measured in weeks, margins are thin, and it violates most marketplace terms of service.
• Stop paying for Amazon Automation services. Almost every case has scam signals, and most Amazon aggregators went bankrupt in the last downturn.
• Stop soliciting or incentivizing Amazon reviews. Amazon banned RebateKey and warns any account that touches paid review services.
• Stop spending your marketing budget on acquisition only. Selling to existing customers is 66% cheaper.
• Stop leaning entirely on paid ads. Content compounds. My YouTube channel makes over $300K on ads alone, and my blog earns seven figures a year on affiliate and course sales.
• Stop asking what is easy. Ask what is hard, because hard is what has fewer competitors and a real moat.

Stop relying on Amazon, eBay, or Etsy for all your sales

Relying on a single marketplace for all your sales is the fastest way to lose your business overnight because Amazon, eBay, and Etsy can change their policies or algorithms without warning and tank your revenue instantly. Amazon in particular does not care about you. There are thousands of malicious sellers who game the system to sabotage other sellers, and Amazon rarely helps until you spend years in litigation.

My friend Kevin Williams runs Brush Hero, a cleaning-brush company. A Chinese knockoff seller copied his entire product line, including the packaging with his photo on it, and sold a crappier version on his own listing at half the price.

Kevin sent Amazon his patents and copyrights. Amazon did nothing. It took him two years and multiple million-dollar lawsuits to get action, and by then the damage to his brand was done.

My friend John Rampton lost a multi-million dollar container business the day Amazon banned his account for life.

At Bumblebee Linens, every holiday season we get sellers who buy out our inventory to block us from selling, then return everything in January after the season. Marketplaces are useful, but they are rented land. The only real property you own is your own website.

Stop dropshipping from AliExpress

AliExpress dropshipping is dead as a long-term ecommerce model because shipping times run weeks to months, product quality is inconsistent, margins are thin, counterfeit risk is on you, and every major marketplace bans it in their terms of service. Amazon, eBay, and Etsy will all suspend you the moment they catch it.

Faster shipping options exist, but they usually cost more than the product itself, which kills margin. Most AliExpress sellers do not enforce quality control, so you end up shipping junk to your customers under your own brand. If any item turns out to be counterfeit, you are liable, not AliExpress.

The bigger structural problem is competition. Thousands of dropshippers list the same AliExpress products at the same time, prices race to the bottom, and you end up jumping from one fad product to the next with no repeat customers. Dropshipping in general is not a great long-term model, and AliExpress is the worst version of it.

Stop paying for Amazon Automation services

Amazon Automation services are the outsourced-store scams that flooded YouTube ads a few years back, where a company builds an Amazon store for you in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars up front plus a profit split. Almost every one of them has scam written on it, and even the legitimate ones failed when the aggregator bubble burst.

The tell is simple. If a company can actually pick a winning product and build a profitable Amazon store from scratch, why would they hand you half the profit instead of just running the store themselves? The answer, in most cases, is that they cannot, and their revenue model is the upfront fee, not the store.

Even the legitimate aggregators, which raised hundreds of millions of dollars during the 2020 to 2021 boom to buy and operate Amazon FBA brands, mostly went bankrupt when interest rates rose and organic ranking got harder. If a service sounds like it should not work, it usually does not.

Stop soliciting Amazon reviews or running giveaways

Soliciting Amazon reviews or running giveaways to inflate rank is a dead strategy because Amazon has cracked down on both hard and will suspend the account or the listing if it catches you. The only allowed play now is Amazon’s own “Request a Review” button in Seller Central, which sends a single canned email asking for an unbiased review.

Giveaway spam used to work. Sellers would launch a product, blast free units through third-party giveaway sites to spike sales velocity, and ride the ranking bump. That loophole is closed, and the accounts that still try it get penalized.

Amazon’s newer terms make the boundary explicit: “Manipulating sales rank, such as by accepting fake orders or orders that you have paid for, or making claims about sales rank in product titles or descriptions is against terms of service.” Anything that even smells like paid-for velocity is risk-on.

Stop using public Amazon rebate sites

Public Amazon rebate sites are done because Amazon banned the largest one, RebateKey, and sent warning letters to every seller account that had used a paid rebate service. Rebates used to be a legal grey-area workaround: a buyer paid full price, kept the review moving, and got refunded via PayPal, giving the seller a real full-price sale that boosted rankings.

Amazon now treats that entire pattern as sales rank manipulation, and the specific line in the terms is worded broadly enough to catch any variant. A few sellers still run private, off-platform rebate arrangements, but nothing that looks like a public rebate marketplace is worth the account risk.

If your listing needs a velocity push, get it from real advertising and real content, not from paid buyers. The math on a suspended account is always worse than the math on organic launch.

Stop spending everything on customer acquisition and ignore existing customers

Spending everything on customer acquisition while ignoring existing customers is one of the most expensive mistakes in ecommerce because selling to a repeat customer is 66% less expensive than acquiring a new one. They already know your brand, they already trust you, they already opened their wallet, and reaching them costs a single email or SMS.

Repeat customers also spend more per order over time, refer more friends, and become the loudest word-of-mouth channel you own. On average a happy customer tells at least nine people about their experience with your brand.

The other underrated benefit is customer intelligence. Once I actually started calling existing customers at Bumblebee Linens, I discovered that many of them were event and wedding planners buying in bulk. Special treatment for that segment converts one-time buyers into lifetime whales.

