How to Build a One Product Shopify Store [With Examples]
A one product Shopify store is arguably the most underrated way to get into eCommerce.
In this post, we'll unpack everything you need to know about getting started. By the end, you'll have a framework for starting your own one product brand.
Ready to jump in? Let's go!
What is a One Product Shopify Store?
With a one product Shopify store, you focus on selling just one item from your store.
Now, you might be wondering why on earth a brand would limit itself to offering a sole product to its customers?
Indeed, offering multiple items gives people greater choice and raises the likelihood they’ll find something they like, right?
Well, that may be true in some circumstances, but the human brain is a funny thing.
As psychologist Barry Schwartz points out in his book ‘The Paradox of Choice’;
“As the number of choices we face increases, the psychological benefits we derive start to level off.”
In other words, offering your customers lots of products can actually make them less satisfied with the product they decide to buy.
Because by choosing just one of many products, customers feel they’re ‘missing out’ on all of the others, and that’s psychologically uncomfortable.
Offering your customers only one product combats this paradox
It frees customers from the burden of choice, makes it easier for them to convert, and doesn’t leave them with a nagging sense that another option might have been better.
Benefits of a One Product Shopify Store
As an entrepreneur, you know that running an eCommerce business requires you to have many irons in the fire.
With so much to analyze, tweak, and improve each day, stripping your offering down to a single product can allow you to focus on what matters most and drive real growth.
Here’s how a single product store can make your life easier:
- Better Positioning: When you’re selling lots of items, it’s easy for your message to become diluted. With just one product, you can focus on positioning your brand to perfection.
- More Effective Advertising: Digital advertising becomes easier as the Facebook and Google algorithms build serious data about the specific buyers who are interested in your product.
- Less Scatter-Brain: Managing and marketing just one product is less complicated than trying to come up with thirty different strategies for thirty different products. Directing all of your talents towards a single product boosts your odds of success. You can always expand your product line once you’ve built solid cash-flow.
Step 1: Come Up With One Product Shopify Store Ideas
You can’t build a store if you don’t have ideas! So, the first step is to get your creative juices flowing and get some ideas down on paper.
There are hundreds of ways to research product ideas, but here’s a quick framework that should get you started.
- Start with what you have: Have you had ideas lurking in the back of your mind for years? Maybe you encounter pain points on a daily basis that a product could solve? Do you own a product that you could improve in some way?
- Research Amazon bestsellers: Pursuing through Amazon’s bestseller lists can help unearth products with proven demand that are perfect for building a brand around. For example, a waffle maker that’s dying for a cool one-product brand is trending at #3 at the time of writing.
- Get Inspired by Kickstarter: Kickstarter is a platform where entrepreneurs seek eCommerce funding to launch their products. Check out the discover page to find up and coming product ideas. Here’s a cool coffee grinder I found that’d be perfect for a one-product store:
- Go Trend Hunting on Google Trends: Google Trends is a great tool to discover what people are searching for and identify niches and products that are surging in popularity. For example, below, you can see that mushrooms are trending steadily for the past five years. Single-product mushroom grow kit store, anyone?
Once you’ve come up with a product idea, it’s time to bring it to life. Hop over to Alibaba (if you’re dropshipping, try Aliexpress or Spocket) and run a search for your product idea.
For example, remember that waffle maker that was trending on Amazon? Here’s a very similar version from a supplier on Alibaba:
Then, order several samples from different suppliers so you can compare the quality. While you wait for them to arrive, let’s get on with building the rest of your brand!
Note: For a complete overview of how to source products from China, check out the awesome guide over on A Better Lemonade Stand. And for more insight into how to find products - check out this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK1WxzBEoyA
Step 2: Choose a Single Product Shopify Theme
The foundation of your one product Shopify store starts with your theme. To maximize conversions, choose a theme that is specifically designed to make your core product pop.
Plus, you also want simple navigation so shoppers can zip around your store with minimal distractions.
You’ve got a couple of options here:
- Debut is a brilliant free theme that’s got the credentials to show your product in the best light. Perfect for one product store.
- Boundless is another free theme from Shopify that puts your photography to the fore and gives you plenty of space to visually entice customers.
- Streamline is well suited to being a one product Shopify store theme. It features story-focused product pages, animated content, and a mobile-first design to send your conversions through the roof.
Step 3: Brand Your One Product Shopify Store
Now that your samples are on the way and you’ve chosen a theme, it’s time to get down to building a brand identity.
Your brand identity is all the elements that bring your store to life, like your logo, your copy, your images, and your color palette.
Now, branding is a huge topic, and there’s no way we can transform you into a branding master by the end of this blog post. But we can share some quick and dirty tips that’ll get you started:
- Start by asking, ‘who are we?’ Try to describe your identity in just three words. For example, taking MVMT as an example, you could it’s ‘sophisticated,’ ‘minimalist,’ and ‘bold.’
- Identify your ideal customer: You can’t build a store that’ll resonate with your ideal buyer if you don’t know who they are. Use HubSpot’s free persona generator to uncover who you’re creating your brand for. Ask: ‘What are they looking for?”
- Choose Your Palette: Design your store around just two dominant colors that appeal to your ideal buyer. If you’re stuck, use Canva’s color palette generator to get inspiration. Here's an example of pink & white from Glossybox:
- Hone your tone: Write copy in a way that appeals to your target customer. Use the kinds of language, humor, and slang they do for uber-relatability. Make sure to keep it consistent across your whole site.
- Create a unique logo: Your logo is like the face of your ecommerce brand. Hop over to Fiverr and have a pro designer create one for you. Or alternatively, use Hatchful or another logo maker to whip-up one for free.