Stop leaning entirely on paid ads and invest in content

Paid ads are still useful, but you cannot build a durable ecommerce business on them alone because CPMs on Google and Facebook rise every year, iOS 14 gutted Facebook attribution, and traffic stops the moment your ad spend stops. Content, by contrast, compounds for years.

Three years ago I started a YouTube channel. Today it earns over $300,000 a year on YouTube ads alone. My blog at mywifequitherjob.com earns seven figures a year on affiliate marketing and course sales, and the specific blog posts driving that revenue were written 10 years ago and are still ranking today.

The mechanism is trust. A shopper who watches one of my videos or reads one of my posts arrives already convinced that I know what I am talking about, which raises conversion when I recommend a product. Pick a medium (YouTube, blogging, or a specific social platform) and post consistently.

Stop underusing email and SMS to convert visitors

If you are creating content but not capturing email and SMS from your visitors, you are wasting the traffic because the average ecommerce conversion rate is only about 2%, which means 98% of visitors leave without buying. A lead magnet like a first-order coupon or free shipping in exchange for an email address is the highest-leverage move you can make on your store today.

The math is that most visitors are not ready to buy on the first visit. Consistent, valuable email and SMS follow-up keeps you top of mind, and when they eventually do want to buy, you are the store they open first.

Email and SMS also let you promote products, run flash discounts, deliver useful content, and re-engage lapsed buyers. These are customers you own, and no marketplace, ad platform, or algorithm change can take them away.

Stop chasing what is easy in ecommerce

The single worst question a new ecommerce founder can ask is “what is easy,” because easy is exactly what has zero barrier to entry and infinite competition. Ask instead “what is hard, expensive, or painful that I am willing to do anyway,” because that is where the moat lives.

Dropshipping is easy. Anyone can list the same AliExpress product on Shopify tomorrow. When 10 stores sell the same product, the shopper picks the cheapest, so prices race to the bottom until nobody makes money.

At Bumblebee Linens we run custom embroidery in-house. We own five embroidery machines that cost over $10,000 each, they need constant recalibration, threads snap all the time, and the machines chew up expensive product on bad runs.

It is a pain in the butt to operate. That is exactly why almost no competitor will bother copying it, and Chinese sellers cannot offer it from 20,000 miles away.

Stop throwing up random products without a value proposition

Throwing random unbranded products onto Amazon and hoping to catch a wave is a dead strategy in 2023 because product research tools like Jungle Scout have made every hot niche discoverable, and any product that works gets copied inside months. Unless you have a unique value proposition (UVP) and a brand, the copies will eat you alive.

A UVP does not have to mean “better.” It just has to mean “different in a way a specific buyer cares about.” At Bumblebee Linens, my UVP is the largest handkerchief selection on the internet, because nobody else specializes in hankies at that depth.

My friend Dave at Saddleback Leather sells bags, which is a total commodity category. His UVP is that his bags outlive you. His actual slogan is “they’ll fight over it when you’re dead.” That single positioning line has built the entire brand.

Frequently asked questions

Is AliExpress dropshipping still a viable ecommerce business model?

No. AliExpress dropshipping is not a viable long-term ecommerce model because shipping takes weeks, quality control is poor, margins are thin, counterfeit liability sits on you, and dropshipping from AliExpress violates the terms of service on Amazon, eBay, and Etsy.

Should I still sell on Amazon in 2023?

Yes, you should still sell on Amazon, but never as your only channel. Sell on Amazon and eBay and Etsy and your own website, because Amazon can suspend accounts, hide customer data, and change fee structures at any time, and diversification is the only insurance you can buy.

Is Amazon Automation a scam?

Most Amazon Automation services are scams or come close, because the business model of “we build and run your Amazon store for a large upfront fee plus profit share” makes no sense for the operator if they could actually pick a winning product themselves. Most of the legitimate aggregators from the 2020 to 2021 boom have also gone bankrupt.

Can I still buy Amazon reviews or use rebate sites to rank?

No. Amazon banned the largest public rebate site, RebateKey, updated its terms to prohibit “manipulating sales rank” through paid or fake orders, and warned every account that had used a paid rebate service. The account risk is not worth it.

Is selling to existing customers really cheaper than acquiring new ones?

Yes. Selling to an existing customer is roughly 66% cheaper than acquiring a new one because they already know and trust your brand, so a single email or SMS is often enough to trigger a repeat purchase. They also spend more per order over time and drive word-of-mouth referrals.

Should I focus on content or paid ads for my ecommerce store?

Both, with content as the long-term core. Paid ads are expensive and stop working the moment you stop paying, while content compounds for years. My YouTube channel earns over $300,000 a year on ads alone and my blog earns seven figures on affiliate and course sales from posts written years ago.

What is a unique value proposition (UVP) in ecommerce?

A unique value proposition is the specific reason a shopper picks your product over an identical-looking competitor. It does not have to mean “better.” It has to mean “different in a way a specific buyer cares about,” like Bumblebee Linens having the largest handkerchief selection online or Saddleback Leather selling bags with a lifetime slogan.

Ready To Get Serious About Starting An Online Business?

If you are really considering starting your own online business, then you have to check out my free mini course on How To Create A Niche Online Store In 5 Easy Steps.

In this 6 day mini course, I reveal the steps that my wife and I took to earn 100 thousand dollars in the span of just a year. Best of all, it's absolutely free!

Podcast: Download (Duration: 13:00 — 15.2MB)

Eleven online business ideas you can start with no money this year: podcast matchmaking, digital courses, dropshipping, print-on-demand, curated subscription boxes, testimonial video content creation, Amazon Influencer product reviews, personalized coaching, activity books on Amazon KDP, virtual event planning, and online tutoring. Every one runs from a laptop at home, and most cost nothing but time to launch.

In this Family First Friday episode of the My Wife Quit Her Job podcast, recorded shortly after The Family First Entrepreneur hit the Wall Street Journal business bestseller list, I run through my go-to list for anyone who tells me they cannot think of a side hustle or do not have money to start one. These are the ideas I hand to friends, students, and readers first because the barrier to entry is essentially zero.

Here is the full list, why each one works, what platforms make it easy, and the market data behind the biggest categories.

Key takeaways

• None of these 11 business ideas require inventory, an office, or startup capital beyond the cost of a laptop and time. They run on people skills, an internet connection, and a willingness to niche down.
• The e-learning market is projected to pass $375 billion by 2026, which is why “expert enough” digital courses remain one of the highest-leverage no-money businesses on the list.
• There are over 5 million podcasts and roughly 464 million podcast listeners today, and most shows are actively looking for guests. A podcast matchmaking service is a pure-people-skills business that Jessica Rhodes grew to six figures within a year at Interview Connections.
• Dropshipping is a stepping stone, not the destination. Margins are thin, so use it to find winning products and then private-label them for real profit.
• Amazon Influencer video reviews pay roughly 4 percent of the buyer’s entire checkout cart, not just the reviewed item, and rank in the product listing itself on a page that gets millions of daily visits.
• Virtual coaching and tutoring have no geographical ceiling. Steve’s tennis coach makes thousands per month at $99/month through tpatennis.com without stepping on a court.

What are the best online business ideas you can start with no money?

The best online business ideas you can start with no money are the ones where your only real inputs are your time and an existing skill. That includes podcast matchmaking, digital courses, dropshipping and print-on-demand ecommerce, subscription boxes, testimonial video content creation, Amazon Influencer video reviews, one-on-one coaching, low-content activity books on Amazon KDP, virtual event planning, and online tutoring.

Every idea below can be started from home this week. Most only need free platforms (Teachable for courses, KDP for books, Amazon for reviews) and the willingness to niche down to a specific audience.

Idea 1: Start a podcast matchmaking service

A podcast matchmaking service connects podcast hosts who need guests with authors, experts, and researchers who want interview slots. According to Podcast Report, there are now roughly 464 million podcast listeners and over 5 million podcasts, and most active shows (my own included) are constantly hunting for good guests.

The business model is simple: build a list of shows in a niche, offer to help hosts source guests for free, and then charge experts to pitch them into those shows. You do not even need the podcaster’s permission upfront; you just need a working list and a real pipeline of qualified guests to place.

My friend Jessica Rhodes built exactly this at Interview Connections and grew it to six figures in year one. It is a pure people-skills business with essentially zero startup cost.

Idea 2: Launch a digital course on something you already know

A digital course business turns a skill you already have into recurring revenue. The e-learning market is expected to pass $375 billion by 2026, and platforms like Teachable will host your course for free until you make sales.

The bar is lower than most people think. You do not need to be the world’s foremost expert; you need to be “expert enough,” meaning you know more than the person paying you. My own ecommerce course has over 5,000 members and has generated close to $10 million, and my material is really only useful up to about $10 million in store revenue.

Find early students by hanging out in relevant Facebook groups and answering real questions until people start asking for more. Authority in a niche is built one helpful comment at a time.

Idea 3: Start a dropshipping ecommerce store

Dropshipping is an ecommerce model where you take the order and your supplier ships the product directly to the customer, so you never touch inventory. It is one of the few ways to launch an ecommerce store with essentially zero upfront capital, and there are 12+ free ecommerce platforms that will let you list products at no cost.

The honest tradeoff is margin: dropshipping rarely produces life-changing income on its own because you are the middleman on a very small spread. Treat it as a data-gathering step. Test which products sell, then private-label the winners so you keep the full margin.

Idea 4: Start a print-on-demand store

A print-on-demand store lets you sell custom designs on t-shirts, mugs, hoodies, and dozens of other products without buying inventory. When an order comes in, the print-on-demand supplier prints and ships it, and you collect the difference between retail and the supplier’s cost.

You do not need to be an artist anymore. AI tools like Midjourney and DALL-E can generate designs from a prompt, so the only real inputs are a niche and a marketing plan.

Idea 5: Launch a curated subscription box

A subscription box business ships a curated bundle of themed products (snacks, beauty samples, hobby supplies) to a recurring paying customer base. The killer feature is retention: once someone subscribes, they become a consistent monthly revenue stream instead of a one-time purchase.

A concrete niche example: a Japan snack box that ships hard-to-find snacks and drinks the US does not carry. The sourcing trips are business-deductible travel, and the recurring model smooths out revenue across the year. Platforms like CrateJoy operate as a marketplace for subscription boxes and help with discovery in the early days.

Idea 6: Create testimonial video content for ecommerce brands

Testimonial video content creators are hired by ecommerce companies to record product-review-style videos that run in the brand’s paid ads and social feeds. Most of the “everyday customer” testimonials you see in ads are paid creators, because the odds of finding a genuine buyer who is also good on camera and eloquent are very low.

If you are comfortable on camera, tens of thousands of brands are actively hiring for this. You need no audience of your own, because the video runs on the brand’s channels, not yours. One of my friends earns a full-time living making these videos for skincare brands.