To delve a little deeper into branding and design, check out Canva’s excellent free course called Branding your Business.
Step 4: Build a Killer Homepage
In the absence of 30+ pages to optimize, you’ll be able to put all your blood, sweat, and tears into creating two pages that’ll blow your shopper’s socks off: your homepage and product page.
Because you’ve only got one product to sell, you can design your homepage like an eCommerce landing page. Here’s an excellent example from Snooz:
There’s a couple of elements here that Snooz is using to maximize conversions:
- An enticing hero image & multiple professional product photos
- A headline that outlines the main benefit of your product
- Additional punchy copy that describes secondary benefits
- A clear call to action
- One offer with as few distractions as possible
- Reviews that add social proof
Incorporate these elements into your own product page to push buyers onto the next stage of the funnel, where you’ll seal the deal: the product page.
Step 5: Optimize Your Product Page
A seductive product page is vital for a one product Shopify store. It’s worth spending time testing and tweaking different elements of your page to achieve sky-high conversion rates and lower your cost per acquisition.
Meditation-tech company Muse provides an excellent example of how to craft a product page for a single product:
Notice how they start with a clear CTA and stunning product photography. Then as shoppers scroll down, benefit-led headlines, custom graphics, powerful testimonials, and attractive lifestyle shots build a strong case that they should buy.
Also, note how brand characteristics such as ‘Minimal,’ ‘Scientific’ and ‘Trusted’ permeate all the elements of their page from copy to images.
If I’d make one small change, it would be to change up the color of their CTA button. It doesn’t seem to jump off the page. But who knows? Maybe they’ve split-tested it and found blue converts best.
Step 6: Build a Post-Purchase Funnel
A brilliant way to add more profit to your one product store is to offer customers one or two related products after they’ve purchased.
Offering other products early in the buying journey can work too, but you may find that it distracts users from your core product or makes them question if they need to buy your additional products, which can cause hesitation.
That’s why one of the best ways to add upsells and cross-sells to a one-product store is to do it on the thank-you page.
Because at this point, you’ve already secured the sale of your core product on the checkout page and can now safely offer customers additional products without the risk of losing the sale.
ReConvert allows you to customize your thank-you page to add a high-converting post-purchase upsell.
These upsells don’t have to be physical products. You could try selling something like a downloadable PDF or video course that shows customers how to get the most out of your product.
Whatever you decide to offer, thank-you page offers are a non-intrusive way to eek more profit out of each sale and also help users get more from your primary product. Set them up before you start running traffic to your store.
Is a One Product Dropshipping Store a Good Idea?
One product Shopify stores became super popular in the dropshipping world about two years ago. Since things move so fast in eCommerce, you might be wondering if a one product dropshipping store is still a good idea.
The short answer is: Absolutely! There are lots of businesses doing it successfully.
But as competition heats up, it’s important to remember that a one-product dropshipping store doesn’t have to make you a ton of money to be a worthwhile endeavor.
Creating a store, running marketing campaigns, managing customers, etc., will teach you skills that have inherent value themselves.
One product dropshipping is a great way to validate demand, in a short amount of time, with relatively little risk.
So, instead of focusing on making bank from your single product dropshipping store, see it as a stepping stone on your ecommerce journey.
Once you create a store that is making sales, your goal should be to move towards private-labeling that product, managing your own logistics, and creating a lasting brand.
Because the real payday comes when you sell that brand to a global-corp. Just like the time the CEO of one product store dollar-shave club sold his brand Unilever for...wait for it…a billion dollars.
One Product Shopify Store Examples
By now, you’ve got a good overview of what goes into creating a one product ecommerce store. Sometimes examples can help you visualize all these moving parts in action. So, let’s look at a few one-product stores:
Note: Before the guns come out, some of these stores have more than one product. However, they all started with just a single offering and have since expanded their product line to include additional products based around their core product.
1. Dryrobe
Dryrobe started in 2010 as a one product Shopify store selling insulated coats for water sports enthusiasts. Over a decade on, their business is still based around that same core product.
2. Tushy
Tushy began selling one product: a bidet attachment. Through their awesome branding, they’ve honed their offer to appeal to a very specific demographic. What’s amazing is that they’ve taken a previously boring product (a bidet) and reinvigorated it for a new audience. With sales at an all-time high, it’s fair to say they’ve nailed it.
3. Myro
Myro sells refillable deodorant and markets to a young eco-conscious audience. Interestingly, they offer refills via a subscription model, which allows them to pull-in recurring revenue—definitely something to consider if you’re selling lower-ticket items on your one-product store.
4. Mindjournal
Mindjournal creates journals for men who want to achieve more. Notice how they have niched down into creating a product for one specific type of buyer. Doing this makes your marketing easier and more compelling.
5. Neos Smartcam
Neos sells smart cameras to homeowners and young families. Their store is clean and professional with a consistent tone throughout. Notice how their images capture what matters most to their ideal buyers.
6. Turned Yellow
Turned Yellow sell personalized Simpson’s-style portraits. They’re interesting because while they’re a one-product store, their product is created and fulfilled via a print-on-demand service. This personalized print-on-demand approach can be a brilliant way to get started without investing capital in inventory.
Go Forth and Create a One Product Shopify Store
Creating a one product Shopify store boosts your chances of success by reducing the number of things you need to focus on.
In any walk of life, all you need to become successful is to do one thing very well.
With a one-product store, you can put your energy into honing your positioning, dialing-in your value proposition, and optimizing your store to get conversion rates that generic stores can only dream about.
Hopefully, the outline provided in this article helps you get off to a good start. Just remember who sent you in the right direction when you eventually sell your brand for mega-bucks.
Best of luck!
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