Idea 7: Join the Amazon Influencer program and film product reviews

The Amazon Influencer program pays you a commission (roughly 4 percent) when a shopper watches your product review on Amazon and buys, and that commission applies to the buyer’s entire cart, not just the reviewed item. Your video can appear directly inside the product listing on a page that gets millions of daily visits.

The workflow: apply to the Amazon Influencer program, buy products you would have bought anyway, film a quick phone review, and upload it. The key is finding popular products that do not yet have many video reviews, because your video is much more likely to be featured.

Because Amazon does the traffic, this is one of the closest things to genuinely passive income on the list once your reviews are in place.

Idea 8: Sell personalized coaching in a niche skill

A personalized coaching business sells one-on-one instruction in any skill you have deep knowledge in, from personal finance to college admissions to a specific video game. There is a coach for essentially everything at this point; I recently searched for Mario Kart coaches after a friend beat me and there are real people making money doing it.

The more obscure and specific the skill, the less competition and the easier it is to charge. List services on Fiverr, Upwork, or Craigslist, or find clients in niche communities where your skill is discussed.

Personally, I am about to hire a college admissions coach for my daughter, because most kids do not accidentally get into top schools. If there is demand in your niche, there is a coaching business in it.

Idea 9: Sell low-content activity books on Amazon KDP

Low-content activity books are puzzle, coloring, and workbook titles you upload to Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) with no inventory cost. Software like BookBolt has built-in templates that auto-generate word scrambles, word finds, crosswords, and sudoku, so a finished book takes about an hour.

The trick is finding underserved niches. A themed Chinese New Year activity book, for example, sells surprisingly well because the category has thin competition. For coloring books, AI image tools can generate coloring-friendly line-art pages on the fly, so you do not need to draw.

Idea 10: Start a virtual event planning agency

A virtual event planning agency handles the software, speaker coordination, email sequences, and run-of-show for online conferences. I discovered this need the hard way when COVID forced me to move my Seller Summit conference virtual in three weeks in 2020, and I would have paid real money for someone who already knew the software stack.

Virtual events are still in high demand. Companies want the reach and cost profile of an online conference without hiring an in-house events team, and a specialized agency is the obvious fit.

Idea 11: Tutor online in a language, instrument, or sport

Online tutoring turns any teachable skill into recurring income without geographic limits. A friend of mine made over $100,000 tutoring Chinese kids in English over Zoom, and that model now extends far beyond languages.

I have friends taking virtual piano lessons and virtual singing lessons, and I convinced my own tennis coach to launch virtual tennis lessons at $99/month through tpatennis.com. He now earns thousands of dollars a month without setting foot on a court. If you can teach it, someone across the world will pay for a Zoom link.

Comparison: which no-money business idea fits which strengths

Frequently asked questions

What is the easiest online business to start with no money?

The easiest online business to start with no money is one that sells a service you already know how to perform, because the only inputs are your time and a laptop. Personalized coaching, online tutoring, and testimonial video content creation all fit that profile: no inventory, no software cost, no upfront ad spend, and you can be paid within days on Fiverr, Upwork, or Craigslist.

How much money do you actually need to start a dropshipping business?

You can start a dropshipping business for essentially $0 because there are 12+ free ecommerce platforms and no inventory to buy upfront. Practical costs come from testing paid ads to find winning products, and margins are thin enough that dropshipping is best treated as a research phase before you private-label the products that actually sell.

Do you need a big audience to make money on the Amazon Influencer program?

No. The Amazon Influencer program surfaces your videos directly on the Amazon product listing itself, so buyers on Amazon (not on your channel) drive the sales. Applicants do need a qualifying social presence to be approved, but once you are in, the traffic comes from Amazon’s tens of millions of daily shoppers, not from a following you have to build first.

Do I need to be a professional artist to sell print-on-demand or KDP books?

No. AI tools like Midjourney and DALL-E generate print-on-demand designs and coloring-book pages from text prompts, and BookBolt auto-generates puzzle books like word finds, crosswords, and sudoku from templates. The bottleneck is niche selection, not art.

Am I really qualified to sell an online course?

You are qualified to teach an online course if you know more about the topic than the person paying you. Steve’s ecommerce course is capped in usefulness around $10M in store revenue, but the vast majority of students want to hit their first six or seven figures and get real value from that scope. “Expert enough” beats “world-class expert” for course-market fit.

How big is the e-learning market?

The global e-learning market is projected to surpass $375 billion by 2026, which is why online courses, coaching, and tutoring are three of the strongest categories on this list. Demand for on-demand skill acquisition (from Excel to piano to Mario Kart) is still expanding faster than the supply of specialized teachers in most niches.

What is the fastest of these ideas to start earning?

Personalized coaching, testimonial video content creation, and online tutoring can generate their first paid client within days. All three list on Fiverr, Upwork, or Craigslist with no gatekeepers, and the buyer is looking for a service they can consume immediately.

Ready To Get Serious About Starting An Online Business?

If you are really considering starting your own online business, then you have to check out my free mini course on How To Create A Niche Online Store In 5 Easy Steps.

In this 6 day mini course, I reveal the steps that my wife and I took to earn 100 thousand dollars in the span of just a year. Best of all, it's absolutely free!

Podcast: Download (Duration: 15:24 — 17.9MB)

The toxic truth about entrepreneurship is that most business books teach you to work 80 hours a week for an exit that usually never comes, and by the time you figure out the trade, your family has already paid the bill. This is a Family First Friday episode of the My Wife Quit Her Job podcast, taken from the impromptu 15-minute speech I gave at my very first book signing at Books Inc in Palo Alto for The Family First Entrepreneur.

The alternative is the framework I built the book around: a side hustle you actually care about, a small business run on systems and automation instead of hustle, and a clear ranking of the four life burners (work, friends, family, health) so you know which ones to turn down when a trade-off shows up.

Below is the through-line of that talk, plus the four burners theory explained in full and the FAQ people ask me most about family first entrepreneurship.

Key takeaways

• Most business books assume you have no family and no other responsibilities. Family First Entrepreneurship rejects the 80-hour-week playbook and targets “enough” instead.
• Our two businesses generate seven figures on roughly 20 hours per week combined, because we invested in systems and automation once the income was stable.
• The four burners theory says life has four burners (work, friends, family, health) and you can only run two well. Pick your two on purpose.
• Some balls you juggle are glass and some are rubber. Family is glass. Know which is which before you drop something.
• Everyone should have a side hustle in a topic they already care about. Layoffs at Facebook and Google right now show why relying on a single paycheck is fragile.
• The moving-goalposts trap kills more entrepreneurs than failure does. If the number keeps growing but nothing in your life gets better, the goal is the problem.

Why I wrote The Family First Entrepreneur

I wrote The Family First Entrepreneur because every business book I read assumed I had no kids, no spouse, and no interest in seeing either of them. Living in Silicon Valley makes it worse. The default template here is venture-backed, going public, and treating 80-hour weeks as the price of admission.

The math on that template is ugly once you stop and look at it. You sacrifice years of family time chasing an exit that, more often than not, never happens.

And even when it does happen, the entrepreneurs I interview on this podcast tell me privately that the payoff was smaller than the price.

What Family First Entrepreneurship actually means

Family First Entrepreneurship means building a business that funds the life you want on the fewest hours possible, then reinvesting that time in the people you love. It targets “enough money to be free” instead of a nine-figure exit.

For us, “enough” is two businesses that clear seven figures on around 20 hours a week of work between me and my wife Jen. That took years of building systems, but it is very much achievable for a small business.

You do not need a family to use this framework. If the phrase “family first” bothers you, read it as “life first.” The book is fundamentally about how to work less and make more.

The moving-goalposts trap that almost broke our business

The single biggest mistake I made as an entrepreneur was moving the goalposts every time we hit a number. When our handkerchief store cleared six figures in year one against a $60,000 target, my ego took over and I set a new target. When we hit that, I set another one.

We were making far more than we could spend. I am famously cheap. I do not like cars, I do not have expensive hobbies, and I do not travel lavishly.

One night Jen came to me in tears (the unhappy kind) and asked why we were still doing this. The whole reason we started the business was so she could quit her job and be around me and the kids. Somewhere along the way I had traded that away for a bigger revenue number.

That conversation is when we killed all revenue goals and rebuilt the business around processes, automation, and getting both of us out of the day to day. Money turns out to be a terrible measure of anything that matters.

Why successful entrepreneurs are often quietly miserable

After 460+ podcast interviews with seven, eight, and nine-figure entrepreneurs, I can tell you that the real conversation usually starts the second I hit the stop button. On air, everything is congratulations and growth curves. Off air, a lot of them are quietly falling apart.

One founder hit $2 million in six months. On the recording, we celebrated. Off air he told me it was the most stressful, miserable stretch of his life, because fast growth is not fun to live through even when it looks great on a chart.

I once interviewed a billionaire and asked, off record, if he had any regrets. He said yes: he lost his family, went through a divorce, and rarely sees his kids. He would trade the private jets and everything else to get them back.

Why the media version of an entrepreneur is fake

Anytime you see a family entrepreneur profile in the media, assume the camera-ready version is staged. Our family was recently on CNBC, and there is a scene where the kids run into the kitchen and cheerfully ask about breakfast options while I calmly pour milk.

Real mornings in our house are “get out of bed, put on your clothes, eat, out the door.” The videographer needed a warm shot, so we performed a warm shot.

The point is not that CNBC lied. The point is that a 90-second segment cannot show reality, so anything you are comparing yourself to on TV or Instagram is a highlight reel, not a benchmark.

Why everyone needs a side hustle right now

Everyone should have a side hustle even if they love their day job, because a side hustle is optionality and the tech industry just spent 12 months proving how fragile a single paycheck is. Facebook has now announced its second round of layoffs, and Google has cut roles again.

Friends of mine hate their situation but cannot walk away, because they never built anything on the side.

A side hustle also has real upside. Our handkerchief store started as a weekend project my wife and I ran on the side and turned into a seven-figure business.

MyWifeQuitHerJob.com started as a blog with zero readers because I got inspired by Steve Pavlina’s post “How to Make Money From Your Blog.” It took three years to make six figures, then it took off.

Same story with my YouTube channel. One video a week for three years, and now the ad revenue alone covers our family’s bills.

How to pick a side hustle you will actually stick with

Pick a side hustle in a topic you are already into, because consistency is the only thing that separates the side hustles that grow from the ones that die. If you already care about the topic, showing up every week is easy. If you do not, you will quit by week six.

One of my friends buys a new piece of electronics every single week. As his friend, I already want to know what he thinks of everything he buys. If he just documented that in a YouTube channel or blog, I would watch every video, and there are millions of people like me.

Your version of that is whatever you already do for free on weekends. Start documenting it and see what happens over 18 months.

What the second half of the book covers: automation and systems

The second half of The Family First Entrepreneur is about sustaining a business without becoming enslaved to it, because the trap most owners fall into is that the more money they make, the harder they work. That is backwards. If revenue is growing and your calendar is getting worse, you are running the wrong playbook.

The fix is systems, processes, and (increasingly) AI-powered automation. I have used human writers to help with the blog for years, and I am probably not going to keep using them because ChatGPT and the other tools have gotten that good.

If you have not experimented with ChatGPT, Midjourney, or any of the AI tools yet, do it this week. This is the biggest small-business productivity shift in a decade.

The four burners theory explained

The four burners theory says your life is a stove with four burners (work, friends, family, health) and to do one thing well you have to turn off at least one burner. To do something exceptionally well, you have to turn off two. Elon Musk has three burners off and his work burner cranked to max.

It is a priorities framework, not a lifestyle prescription. You cannot run a serious business, maintain great health, be a present spouse, be a present parent, and hold up an active social life all at the same time. Something gives.

My chosen two burners have always been family and work, in that order. Yours might be different. The point is to choose on purpose so you are not surprised by which burner burned down while you were focused on another one.

Glass balls vs rubber balls: knowing which trade-offs matter

You are always juggling multiple balls in the air, and some are glass while others are rubber. The rubber ones bounce when you drop them. The glass ones shatter.

Family is a glass ball. If you drop it, it does not bounce back. A missed revenue target is a rubber ball; you can chase it down next quarter.

Before you say yes to another late night, another launch, another client, ask which ball you are about to drop and whether it is glass or rubber. Almost every regret I hear from successful entrepreneurs is the story of dropping a glass ball while chasing a rubber one.

Frequently asked questions

What is a family first entrepreneur?

A family first entrepreneur is someone who builds a business designed around their family life instead of the other way around, targeting “enough” income to be free rather than a maximum exit. The goal is small business ownership with systems and automation that let you stop trading hours for dollars.

What is the four burners theory of work-life balance?

The four burners theory says your life has four burners (work, friends, family, health) and to succeed at any one, you have to turn off at least one other. To succeed at a very high level, you have to turn off two. It is a priorities framework popularized by James Clear.

How many hours a week does Steve Chou work?

Steve and Jen Chou run two seven-figure businesses (Bumblebee Linens and MyWifeQuitHerJob.com) on roughly 20 hours per week combined. That number is only possible because they invested years into building systems, automation, and hiring so both owners could step out of the daily operation.

Do you have to have kids to read The Family First Entrepreneur?

No. The Family First Entrepreneur is really a book about working less and making more, so the framework works for anyone who wants to build a small business without an 80-hour week. If you do not have a family, read “family first” as “life first” and the advice still applies.

Is it possible to start a side hustle when you already work full time?

Yes. Side hustles are how MyWifeQuitHerJob.com, Bumblebee Linens, and the podcast all started, each while Steve was still working a full-time engineering job. The key is picking a topic you already care about and blocking a set part of every week to work on it consistently.

What should my first side hustle be?

Your first side hustle should be in a topic you are already into for free, because consistency is what separates a side hustle that grows from one that dies. If you already read about, buy, or think about a topic on weekends, start documenting it publicly on a blog, YouTube channel, or podcast and see what audience shows up.

Where can I get The Family First Entrepreneur?

The Family First Entrepreneur is published by HarperCollins and available at major retailers including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Books Inc, as well as at thefamilyfirstentrepreneur.com. The site also lists upcoming book-signing events.

Ready To Get Serious About Starting An Online Business?

If you are really considering starting your own online business, then you have to check out my free mini course on How To Create A Niche Online Store In 5 Easy Steps.

In this 6 day mini course, I reveal the steps that my wife and I took to earn 100 thousand dollars in the span of just a year. Best of all, it's absolutely free!

Podcast: Download (Duration: 17:53 — 20.8MB)

If I were starting a new ecommerce business from scratch today, I would skip drop shipping, retail arbitrage, and Amazon wholesale entirely and build a private label brand in nine steps: pick a business model, find a product, source a supplier, validate demand, test on Amazon, launch my own website, install email and SMS flows, layer in content plus paid ads, then nurture my best repeat customers. Drop shipping and wholesale have been squeezed to almost nothing by Amazon, and the only ecommerce model with real staying power in the current landscape is owning your own brand.

This is a Family First Friday solo episode of the My Wife Quit Her Job podcast, where I walk through the exact playbook I would follow today. It is the same 9-step system I have used to run Bumblebee Linens for 17 years and to coach more than 5,000 students inside my Create A Profitable Online Store course.

Here is the full plan, in the exact order you should execute it, plus the specific tools and margin targets I would use at each step.

Key takeaways

• Private label is the only ecommerce model with long-term staying power right now. Drop shipping and wholesale have both been gutted because Amazon owns over 50% of ecommerce, so brands would rather sell direct than hand a retailer a 50% margin.
• Target at least a 66% gross margin on private label. If you sell an item for $9, you should keep $6 after cost of goods, or the model does not survive shipping, ads, and returns.
• Validate on Amazon first, even if your endgame is your own site. Amazon is the fastest way to prove real demand and generate cash flow while you build your brand website.
• Install four automated email flows on day one: abandoned cart, pre-purchase nurture, post-purchase, and win-back. Email is the retention engine for the 98% of visitors who do not buy on their first visit.
• Attack customer acquisition on three fronts: content for free traffic, paid ads for immediate sales, and a repeat-customer program for lifetime value. My blog and SEO alone drive about 25% of Bumblebee Linens’ sales for free.

Which ecommerce business model should you choose in 2026?

The only ecommerce business model I would choose today is private label, because it is the one model where you own the brand, the customer, and the margin. Drop shipping, retail arbitrage, and Amazon wholesale can all generate short-term cash, but none of them build an asset you can grow or sell.

Drop shipping used to work because brands wanted extra distribution without hiring a sales force. Today, Amazon owns more than 50% of ecommerce and any brand can list on it themselves, so there is no reason to give a drop shipper a 50% discount and hand over fulfillment.

Wholesale has the same problem in reverse. If you are reselling somebody else’s product, every other reseller sells the exact same SKU, and prices race to the bottom on Amazon within weeks.

Private label flips the equation. You control the product, the packaging, the price, and the customer relationship, and no one else can undercut a listing that only exists under your brand. Drop shipping or wholesale is fine as a stepping stone to fund your first private label order, but treat it as scaffolding, not the building.

Step 1: Find a private label product to sell

To find a private label product to sell, start with a problem you or someone close to you actually has, then go find the product that solves it. Products born from a real, felt problem almost always have a market, because at minimum you are one of the buyers.

We started selling handkerchiefs at Bumblebee Linens because my wife could not find plain white hankies for our wedding. My friend Amanda Wittenborn now makes millions selling custom-designed party supplies because that is what she is good at. Another friend, Rob, sells drone remote attachments because he is obsessed with drones.

If nothing obvious comes to mind, run product research on Amazon with a tool like Jungle Scout to spot categories with high demand and low competition. Cross-check search demand on Google with Ahrefs, and see what is selling on eBay with Terapeak. Combine those three data sources and you can validate a niche before you spend a dollar on inventory.

Step 2: Find a supplier and hit a 66% gross margin

Find a supplier who can deliver your product at a landed cost that leaves you at least a 66% gross margin, or the private label math does not work. That means selling at roughly 3x your all-in product cost, so a $3 unit needs to sell for at least $9.

There are three reliable ways to find that supplier. Search Alibaba and filter by location, price, and certifications, or attend trade shows in your product category (I used to go to the Canton Fair every other year before COVID). You can also hire a sourcing agent who already has vetted factory relationships and can shortcut months of back-and-forth for a fee.

Before you place a real order, request samples and confirm quality against a written spec. Nail down minimum order quantity, unit price, delivery timelines, payment terms, and an agreed defect ratio (we require under 3% defects on our linens).

Once you settle on a supplier, keep the communication channel warm. We keep every factory contact on WhatsApp or WeChat so we can get answers in hours instead of days.

Step 3: Validate your product before you place a big inventory order

Validate your product by trying to sell your first samples before you sink money into a full container of inventory. The goal at this stage is proof that strangers will pay you, not revenue.

The cheapest validation channels are Facebook groups, eBay, Amazon, and Etsy. Join groups in your niche and start conversations, then softly introduce your product. When we started with wedding handkerchiefs, I asked in bridal forums where I could find monogrammed hankies, then followed up later saying I had bought extras and would sell them.

List a handful of samples on eBay or Amazon and watch what happens. Test different price points, capture the buyer feedback, and use it to refine the product spec, packaging, or copy before you commit to your first large purchase order.

If nobody buys at any price, that is not a marketing problem. That is a signal to pick a different product.

Step 4: List your product on Amazon first

List your product on Amazon before you build your own website, because Amazon has more than 50% of the ecommerce market and the fastest built-in buyer traffic in the world. It is the quickest way to generate real sales, real reviews, and real cash flow while you are still designing your brand site.

Open a professional Amazon seller account, then build a clean listing that follows Amazon’s guidelines. Optimize the title, five bullets, and description with the exact keywords your buyers type, invest in high-quality photography, and price competitively against the top-ranking listings.

Then run Amazon PPC on relevant keywords. Sponsored Products will get your listing onto page one for buyers who are ready to purchase, which is the fastest way to seed early sales and reviews. Once you have velocity, you can scale ad spend and add Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display on top.

Amazon is competitive and the fees are steep, so treat it as a validation and cash-flow engine, not the finish line. Use the profits to fund the next step.

Step 5: Launch your own ecommerce website on the right platform

Launch your own ecommerce website as soon as your Amazon test sells through, because your own site is the only property you fully own. Amazon can suspend an account overnight. A branded website you control cannot be taken away.

Pick the platform that matches your budget and technical comfort:

• Shopify. The easiest, most supported, and by far the largest third-party app ecosystem. Best default choice if you are not technical and can afford the monthly fees plus apps.
• Shift4Shop or WooCommerce. Free to use and just as powerful, at the cost of a steeper learning curve. Good option on a tight budget or if you want full control.
• BigCommerce. Shopify-like experience without the app-nickel-and-dime problem, because most of what you need is built in.

Once the platform is picked, put your value proposition and differentiator above the fold on every page, so a first-time visitor knows in three seconds why they should buy from you instead of a competitor. Build clean product pages, real category pages, transparent shipping and returns, and a checkout that works on mobile.

The point of your own site is control: control of the brand, the customer data, the pricing, and the long-term relationship. Everything after this step compounds on top of that ownership.

Step 6: Set up email and SMS marketing on day one

Set up email and SMS marketing on day one, because the average ecommerce conversion rate is about 2%, which means 98% of your visitors leave without buying. Email and SMS give you a second, third, and tenth chance to convert them.

Install these four automated email flows on launch:

• Abandoned cart. Triggered when a shopper adds to cart and leaves. A three-email sequence with a reminder, social proof, and a small incentive typically recovers 10 to 15% of lost carts.
• Pre-purchase nurture. Sent to leads who signed up but have not yet bought. Educates them on your product, your story, and why to trust you.
• Post-purchase. Thanks the buyer, sets shipping expectations, and asks for a review at the right moment.
• Win-back. Fires for lapsed customers who have not bought in 60 to 120 days, with a targeted offer to bring them back.

To feed those flows, run an email sign-up popup with a lead magnet: a percentage-off code, a free shipping offer, or a useful guide. Layer SMS on top for time-sensitive messages, because texts get read in minutes and drive the fastest response of any channel. I use Klaviyo for email and Postscript for SMS on Bumblebee Linens.

Step 7: Create content for free organic ecommerce traffic

Create content on a channel your target buyer already uses, because content is the cheapest source of long-term ecommerce traffic. Content compounds: a blog post or YouTube video published today can still send buyers to your store five years from now.

Pick one primary content channel and commit to a consistent publishing schedule:

• Blog and SEO. Write buyer-intent content on your own domain. Our blog and SEO drive about 25% of Bumblebee Linens’ sales for free.
• YouTube. Publish long-form videos in your category. My channel at MyWifeQuitHerJob earns around $300,000 a year in AdSense on top of the store and course traffic it drives.
• Podcast. Build authority in a niche where audio thrives. This podcast is a top-25 marketing show on Apple Podcasts, and you are listening to it right now.
• Social media. Post to Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, or X for reach and community if your product is visual.

Consistency beats format. One post or video a week for two years will out-perform ten posts a month for two months. Attach a clear call to action in every piece so the traffic converts into email subscribers and customers instead of drifting away.

Step 8: Layer in paid advertising for immediate sales

Layer in paid advertising to generate immediate sales while your content compounds, because content is slow and ads are fast. The right platform depends on where your buyer’s intent already lives.

Facebook and Instagram ads work best when you have to create the demand. Target by interest, behavior, and lookalike audiences of your existing customers, then push cold traffic to a landing page built for conversion, not to a generic homepage.

Google Ads works best when the buyer already knows they need your product and is searching for it. Bid on high-intent keywords, mirror those keywords in your headlines, and send clicks to a matching landing page.

Amazon Ads should keep running throughout, because a lot of your future customers still start their product research on Amazon regardless of where they end up buying. Track your CAC and payback period on every channel and cut the ones that never break even. Paid ads are a scalable engine only when the math works.

Step 9: Focus on your best repeat customers

Focus on your best repeat customers, because it is far cheaper to sell to someone who has already bought than to acquire a new customer. Repeat business is where ecommerce margin actually comes from once ads and content have done their job.

Identify your best customers by lifetime value, purchase frequency, and average order value. The top 5 to 10% of buyers usually generate a disproportionate share of revenue, and those are the ones you should invest personal attention in.

Here is what we do at Bumblebee Linens. We call our biggest customers personally, give them a permanent discount code they can use anytime, and assign a dedicated rep to handle their orders. Most of them are wedding and event planners who buy in bulk, and that group of maybe a hundred people drives a huge share of our repeat volume.

You can also spin up a private Facebook group for your best customers to give feedback and vote on new products. That builds loyalty and improves your product roadmap at the same time. Every extra dollar of lifetime value drops straight to the bottom line.

Frequently asked questions

How much money do you need to start a private label ecommerce business?

Plan for roughly $2,000 to $5,000 to start a private label ecommerce business the way I would run it today. That budget covers a small first inventory order (usually $500 to $2,000), samples from two or three suppliers, a Shopify subscription for the first few months, and a small Amazon PPC budget to seed sales while you validate demand.

Is drop shipping still worth it in 2026?

Drop shipping is no longer worth it as a long-term ecommerce business model in 2026 because Amazon has captured more than 50% of ecommerce and brands would rather sell direct on Amazon than pay a drop shipper. It can still work as a short-term stepping stone to fund your first private label inventory order, but do not build it into a permanent business.

Should I sell on Amazon or my own website first?

Sell on Amazon first to validate demand and generate cash flow, then move to your own website as fast as possible to own the brand and the customer. Amazon has the fastest buyer traffic in ecommerce, but only your own website gives you the customer data, the margin, and the long-term asset value.

What gross margin do I need for private label ecommerce?

Target at least a 66% gross margin on private label, which is roughly a 3x markup over your landed cost of goods. That margin is what covers shipping, ads, returns, platform fees, and still leaves enough net profit to reinvest in growth and pay yourself.

What is the fastest way to find a profitable product to sell?

The fastest way to find a profitable product to sell is to look at your own real-life problems first, then use a research tool like Jungle Scout to gauge Amazon demand and Ahrefs to check Google search volume. If a product solves a real problem, has verified demand on Amazon, and has consistent search interest, it is worth ordering samples.

How long does it take to build a profitable ecommerce business?

Expect one to three years to build a genuinely profitable ecommerce business from scratch, based on my own store and thousands of students I have coached. Most students see first sales within one to three months, break-even within six to twelve months, and start pulling meaningful profit around year two once repeat customers and content start compounding.

Ready To Get Serious About Starting An Online Business?

If you are really considering starting your own online business, then you have to check out my free mini course on How To Create A Niche Online Store In 5 Easy Steps.

In this 6 day mini course, I reveal the steps that my wife and I took to earn 100 thousand dollars in the span of just a year. Best of all, it's absolutely free!